The Gnoll Kings Return – Session 1

Kicking off the new 5e game I am running we had 4 players (plus me as the DM), with one more player scheduled to join us for future sessions. This adventure is based on a modified version of The Sunless Citadel, modifications are mostly to make the adventure fit better into the world of Mystara/Karameikos.

The first couple hours were spent on character creation and we ended up with:

• Bredin: a 46 year old Human (Traladaran) Fighter. Bredin has recently retired from the city guard in Penhaligon and moved to Stallanford.
• Markus: an 18 year old Human (mixed Traladarn/Thyatian) Cleric who is a member of the Church of Traladara. Markus is from an extremely poor family native to the area around Stallanford. His family has scrimped and saved to outfit him as their one hope of a better life.
• Sven: a 21 year old Human (Traladaran) Fighter. Sven has recently travelled from the mountains to the North in search of money and adventure looking to make good on his promise to raise his family name to great reknown.
• Tifa: a 65 year old Forest Gnome Wizard. Originally from Highforge Tifa has recently arrived in Stallanford searching for adventure and answers about the mystery.

And here is how the night went down once we got to the adventuring:

• It is evening, midsummer. Sven, Markus, and Tifa are hanging out at a table at the Ol’ Boar Inn, Bredin is sitting at the bar nearby, chuckling to himself as he eavesdrops on the “young ‘uns” chatting about their search for adventure.
• Bradley Elrich, a local man familiar to Markus and Bredin, enters the inn and approaches the group. He beseeches them to go searching for his son Braford and Brafords new wife Sherwin. Braford, a candidate for the Order of the Griffin, had been given a task to investigate recent beastman sitings near an old ravine not far from Stallanford, he hasn’t been seen in 9 days. No reward is offered but the group agrees, in search of adventure.
• The party finds the ravine without incident, notes that there has been some humanoid activity in the area, and they begin their descent into the ravine. A surprise attack by a group of giant rats results in some fast-beating hearts but no real damage to the party.
• Now at the bottom of the ravine the party heads into a ruined citadel.
• Soon the party encounters the remains of a battle. Beastmen, halfling sized humanoid beasts mixed with various forest creatures, lie dead. Mysterious runes on the wall are indecipherable by anyone in the party. The party pushes deeper into the citadel, encountering many serpent like carvings and statues along the way.
• The party comes across a fish-man, gurgle-sobbing into his bedroll. Bredin manages to surprise the fish-man who nervous-fish-farts and begs to not be harmed. This is Gurgluk, a member of the fish-clan who currently occupies this level of the citadel. He was tasked as the keeper of the clans hunting spider but the beastmen have stolen the spider and Gurgluk has been shamed. For answers to the parties questions Gurgluk insists the party follows him to the clan leader, Lurl-Lurl.
• Passing many fish-man guards the party is led to Lurl-Lurl on her serpentine throne. From Lurl-Lurl the party discovers:
  • Lurl-Lurl will reward the party if they can recover the lost hunting spider as well as reactivate all of the water fountains on this level of the citadel,
  • The beastmen have come to the citadel in the last few months, although other evidence shows they may also have been here years ago,
  • A giant beastman (gnoll) that goes by the nickname “The Reviver” inhabits the lower level of the citadel, the beastmen are his servants,
  • The fish-men are here because long ago magical waters once flowed here and this area was a holy site of theirs,
  • The fish-men are aware of other humans passing through roughly a week ago but they had no interaction with them,
• The party agrees to try to find the stolen hunting spider as well as reactivate the fountains as they continue their search for Braford and Sherwin. Lurl-Lurl sends Gurgluk with the party to help with the recovery of the hunting spider.
• With Gurgluk as torchbearer the party is shown a shortcut and quickly makes their way into beastmen occupied territory. Bredin kicks in a door (and hurts his knee in the process) and they catch 3 beastmen offguard and quickly dispatch them although in the ensuing melee one of the beastmen lands a painful bite on Bredins bad knee. They push on further…
• Investigating a large hazy room Bredin overhears many voices coming from the West. Tifa is able to make out bits and pieces of an argument over whos turn it is to empty the chamber waste.
• This time it is Svens turn to kick in the door and once again the party surprises the beastmen, unfortunately for them there are a dozen of them in the room. A mad fight breaks out, Markus and Sven slay beastmen with every swing of their weapons, Tifa puts five down with a well rolled Sleep spell, Bredin, his knee causing him no end of trouble does nothing but move some air with his warhammer.
• Just as the party has whittled the beastman numbers down to two one of them makes a mad dash and opens a door to the north west, two hobgoblins join the fight! One seems extra large and scary wielding a huge maul, the other smaller and preparing to cast spells:
  • The larger one strikes Sven with a blow that would have killed a lesser man but Svens defensive abilities save his life,
  • The shaman hits Markus and Tifa with a curse, weakening their combat abilities,
  • Markus wades into the fighting and follows up with a Thunderwave spell which kills the remaning beastmen and causes the shaman to lose concentration on her spell,
  • The party is able to quickly take down the large hobgoblin while the shaman runs looking to escape down a large shaft. Just as the shaman is vaulting into the shaft Sven hits her with a throwning axe which they think kills her, but if it doesn’t the fall down the shaft surely will,
• The party loots and returns to the safety of the fish-mens territory to rest.

Each party member earned 200 xp, they will almost certainly level up after the next session.

They came away with a few hundred gold pieces worth of loot, a healing potion, and a “pungent ungent” which requires some time spent analyzing.

The party tore through this level of the dungeon, taking just about the most efficient path possible to the second level of the citadel.

So far none of their goals have been achieved:

• Fountains reactivated: 0
• Braford/Sherwin found: 0
• Hunting Spiders found: 0

Until next time…