My two page adventure site: Sarkaasa’s Lair
I plan to also create the village itself - which was never detailed - and to create a sort of timeline of how the outpost grows and changes as the gnolls become more certain that they will invade. But I think this is a decent first draft. Feedback welcome!
Sarkaasa’s Lair
An adventure for 4–6 players of level 2–3
The Scrying
Six moons from now the village of Feghundem will be raised to the ground by three hundred gnolls.
The signs are clear. Hunters no longer find game in the surrounding woods, as nightly bird songs are replaced by blood curdling cackles. Today a virtuous watchman brings word of dog-faced men scoutng our trade routes.
“So we fear kobolds now?” the village Elder mocks.
A mere six moons from now that Elder’s head will be on a skewer, and the united gnoll tribes of the lower Khamph will drink the blood of the last of his line. Feghundem’s town square will be ashes; her people enslaved or devoured. This and more will come to pass…
Unless the brave or foolish act, and act swiftly.
Hooks
The Village Seer has told you of her scrying.
A Druid asks you to restore the balance.
Olga Kranz begs you to find her husband.
The Terrain
Feghundem is a small village surrounded by wooded hills. Six miles south, the woods thin and the hills grow into Khamph mountains. Here, the flind Chieftain Sarkaasa has established an outpost in a cave complex atop a rocky plateau.
The gnolls have begun securing a section of the cave by sealing off the tunnels that lead deeper into the mountain — or rather, they have made slaves do it.
There are two narrow paths below the plateau: one leads to the lair, one leads to a second plateau above the lair.
Encounter Tables
The Woods
roll 2d6 & double gnoll force results by night
Sarkaasa (potion of giant strength) & 20 gnolls
1d3 Giant owls (see UK3 p.6)
1 leucrota
1d3 well concealed flinds
1d6 gnolls and 1d8–1 hyenas. 4/6 times the leader carries a hide parchment message.
1d6 gnolls and 1d8–1 hyenas. 4/6 times the leader carries a hide parchment message.
4 gnolls & 2 hyenas huntng 3 escaped slaves
2d6 harried xvarts
1d6 gratuitously mutilated forest animals
1 Buckawn hanging from a tree by his entrails
1d20 Buckawn out for revenge
The Mountains
1d6 (day and night)
-
A griffin eatng a hyena
-
8 hobgoblin envoys
-
1d6 blood hawks
-
Scree slide (UK3 p.6)
-
1d6 gnolls
-
1d8 hyenas
Stocking the Lair
Currently the gnoll forces consist of:
1 flind leader (Sarkaasa)
2 Leucrota
5 flinds
40 gnolls
16 Hyenas
By day the majority of them are in the lair resting. By night Sarkaasa sends forces to survey, hunt, catch slaves, and send word to other gnoll tribes. Day and night numbers are provided throughout the Lair Key.
The Lair Key
0. General details
The cave is natural rock. Tunnels are wet, c.a. 7’ high and 10’ wide. Unless specified there are no light sources.
Crawltunnels are narrower: adventurers have to crawl through in single file (–2 to hit roles).
5 Slaves — harried by 2 gnolls — carry rocks from the second plateau to the Eastern Tunnel by night.
Every 2 turns (20 minutes) roll for a random encounter on the Mountains chart, ignoring 1–4.
1. Barricaded Entrance
Rocks block a tunnel to the west, a tunnel to the south, and a chamber to the east. The chamber still contains 2 green slimes. They can survive for months without nutrients and attack if the rocks are removed. Both could be funneled into the lair.
One slime was previously a Magic User. A wand of stone shape (15 charges) is all that remains of her.
2. Main Entrance
This entrance is guarded by 2 gnolls at all times. They are less vigilant by day. The path to the west smells of blood and offal, and the path to the east stinks of sewerage.
3. Outcrop Entrance
This small outcrop is 30’ above the lair plateau. It is 10’ below the second plateau. At night, bats can be seen and heard exiting through a small tunnel on this outcrop from up to one mile away.
4. Bat Cave
The floor is thick with guano. Bats rest here by day.
Their leader — a giant bat that speaks Common — hates the gnolls, and can be persuaded to let the party infiltrate their lair from here.
A faint, smokey scent emanates from the crawltunnel which leads 10’ downwards to the Hidden Treasure Chamber (10).
5. Slaughter Chamber
The chamber stinks of guts. Gnolls take vicctms here to be tortured and eaten. Torches light the chamber so the victims must watch.
The walls are splattered with entrails. The ground is littered with bones, ears, and fingers. Crude incantations to the demon Lord Yerneghoghu are scrawled on the walls.
At night there is a 2 in 6 chance of a slaughter taking place.
In the gore: a platinum ring engraved with rabbits (350 gp) still on a severed finger.
6. Defecation Chamber
This is where the common gnolls defecate. On a 1 in 6, a distracted gnoll is shittng here.
7. The Garrison
The troop garrison. The distrusting gnolls keep everything but their bedrolls on their person.
By day 30 gnolls and 5 flinds rest here. By night 5 gnolls can be found here, cackling and torturing a bat.
8. Hyena Pen
A straw covered room where the 16 hyenas rest by day. A crawltunnel leads to the Slave Pen (9).
9. Slave Pen
Slaves (John Kranz — a Level 1 Fighter, 2 tribesmen, and 2 xvarts) sleep here by day. New slaves are cruelly led here via the Slaughter Chamber (5).
10. Hidden Treasure Chamber
A 20’ ceiling, dense with stalactites.
Only Sarkaasa knows of the tunnel between here and the Chieftain’s Chamber (12). Nobody knows of the crawltunnel in the ceiling that leads to the Bat Cave.
An ornate Eversmoking Bottle (command word: “rauch”) rests on a pile of 80,000 silver pieces.
Strewn throughout the coins are 20 aquamarines (500 gp each) and an iron cobra (control word “Yerneghoghu”) - the latter will attack if the coins are disrupted.
11. Eastern Tunnel
The tunnel has yet to be sealed. The slaves intuit that they will be killed once it’s done, so they are delaying however they can. Killing the xvarts has been considered despite a rudimentary comradery.
12. Chieftain’s Chamber
Torches light a mural of humans being sacrificed to the demon lord Yerneghoghu, while villages burn.
In the eastern corner, a giant beaver pelt (600 gp) adorns a pile of hay, surrounded by ornamental bones.
A second pile of hay hides the tunnel to the Hidden Treasure Chamber (10) — the hay does not fully conceal the faint scent of smoke which emanates from below.
A golden statue (500 gp) of the demon lord stands in the western corner; 3 silver bowls (10 gp each) of fresh humanoid offal at its feet.
A chest (sleep gas trap) holds 1 potion of human control, 30 hide parchments, a bowl of black paint, and a brush.
Sarkaasa scrawls 1–2 word messages in Chaotic on the hides and sends them to gnoll tribes. Sarkaasa is always here by day with at least 1 leucrota.
In private moments, he paints.
Find monster stats in: AD&D MM 1&2, FF & UK3
Comments
Post a Comment