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.
I designed the derro insanity tech items that appear in this session. I think they were meant to go in the 4e conversion of the adventure but there wasn’t enough space.
Begin here with Session 1 – Alarm in the Dead of Night.
24th Quintilis
After resting, the characters go to have a look at the secret door revealed by the earthquake which Boso is eager to show them. Bolval figures out how to unlock it and then Krivinn shoves it open. Beyond lies a dusty chamber crammed with artefacts of the Illuminated Brotherhood, including books, tapestries, ceremonial uniforms and even carved blocks of stone. Krivinn blocks the view of the refugees outside to avoid them piling in after the party.
Two stone pillars are covered in engravings of gears and wheels which Bolval recognises as matching both the markings on Rabscuttle and the papers found on the dead dwarves beneath the airship, the Drake. As the characters move in towards the massive ceremonial chair covered in stony earth and dirty ceremonial dress, no one is surprised when the dirt forms into the earthen body of a dwarf. This is Bartholomeus Lodoviceus, an architect, engineer and inventor, now stone-dead (a lich-like state of undeath). He tells the party that he invented the great adamantine doors in the Great Hall among many other clever devices and objects in the Golden Citadel. Bolval asks about Rabscuttle but Bartholomeus doesn’t seem to recognise the name although he does say that he perfected a technique for creating new clockwork bodies for dying dwarves.
The ancient dwarf shows the party a tapestry showing the six Old Masters who ruled the Citadel beyond the adamantine doors where they communed with the Spirit of the Mountain through the power of a golden bowl. To stop the earthquakes, the adventurers need to obtain the bowl which means passing through the adamantine doors. The only way to open the doors is to descend into the poisoned passage below, go past the airlock (which Bartholomeus also built), and operate the controls found there.
The stone-dead dwarf is clearly getting more and more irritated as the characters question him and eventually he snaps, using his golden breastplate to animate the huge automaton standing in the corner. The party beat a hasty retreat, shutting the secret door behind them.
After conferring with Varden Redfel, the characters gather up extra equipment, including an everburning torch and two “poison gas detectors” (a canary and a white mouse), and head down to the clockwork doors leading to the poisoned passage. Someone appears to have sabotaged the doors and coated many of the gears with an oily hallucinogenic poison. As none of the party are trained in Thievery, they fetch Sawbones. The grey-haired surgeon’s experience in patching up Rabscuttle proves enough to get the doors open.
Beyond lies a partly collapsed tunnel – a moist, cloying green vapour hovers low over the floor and thick greenish, sludge covers the walls and ceiling. The characters advance cautiously, avoiding a section of wall rigged to collapse and ignoring a rubble-filled side chamber with a too-good-to-be-true flaming sword sticking out of the debris. Ahead the corridor opens out into a large room inhabited by several Forsaken, one is holding a caged fetal savant on the end of a pole.
Khuma charges in to the room, triggering a glyph of warding which damages and dazes him. Krivinn and Bolval follow him and battle is joined. The derro’s attacks keep dazing the characters, making it hard for them to focus fire – instead they are forced to charge different opponents each round. The forsaken savant conjures Visions of the Unspeakable Truth and the two bombardiers open fire with their insanity tech weapons – a nightmare projector and psychotropic bellows while the raider uses his guisarme to trip Khuma. Bolval kills the fetal savant after its ineffectual Wail from the Utter Black but it takes a long time to get rid of the other derro and all three characters end up bloodied with no healing left. Finally, Khuma charges the last derro standing – the savant – impaling him with a critical from his spear.
The characters search the guard station, finding some treasure including more Forsaken gas masks and a bag of dust of appearance.
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Richard Green | Game Designer 