KEEPER HILL
A Fantasy Core and
D&D 5th Edition Fantasy Ireland
© Jerry Harris 2016
(This link will take you to the
Fantasy Core Playtest Rules.)
The Long Walk
1 XP for finding the Secret Door.
14) This passage was reserved for the king. It perhaps gave him time to think about
things on his way to and from his throne room where he would hold court. Of more importance to the Characters is the
secret passage to the treasure crypt. This
corridor is well and recently travelled.
The layer of dust covering the floor is clearly showing lots of footprints. (No Tracking skill required to notice
this. A Ranger would identify the prints
as human-ish and as several individuals, but with a shambling gait to their
step.)
The prints all seem to congregate about half-way down the
corridor, which should be a clue. The
Secret Door only requires a DC 12 Search to find if being actively searched
for. The inner door has a DC 12 lock on
it or could be popped by a Knock spell.
The Noble Crypt
2 XP for defeating this encounter
2 XP for killing the Mummy.
(3 XP if this is the final Mummy to be defeated.)
15) This was a crypt built for a few honored ancestors. Of the 8 tombs here, only 3 of the Mummies
have survived the ages. The rest of the
remains have crumbled to dust. The Mummy left in this chamber, Claver, is
hiding in his tomb, marked (x). When
found, he will call out for help and 5
Wraiths will rise out of their tombs (or fewer, depending on if they’ve
already been called by Braygan). If
Claver is killed, the Wraiths will return to their tombs. Killing Claver endows anyone in the area with
a permanent 1 HD increase in hp (either roll for it or add half + 1).
Afterward
Given the possible permutations of this scenario, there’s no
telling what happened to all the NPC’s and who’s running Keeper Hill in the
end. If Billy and Sam are still alive,
they’re in charge for now, but (assuming the undead have been cleared out)
they’re seriously weakened and will be challenged for the spoils of the Noble
Level. If neither or only one of them is
around, it’ll be a free for all. Sid, if
still around, will be on top of that.
Lord Sogore will somehow think that he is due something and want a piece
of the action. Formorians fighting in en
mass will inevitably cause problems for the human residents of Tipperary County
Did someone other than Billy end up with Nim’s locket? That will have repercussions, especially if
his secret affair has been exposed. Is
Mara around? There’s still treasure in
the vault where she’s set up shop. Did
Apollos escape? The Elves will still be
looking for him. Were the Elves all
massacred? There will be a reckoning. What about all the riches in this level? As soon as word gets out, everyone will
swarming this place for a share.
As for the Characters, their main problem may be, “How do we
get out of this dungeon?” If there
aren’t any friendly Formorian lords left, they’re going to have to negotiate
with the Goblins and Grimlocks for an exit via the Dark Road . The Dwarf exit might be an option. Mara will certainly be willing to help them
(though not show them her vault).
Design Notes
Stone Grave Design Notes. Okay, so right after I
wrote this, I decided to clean up what I had written about the previous, failed
version of this adventure, Keeper Hill.
In looking things over, I suddenly had an idea about how to make this
adventure finally work and ran with it.
While using the same maps and many of the same monsters, Stone Grave and
this adventure are very different. I, at
least, consider them to be different enough to be separate adventures, though I
don’t know if I’d want to run the same group of players through both (not
without telling them up front about the similarities and making allowances for
their familiarity).
It’s still not a murder mystery (darn it), but I think this
turned out to be way more complex NPC interaction-wise than I’d thought it would
be. I’m happy that Keeper Hill is bit of
a twist on the standard dungeon crawl.
Enjoy.
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