Terrinoth #9 - Cave of the Kobold Queen

As two of the A Team players could not make the planned session, I put out a call for B Team players, and two members of my RPG chat group bravely volunteered for a foray into Terrinoth.

Campaign Diary

After obtaining a map of the location where our heroes have found the ancient burials (and treasure), Therion Lakemane, proprietor of "Lakemane's Luxuries" decided to mount an expedition of his own. He put the word out on the streets of Tamalir - he did not have to wait long before three adventurers turned up: two acolytes of Kellos, and a mysterious elf from the Darnati Highlands.

(Click here for PC profiles)

After telling the trio that he had purchased the rights to explore the burial sites for "scholarly purposes", Therion made them each sign a contract detailing the division of spoils that would be gained on the expedition; as all three potential employees were eager to smite undead and not used to the rules of conducting business, Therion's difficulty was more in making them understand the necessity of the contract than in convincing them that it was a fair one.

The contracts having been duly signed, the party set off the next day with a mule-drawn cart carrying their camping equipment and supplies. The journey was uneventful, and after a week they came within sight of Fort Rodric at the base of the Ashen Hills. Therion's efforts to convince a patrol from the fort that they had legitimate business in the area did not prevent the party from being escorted to the fort, where they were questioned. The sergeant at the fort was not completely convinced that Therion's intentions were pure, but the presence of two acolytes of Kellos was reason enough for him to let them pass. He informed them that his soldiers have found traps in the hills, and asked them to bring in any poachers they meet.

The next day the party followed the map to the hill where the adventurers had explored, from where they got a bearing on the second group of obelisks. As they made their way towards their destination they came upon a goat-antelope caught in a snare set by a stream. Whisper set the animal free, and a quick search revealed another snare-trap set nearby. With no sign of the poachers, the party decided to continue on their quest.

Approaching the obelisks atop a hill, the party found that it was a megalith formation forming a sort of a portico into what appeared to be a natural cave opening. They entered the cave and followed a tunnel that sloped deeper underground. Tom led the way, tapping on the stony ground ahead of him with his quarterstaff to detect any hazard; but he failed to detect a shaft on the tunnel floor that was covered by a thin piece of slate, which gave way under his weight - his quick reflexes allowed him to span the width of the opening with his staff, saving him from a 20-foot drop. The other members of the party hauled Tom to safety, and they decided to hammer pitons for rope into the tunnel walls to aid in their progress. As the sound of the hammering echoed through the tunnels, they wonder if they made the right decision...

The sloping tunnel eventually opened into a cavern, where the party noted a rope hanging from an opening in the roof of the cavern to the cavern floor. Climbing to the top of the rope, Whisper found that the opening led to the top of the hill they were in, and that the rope was anchored to the ground in a similar fashion to the snares they had found earlier. Was this the hideout of the poachers?

The party followed the course of the cave deeper into the ground, and came upon a larger cavern. Here they found fire pits. Walking to examine one of them, Giso fell prey to a pit trap and plunged ten feet into the ground below. As the others hauled Giso out, they began to suspect that whoever occupied these caves did not welcome them here. Having found little from the fire pits except the knowledge that some were recent, the party pushed further on, until they came to a fork in the tunnel. Therion sent his pet bat to scout ahead, but even it failed to find anyone.

Therion decided to take the tunnel on the left. A short distance from the fork, the tunnel branched to the right, leading deeper into the hill. The party stayed with the main tunnel, and after a while came to another cavern. Littered all over the ground were more than thirty sleeping pallets made of rough fabric. From the size and smell of the pallets, our adventurers surmised that they may not be dealing with human poachers as they had assumed, but goblins or kobolds. However, with no sign of either to be found here, they decided to turn back and try the tunnel to the right.

The passage to the right led them past storage area where they found pots of ancient design, but with fresh soot on their bottoms, and various copper tools of unfamiliar design. They followed a spring that emerged from the cave wall and flowed in a groove on the side of the tunnel, to an alcove that seemed to be used as a latrine. The efflux from this latrine flowed further along the tunnel. As they followed the foul-smelling channel, Therion offered Tom extra silver if he would carry him upon his back so he would not risk ruining his fashionable high-heels. The monk obliged.

The foul stream eventually ended in an equally foul pool as the tunnel came to a dead end. As the party debated what to do next, a light began to glow in the pool. Giso took Tom's quarterstaff and probed the water... whereupon a tentacled creature broke the surface and attacked him. The party replied with spells and steel, and the creature retreated into the depths of its lair, and the light slowly faded. With little to show for their efforts so far, Therion was loath to leave the source of the light unexplored. He offered more silver to anyone who would retrieve it for him. While the two priests of Kellos recoiled at the suggestion, Whisper took up the offer, calmly removed her black-wolf cloak and all her clothes, and dived in. A short while later she emerged with a glowing globe - it seemed the object glowed for a short while when agitated. Therion happily put the find into his backpack, while Whisper, much to the discomfiture of the two priests, decided to continue the quest naked.

Returning to the second fork, the party now took the third tunnel deeper into the ground. Soon, they saw torchlight and heard cackling from ahead of them. They gave chase, but even as they went towards they moved further away. The followed the taunting light and laughter, passing tunnels too small for men but not kobolds or goblins. Therion once more sent his pet bat ahead, but soon its squeaking was lost in the darkness. Whisper decided to race ahead of the party, and as she turned a corner into a large cavern she caught sight of their quarry - a kobold! The rest of the party soon caught up, but they found that a dozen kobolds were lying in wait for them, and many more were behind them.

The kobolds attacked the party by throwing discs of sharpened obsidian at them, and soon Whisper was bleeding from multiple cuts. Therion sang a magical song that put many of the kobolds into a slumber, and the two priests laid about with their weapons... the tiny kobolds fell, and for a while it seemed that they party would cut their way out of their predicament... Then the kobolds fell back... and started to throw pottery jars onto the ground. Pitch spilled from the broken jars, and this the kobolds lit with their torches. As the pitch caught fire and smoke began to fill the cavern the adventurers searched for a way out (but not before they looted the bodies of the kobolds that already fell for the jewellery of seashells and semi-precious stones which they wore) and found it in a tunnel at the far end of the cavern. Following the tunnel, they eventually come to a sheer wall with an opening near its top.

Whisper, accustomed to climbing the moonstone cliffs of the Darnati Highlands, climbed unaided to the opening, and found that it led to a rock ledge that overlooked another cavern. Water seeped from the roof and walls of this cavern, falling and tricking down like rain to cover the floor below with clear water, and flowed out of it via a narrow tunnel at the far end. In the middle of the cavern floor was a rock plinth. Whisper lowered a rope for the rest of the party to climb up, and they huddled together on the narrow ledge and rested while Therion played a a soothing tune from a magical box he carried with him.

With their wounds bound, the party descended to the cavern floor with the aid of a rope. They found the floor covered in a foot of clear water, and dozens of skeletons with a coat of crystalline material over their bones. Turning his eyes to the plinth in the middle of the cavern, Therion noticed a glint of yellow light. He strode towards it, hoping to find the loot he had risked so much for, but as he neared it two of the skeletons on the side of the plinth rose up and turned their eyeless faces towards him.

The party froze. For a few moments the cave was silent except for the sound of the falling water.

Therion shifted. The skeletons turned their heads to follow him. He froze again.

Then Giso let out a war-cry and charged at one of the skeletons. The sound of battle filled the cavern as warhammer, sword, staff, and fists clashed against bone, and it was over in seconds. The broken remains of the two undead guardians lay under the water, and the treasure they guarded was for the taking. The party beheld a golden treasure: dozens of golden discs and panels which once must have adorned the clothes of an ancient king, necklaces of gold, and a golden hammer, all of which Therion gleefully swept into his backpack.

The party swam through the narrow tunnel and emerged on the side of the hill that they had entered. They found their bearings, and by late afternoon had returned to Fort Rodric, where they reported on the presence of the kobolds (but not that of their find) and were given a small reward for it.

When they returned to Tamalir, Therion set about the business of having the loot evaluated and paying his crew. Giso, strangely drawn to the golden hammer, offered his share of the loot and a hundred Gros (gp in my game) for it, which Therion accepted. Whisper and Tom were paid their shares of the venture, and as Therion Lakemane counted his own share, he congratulated himself on his good business sense.


Prepping and Running the Game

The session was based very loosely on Cave of the Kobold Queen by Cut To The Chase Games, but its genesis was in the creation of the character Therion Lakemane. I mentioned to the player that the A Team would need someone to fence their loot off to once they returned to Tamalir, and he took that and created Therion's backstory, and asked to buy the location of the tomb from the PCs - this gave me the premise I needed for the B Team.

The premise meant that the B Team will be exploring an ancient burial cave complex as the A Team did, but I wanted a different type of scenario, especially since two of the players would be from the A Team and have already explored two ancient burial tombs. I added a twist by having kobolds take over the tombs, so that instead of fighting undead as the expected, they will be fighting kobolds. Kobolds in Terrinoth are not the dragon-related humanoids in D&D, but essentially smaller, dumber, asexually-reproducing goblins who are often more of a nuisance than a real threat. I decided to let them occupy the same ecological niche as the D&D kobolds, and use the same stats.

I looked for modules featuring kobolds on RPGnow, and decided to get Cave of the Kobold Queen. The module provided some ideas on how a kobold cave complex would function, but again for the actual map of the cave I wanted something based in real history. Thinking back to the many fantastic locations I learned about watching Ancient Aliens, I looked for maps of the Rising Star Cave, and found this stunning graphic:

Graphic by Graphics24

The graphic immediately conveyed the 3D nature of the cave system and suggested ideas; for example, the vertical shaft near the larger cave entrance could be exploited as a trap against intruders, while the kobolds used the smaller shaft as their way to enter and exit the cave complex.

I needed to expand the cave and add some branches, and to do the cave system justice I wanted to do it in "3D", so I downloaded some isometric grid templates and drew my first isometric dungeon map - its is a fun and potentially addictive activity.

Once the map was done, I assigned the functions of each of the chambers, and added a water source and a latrine and a garbage disposal area to make the complex livable for the kobolds. The creature in the pool - a grick - was added as a filler, and the globe (a driftglobe that does not drift) was added both as an extra piece of loot for the PCs, and also as a means for the grick to lure prey to it. Perhaps the globe was dumped into the pool by the kobolds by accident, or maybe a kobold carrying it fell prey to the grick.

I assumed that the outer caves would have been looted by the kobolds a long time ago, but I still wanted the PCs to be able to find unlooted treasure. Looking at the map of the cave system, I decided that the final chamber, accessible only via climbing up a sloping cave wall, contained greater treasure, but also undead guardians, which explains why the kobolds have not yet looted it.

At this point I had the happy accident of confusing another burial cave with the Rising Star Cave - the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave in Belize, famed for the "Crystal Maiden", the crystallised skeleton of a young woman. I ran with the idea and decided that the skeletons interred here have become crystallised over the centuries, and so looked different, and were tougher (not very scientific, but...) than the usual skeletons. I also gave them the ability to crystallise/petrify those whom they wound with their claws to further distinguish them from "normal" skeletons, but sadly they did not manage to land a single blow on the PCs.

Then finally, I needed to assign the loot. After some googling, I came across the Varna burials, currently the oldest burial site in Europe with gold grave goods. This was a Copper Age burial site and thus far older than either of the ones I used before. The site is noted for the large amount of gold artefacts found there, and the golden hammer found by the PCs is based on the one found in Grave 36, shown below.

I decided that the graves of the people from the lower strata of the society would have been in the outer caves and so were already looted by the kobolds. To indicate this I had the kobolds use and wear the grave goods, in the forms of pottery used for cooking and storage, flint and copper tools, as well as the spondylus seashell and carnelian jewellery worn by some of them.

The golden treasure I reserved for the final chamber, where once again the players have to make a choice between disturbing the dead and returning relatively empty-handed to Tamalir. Again, it was too much to expect for players to respect the dead and their possessions.

When I was prepping the session I was worried that there would not be enough content for a 3-hour session. As such I made up to "optional" sections of the dungeon which could be dropped in as needed. As it turned out we barely had time to get to the last cavern.

As the two new players were both experienced GMs, there was a lot of role-playing done, especially in the opening scene of the game as the contracts were signed - I did not have to do anything for the first half hour of the session as the players discussed the terms in character.

I was over all satisfied with how the session went, but a little disappointed by how little challenge the combat encounters gave to the PCs. In the future I may need to do some maths on my own instead of relying on the Challenge Rating system.