Halls of the Mountain King was the second 4th Edition Open Design project from Kobold Press. I ran the adventure in 2010 as part of the same Parsantium campaign as Wrath of the River King.
Begin here with Session 1 – Alarm in the Dead of Night.
22nd Quintilis (contd.)
After defeating the thoqqua, the adventurers explore the rough-hewn hallways of the royal crypts, checking the magic mirror Roen gave them to see what is going on in the Great Hall above, before heading down a set of stairs leading into a square chamber. Here, three feldspar xorns are squabbling over the grave goods they’ve found inside a stone sarcophagus. Saethus fires off a spell at the elemental creatures who then turn towards the party and attack. A fourth (and larger) corundum xorn burrows beneath the PCs and bursts from the ground behind them, surprising Khuma!
The xorn are tough opponents and both Saethus and Krivinn are bloodied in no time. However, Bolval’s flame strike turns the tide, and Khuma’s death-defying (and near suicidal) charges start to pay off. The smaller xorn are beaten, then Saethus finishes off the elite corundum xorn with magic missile. The characters decide to leave the gems in here alone, but they do take an extended rest to recover healing surges and treat the filth fever that’s affected Bolval, Krivinn, and Khuma. All three manage to shake the disease off.
23rd Quintilis
The party heads back into the hallway and then down another set of stairs. These lead to a second staircase flanked by four statues of dwarves, all Illuminated Brothers wearing mnemonic fobs around their necks. When the characters go to open the double doors carved with flaming pillars ahead of them, they trigger a glyph of warding. Then, Saethus threads his own mnemonic fob on to a piece of string and hangs it round his neck – this allows the wizard to unlock the doors.
The room beyond has intricately carved walls and a mosaic of a trowel inlaid in the floor. On each side of the chamber are six burial nooks – five have dwarven skeletons carved with scrimshawed writing lying on top of closed stone sarcophagi; the sixth holds a dark, polished stone. When Bolval goes to try and read the writing, the skeletons summon flaming axes and attack the party.
The characters try to decipher the carvings on the bones as they dodge blows from the skeletons and their tethered shadows which appear after the first round of combat. Bolval, now a holy emissary, casts turn undead, which drives skeletons and shadows into one corner of the room, then Saethus throws a wall of fire around the undead, trapping them. One skeleton isn’t stuck behind the wall – Krivinn grabs this one, holding him still so he and the other characters can read the inscriptions.
The party learn that the Illuminated Brotherhood tried to steer its clansmen away from the corrupted veins of orichalcum. They sealed a band of dwarves who refused to leave the mines beneath the mountain, damning them to darkness and madness. These dwarves became the Forsaken. When the last bit of information is discovered by Saethus, the tethered shadows become normal, harmless shadows again! The characters attack the surviving skeletons who have been wounded by passing through the wall of fire and soon defeat them.
Before the characters can take a short rest, they hear a faint pummelling of fists on the south wall. This is followed by the appearance of a ghostly set of arms, straining and reaching through the wall as if the body they connect to is stuck behind in the stone. This wall does look like it would be relatively easy to break through…..
When the arms don’t harm anyone, the characters ignore them for the moment and search the room. Saethus picks up the dark, polished stone lying on top of a sarcophagus. Unfortunately, this is a cursed stone of penance which weighs him down. Nonetheless, he carries on opening sarcophagi, finding more treasure including a suit of +3 chain armour of dwarven vigour, ritual scrolls, potions and gold. One item is a huge gold plate marked with the crest of the Sevrius family of Parsantium. Krivinn and Bolval aren’t keen on taking any of this stuff as it feels like grave-robbing to them but the lure of new armour sways the dwarf’s opinion…..
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Richard Green | Game Designer 