The Broken Tower
This is the first dungeon for the new campaign I am running. I will post dungeons and other material as the party completes sections.
The map comes from Dyson Logos the compass is from Deven Rue
This adventure is designed for six characters starting at level 1.
Beginning the adventure
Jimos is a small city. Everyone knows everyone else, or knows their reputation. The city comes together to help each other in times of need. This is one of those times. Arlen and Davin Turist have been missing since yesterday. Their parents David and Tanis are organizing locals into search parties. The PCs find themselves asked to be one such search party. The area they are sent to search is further out on the southern end of the plateau. Children often play among the ruins despite their parent’s warnings.
As the party searches they are approached by Geller Fren, a local farmer with land on top of the plateau. He is friendly and exchanges information readily. He hasn’t seen the boys, but he is missing one of his goats. Characters investigating the missing goat discover small tracks with a DC 15 survival check. A DC 15 nature check reveals the tracks belong to kobolds.
The ruined tower
As the group searches the plateau for the missing boys, they come upon a tower that bears signs of inhabitants. The character with the highest passive perception notices smoke.
A thin wisp of smoke draws your attention to one of the towers dotting the plateau. Though some of the towers have been put to use by the locals, you do not remember this one currently being in use. A tattered cloth hangs where the door once stood.
1) Tower Main floor:
The entrance to the tower sits 10 feet above the ground. A small landing out front has a ladder for access. The door to the tower decayed long ago. The kobolds who now call the tower home hung a blanket over the entrance when they arrived. Characters climbing the ladder must make an athletics check DC 10. Failure means that the ladder breaks, dealing 1 point of slashing damage and causing the character to fall back to the ground. Further checks are at a DC 15. The ladder hazard is CR 0 (10 xp).
The room contains a small cooking fire and piles of rags used as bedding. A ladder on the west side of the room leads to the second floor. A door on the east side leads to a small room with an open trap door leading down to area 3.
Creatures: Three kobolds are in area 1 cooking Geller’s missing goat. They hear the PCs climbing the ladder outside and have weapons at the ready.
One kobold is waiting just behind the blanket curtain. The kobold yells out in draconic telling the party to go away. It stabs at the first person to pull the curtain, and then backs up to the others. If characters are perceptive or intentionally look they will notice that two of these kobolds are female.
Kobolds (3) CR 1/8
XP 25 each
hp 5 (Monster Manual 195)
Spear. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.
Treasure: The kobolds each have spears and daggers on them.
2) Tower Upper floor:
The current top floor of the tower is open to the sky. The ruined walls stand roughly five feet tall with openings in them that used to be windows.
Creatures: Two kobolds are stationed on this floor. They are supposed to be lookouts, but the bright sunlight has forced them to hunker in the shadows of the ruined walls. Once someone enters area 1 they use slings to attack anyone outside of the tower. If anyone tries to climb the ladder they switch to daggers and surround the opening.
Kobolds (2) CR 1/8
XP 25 each
hp 5 (Monster Manual 195)
3) Tower Lower floor:
The lower floor of the tower is dark. The small room has a ladder coming down from the trap door, and what appears to be a barricaded door on the north wall. Two small kobold children huddle in the corner, a wizened looking kobold stands in front of them. He addresses the party in common as soon as someone tries to climb the ladder from the trap door.
“Wait large ones. We mean no harm.”
This is Theket, the leader of the group in the tower. He fights if confronted, but tries to speak with the party if they will listen.
“Our den was invaded by big scales. Many died, others chose to follow new masters. We fled here. We meant no harm. We simply wanted to survive.”
Theket will admit to stealing the goat. His small band has no food and was forced to ‘hunt’ whatever was nearby. They would have stayed below the tower, but something he refers to as a no one is below and his family fled higher for safety. They arrived in the tower two days ago and have been keeping out of sight as much as possible. They saw the two boys enter the tower yesterday evening while they were returning to the tower after their hunt. The boys were gone when Theket entered the tower. He believes that they went below, but he does not know if they are alive.
If characters examine the barricaded door they notice that it was concealed until the kobolds opened it from the other side. The door and the area around it give off faint traces of magic. A successful investigation check (DC 10) reveals runes around the door. The magic appears to have hidden and sealed the door until recently.
Creatures:
Theket Kobold Cleric (lvl 1) CR 1
XP 100
hp 15
AC 14
Spell Save 13
4) Basement Landing:
A winding staircase leads down to a room with a finished floor, but natural cavern walls. The rooms are dark after this point unless the party brings light. A large doorway at the north end of the room leads into another chamber. A worked hall cuts off near the north while a natural cavern extends east from the south side of this chamber.
5) Temple:
This room contains the rotten remains of several benches, all facing toward a raised platform at the north end of the chamber. The platform holds an altar bearing designs of the old gods. Three statues around the room depict a humanoid figure with four arms and draconic features. Five alcoves around the room contain the remains of crumbled statues and rotten tapestries. The platform drops 10 feet in the northeast corner at the entrance of a tunnel. The west side of the room has a door where the center alcove would be.
Creatures: A ghast is hiding in the alcove to the west of the south entrance. It attacks the first individual that comes near. If no one approaches the ghast sneaks out of the alcove and attacks the party from behind. The ghast is wearing the remains of priestly robes and appears to have been a dragonborn or lizardfolk in life.
Ghast CR 2
XP 50 each
hp 36 (Monster Manual 339)
Treasure: The ghast is wearing a necklace with a gold chain and a primal glass gem. (10 gp)
6) Common Room:
Two round stone tables take up the center of the room the remains of several chairs, rotten over time, litter the floor.
Treasure: buried in the remains of the chairs is a set of bone dice.
7) Kitchen:
A dim light shines underneath the door, barely visible through the cracks as you approach.
Arlen and Davin Turist are huddled together around a small fire made from rotten wood. They are scared and immediately jump when the door opens. The boys grab rusted cooking pots to try and defend themselves.
This room appears to have been a kitchen. Rusted pots and other cooking implements hang on hooks around the room and litter the floor where the hooks have broken. You see two young boys holding pots in front of themselves like clubs. They both sigh and collapse to the floor in tears as you enter.
Treasure: Two large clay jars sit in the southeast corner of the room. They are tightly sealed. Anyone moving them can hear a quiet sloshing sound from inside. The jars contain fine ceremonial wine that is a few thousand years aged. The jars are enchanted to preserve the wine, but the enchantment ends when the jar is opened. There is enough wine to fill six bottles (40 gp per bottle 240gp in total). This is a lot of money for the city. The party will have to wait for the merchant caravan arriving in about 6 weeks before they can sell the wine at this price.
8) Barracks:
The first thing you see upon entering this room are three stone bunks and then the four skeletons of people who appear to have died in their sleep. The skeletons are partially covered by rotten clothes and the remains of straw mattresses that have disintegrated over time.
These skeletons are the same race as the ghast from area 5.
Treasure: There are three stone chests in the room. Each contains the remains of two sets of rotten leather armor and a lesser healing potion. There are three rusted kukris and three rusted daggers.
9) Lower Chamber:
This chamber smells musty, and slightly acrid. The scent is coming from the chamber’s inhabitant.
In the center of this room is a large floating sphere that appears to have a single eye and several tendrils protruding upward.
Beneath the Gas Spore is another skeleton that is covered in fungal filaments.
Creatures: The large sphere is a Gas Spore, though characters might mistake it for a beholder.
Gas Spore CR 1/2
XP 100
hp 1 (Monster Manual 138)
10) Trash heap:
The sides of this room contain heaps of debris. It appears that this is the place where garbage from the other chambers was discarded. Most of the trash has composted into dirt.
Creatures: Two rat swarms make their home in the garbage piles. They have eaten all the organic matter that was once here and eagerly attack anything that looks like food.
Swarm of Rats (2) CR 1/4
XP 50 each
hp 24 (Monster Manual 148)
11) Officer’s Chambers:
This chamber contains a bed with a chest next to it, a table with two chairs, and a writing desk. Two rounds after someone enters the room a shadow attacks from the corner by the table.
Shadow CR 1/2
XP 100
hp 16 (Monster Manual 269)
Treasure: The chest contains two primal glass kukri’s (15 gp 1d6 slashing 2 lb. Finesse, light). There is a small crystal set into the wall above the bed (DC 15 perception or DC 10 investigation to find). The crystal detects as minor magic and glows like a candle or torch when the command word is spoken. The command word is kontzu’kre (illuminate in draconic).
12) Unfinished Chamber:
This chamber appears to have been under construction when the inhabitants of the tower died. What the room was for is a mystery. If someone enters the chamber two gray oozes flank either side of the entryway and attack the person inside.
Gray Ooze (2) CR 1/2
XP 100 each
hp 22 (Monster Manual 243)
Tunnel heading deeper:
The footprints of the kobolds lead down this tunnel, going deeper into the maze of caverns beneath the plateau. A small pile of rocks next to the entrance shows where a recent collapse opened up the tower basement to the tunnel beyond. Characters following the footprints can track them back to the kobold den with a successful DC 15 survival check. As characters make their way toward the kobold den they encounter larger footprints coming in from a side tunnel. These are the Troglodytes that have taken over their den.
Hazard: The cave in that opened the tunnel has left sections of the wall weakened. As the characters are passing by two loosened sections of wall fall on randomly selected characters.
Wall Section (2) CR 1
XP 200 each
Bypass DC 13
Checks 1
Save DC 13
Damage 2d10
Character Advancement: With encounters and RP the characters should be level 2 when they complete this section.
About the Author:
Stephen Mayo lives in Montana with his wife, daughter, and three cats.
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