Tag Archives: Sunless Citadel

CHAPTER TWO: HONORING THE DEAL

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Cast of Characters:

  • Kyffin Chiselfist, a male dwarven paladin of Fortubo
  • Dook, a male ogre barbarian who thinks he’s a paladin
  • Anthe Ettonice, a female elven monk
  • Thora Kaeda, a female air genasi druid
  • Zenryl Shadowbow, a female elven rogue

After a long rest, the group resumes delving deeper into the Sunless Citadel. Having found the remains and signet ring of the ranger Karakas, their quest to retrieve the rest of his adventuring group isn’t off to a promising start, but so it goes.

Venturing back to the south, the group finds a side passage that leads back into the portion of the ruins occupied by a tribe of goblins. Right away, the group walks into a goblin ambush, complete with concealed archers and a floor full of caltrops. They battle through several more groups of goblin defenders before finding one of their goals: a ransacked trophy room which contains Calcryx, the white dragon wyrmling the goblins had stolen from the local kobold tribe during a raid.

Unfortunately, Calcryx is in no mood to come along peacefully, and the presence of his former handler, the kobold Mep, doesn’t seem to help the situation. (DM note: having agreed to tag along as a “guide,” Mep is riding out this adventure—and many yet to come—strapped to the back of Dook, C-3PO-style). The group tries to tame the beast, but it’s clear Calcryx is in no mood. A tussle ensues and the group manages to finally render the wyrmling unconscious, bind it securely, and drag it back to the kobold chieftain, Yusdrayl.

As agreed, she gives the group a choice of items from her small treasure horde. The group chooses the mysterious key gripped in the mouth of Yusdrayl’s dragon throne, a key she tells the group opens a “dragon door” back near the entrance to the Citadel. With a bit of further negotiation, the group also barters for some other magic items from her stash, including several spell scrolls, some healing potions, and a Quaal’s feather token, which can magically spawn the growth of a huge tree.

Yusdrayl also says the group is free to keep Mep. The group is fine with this, and Mep is eager for more adventure than he’s found in the Citadel, so they agree to continue traveling together.

Heading back to the beginning of the complex, the group finds a hidden door they’d missed before and get a handful of skeletons and a couple of magic arrows for their trouble. Continuing down a path they had not yet explored, they find the aforementioned “dragon door”: a magically locked portal in the form of a fierce, silvery dragon. Yusdrayl’s key works and the group passes through into a strange new room.

As the module itself describes it, “Three alcoves are on the north wall, and one is on the south wall. Each alcove contains a dust-covered stone pedestal with a fist-sized crystalline globe resting on it. The globes in the northern alcoves are cracked and dark, but the globe in the southern alcove glows with a soft blue light. Faint tinkling notes issue from it.”

Investigating the globes, several of the party find themselves enchanted by the music and forced to run back to the beginning of the dungeon. Those not affected solve the problem by beating the hell out of the globes until the magic stops. Crude but effective.

Continuing onward, the group negotiates several more layers of traps and an encounter with a pesky quasit before reaching the end of this branch of the Citadel: a strange mausoleum, lit by torches burning with greenish continual flame spells.

From the module:

“Violet marble tiles cover the floor and walls, though all are cracked or broken, revealing rough-hewn stone beneath. Sconces are attached to the walls at each corner. One holds a torch that burns with greenish fire. A marble sarcophagus, easily nine feet long, lies in the room’s center. The coffin is carved with dragon imagery, and the head of the sarcophagus resembles a dragon’s head. Rusting iron clasps firmly lock down the lid.”

Carved on the wall nearby, a message in Draconic: “A dragonpriest entombed alive for transgressions of the Law still retains the honor of his position.”

Curiosity getting the better of him, Dook rips the lid off the sarcophagus and finds a troll: “…dressed in rotted finery, but its jewelry and rings adorned with tiny silver dragons still sparkle. The creature’s body is shrunken and elongated, and its flesh is a rubbery, putrid green. Its black hair is long, thick, and ropy. Its beady black eyes flash open, and it snarls.”

A fierce battle follows, with the creature putting up a worthy fight but soon falling beneath the group’s blades, spells, and Dook’s signature weapon: the uprooted trunk of a small tree. With Kyffin pleased to have helped strike down such an evil creature, the group is nevertheless perplexed at the creature’s backstory. The carvings suggest it was once one of the elven dragonpriests who used the Citadel to honor an ancient high dragon named Thesmothete in centuries past. How, then, did it become a troll, and why was it “entombed alive?” The answers, if they are to be found, must wait for another day.

Searching the chamber, they find a selection of gold, more spell scrolls, and a torch of continual flame that Dook physically rips out of the wall.

Retracing their steps back through the kobold tribe’s territory and into the goblin section, the group eventually finds a makeshift prison containing several kobold prisoners destined for either slavery or the cookpot, as well as one more memorable figure: a gnome cleric of Fharlangn named Erky Timbers. With this, the group checks another item off their to-do list for the dungeon; Kyffin’s friend Dem Nackle, a female gnome priest of Pelor, had asked for Kyffin’s help in locating Erky after he went missing inside the temple. Erky proves endlessly chatty, grateful for the rescue, and eager to tag along with the group as they continue into the dungeon in search of the other missing adventurers.

The addition of Erky proves to be fortuitous timing, as the group soon reaches the heart of the kobold colony and their very first “boss fight.” From the module:

“A circular shaft pierces the floor of this forty-foot-diameter domed chamber. Dim violet light shines out of the shaft, revealing sickly white and gray vines that coat the walls of the shaft. The light is supplemented by four lit wall torches set equidistant around the periphery of the chamber. A crudely fashioned stone throne sits against the curve of the northwestern wall. A large iron chest serves as the throne’s footstool. A sapling grows in a wide stone pot next to the throne.”

Waiting for them inside are:

  • Durnn, the hobgoblin chief of the local goblin tribe
  • Grenl, the tribe’s shaman
  • Several hobgoblin guards
  • A twig blight—the first the group has seen, a twisted plant creature spawned by the experiments of the rogue druid Belak the Outcast in the lower levels of the dungeon.

Dook initially tries an unexpected approach: simply walking into the room and asking if any of them need any of the “elf pudding” they’d found in a storeroom elsewhere in the dungeon. Durnn and the others are thrown for a loop at the sheer illogic of an ogre selling elf pudding door-to-door, but the distraction doesn’t last long, and battle soon commences.

For most of the group, it’s a rousing encounter, with spells, blades, and arrows flying. For Durnn, however, a natural 1 and a failed DEX save lead to an ignominious end as he trips and tumbles to his death down the shaft in the middle of the room. It’s best that the fall does him in; he never would have survived the embarrassment.

Once the dust settles, the goblin tribe’s leadership is routed, the group allows the “civilians” to leave in peace, and they manage to account for another of the missing adventurers: Durnn’s body was wearing splint armor and a signet ring belonging to Talgen Hucrele. With him presumed dead, only his sister Sharwyn and the paladin Sir Braford remain to be found. And it’s not looking good…

The group sets up camp to rest, with nowhere to go but down.

CHAPTER ONE: THE ROAD TO THE SUNLESS CITADEL

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It all started on the road to Oakhurst…

We joined several members of the group in a carriage traveling to the small village that’s nestled north of the Fals river along the road between Veluna and Bissel. While their reasons for taking the voyage were divergent, their paths would soon align, owing to chance or fate. In the carriage we met:

  • Anthe Etonnice, an elven monk
  • Thora Kaeda, a young druid of mixed genasi and gnomish parentage
  • Zenryl Shadowbow, an elven rogue

Thora and Zenryl were traveling companions, having left behind the small Velunese village where they had met. Thora was on a mission for her druidic mentors, investigating a lost ruin known as the Sunless Citadel, and the rumors of a fallen druid named Belak the Outcast who has been allegedly operating within the citadel, spinning dark magics. Zenryl is along for the ride, because the thought of remaining behind while Thora sought adventure seemed utterly unpalatable.

As for Anthe, she doesn’t say much but carries a sense that many secrets hide behind her quiet smile.

BANG!

The group’s small talk is interrupted when something huge slams into the carriage, actually rocking it over onto its side. Outside, they see an incredible sight: a seven-foot ogre tussling with a band of bandits. Rattled, they scramble out of the carriage and prepare for battle—and quite a fight, between the ogre, the bandits, and the hobgoblin lobbing arrows from the treeline.

Before long, however, a new wrinkle presents itself: a heavily armored dwarf, cresting a nearby hill and sprinting toward the battle. He’s yelling something, but what?

“DON’T…HIT…THE OGRE!”

Strange as it may seem, the ogre does indeed show no interest in murdering our band of heroes—just the bad guys.

The battle is joined, the bandits are defeated, and we meet the rest of our heroes:

  • Kyffin Chiselfist, a dwarven paladin of Fortubo hailing from the Barrier Peaks.
  • Dook, an ogre barbarian who thinks he’s a paladin because he killed a paladin and that’s how he thinks it works.

They’re a strange company, to be sure, but it is clear that Dook does indeed mean well and seems to be (mostly) on the path of righteousness, at least under the guidance of Kyffin and excepting an unfortunate habit of collecting his fallen enemies’ ears…

Kyffin and Dook are also traveling to Oakhurst, responding to the summons of Kyffin’s friend, Dem Nackle, a gnome priest of Pelor. The group agrees to travel the rest of the way together as protection from the dangers of the road.

They soon arrive in Oakhurst, where they receive a less-than-warm welcome from Oakhurst’s constable, Felosial, a half-elf veteran. She commands a force of sixteen guards and four scouts who keep the village safe. It takes some convincing that the party means no harm—mainly due to the ogre—but Dem soon arrives and vouches for them. Under Felosial’s watchful eye, the group travels to Dem’s shrine to catch up.

Dem had written to Kyffin asking for help recovering her friend Erky Timbers, a cleric of Fharlanghn who recently ventured into the Sunless Citadel and has not returned. Since it’s a good cause and their paths align, the group agrees to team up and venture into the dungeon together. They learn that the ruin is an ancient Baklunish temple, sunken into a deep chasm during some past cataclysm. Its origins and history are surrounded with more questions than answers, however.

Before they can set out, they are approached by Kerowyn Hucrele, a human noble who runs the local general store and who is one of the larger fish in this particular small pond. Two of her children, it seems, have also been foolish enough to venture into the Sunless Citadel—part of a group of adventurers who are now several weeks overdue. Kerowyn fears the worst, but she offers a reward if the group can find and return with the two lost members of her family—or at least return the gold signet rings worn by her missing son and daughter.

Setting out from Oakhurst, the group travels seven miles up along an old road into the foothills that become the Yatil Mountains. They find a ravine, narrow but running for miles in both directions. After a bit of searching, they discover the barest hints that the Citadel used to be above ground—crumbling pillars covered in dwarven writing. A few similar pillars were visible on the opposite side of the ravine, and a sturdy, knotted rope hangs from one of the leaning pillars and down into the depths of the ravine. The writing is soon identified as the warnings of a goblin tribe that has apparently taken up residence.

Undeterred, the group descends the rope.

At the bottom, they find a set of stone stairs carved into the side of the ravine wall, leading even further down. After a few encounters with rodents of unusual size, they reach the bottom…and the Sunless Citadel itself.

After more rat fights and a couple of unfortunate run-ins with traps (Perception rolls are not this party’s strong suit), the group soon encounters a broken cage and a sobbing kobold named Mep. They learn that tribes of both kobolds and goblin have taken up residence within the Citadel’s crumbling halls, and they have little love for each other.

The cage, Mep tells them, once held the kobold tribe’s prized possession: a young white dragon wyrmling named Calcryx. Mep, the tribe’s “Keeper of Dragons,” tells the group that the goblins had recently staged a raid and stolen the dragon, leaving Mep as the butt of the other kobolds’ displeasure.

Mep agrees to escort the party to meet the kobold leader. A short distance into the citadel, they reach the “Hall of Dragons” and meet Yusdrayl, the kobold chieftain, upon her dragon throne.

Wary but willing to bargain, Yusdrayl tells the group that her tribe had lived in the Citadel for some time, drawn to its history with an unnamed dragon cult and a long-vanished high dragon named Thesmothete. Yusdrayl also confirms two things: that the Hucreles’ adventuring party had passed through some time ago, and that Belak the Outcast does indeed reside in the depths of the Citadel’s lower level.

Yusdrayl offers to let Mep guide the party, as well as their choice of reward if they bring Calcryx back to the tribe. With their eyes on both the mysterious key clutched in the mouth of Yusdrayl’s dragon throne and the array of small treasures behind it, the party agrees.

Following the kobolds’ directions to a “back door” into the goblin-occupied section of the complex, Dook straps Mep to his back and the party soon battles against goblins, rats, and skeletons before encountering more clues that suggest the Sunless Citadel’s dragon cult once included elves among its number. After defeating several undead former residents, the group acquires several goodies including a magic whistle named “Night Caller,” which allows the user to cast “animate dead.” (Dook takes a liking to the whistle—he always wanted his own pet skeleton.)

Pressing onward past traps and monsters, the group eventually battles a bloated, grotesque mother rat guarding a filthy nest containing, among other things, the remains of one of the Hucrele party: Karakas the ranger is no more.

Tired and wounded, the group barricades the door and settles in for a long rest.