Now that the PCs have acquired the three keys necessary to open the sealed entrance, they must venture through the dwarven city of Birn Tharin to reach their ultimate destination, the Stormfort.
“Birn Tharin? It’s been closed from this side of the mountains for centuries, but rumors come sometimes from travelers who’ve visited the far north where the city’s other exit lies,” Bitmoor says to the characters before they depart. “It’s said there are still dwarves who dwell there, but some hideous creature keeps them in thrall.”
Following directions provided by the dwarves at the bazaar, the characters reach the giant stone door of an entrance at the foot of the largest mountain visible in the area. There are three keyholes lined up to the left of the door; putting in the keys and turning them all at once will cause the door to glow and slide open.
Levels 1 through 3 were crudely laid out here and constructed on game night from the Pathfinder tiles I picked up a while back. On the first level, old washers from a box in the garage marked the columns and a pile of Halloween candy represented the rubble in the northwest corner. The final area was drawn out on a Chessex mat.
Level 1
Beyond the entrance is a large pillared room with rubble blocking the hallway that used to exist on the far end. Once the party is about halfway into the room, 4 dwarves in the hallway to the right (behind the secret door) will start firing crossbow bolts at the group. Characters can shelter behind the columns or in the right-hand corners to be out of bowshot. There are also 2 vats of boiling oil which will be poured down from above by the dwarves up on level 2, It’a a 3” radius AOE for2d6 energy damage & can reach the whole room, even where crossbows can’t, but 1 vat is emptied on each attack so only 2 uses.
A secret door in the northeast corner is triggered by a loose brick on the wall where the door is marked on the map. Brick can be noticed by anyone in a square adjacent to the door with an IN save -2 ; +2 on save if they’re actively searching the area, +3 if they say they’re specifically looking for a hidden door or something that might trigger it. The dwarves in the hallway will attack with a mix of ranged and melee once the secret door is opened; these are wearing studded leather armor and carrying swords in addition to their crossbows.
Level 2
The stairs up from the secret door below lead to the room above the entryway where more dwarves poured oil from when the players came in. There are 4 dwarves w/chain + breastplate, large shields, and axes, who will be waiting for the players in a shield-wall formation blocking their entry into the room. Behind them 2 more with crossbows will fire at the party.
An exit on the north side of the room, above where the rubble blocked the tunnel below, leads up to level 3.
Level 3
Barracks – this is where the dwarves they’ve already fought bunk. There are 10 cots, each with a small chest near it containing 2d20 gold + (roll a d4; >3 means also 3d20 worth of small gems).
There is also a dwarf here named Amnot Neelin who will offer the items at the bottom of this section for sale. They’re inside a a magical chest which will bite any hand besides his who tries to reach into it.
Chapel – A dwarven cleric named Izzhal Maedupp is here. He will offer to assist the party:
“The beast who now rules this place allows the dwarves who remain in the undercity to survive only because I made an arrangement for him to spare them in exchange for a steady supply of food and servant-soldiers from below. All of us would be grateful if you could destroy him. I cannot defy him openly for fear that if you lose, he’ll decide the pact with my people has outlived its usefulness and so have they! But I’ll heal you and offer you some protection against some of his powers. After that, I’ll need you to rough me up a bit so it looks like you beat the secret out of me of the knock that will open the door to the dome.” (Knock is basically shave-and-a-haircut).
Has 2 cure wounds (4 hits each, single target) and 2 prayers of healing (3” radius, d4) he’ll cast on party, along with a spell called Clarity of Mind which will give +2 on IN saves for 1 hour (useful against beholder charms).
As players leave for the dome, he declares, “Beware! The monster’s very gaze can nullify all your magic!”
| Item | Price | Qty Avail |
| Fire arrows (8) (+d6 fire damage) | 50 | 1 |
| Lightning arrows (8) (+d6 lightning damage) | 50 | 1 |
| Cloak of Recovery (Permanent regeneration 1 hit/3 rnds) | 500 | 2 |
| Dart of Awakening (4) – On hit, wakes unconscious/paralyzed | 250 | 1 |
| Scroll of protection (cast mage armor) | 80 | 3 |
| Boom Stick (+2/+2 mace that fires d6-1 magic missiles (d6 energy dmg) at random foes on successful hit | 200 | 1 |
| Gloves of the Wrestler (+3 ST) | 200 | 1 |
| Wand of Freedom (free from mind control, 1/day) | 250 | 1 |
The Dome
The secret knock admits players into a large dome, dimly lit from sunlight shining through some small openings above and reflecting slightly off copper and bronze metalwork on the ceiling. At the far side of the dome is a stone ring with an inner glow that makes a slight crackling noise. This is the portal out, but doesn’t currently go anywhere. The 4 rectangular areas in blue spaced around the room represent 8″ high statues of dwarves – a soldier, a cleric, a blacksmith, and a baker.
Characters enter the room to be confronted by something that is obviously Jaggoleth. However, Jaggoleth is wearing an old-fashioned round swim goggle with a black dot painted in the center to look like a single eye. He’s clothed in what can only be described as a“beholder cozy” – a pastel-blue-yarn crocheted covering above which extends a number of “eyestalks” which appear to be knitted lines supported by inner cardboard toilet-paper tubes.
Initially he’ll be hovering behind a statue and will try to ambush them.
Action pauses, everyone freezes, the room dims, and the gaming guild re-appears above.
“Alright, who was in charge of the costumes for this encounter? Was it Dave? Why do we keep letting Dave do costumes?”
“The rules say it was his turn, and how can we call ourselves civilized if our abductee non-consensual deathmatch games don’thave rules we adhere to?”
“Dammit, Dave! This shit got old like 3 millennia ago! <sigh> Okay… fine… let’s just get back to the action and I’ll try to mentally picture the fuzzy blue diver as something suitably monstrous.”
<Guild fades, encounter continues – Battle vs Jaggoleth>
<At beginning of beholder’s turn each round, figure out if it’susing its anti-magic and figure out which direction it’s pointing & what squares are impacted. It gets 2 eye attacks if it’s on, 3 if it’s not. Try using beholder’s telekinetic eye to drop a player into the anti-magic cone. Jagg is much more powerful than before but he’s still far from tanky, so he’ll take advantage of height and cover where possible.>
The Aftermath
After the battle, the priest will open the portal so the party can move on to the area of the next chapter. A group of dwarves will emerge from the side doors that lead to the city below, and in thanks will present the characters with their greatest treasures: Khazad Fubar, a+3 2-handed axe which also siphons d6 power on a successful hit and transfers it to the wielder, and the Belt of the Dwarves – +3 EN, +1 to all saves, but causes the wearer to grow a beard immediately.
The portal sends them to an elevated flatland in the mountains with an even taller peak jutting above them in the distance – the Stormfort, their ultimate goal.
Nearby is another small walled enclosure sized surprisingly similarly to the bazaar they’ve visited in the south. An elven sage named Tinmaan Moontouched and the gnomish Muffintop sisters – Teensy andWeensy – sell the same items available at the previous location. They’ll also mention that they just bought the remaining inventory from some dwarf from under the mountain, so any goods not yet purchased from Amnott will be available here.
A retired cleric named Adekuat Lodgings runs the Holy Days Inn here, where characters can rest and recuperate.
How it Played
The highlight of the session was when Velocimancer scaled one of the statues to get close enough to use a shorter-range offensive spell against Jaggoleth. When your adventure features a talking feathered velociraptor in wizard costume hurling a cone of fire at a demon-head-in-goggles-and-a-Beholder-cozy from the atop the shoulder of a giant stone dwarf, you know you’ve done something right.
Beyond that, the combination of heavy armor and the shield wall formation proved a real challenge. Shields plus defensive stances made the dwarven soldiers hard to hit, and they could shrug off a lot of damage when attacks got through. The PCs were glad the cleric came along after that fight!
As might be obvious, some of the items sold by Amnot were more or less put there to be available for the Beholder fight – and several of them did get used.
I used pieces of string to mark off the area of the beholder’s anti-magic gaze.