I ran my party through Home on the Range. I used this adventure as a filler in my larger campaign, where I'm currently running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I chose this adventure because my players had just stopped off in a large dwarven citadel, so it made alot of sense. Furthermore, only 3/6 players were available to play, so I wanted something with a recommended level below their current level (5-6), that I was sure could be completely done in about 8 hours. In fact, I used this diversion adventure instead of my regular game, because I only had half my normal players and didn't want so many people to miss out on the main plot line.
The adventure involves the party being hired to escort some scarab beetles, capable of dispelling darkness, to a dwarven outpost being assaulted by tieflings. The dwarves built the outpost because they want to search the area for the remains of an ancient dwarven hero who died there in a battle against a devil, so his remains can be properly put to rest. The Tieflings are interested in the area because the devil's intelligent animated rope, who is given stats as a monster in his own right, seek to recover the remains of their parent, the devil who also died at this old battlesight. The dwarves need the beetles because they need a way to counter the tieflings magical darkness. The adventure is extremely straightforward, the party doesn't even really have a choice of path. For me, this was an asset because I wanted to keep it simple but you may want something else.
I boosted one encounter, the final one, by adding a Xeph Soulknife (L6), primarily because I'd just gotten the 3.5 psionic book. The other small change was to make the ancient dwarven hero a Goliath (Races of Stone, friends of dwarves) who died there while battling alongside the dwarves, since one of my player's was a Goliath. I made the recovered weapon more suited to this player, and I tied it to his long term goal of entering the dawncaller PrC (also from Races of Stone), by making the weapon the weapon wielded by the first dawncaller.
This was the party:
Kethash'las Wild Elf Targeteer 2/Ranger 2/Wizard 2 CG
Amnok Goliath (+1) bard 4 barbarian 1 CG
Rannyn Nightfall Elf Swashbuckler 3/Bard 2 NG
The adventure went well, and was suitably challenging without being too difficult. I think if anything it could have been a little harder but:
1. I didn't want it to be that hard, actually.
2. Up 'til this adventure I was letting my party use Vest of Healings (from Dungeon) and only charging them 1250gp. If you don't know what they are, I wouldn't add them to your game because they are too good. At least up their price to 6k gp.
The last battle required a little cooperative meta-gaming for me and my players since it was so vast. The room the battle occurs in is about 1200x1500 feet, and would be tedious to adjucate without mass combat rules. I particularly liked how the encounter with the stone giants went, which added a bit of roleplaying. My players aren't used to being able to role-play through an encounter and I want to encourage them to try that by letting it actually work once in a while. My party also fell perfectly for the two tiefling traps with no fudging on my part, reducing the quota of beetles to exactly the minimum recommended amount. The adventure says the party should escort six beetles minimum to the cavern, but I don't recall it explaining what to do if the party only gets a couple there. It wasn't an issue in my game since my players got exactly 6, but I'd recommend penalizing them by having more of the tieflings go for the party over the dwarves, and having the darkness stay around longer then the recommended 1d4 rds before a beetle can reach it. The battle against the rider wasn't difficult for my players, thanks to the archer blowing him away in rd 1 with an awesome critical hit. Finally, the adventure contains an encounter with a chocker hiding out in the mouth of a dead purple worm. The encounter mentions how it might confuse the party into thinking the worm is alive when they're suddenly attacked and the encounter did exactly that. However, a round later, when my party figured it out, they quickly beat down the chocker. He's got low hit points, and lets not forget, they're L5-6 on a L3 adventure.
Finally, the trick the dwarves had of generating the runes with the black dragon scale dipped in acid and then pressing it against the wall was really impressive to my players and an ingenious idea by the adventures author.
Without further background, if you're interested, here's the write up Rannyn's player wrote for our ongoing log:
Saturday March 8
“Finally”, Rannyn thought. “We’re finally here!” “We’re finally at Citadel Adbar!”
It was a long trip and she was really looking forward to relaxing a little before heading to the town of Rastor where their group was planning on investigating the cult.
“Well, since we’re here I might as well check in with the Ardent Legion and see what they are up to in this city. Plus, maybe they’ll help us out if we need it,” she thought.
Rannyn decided to go to the Ardent Legion headquarters on the west side of the city and find out what was going on in Citadel Adbar. She learned that not too much was going on regarding the Ardent Legion. Almost all of the main forces of the city's regular army were already at Mithrill Hall helping to defend against the orcs (these were mostly dwarves). The remaining troops were few and they were simply patrolling the town. As for an Ardent Legion presence, there was almost none to speak of - just a few men who looked like they made better paper pushers than soldiers. Rannyn figured Janpour wisely directed most of the legion where it was most needed, in the east. She also learned that Rastor was only 15 miles North of here, so she figured that she would relax while she could. However, the Ardent Legion recommended that Rannyn visit Steward Farhorn who was running Citadel Adbar while the king was away with the army. Rannyn set off with the gang to find out what she could learn from Steward Farhorn.
Steward Farhorn was extremely pleased to see a group of adventurers. After going through the routine pleasantries and explaining their mission to Rastor, the group began questioning the Steward to see what he knew of Rastor and the cultists. They learned that Rastor, originally a city about 2/3 human and 1/3 dwarf, used to trade with a Dwarven mine. About 100 years ago, the cultists supplanted the Saltheart Clan of dwarves, shutting down the mine, and much of the trade in Rastor dried up. However, the few human stragglers and dwarven refugees that remained in Rastor needed to survive somehow, and the humans began trading with the orc trappers that would frequent the area. The orc population swelled to rival the human population, and the dwarves in Rastor where not happy about this, but even Farhorn had to admit these orcs were not the evil, pathetic fools the group was used to dealing with, so it was not that suspicious that the humans had begun to trade with them.
Finally, the Steward broke down. He admitted that he was desperate for a hearty group to help out some dwarves that had gotten themselves in a pickle at an outpost about a day away from town. The dwarves were on a special mission to recover the body (and weapon) of a revered goliath, Thalham, who had died in a great battle about 120 years ago against an Eiyrene. Thalham was born in the same Goliath tribe as Amnok, not to far from the citadel. By single handedly holding off the devil, he allowed for many dwarves to escape the large battle unharmed, while the entire cavern was collapsed around Thalham and the devil. Thus, this goliath became a hero in the eyes of all dwarves of Citadel Adbar. The battle site had been rediscovered a few weeks ago, and a group of dwarves had been given this special mission of recovering the goliath’s body so that it could be properly put to rest and worshipped. However, the mission turned out not to be that easy. The group that had established an outpost was being relentlessly attacked by strange humanoids that create a darkness that is not easily overcome – but not drow, the dwarves know what drow are, thank you very much! Normally the dwarven clerics could easily counter this but most of them are in the west. All of the humanoids seem to possess tattoos of a pouncing lion. Just when the dwarves were ready to give up, they came up with a great idea: break the strange darkness using large scarab beetles that emit a super-bright light. However, one challenge remained: how to get the large beetles down to the outpost under siege. The Steward explained, that’s where our group comes in. The steward needed the group to help bring about ½ dozen beetles down to the outpost about one day away.
After some discussion, and Amnok mentioning several times that he is exceptionally good at herding for some reason, Rannyn, Keth, and Amnok decided to take on this task. Megatron was absolutely convinced that there were NO giants down in the caves (they would bump their heads), so he didn’t feel the need to go, and would instead patrol the mountains around the citadel; Agretha was going to try to persuade the dwarves of Adbar to try to send more military assistance to Mithril Hall; and Nox insisted that he had some “business” to attend to in the city and couldn’t leave.
Sunday March 9
After a day’s rest and purchasing of some much needed items, the trio set off to meet Hark Underbounder, who was to take them to the beetles and direct them to the outpost. He informed them that the path would be marked by a series of special guiderunes that were created using acid and a dragon scale. The entire trio thought this was one of the coolest things they had ever heard and made a note to get some acid and a dragon scale in case they ever needed such a marking method.
“EWE!” said Rannyn, “these things stink. And what do they eat??” The group arrived at the beetle “farm” where there were about 20 beetles or so. They were large creatures that looked disgusting to Rannyn, but she tried to deal as best she could, thinking of the poor dwarves being attacked down below. The group learned that the beetles are mostly scavengers that will eat meat or fungus, however they were not tame. Good thing Amnok is so proficient at herding! Amnok was able to herd 10 of the beetles so the group decided to make it down with them. Also, Hark gave them a jar of nectar that would come in handy when the beetles got excessively out of hand (hopefully, this wouldn’t happen more than 10 times).
Upon entering the caves, Amnok was very successful at herding the group of 10 beetles. As the group progressed, they came up a tunnel that was covered in a pale luminescent mold. The group was forced to use torches to see throughout the underdark tunnels and caves, though. Keth, who had been leading the group through an opening in a tunnel, came running back into the tunnel. “There are TWO stone giants out there!!” he exclaimed. “Well, what are they doing?” asked Rannyn. It seemed as if two large stone giants were picking up boulders and throwing them at some stalagmites in the center of a large cavern. “They’re BOWLING!” said Keth with a large smile on his face. Keth is very familiar with stone giants and he advised the group that there was no way they would win in a fight. (All three of them looked at each other and said, “Thank the Gods that Megatron isn’t here!!) Nonetheless, the group needed to make it across the cavern to another tunnel on the other side. After successfully calming the beetles with the special nectar, Amnok, who speaks giant, decided to go out on a limb and talk with the large beasts. Right before one, named Xeb, was about to throw another boulder Amnok stepped out onto the ledge and said, “Hello there, me and my friends were wondering if you would allow us to make it across the cavern down there without getting killed.” “Well, you can try,” said Xeb with a laugh and a look to his friend Revox, who didn’t smile back as he was not too happy about his current position in their game. Revox openly wondered why the two giants didn’t just kill the goliath now and Xeb, maintaining his light tones replied loud enough for Amnok to hear that, “killing the little ones usually just brings more little ones.” Amnok, his feathers not the slightest bit ruffled by being called a little one, spoke further with Xeb trying to determine if the group could actually make it across, when Xeb said, “Well, I’ll make you a deal. You go down there and reset some of those stalagmites for an hour so me and my friend here can finish out our game and I’ll let you and your friends get by.” “Sounds like a plan,” said Amnok as he raced down to the bowl shaped cavern in the middle of the huge room. Amnok did as he said and reset the stalagmite “pins” for the giants for about an hour when Xeb started laughing as Revox skulked away, muttering about how this was Xeb’s first win in years, so he shouldn’t be too proud. Amnok realized the game was over and he went back to the group to herd the beetles across the huge cavern.
Rannyn decided that she would lead the group to check for traps while Amnok could stay in the back to help herd the beetles. Some time later while trying to navigate a tricky ledge the beetles became very nervous and got a little out of hand. Keth and Rannyn ended up with pincers right in their face as the beetles’ tongues came out to give them big kisses!! “Yuck!!” said Rannyn and Keth in unison. This beetle-babysitting was becoming a little too much to handle.
A few hours later the group was working their way down a narrow tunnel when Rannyn heard a click and then was suddenly blinded. She realized she had missed finding a trap that opened up a crate of mucus-covered cave crickets. Rannyn was glad to see that several of the beetles started eating some of the crickets and the cloud dissipated. Unfortunately, the beetles that ate the crickets soon began to get sick and keel over. Two beetles started fighting with each other in the raucous and became injured. One beetle, that had eaten a cricket, died from the apparent poison that was covering the crickets, and Rannyn and Amnok began to heal them. Only the ones that had been fighting were actually healed by their magic, which was unable to undo the effects of poison.
The group came across several small caves in the underdark that contained many different creatures. At one point Keth put a quick end to a violet fungus that agitated the beetles. In another room, the group was faced with something that was causing a strange darkness. The group thought they had encountered the strange humanoids they were warned about, but alas it was just a phantom fungus, which is naturally invisible. Amnok used his ability to detect magic to determine where the creature was and then, after 18 seconds of concentrating, he and Keth put it to a quick end.
Soon after, the trio encountered a giant purple worm. Luckily, this worm was already dead. When Amnok went around it to guide the beetles with the nectar, a flash of fire came out of the worm’s mouth. Rannyn and Keth were confused – is it dead? Is it alive? Amnok moved away from the mouth as Rannyn and Keth prepared for battle. When a small beast with super-long arms came out of the mouth, a choker known as The Throttler, and attacked Amnok, the group was almost relieved that the worm was indeed dead. However, the thing began to choke Amnok. Fortunately, the beast did not realize how good Amnok was at strangling things himself. Amnok broke the Throttlers grip, then drew his weapon lightning fast and knocked the throttler on the ground before crushing his skull with his flail.
After Amnok got the beetles settled down, he was able to tally his reward. Actually, Throttler had many items on him – a wand, two potions, a jar of millipedes, a snowglobe, a red slaad skull with candles in the mouth...okay, so not all of the items may be useful, but Amnok was glad to have them nonetheless. Rannyn was even considering holding onto the slaad skull as it made a very nice candle holder.
A little while later the group was faced with a strange room. The room contained 3 pools of water and 4 exits. Luckily, they knew which exit to take because it was marked by the rune, however they needed to get across to get there. Keth found some strange tracks but didn’t know what to make of them. As they started across, a flying shark with a humanoid rider jumped out of one of the pools of water and stampeded towards Rannyn. Rannyn thought, “This is a great vest,” as she would have felt a lot worse if not for the newly purchased vest of healing. Right away, Keth strung an arrow, pulled his hardest, and aimed his best. A second later the rider was on the ground. Keth had managed to shoot an arrow through the small exposed crease in the armor near the rider’s armpit, and his shot had found the heart. The shark beast was diving back into one of the pools. It all happened so quickly, Amnok barely had time to calm down the beetles, and suddenly the shark popped out of the pool again. This time the trio each took their turn on the shark and, finally, he was killed as he was hovering over the pool. With the help of Amnok’s strength and some rope, Rannyn went down into the pool to retrieve any items that were on the shark as well as the nice hide saddle. Keth grabbed the blood red composite long bow that had been on the rider as well as some smokesticks and some coins. Although the group was happy to collect some extra items, these small battles were starting to wear on them. It had gotten a little easier to herd the beetles since there were less of them, but by this point Amnok had used almost half of the special nectar. Rannyn couldn’t stop thinking about her new vest and ring of protection and wonder how many times they had saved her on this sympathetic adventure for the dwarves. “Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?” she thought. “Well” she figured, “it is only the three of us. Best to pay attention to the trail otherwise I’ll miss another trap.” And the group set back on their way. It couldn’t be too much further to the outpost...
Just when the group thought they must be home free, they came across a fairly small room with a cliff to one side. As they were crossing the room to follow their trail with Rannyn leading the way, total darkness encompassed Amnok and Keth. Rannyn turned around when she heard Amnok’s call instinctively, despite being unable to see through the total darkness. They slipped out of the darkness and, on the other side of the room opposite the cliff, she saw several figures. Two of them had what looked like flaming armbands on their arms. Suddenly there was a wall of fire in front of her, separating her from the darkness, as the armbanded humanoids dunked their arms in what Rannyn would later realize was a cleverly hidden crevasse filled with oil. Amnok quickly used some of the nectar, but it was too late for three of the beetles had already gone over the cliff in fear of the fire. Six beetles were left and the group really needed to bring at least 6 to the outpost. Amnok tried his best to keep the beetles from running away even though he was in utter darkness. One of the beetles went to him, though, and used its amazing light to disperse some of the darkness. Unfortunately, the darkness quickly returned followed by another wall of fire very close to Amnok. They barely had time to think, but all three of the adventurers was struck with the thought, “Could these creatures be the ones that the dwarves were speaking of? Is this the reason we are down here?” Amnok and Keth struggled to move toward an unaffected area while avoiding the heat from the non-magical firewall. Meanwhile, Rannyn, whose aim had improved much although she still favored her rapier, managed to knock off one of the guys with the flaming arm bands and then another with a light crossbow. Once Keth and Amnok were out of the darkness they quickly surveyed the scene and started attacking. Keth knocked his bow and killed the other with the flaming arm bands. Amnok was able to take out the other humanoid with a light crossbow and the wizard began to flee into the darkness. By the time Amnok and Keth could see the wizard again, he was rounding the corner never to be seen again. Once again, the group took a breath. Amnok successfully herded the 6 remaining beetles, but not before being covered in beetle-slobber. Amnok had grown rather close to the beetles as he was the only one who was able to herd them, and they could be awfully affectionate sometimes. Amnok surveyed the dead bodies and collected the items he thought would be useful to the party. Then the trio took back to the tunnels in the hopes that they would soon arrive at their destination.
The group was now in a cheerful mood as they were pleased they had been able to survive their previous struggles and realized they must be close to the outpost. Amnok successfully herded the animals on their way even where there were some tricky ledges to maneuver over and some tight tunnels.
Finally, the group arrived at the top of a huge cavern about 1200 to 1500 feet across. They estimated they were about 30 feet from the bottom with several ledges descending down to the outpost, which was at the lowest point in the massive cavern. One section was strewn with rubble, so the group thought this must be the ancient battle site. They were able to survey the scene and counted 6 groups of humanoid archers all aimed at the dwarves in the outpost. The outpost was blinking in and out of sight as the magical darkness was doing its best to keep the dwarves panicked. Suddenly the beetles’ instincts kicked in, and they hovered over to the darkness revealing more and more of the outpost and the surrounding area. The dwarves, realizing what was happening let out a cheer and fought all the harder. However, the trio observed that the dwarves at the outpost still wouldn’t be able to last that long given all the attacking archers. Amnok looked up and yelled “In the name of Thalham” then charged down to the first group of archers. Rannyn and Keth tried their best to catch up, and Rannyn despite her lungs burning from the run, started singing a song to bolster the courage of the group. Keth was able to take out several from the first band while Amnok attacked and then started running ahead to the next group. Rannyn was able to finish off the first group and then she and Keth followed Amnok. There were two bands in the next level down that posed a challenge to the group. While Keth was shooting the band to the right composed exclusively of archers, Amnok and Rannyn went in to attack the band on the left. They quickly realized they would need Keth’s help. They were being covered in the strange darkness and prayed to the Gods that a beetle would come over to aid them. As luck would have it a beetle did come over and relieved some of the darkness, but unfortunately not all of it. The bards were not able to regularly attack, but Amnok was able to fall a couple of the crossbow wielding foes. One of the foes seemed like a wizard or sorts, wielding daggers composed entirely of green energy, another a swordsmen wielding a strange sword Rannyn believed was a katana. They were also accompanied by a “snake-like” friend that almost looked like a rope. As it came closer to Rannyn and Amnok, they realized that it was a rope, but it was animated and heading right for Rannyn. Rannyn found herself entwined in the snake-like rope and she was unable to free herself. “Damn rope!” she thought, she was usually good at wielding rope, but this was totally different. Try as she may, she could not get out of the grasp of the rope and her rapier did not seem to harm the thing. Meanwhile, as Keth took out the smaller group of archers, Amnok went to town on the other all the while blinking in and out of darkness. Rannyn, still hindered by the rope, teamed up with Amnok against the samurai, bringing him down. Finally, Keth was also able to join the fray and killed the one that looked like a wizard. Rannyn was still “all tied up” when Amnok was finally able to turn his attention to the animated rope. After a few swipes of his slashing weapon, Amnok forced the rope to reconsider, and flee through a crack in the wall, and Rannyn was finally able to stand up. From the looks of the battlefield, the dwarves had driven back the rest of the archers and the group was finally able to call it a day.
The group of dwarves was extremely thankful that the three adventurers brought the beetles, however they had to turn to their business and resume the excavation of Thalham’s body.
Monday March 10
After resting, the adventurers were able to make it back to town and tell their tale to the others in the party.
Tuesday March 11
While eating at the local inn, the adventurers were suddenly interrupted. “Excuse me” said a familiar dwarf. It was Hark Underbounder who had been so helpful with the beetles. He seemed to be out of breath, “but the dwarves are back from the excavation and they found something I think you’re going to want to see.” Amnok, Keth, and Rannyn immediately excused themselves and followed Hark to the Steward’s chambers. Once there, Amnok’s eyes grew large and glassed over – they could see a flail resting on a pillow on a podium and Amnok was just totally consumed by it. The Steward proceeded to tell them that the dwarves were able to recover the body of Thalham and his weapon, Thalham’s Peacechaser. Not only that, but the group learned that Thalham was the first Dawncaller, a group of specialist bards unique to the Goliath. Amnok was especially excited to learn this, as he had always dreamed of becoming a Dawncaller. He was so enamored with the flail, however, that he was not able to express a fraction of his excitement regarding that news. The Steward realized he was taken with the flail and finally announced that he had a gift for group. Since they were so instrumental in finding the goliath’s body, he thought it fitting that the goliath of our party, Amnok, be given Thalham’s sacred weapon, the Peacechaser. Amnok, Rannyn, and Keth (but mostly Amnok) were extremely grateful for the generosity. They gave their sincere thanks and with the Peacechaser in hand, turned to head back to Inn.
Strangely, as they approached an empty hall, Rannyn could swear she heard something. It sounded like a voice saying “wield me” and “use me wisely” and finally “I am Thalham Peacechaser.” Soon the group realized that the voice they heard was coming from the light flail in Amnok’s hands. Amnok did not seem surprised to hear the voice – he must have been hearing it back at the Steward’s chambers. All three stopped and listened to the flail. The weapon proceeded to explain that it was the spirit of Thalham, now imbued inside of this weapon, which once was his own. As strange as that seemed, the voice continued to explain how great this weapon was. Finally, after learning, among other things, that its purpose is to slay devils, it detects magic at will and speaks common, Goliath, devil, and devil, the weapon explained to Amnok that it could teach him the way of the Dawncaller and that it sensed their souls were aligned. Furthermore, Thalham said that his soul was still being “called back for a second dawn” and he thought over time he might gain strength. “Well, he’s sure full of himself,” thought Rannyn, and she shrugged her shoulders. However, it cautioned Amnok that he must decide his path now, and the weapon would still allow him to relinquish it. For once Amnok started down this path the two must be like one. If they disagree the flail could compel Amnok to act, but such compulsion was against Thalham’s nature. Amnok chose to keep the flail. “I guess we should head back to the gang,” said Rannyn and she started off followed by Keth. Amnok stared at the flail in his hands, gently placed it in his pack, forgot all about blood mages, and followed as well...
