Borderland of Adventure #63: Undead and Gnolls, Oh My!

At the end of last session we left out heroes recovering from their initial explorations. With nowhere to go but forward, however, they had little choice as to how to proceed.

BoA_cropped

 

They quickly concluded their exploration of the ground floor and found a stairway leading upwards. At the head of the stairs, a hallway hosted two single doors and a set of double doors. The double doors led into a huge room that had obviously once been the scene of a vicious battle between undead and a band of gnolls. Three gnoll archers lurked on a balcony at the other end of the room.

The party attacked. Their initial advance, however, was somewhat stymied by three shadows that emerged from the corpses. Although the foul undead managed to drain a small amount of the party’s vitality, they were quickly slain by a combination of magic missiles and holy energy. The gnolls were harder to slay, but eventually, the party reached the balcony and slew their enemies – Dregak bull rushing one into the main room below where Ulmo slew it with Krorz’s greataxe (which the redoubtable half-orc had dropped in the fighting).

Continuing their explorations, the party discovered another room with a set of double doors guarding another dimly illuminated walkway leading to the other towers. The chamber was guarded by skeletons and zombies and these were quickly slain. However, beyond that chamber lay a small nest of rooms – evidently once bedchambers of sorts. Lurking within was a wraith. The wraith surprised the party, but initially was unlucky and failed to injure anyone. As the battle dragged on – and the party became more adept at injuring it, the wraith adopted hit and run tactics using its incorporeal nature to slip through the walls. Eventually, though, it to was destroyed and the party moved on. The rest of the level proved unoccupied and although the party found a magical potion, they failed to recover any other treasures of note. Krorz was not happy.

For the moment declining to visit another tower, the party again proceeded upwards to the next level. At the head of the stairs, they found a passageway filled with corpses. Three doors pierced its walls. Krorz moved forward to investigate the corridors, but as he did so the unlucky scout activated a tripwire and a metal helmet fell to the ground with a loud clang…

Published by

Creighton

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.