Team Adventure - Something Fishy

The session began with the Team trying to decide who would go down the shaft that they had discovered hidden inside one of the pillars. In the end, Ferros volunteered to lead the way and they found that at the bottom of the shaft, there was a narrow subterranean passageway that turned after a few yards and then ran straight for at least fifty feet or so. The team followed Ferros down the passage and our brave cleric found that at the far end, it opened into a vaulted crypt. Around the walls were niches into which coffins would be placed. Now, however, the niches were filled with scattered pieces of coffins, gnawed bones and other grisly remnants of those who might once have made their way down. Ferros moved into the room to investigate, only to find himself menaced by the sudden appearance of four ghouls – filthy, clawed monsters whose arrival was accompanied by the hideous stench of mouldering bodies and rotting flesh.


Ferros, newly the Scourge of the Undead, was undeterred by this awful manifestation and stepped forward, raising his holy symbol high. The light of the cleric’s faith burned bright and the ghouls reeled back in fear, shambling back towards the rear of the room. At that, the rest of the party poured into the crypt and with their bows poured missile fire into the retreating monsters, finishing off three of them. The fourth made its escape down a passage at the far end of the crypt and was not seen again.

Meanwhile, the Team, having found no loot on the bodies of the ghouls, started to search the crypt for hidden compartments and secret doors. Ferros noticed that his torch was flickering as he approached the southern end and Alurax deduced that this must have something to do with an air current that had to be coming from somewhere. They traced it to a hole that had been ripped in the wall at the back of one of the niches. They proposed to crawl down it to see where it led; Elador suggested that they be roped together, with the rest of the party holding the end of the rope in case something bad happened and they needed to be retrieved quickly. This they did, and at the end of the roughly-hewn passage that led back about fifteen feet, they found a small cave where bones and skulls littered the floor. Beneath this horrible detritus, they managed to uncover a hoard of silver pieces and several interesting items, including some vials of holy water and a scroll that conferred protection against the Undead on its reader. Whether these were the pitiful last possessions of a dead cleric or their presence was a macabre coincidence, the Team could not tell.

On the far side of the ghouls’ den was a smaller passageway, no more than a tunnel perhaps three feet across. Ferros and Merlin began to explore it but soon realised that its length and complexity meant that they were likely to end up lost. They abandoned the exploration and returned to the crypt where they reviewed their finds.
It was probably a good job that the party decided not to explore any further; the module stated that getting lost was a certainty if they decided to press on. They had roped themselves together for the crawl so that they could be extracted if need be - a very good idea for which I gave out some XP rewards.

Adthar took the lead as they followed the trail of the escaping ghoul and found that the passage led, by way of twists and turns to a junction. To the left was a corridor that vanished into the darkness but to the right, a flight of steps led downwards and there was the sound of lapping water. Going further, the Team found that the stairs led to a cave in which was a wide, deep pool. On a ledge on the far side, amongst more bones and litter were what seemed to be coins. Merlin set off round the ledge to get to the far side, accompanied by Galzor who was in for a nasty surprise as up out of the water rose a huge crustacean armed with massive pincers. It used these to terrible effect, badly wounding Galzor. The rest of the party now weighed in, hacking and chopping at the monster, a Giant Crayfish. It was finally despatched and sank back down into the water. While Merlin pressed on to the far side to investigate the coins, Adthar stripped off his armour and dived into the water to see if there was anything worth recovering – his efforts were rewarded with a silvery pin fitted with a small ruby and a bone tube, sealed at each end with wax. Surfacing again, he was in time to see Cafaror make the same descent to remove the crayfish’s claws, obviously to add to his growing souvenir collection. Cafaror's player was really getting into the souvenir collecting thing, which I am encouraging, partly because it is a very good attempt at individualising the fighter and partly because I have some interesting ideas for this in future adventures.

Once the party had dried off, they set off again up the passageway, aiming to see what lay at its end. They arrived in a large room which had several doors and passages opening off it. They tried to open one door, only to find that behind it was just a blank wall. From further into the dungeon, they heard a strange, dull clanging noise. Bemused by this, they moved further into the room only to find themselves under attack from a band of gnolls who were camped in an adjoining room.


The gnolls were a tough enemy although Adthar’s masterful swordplay made short work of four, with Alurax killing three. The rest of the party finished off the last two.

I'd set the gnolls' HP at 9, the average of 2d8 (saves having to check different HP totals for each individual monster) and with them being larger targets, the d12 damage from the longswords the party's fighters were using seemed to be delivering one-hit kills quite often in the combat.

Although there was no treasure in the gnolls’ lair, looting the bodies yielded a haul of no small size.

Having won their bitter fight, the party was in two minds as to which way to proceed. They decided to follow a long sloping passageway that they had sidetracked on the way to the gnolls’ room. At its end, they found a door, beyond which was another passageway and a door to the left. Ferros decided to open it a crack to see what lay beyond but at that point, he was surprised as it was wrenched open and an orc stabbed a spear at him. The thrust missed and moments later, the orc lay dead on the floor. Its companion, halfway up the passageway took a defensive position as the party hurtled towards it, whilst at the end of the passageway, a third orc started screaming “Intruders! Intruders!”

As previously mentioned, I'm moving away from human/human combat and so had exchanged the guards at this point in the module with orcs, a preferable solution for all concerned.

Battle was joined; the Team fought its way up the passage, into a small room and to the far side, killing or sleeping everything that stood in their path. Beyond the small room, they entered a larger chamber where they faced eight orcs, two hobgoblins and a tough individual in armour with a huge mace, who watched and waited for his chance to strike.


He didn’t get it; the Team engaged the orcs and punched through enemy lines. Alurax struck, then landed a blow that rocked him back on his heels. This was JG's use of the d30 for this session, a score of 23. When I announced that their foe was still standing, their eyes widened in horror. They had never met somebody with so many HP before and it was a shock to the system. Not for long, however. Galzor’s mace blow was tellingly effective (another d30 roll) and Elador fired a magic missile which sent the heavyweight crashing to the floor. He had only tried to hit Alurax once and missed. The party's tactic of rushing the big foe and taking him from front, sides and rear to get hit bonuses had paid off again (remember the ogre in the previous session?)

Soon, the party’s martial prowess – and the death of the enemy champion - finished off the opposition and the last two surviving orcs threw down their weapons and raised their hands, much to the chagrin of Alurax, who was fired up with a combat frenzy. The party cast a glance around a room littered with bodies and could not help but feel somewhat pleased with themselves.

They were in for an unpleasant surprise!

Running a Call of Cthulhu pbem Part Fifteen

A brief word on handwaving, the definition of which I am taking as “Not burdening your players with the tiresome bits of reality…”

A pbem takes a long time to play. I think my first adventure took about eight months to cover from Saturday lunchtime to Monday evening. Although subsequent adventures have moved perhaps that little bit faster, it’s still a long process, even if only the essential stuff is included. It stands to reason therefore that anything that slows the process down should be looked at closely and its necessity questioned. We’ve already covered the amount of detail a Keeper should include, but what I’m talking about today consists mainly of the moments at which you decide to say “Yeah, okay, I’ll wave that one through and we’ll move on…”

If it breaks a logjam or moves the game forward and is fair to the player concerned and the Keeper can explain the justification so that it appears fair to the player(s) concerned, it will (or at least it should be) generally accepted.

Handwaves should be considered a limited commodity – if the Keeper starts to use them too liberally, it can give the impression that the action is being circumvented or that, again, player involvement is being restricted.

The perspicacious Keeper should be able to spot when a handwave is required. If you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the adventure, the sputtering sound as the flow starts to stall is a good sign. Similarly, a good degree of player enthusiasm for the process should indicate that now is not the time to skip to the next scene.

I’m just going to mention, as we are getting very near the end of this series now, something that also comes at the end – of the adventure itself.

There is a temptation, possibly born of those five-minute segments at the end of shows, to go through what happened and clear up any loose ends. However, this is probably not a good idea in Call of Cthulhu.

Therefore, my advice is not to do an end of adventure reveal if the adventure is being played as part of an ongoing campaign. The party may never visit the mysterious Majestic Hotel again but unless you’re not going to use those characters again, ever, then keep the lid on what really went on. As we journey through life, we can be fairly sure that we don’t know everything about things that happened to us. Some events in our life are mysteries or just downright baffling. It should be thus in Call of Cthulhu. The party may have overlooked something that the keeper can go on and use in a later adventure set in that same world – but if he spills the beans about what the party missed, that’s an opportunity wasted and it makes the party privy to information that they would not otherwise have learned.

Next time – a bit of humour in an otherwise bleak, horrifying and eldritch world and some valuable insights from my players on sandbox Call of Cthulhu

An Adventure for Every Monster - Bugbear

Map from Dyson Logos, find it and other excellent images here.

Frequency Uncommon
No. appearing 6-36
Armour class 5
Move 9”
Hit Dice 3+1
Percentage in lair 25%
Treasure type Individuals, J,K,L,M. B in lair
No. of attacks 1
Damage per attack 2-8 or by weapon type
Special attack Surprise on a 1-3
Special defences Nil
Magic Resistance Standard
Intelligence Low to Average
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Size L (7’+ tall)
THAC0 16
XP value 135 +4/hp


This adventure takes place in a mountainous area that has a chasm running through it and several gullies that split the rocky wilderness.

The complex on the map is currently occupied by a gang of bugbears who have kidnapped a merchant’s daughter and are holding her for ransom.

The local lord, having heard of the plight of the girl, has hired the party to take the ransom to the bugbears and escort the girl back to her family.

As well as this, there is a second gang of bugbears who were driven out of their lair by the hostage-takers and want to get it back. They will attack more or less as the party enters the lair to deliver the ransom and take custody of the girl.

Following that?

Well, in a further development, the merchant whose daughter was snatched, not willing to sit back and let the local lord take all the glory for the deal, has hired a band of adventurers of his own who he has instructed to get his daughter back alive and wipe out the bugbears.

So, we have two groups of bugbears, two groups of adventurers and the following situation

Bugbear Group One will fight Bugbear Group Two but not the party.
Bugbear Group Two will fight Bugbear Group One, the party and the merchant’s band.
The merchant’s band will fight Bugbear Groups One and Two but not the party unless the party tries a hostile act
If the leader of Bugbear Group One finds out that the merchant’s party is attacking both groups, he will suspect a double cross (with all that this implies) unless the party can convince him otherwise.
The humans cannot tell the difference between Bugbear Groups One and Two
The Bugbears cannot tell the difference between the party and the merchant’s band.

Let chaos commence!


Keyed locations on the map

1 Main approach area for the main bridge. Two bugbears are on watch here, one at the end of each passageway. On detection of the approach of anyone who they do not know or who they regard as hostile, they will blow the large ram’s horn that is kept in Area 2
2 Watchpoint for the main bridge. A large ram’s horn is kept here for alarm purposes. There is a bugbear stationed here who will use a large composite longbow to open fire on attackers. He is an expert with this weapon and will get +2 to hit.
3 Winding passageway leading from the secret door to the rope bridge.
4 The chief of the hostage-taking bugbears lives here with his two bodyguards. He is AC4, has 25 hit points, attacks as a 4HD monster and does +1 damage. His bodyguards have 15hp and are armed with both morning stars and hand axes, which they will throw. There are several joints of meat here that the chief and his bodyguards are eating. The provenance of the joints is suspect.
5 Two more bugbears are in here, guarding the hostage. She is not bound as such, but the bugbears are ready for anything she might try, unless there is a distraction. She is a feisty girl and will seize any opportunity to make her own escape, which might not be such a good thing as she has no idea of the layout of the complex or its defenders.
6 End of the rope bridge. The ropes are tethered to iron posts driven into the rock. They can be hacked but will take 10hp of damage each before breaking
7 Guardhouse for the rope bridge. Two bugbears are stationed here.
8 Staging area for the rope bridge. Stairs lead up from here to Area 10. The ropes have the same hit points as those at location 6. A sentry waits here to make sure that nobody uses the rope bridge to outflank the position. He is armed with a clutch of spears and a scary-looking guisarme.
9 Eastern guard tower. As this covers both the main bridge and rope bridge, it has room enough for four bugbears, armed with heavy crossbows. The bugbears will not both fire in a round, but fire alternately so that one shot can be guaranteed per round. They also have swords in case they are attacked at close range.
10 A wide area enclosed by walls. Three bugbears are stationed here to bolster the defence of either the main bridge (14) or the eastern gate (11). There are some crates and packing cases against the south wall. These were seized by the bugbears when they raided the caravan that was carrying the merchant’s daughter. It was thought that they were valuables but it turned out to be dresses, cosmetics and a set of scrolls on which are written several romantic tales of courtly love. The whole may be worth somewhere in the region of 260 silver pieces. The bugbears do not realise what they are.
11 A guard room for the eastern entrance. This has room enough for two bugbears
12 This room is used for storing weapons; it will have spears, maces, axes, hammers, light crossbows, swords and several containers of oil.
13 This room contains the treasure of the bugbear band. It is guarded by two bugbears.

It has
Copper pieces 2251
Silver pieces 875
Electrum pieces 612
Gold pieces 507
Gems 1 (75gp)

The paucity of the hoard is probably one of the reasons why the band is engaging in hostage-taking.

14 The main bridge. This is a sturdy affair, made of dressed stone and several hundred years old. It has no balustrades (so somebody at the edge may have to make a DEX roll if they’re involved in combat that involves dodging blows). The stones themselves have faded designs on them that seem to resemble fish and birds.

From 6 to 8 is a narrow rope bridge that will only permit one person across at a time. If two people try to use it, both must save vs. DEX. If both save, the bridge bucks about but neither falls. A failed save means the person falls off the bridge and into the chasm. It’s up to the DM to decide what happens after that.

There are twenty-two bugbears in total. If an attack comes from either of the two passages to the west, the leader will move down to the rope bridge and call across to the sentry, who will come across with one of the guards from Tower 7. They, with the chief and his two bodyguards will emerge from the secret door and use this route to attack their enemies from the rear. In the meantime, the guards in Area 5 will move the hostage down the passageway to area 6. If an attack comes down the passage, one will hold the attackers off long enough for the hostage to be moved across the rope bridge to Area 8.

The rival band is only nineteen strong but they have determination and revenge on their side. They are armed with
1 Two-handed sword
2 Broadsword
3 Bow and dagger
4 Bow and dagger
5 Bow and dagger
6 Mace
7 Mace
8 War hammer
9 Battle axe
10 Mace
11 Spear and broadsword
12 Bastard sword +1 and two daggers (this is the leader of the other band – he has the same combat stats as the bugbear in Area 4)
13 War hammer
14 Battle axe
15 Morning Star
16 Spear and broadsword
17 Morning Star
18 Battle axe and hand axe
19 Spear and broadsword

The rival band know about the secret door leading into passage 3 as this was their lair before they were driven out. They will not try to get through it as they know that a prolonged battle in the passageway will slow their attack up. They will, however, try to seal it off with rocks and iron spikes, which will take three bugbears three rounds to achieve if they are not attacked during the process.
Their tactics will consist of attacking area 1 in overwhelming numbers, using their bowmen to knock out the bugbears on the western side of the chasm so that they cannot sound the alarm horn and then rushing the bridge so that they control both sides of it. The heavy fighters will then move to cut off the occupants of Area 9 so that axemen can race to the eastern end of the rope bridge and cut it, preventing anyone coming across it.
They don’t know about the merchant’s daughter but if they do capture her, she will serve as the main course at a victory feast they plan to enjoy when they have recaptured their stronghold.

As a postscript, it should be noted that the local lord had negotiated the release to bolster his position with the merchants and so intends to get rid of the party once the whole thing is over with.

EDIT - You can now download this adventure as a pdf, courtesy of Matthew Schmeer; click on the picture of the bugbear at the top of the blog sidebar.

You know you're a gamer when...

Someone asks how much something costs and you instinctively give them the price in gold pieces...

"Discount for cash? Well, yeah, I guess so..."

Team Adventure - Skins and Snakes

Whilst resting up, the party heard the approach of two goblins who were clearly members of the gang who had been living in the Moat House. Alurax, Adthar and Cafaror burst out and finished the stunned goblins off, barely breaking a sweat. I’d rolled them up on the wandering monster table and since the rest of the goblins had been killed off, thought I’d bring these guys in as an easy sword-arm exercise for the Team.

Once their rest had ended, the party decided to move down the southern passageway off the Great Hall, checking out the rooms that they found. In the first one, they found nothing but smashed furniture and a wall cabinet. Alurax investigated and managed to recover a broadsword of particularly fine workmanship.

The next room was a bedchamber but it held nothing of interest. The party passed this by with little or no investigation. The final door opened onto a dark room in which the sound of chittering and fluttering could be heard. Elador cast his Light spell into the room which disturbed the bats roosting in the rafters but did not cause any trouble for the party as nobody went in there.

The large room at the of the passage had a pile of rubble in the south-east corner of the room and this brought back memories of the goblin room with its buried treasure. Alurax, Adthar and Cafaror headed over to the rubble to start excavating but received a nasty shock as a huge snake rose up and attacked them.




Adthar was bitten and succumbed to the poison before the rest of the party weighed in and attacked the snake. It was sluggish to begin with (well, that’s reptiles for you) and its reaction rolls were lousy, outclassed by those of the party. Eventually, it succumbed to their combined efforts. Whilst most of the party started to search for valuables, and were rewarded by the discovery of a fine jewelled dagger (with a staggering price tag), Cafaror decided to skin the snake and take the hide back to town to sell or make into snakeskin garments. This was such a cool idea, personalising his character that I decided to allow it and award him some XP for it as well. It’s difficult to make a fighter stand out and this was just what I was looking for from my players.

After this room, the party moved back to the main hall and decided to try the western passageway. There were three doors opening onto the passageway. In the first room were the battered and dilapidated remains of animal trophies, skins, stuffed heads, horns and antlers. The next room was empty but Alurax noticed an object in the wall cresset and was brave enough to remove it himself – the result was that he netted the party a silver baton – more GP for the account.

Behind the last door before the large room at the end of the passageway, the party found the remains of the castle kitchen, with tables, rotting food, old rusty knives and cleavers and a large barrel in the far corner. Alurax and Adthar, healed by the ministrations of the clerics, went in and Alurax made for the barrel. They were both surprised as a giant tick sprang out from behind the barrel and attacked Adthar. It missed him and as it leapt and came in for another attack, Adthar swung down with his sword and sliced it neatly in two – a cracking 20 on the to hit roll.

In the last room, formerly the castle barracks or so it appeared, a surprise lay in wait for the party. A huge lizard had made its lair in one corner of the room and came at the party as they entered. Adthar took a swing at it and gave it a small wound but Alurax managed to get a shot with his bow in and sent an arrow deep into the monster’s heart – the d30 strikes again. It’s nice to see this rule coming into its own and the players not having to be reminded of it in the heat of the action. The lizard fell dead, only to be systematically flayed by Cafaror who was clearly keen on adding to his collection of reptile skins.

The chest that the lizard was guarding contained some armour and weapons, but not much in the way of money. However, whilst Cafaror was skinning the beast, he noticed that there seemed to be something hard in its stomach and cut it open to reveal a shield that had a strange magical glow to it. I ruled that as he was not a professional skinner, he’d probably take quite a lot of meat off with the skin and would notice something lumpy like a shield stuck in the lizard’s gullet.

The party thought that they had more or less cleared the Moat House, at least above ground. They decided to carry out a thorough search and eventually came across two possible routes downward. One was in the corner of the great hall where Adthar had fried the giant rats with his oil bombs earlier that day. The other was a secret door in the wall of the room where the goblins had been lurking. After a discussion, it was decided to try the staircase behind the secret door and the party went down it one at a time as it was so narrow. This was a wise decision, as anyone who knows the Moat House will realise. The party did not discover their good fortune till a while later.

At the bottom was a tiny room and a door leading off it. Merlin the thief was deputed to venture beyond it and see what was there, trying to blend into the shadows and remain unseen. Unfortunately, another very bad roll on Hide In Shadows meant that the occupant of the room, a fierce ogre spotted him very quickly and leapt into the attack. Adthar and Ferros burst in to assist him but the ogre’s bardiche (how often do we get to see that weapon in action?) swung through the air and smashed into Merlin, flooring him. He scrambled to his feet as the rest of the party pitched in and pretty soon the ogre was surrounded and hacked to pieces, Alurax in particular virtually carving a massive gash in the monster’s chest – a critical that scored double damage.



The ogre had been guarding a large wooden box which was not locked and yielded a pitifully small amount of treasure, a few copper and silver pieces and some glass beads. Alurax, however, had better luck – while everyone else was examining the box, he was searching the pile of skins and rags in the ogre’s bed and found a mysterious cloak that shimmered and seemed very lightweight. As he tried it on and moved about, he seemed to vanish into the gloom. This was clearly a find of some significance, but I wasn’t about to let everyone know what he’d found or even its XP value, which was considerable. That would be a nice surprise when they got back to town.

Two doors opened off the ogre’s room. The first one the party tried yielded an interesting result – three prisoners in a bad state of health. Ferros healed them all and it was discovered that two were human merchants, who offered a reward for their freedom. The other was a gnome, the first that the party had encountered, who was cagey about his reasons for being in the dungeon – he said that he had been captured by gnolls and imprisoned. He feared that he was next on the ogre’s dinner menu but was grateful for rescue and gave the party an iron ring which, he said, would earn them the friendship of the gnome clans in the region.

This of course meant that I needed to place gnome clans somewhere on the map that, at this point, only existed in my head. However, I was looking into the West Marches campaign as the basis for my campaign’s immediate locale and that would offer ample opportunity for gnome placement.

Having liberated the captives, the party moved through the second door and found it led to a storeroom from which another door led into a much larger room with thick pillars holding up the roof, several doorways coming off and a staircase that clearly came down from the Moat House above. Over the archway leading to the stairs was a mysterious and sinister clump of slime that dripped evilly onto the floor. It was a sickly green colour and nobody felt like touching it. I pointed out that this would have dropped on them if they had come down the stairs from the rat room. As nobody had ever encountered green slime before, I’m not sure that they appreciated how lucky they were.

Alurax had moved into the room to investigate, using his new cloak but whilst he was doing that, the rest of the party came barging in and encountered two zombies who had been hiding behind one of the pillars. Battle was joined and Ferros leapt in with his holy symbol, turning the shambling husks of rotting flesh. As they retreated into a corner, Adthar hurled an oil bomb at them and set them on fire. By now, another door had opened and two more zombies emerged. Ferros turned them as well and they scuttled back into their cell. Alurax tried to hurl his oil bomb at them but missed – nevertheless, he managed to trap them in their cell while he proceeded to fire arrows at them.

The same process was repeated twice more, zombies emerging from doors and Ferros turning them. In total, he turned eight. Bows made short work of two, another hurled oil bomb set two more on fire and even Alurax nearly setting his new cloak on fire with a botched oil bomb throw did not dampen the victory against the zombie menace.

I was particularly impressed with Ferros’ player’s rolling of the turnings, which gave me an idea about developing his character. Stay tuned for further developments.

Ferros and Adthar investigated the room beyond a dark archway through which a suspicious blood trail led. Alurax and Cafaror searched the zombie cells and managed to find a scintillating peridot – another prize that reminded me of just how much wealth can be transported with a handful of gems. When we think of loot, we usually have an image of piles of coin, but gems are often a more interesting option as far as treasure, since their worth is not immediately discernible and keeps the party in suspense until they can get them valued.

Merlin was trying to pick the lock on a very solid door at the far end of the room but when he ran out of luck, the rest of the party joined him to break down the door and its neighbour and found piles of weapons, armour, arrows and bolts. They also found meat and brandy and a caseload of cloaks, embroidered with a yellow eye. Suffice it to say that they would not have to worry about running out of arrows again for quite some time.

Ferros and Adthar’s search led to a pillar that was revealed to have a secret door built into it. Behind the door was a deep shaft descending into the darkness; the rungs were neither dusty, cobwebbed nor rusty. It was clear that somebody had been using the shaft and recently too.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Buffalo

Buffalo




Frequency Uncommon
No. appearing 4-24 (but more for the purposes of this adventure)
Armour class 7
Move 15”
Hit Dice 5
Percentage in lair Nil
Treasure type Nil
No. of attacks 2
Damage per attack 1-8/1-8
Special attack Charge (3-18 damage on impact and 1-4 trampling)
Special defences Head is armour class 3
Magic Resistance Standard
Intelligence Semi-
Alignment Neutral
Size L (5’ at shoulder)
THAC0 15
XP value 350 +8/hp

This adventure takes place in an area of open plains and rocky hills.

The party is enlisted to help the local noble’s retinue who are investigating reports of rustling on the plains. The rustling is actually being carried out by a gang of gnolls who are picking off the buffalo herders and slowly moving the buffalo towards an area of natural valleys where they have corralled them.

Whilst it appears to be a simple case of humanoids attacking and looting (as will appear to be the case when the party comes across the remains of some herders who have been killed), there is more to it than that. The plan of the gnolls is to lure the party and the noble’s retinue into a trap – there is a box canyon nearby and the gnolls have laid a series of clues that will point the party towards it. They have also constructed a crude camp at its end, where they have laid a set of mildly irritating traps to cause the party to pause and search the area. They have even hidden some small treasure caches in the area so that the party will think they have struck it lucky.

Unfortunately for the party, the gnolls intend to wait until the party has ridden into the box canyon before moving all their hoarded buffalo into place and stampeding them down the canyon to trample all and everything in it.



Once the noble’s retinue is destroyed, the gnolls intend to launch their attack on the noble’s castle and lay it waste.

Gnoll

Frequency Uncommon
No. appearing 20-200
Armour class 5
Move 9”
Hit Dice 2
Percentage in lair 20%
Treasure type Individuals L, M; D, Qx5, S in lair
No. of attacks 1
Damage per attack 2-8 or by weapon
Special attack Nil
Special defences Nil
Magic Resistance Standard
Intelligence Low-average
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Size L (7’ tall)
THAC0 16
XP value 28 +2/hp

The gnolls have upwards of a hundred warriors spread out across the plains and hills but the party is likely to encounter only a dozen or so at any one time as they are keeping spread out to avoid losing too many in one action.

The leader of the tribe, Yellow Fang rides a fearsome hyaenodon (AC5, 1 att, dam 3-12) from which he will direct the main attack on the noble’s castle. Yellow Fang is AC3, 22hp and attacks as a 3HD monster. He has a retinue of 7 warriors, (AC4, 20hp, attack as 3HD monster) who he is keeping in reserve for the big attack. One of these, however, will be in charge of the stampede attack.

Yellow Fang’s lair, such as it is, lies within a series of caves in one of the taller hills in the area. It is littered with buffalo bones and the skulls of butchered beasts are set around the main caves with oil lamps behind their eye sockets. If it is attacked before he has a chance to launch his raid, it will be filled with gnolls readying themselves for the assault. Yellow Fang has stationed his archers in position above and around the cave entrance to spot any attack from a way off and pin down intruders while his battle-axe and two-handed sword gnolls move in to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

If the party discover the lair after Yellow Fang has set off on his raid, there will be a few gnolls left to guard the treasure but the raiders will have taken the potions with them and Yellow Fang will have the tribe’s gems in a pouch around his neck.

You know you're a gamer when...

You threaten to deduct XP to get your kids to behave...

"Stop that right now or you're going down a level..."