This adventure is based on "Talons of the Horned King," a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure by Goodman Games. If you've read this, please keep mum and act surprised. But by the time I've adapted it to 4th edition and our campaign world, it is significantly changed.
We picked up the game shortly after the landing. Earl Gaermund gathered all the fighting men of the clan together, nearly half of which were in the party. He gave everyone their missions to explore the surrounding area, taking care of anything hostile that was within their means, and reconnoitering anything that they could not handle. Specifically, one group was sent to the marshes up the coast and another was sent into the forests inland. Our party was sent into the mountains: Oystaen, the senior wizard, senses a strange magical disturbance in that direction, which could threaten the settlement. The party took a night to prepare their gear and set out in the morning into the mountains.
Over the first two hours, they made the steep climb up above their settlement. The path then became a narrow canyon working its way along the mountain ridge. The area was heavily wooded, but they could see a discernible pathway. The weather was warm and wet of a more southern climate than Hyboria. Then, up ahead, the party saw a body stretched across the path.
Being seasoned adventurers, the vikings paid attention. The body was still fifty yards away but looked odd somehow; maybe the legs were wrong, maybe the arms were a bit too long. There was also some stirring in the woods around them: the vikings couldn't see the source, but they knew they were not alone.
Hmm, the body didn't look like a crazy Aztec cleric, I should note that.
Mendas, Hermiad, Edgar, and Bartix cautiously approached the body. Once they were near, surprise! It was just a dummy. A dummy wearing some odd boots, with boots designed for inhuman legs, as well as three-finger gloves.And that's when the poison darts started coming... six of them from various points in the woods.
The players fanned out to try to find the source, and Bartix laid down his new Shock Sphere on what seemed to be the most likely source. He hit two targets, and the party saw Lizardfolk hiding in the woods!
There were seven Lizardfolk Greenscale Darters in the woods, each of which was concealed in some sort of cover. They fired darts that did a single point of damage, but then caused an ongoing 5 poison damage. So within a few rounds pretty much the entire party was poisoned. A quick note here: this was the first time I've encountered secondary attacks, where I have to make a roll against their AC, then a second roll against their fortitude. Annoying! I can think of a few ways to streamline that, but I'm a bt surprised that the game developers didn't beat me to it. They're normally really good about stuff like that.
So the players fanned out and took the fight to these Lizardfolk, with the close-in fighters charging the four that were uncovered, and the ranged attackers moving through the woods to find the other sources of ongoing darts!
The lizards weren't pushovers once based, however... they could only do mediocre damage with the knives they carried, but the vikings had a bit of trouble killing them.
Varin got into a running battle with a lizard he uncovered.
Mendas slowly chewed a darter to death... he had gone after a sniper on the far end of the battlefield, and had a hard time generating combat advantage.
Oddny, Edgar, Eric, and Rurik dealt with the first group of Lizardfolk revealed through a process of Stab, Stab, and Repeat.
Hermiad got locked up with a Lizardfolk and bloodied him, but couldn't quite kill him.
It shifted away and took off running, leaving the battlefield. Poison was getting to the ranger at that point, so the vikings let him go to mop up two more creatures that had no hope of escaping. The battle was over, but there had not been much on anything won.. The party examined the bodies and found that their equipment wasn't too interesting, but their faces and bodies were covered in a yellow warpaint.
Hermiad tried to track the Lizardfolk, but the canyon run entered into a short depression that flooded. The lizardfolk used his Swampwalk to run right through it, but the ranger was so slowed that he had lost all hope of catching the creature. The party regrouped to continue tracking the creature en masse. They picked up his trail again on dry land and took it three miles to a branch in the canyon. They followed to the left, and the canyon ended in a cave entrance! Since we're playing D&D, the vikings went down into the cave to kill the monsters.
The passageway was between 20 and 30 feet wide, but a full half of the width was standing water. Perhaps this channel flowed with meltwater during the spring, but now it stood stagnant and full of algae.
The passage opened up into a wide irregular cavern, with a roaring fire in the center, and the hides, sacks, and tools of the lizardfolk scattered about the place.
Oh, and three lizardfolk in matching warpaint, including one hulking Blackscale!
The party had approached stealthfully, but now they charged in. The two Greenscale Hunters were pushovers, but the Blackscale Bruiser took on three of the players. Then, as they jockeyed for position around the cavern room, they were hit by more darts!
This time it came not from a dartgun but from a small animal climbing the side of the cavern. Two lizards, each a foot long from head to tailtip, clung to the walls of the cavern on opposite sides and fired a fussilade of darts at whomever came near from the spines on their backs! In one action, three of the party was hit by poison.
Then came more bad news. The cavern had three ante chambers, and something came piling out of each one! From the southmost came another Blackscale Bruiser. From the middle, another score of Lizardfolk soldiers.
And from the Northmost chamber came an obvious wizard type (you know, small, spindly, carries a staff), along with his pet dinosaur. The Monster Manual would call this a Lizardfolk Marsh Mytic and a Spitting Drake.
The soldiers went in first, repopulating the center of the battlefield. The Drake fired off a globule of caustic spit, which did something like 16 acid damage. Rurik, Edgar, and Hermiad decided the drake was too dangerous to live, and charged it, killing it between their three attacks. Wait, is that possible? The thing had 51 hit points, as I had upped it to Level 5... maybe someone critted in there, but I remember it went down really fast.
But, but, this put the three in the right position to be Bog Clouded by the Marsh Mystic. This cloud of poisonous gas did a lot of damage to everyone. Meanwhile, Eric and Bartix were let holding the center of the battlefield against five lizardfolk. And then I brought out the Lizardfolk Chieftan, an Elite warrior created using the Battle Champion template.
The vikings worked smart and fast to control the number of lizardfolk on the battlefield. Varin took out the remaining poison-spine-lizard-trap-thing, and Bartix laid a Shock Sphere and a Freezing Cloud in quick succession on the hoard. Edgar finally finished off the Marsh Mystic, but only after it got off an improbable two more Bog Clouds, which really hurt. "I don't want to level up anymore," said Matt, "it makes the monsters too strong!" This is to say nothing of the Chieftan, who strode into the middle of the fight, bloodying Oddny and generally being a high-AC dick. The party's defenses started to buckle, and Eric worked at healing full-time. However, as the last Blackscale Bruiser fell, they had shifted momentum in their favor. It had taken a lot of potions, second winds, and everyone's daily powers, but they had taken down everyone but the Chieftan.
Oh, that Chieftan. I really like throwing in an elite, it spices everything up. It was rare that they could hit his AC, but the Lizardfolk now had eight attacks coming in, and he was rapidly bloodied and killed. Hurrah! the group cried weakly...
A search of the caves revealed 500 gold, along with some wood, some metal, all sorts of things needed by their settlement! In a locked chest, they also found a scrap of parchment (parchment developed by Goodman Games):
Everyone was beat to hell, and with good reason: I had given them a huge encounter, absolutely full of lizardfolk. The group decided to rest for the night, setting watch by the cave door and sleeping among the bodies of their foes. Edgar had the raw material now for a flotilla of hats.
This adventure was our first in the new campaign setting, and I brute-forced the difficulty up, making brazen sport of traditional XP budgets for the encounters. But it was really dangerous, I'm surprised no one was killed. I think we ended up with a well-defined sense of peril for the new campaign world.
Casualties:
7 Lizardfolk Greenscale Darters
5 Lizardfolk Greenscale Hunters
2 Lizardfolk Blackscale Bruisers
2 Poison Dart Traps
1 Spitting Drake
1 Lizardfolk Marsh Mystic
1 Elite Lizardfolk Battle Champion
22 beers, and a bottle of wine... we could have done more, but we ran dry for the first time ever. So it's possible, everyone, you've been warned!
Thanks to Andrew for the in-battle pictures!
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