Alzar’s party descends to the lower level of the Caverns. He arrives at a long tunnel that goes in many directions. He again takes the leftmost first. It has a cave with an Antipathy spell on it, and pushes away evil. He orders the neutral Megala into it and sees nothing here but a fresh pool of water and mushrooms. He returns and takes another path. This has a huge ceiling and a great cavern. A skeleton rounds the corner and is attacked by something winged and reptilian that flies over. Alzar orders the glabrezu to teleport behind it and it does and is incinerated. 14 skeletons left. It moves and is about to turn the bend. Alzar retreats from the unknown, and grabs a Stone and summons an Earth Elemental from behind a bend. It moves around the bend and begins combat with the thing. Alzar uses his Mud Ring to summon another and it joins the battle. Soon, the creature has died. The first Elemental is down to 29 hp.

He turns the corner and sees the corpse of a Dracolisk. This is an unusual variant of a Basilisk that is physically stronger and its gaze incinerates rather than petrifies . Alzar takes its skin, teeth horns, and blood like a dragon. There is treasure here:

1000 pp
7x100gp gems
Jeweled Scabbard – 1850 gp
Wand of Magic Missiles – 100 charges

He manages to ID the Wand and switches the one on his bandolier with it

A tunnel on the other side of here leads to some empty rooms and a fungi cave with eight Shriekers here. A Skelton causes them to scream and they are slain. The noise causes a giant rhinoceros beetle and Hill Giant to move from their cave to the fungi that they farm. Alzar orders the elementals to the front and moves behind them. He loses the wounded one but slays them both.

Their cave is explored as well, and nothing back here save a giant weasel pelt worth 850gp.

There is a back exit from their cave which leads to another fungi cave with two shambling mounds protecting it. Alzar summons a Vrock from the Demon Staff and an Air Elemental from the Censer. Meanwhile, the Elemental and undead move to the Shambling Mound. After three turns, one is dead and four skeletons are gone. 10 left. The Vrock joins the battle and the other mound bites it.

The chamber has nothing in it cave two exits. One leads to cavern with many stalactites and stalagmites. A Roper attacks and grabs and slays a skeleton 0 9 left. The Elementals move in and smash one while Alzar casts Evard’ Tentacles on the other and it brought down by it. There is nothing in here either. The other exit from the fungus cave arrives at a long tunnel that continues. A dead end branches off, and then a side tunnel. Inside are twenty two trogs, which move out and attack. Alzar drops a Skulltrap and slays them. He then animates 12 to join his group. 21 skeletons.

The regular tunnel moves on and hits a angry pair of three demons known as Chasme.



Alzar commands one successfully, and the other two attack quickly. They try to hit him and both would have hit save for the Cloak. Alzar orders his creatures to attack the Chasme. In two turns, they are dead save for the one he captured – and it has 40/40 hp.

The one controlled reveals their treasure, an Elven Cloak and Pair of Elven Boots, and 200 pp and 4 flasks of holy water. Alzar takes them all.

They continue down the passage and slay a Trapper that kills a skeleton – 19 left. The passage bend sot the left and widens, with two passages opening. Alzar takes the one of the left. After several dead paths spread out from it, he arrives in a giant cavern of stalagmites. A central formation of four bar-lgura demons are here and they move to attack.



Alzar uses Skulltrap from his Ring and flings another one at the group. They take damage and forces smashes. The Elementals and demons slay two and they smash the Chasme, which they don’t really like that much. They deal 25 damage to it the Chasme. They win init and one drops a Darkness spell over the party and the other turns invisible. Alzar cleaves one with Blind Fighting and it falls. The other breaks away and casts Spectral Force appearing like 15 Vrocks are gating and joining its cause. That’s way more than normal, so Alzar is suspicious and checks -= it’s an illusion. He orders his flyers to converge on and slay the bar-lgura, which they do.

Gold and Ruby Bracelet – 4500 gp; Platinum Necklace – 600gp; Jade Ring – 550 gp;

The giant cavern continues and Alzar follows a 15’ wide passage that leaves. He arrives in a smooth cavern with unusually smooth walls and an exit on the other side. Out from behind a bolder emerge two Beholders. Alzar orders a Wall of Fog dropped between them and him, and two skeletons to move forward and draw their rays. Instead of doing that, they attack the Beholders which pop and explode, destroying them. These were the rare Gas Spore fungus that looks similar to a beholder to keep away prey. 17 skeletons left. There is nothing in here, and the tunnel winds up back at the first tunnel Alzar was at when he entered. He takes another one instead.

He arrives at a small cave and one look around this gruesome place shows that something awful uses it as a burial crypt or trophy room. The walls are lined with limed over corpse and a fresher ring is near the middle. Alzar sense undead and tres to control it. It’s too powerful and pushes him aside. (He rolled poorly). Out from the corpses steps a powerful and uncommon undead called a Bodak. The powerful thing moves at them quickly, and Alzar orders the Chasme to use telekinesis on it. It makes the save. The Vrock steps into it and the Elementals are behind. The Vrock is slain instantly by the creature’s gaze as attacks pummel it. It attacks the Air Elemental and slashes it for 17 damage. The Elementals dash it again, and it flees, but a dagger from Alzar cuts it down.

The trogs gave it their treasure and looked on it as a god. In here is:

4000 gp
300 pp
20x 50 gp gems
Potions – Diminution, Tongues
Candle of Invocation – CG
Ring of Warmth
Scroll – Protection from Possession
Magic Scroll – Write, Fool’s Gold, Magic Mouth, Dispel Magic, Distance Distortion, Statue
Bracers of Defense AC7
+1 short sword
+2 scale mail
+2 spear
Serpentine Owl Figurine

We’ll look at the Serpentine Owl later.

Three caves off this one and another path from the front land in areas with five gargoyles, a behir, and an Umber Hulk. Alzar’s Chasme is slain and he loses all of his animal skeletons and lacedons. The only treasure back here are Wings of Flying, 5000 gp diamond, +1 horsemans’s pick and 23 10 gp gems.

He heads back to the passageway that has another tunnel from it and moves to it. As he does, he is teleported to another place, but none of his minions are. Just him.

He arrives at a cave with two Taurians attacking. He casts Dire Charm on one and succeeds and it begins to attack the other. The other moves to attack its pal, and he watches as they slay each other, with him finishing off the one who won. There is a cave here that enters a giant labyrinth .Alzar enters it invisible and moves around. He finds a treasure in the middle of 1000 pp and a +2 hand axe. He continues and finds the way out.

A teleportation spell transports him to a room with no means of exit or entry and three empty, animated suits of armor. They don’t sense him, and are moving in a sentry pattern. Alzar smashes one for 15 damage and battle begins. He double smashes and hits twice for 26 damage and slays it. The others miss. They win init and he takes 10 and then he misses. He jumps out of the area and lands elsewhere. They move toward him and he smash the one that’s wounded twice and slays it. The other hits him for 9 damage. He takes no more as he finishes it off. He teleports to the next room.

This a natural cave with 6 Centaurs drinking and eating and talking. Alzar’s appearance disturbs their day, and they are not happy. They don’t speak his languages and they draw bows. Alzar casts Sleep and drops them all. He slays them and teleports to the next area.

This is a magical summoning room. There are protective circles on the ground. Alzar sees a cave above the magical circles of protection and grabs his Broom of Flying and heads up. There is an identical set of circles up here, and Alzar studies them. One is out of place,a and is not for protection. Alzar touches it and teleports back to the passage he left, just 20 feet down the corridor, but beyond the teleportation field.

He won’t be able to bring any of the creatures with him, since they cannot get through the area due to some force there. Alzar moves on. H should be able to return for them.

He arrives at two great iron doors. There are some runes in Magic, and Alzar grabs his Monocle and reads them. They say that Iggwilv’s great treasure is beyond, not to disturb it for vengeance will be sought on you.

The gates are too heavy to move. Alzar waits for ten minutes and then summons a Glabrezu. He also wants some muscle, so he sounds the Horn of Valhalla and 13 level 2 berserkers answer the call and will fight on his behalf. The Demon pushes open the doors and they move in.

A corridor of red marble is carved into the earth. A shimmering translucent screen beckons, and Alzar and the demons and berserkers go through. (The screen prevents scrying teleportation, etc in and out of the chamber it surrounds).

The room beyond is brightly lit. The chamber is spherical and the roof is made of lapis lazuli. A serpentine shelf in front rests a warrior maiden. Many other accoutrements are here. She wakens as Alzar moves in and sits up. She thanks him for rescuing her and tries to charm him using her innate ability. It fails, because he is immune to Charm, and he notices a pull at his powers. He realizes she is undead, and tries to command her. She is a vampire/warrior. He fails – rolls just a 6. Berserkers move in, and attack, but only three can reach her. The Demon is held back as reserve, and Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir. She fails and will try to Charm him again, but nothing happens. The magic Berserkers can hit as though they had magical weapons and one nicks her for 7 damage., Another Ray from his Rng fires off, but she makes her save and ih her mighty +4 sword the granddaughter of Iggwilv, and the true treasure of this place, cleaves a berserker. The glabrezu teleports into its place and moves to attack. She wins init and carves into the demon for 12 damage. She is hit for 17 damage and Alzar casts Continual Light at her eyes and she fails her save and is blinded permanently. A vampire exposed to tat much light shrieks, and her defense drops. 23 damage is deal t to her and a dagger form Alzar adds 10. She recovers and swings wildly and misses, and is slain and the screen falls.

Alzar moves to inspect the room. He finds a cache of books, an grabs the first one. As he does so, a creature teleports in to protest his ownership of this book – a Xag-Ya.

The berserkers and glabrezu hit and it crackles energy into Alzar for 12 damage after he makes his save. Alzar adds his axe to it and it pops. Then Xeg-Yi pops in and fights. It stabs Alzar for 17 damage of negative energy and his group slay it. Alzar remains on guard for ten minutes but nothing more arrives. He looks at the book and it is titled the Demonomicon of Iggwilv, a potent spell book.

This cache is secretly a coffin, and the vampire is reforming her body here. He uses Holy Water on it and then removes the rest of the massive bounty from the room.

6 Folding Screens, 1000 gp each
2 Carpets – 1000 gp each
2 Inlaid Stands,, 2000 gp each
4 Porcelain Vessels – 1500 gp each
Crystal Bowl – 3250 gp
Silver Tripod and Brazier – 750 gp
Platinum and Diamond Tiara – 27000 gp
47000 worth of random jewelry

Slippers of Spider Climbing
Everburning Incense
Manual of Bodily Health
Manual of Gainful Exercise
Manual of Quickness of Action
Tome of Clear Thought
Tome of Leadership and Influence
Tome of Understanding



Prison of Zazig

Daoud’s Wondrous Lanthorn with four crystal lenses, Ruby, Topaz, Emerald, Diamond lenses and can have Amethyst, Jacinth and Sapphire as well.



Solo – Gelatinous Cube, 8 Dire Bats, 28 Stirges, 28 goblins, 8 trolls, Clay Golem, 8 Mobats, Lurker, 5 Grey Ooze, 2 Formorian Giant, Giant Snapping Turtle, 2 Cockatrice, 4 Dao (5k each), Chimera, Dracolisk, 8 Shreiker, Hill Giant, giant rhinoceros beetle, 2 Shambling Mound, 22 Trogs, Trapper, 3 Chasme, 4 Bar-lgura, 2 Gas Spore, Bodak, Behir, 5 gargoyles, Umber Hulk, 2 Taurian, 3k from Suits of Armor, 6 Centaurs, 1 Vampire/warrior, 1 Xag-Ya, 1 Xeg-Yi

Used – Blastbones, Dispel Magic, Evard’s, Skulltrapx2, Dire Charm, Sleep

The books are powerful magic. The one of Bodily Health will raise Con by one, the Clear Thought one raises INT by one (but Alzar has already read one, and another won’t help), Gainful Exercise gains 1 STR but as Alzar wears Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, they won’t impact him in any useful way, Leadership and Influence is a point of Cha, and Alzar has already used one, Quickness DEX by one and Understanding raises WIS a point.

Serpentine Owl named Zandran – Two uses, and it’s a figurine like the Ebony Fly, and you can switch back and forth between them for eight hours a day.

1 – a small owl, very sneaky AC7, 3 hp, THACO – 20, 1d2x2 damage – 95% silence, infravision, keen hearing, telepathy with owner

2 – Giant Owl, AC6, 19 hp, THACO – 17, 2d4, 2d4, 1d8 -

The Prison of Zazig is a brass cage roughly two feet high. It has spells to protect both the interior and exterior. The door is sealed by a Wizard Lock as if the possessor cast it. No magic can target the cage on either side. Using a Command Word, Alzar can imprison any creature into it with a save at -3. It ca only be freed by Alzar. A creature trapped does not need food, water, air, etc. It does know what is happening. A powerful wish or something similar can release it.

A scroll nearby says that Iggwilv captured a mighty demon price in the Prison named Graz’zt. Eventually, he was freed by an ally with a powerful magic, and he sought his revenge on his captor. She forced him back to his plane, but not before he destroyed much of her magic and power. Her servants fled with much of her treasure, and she retreated here to build a home for her granddaughter. She left the Lanthorn here to hopefully cure her of vampirism and left. No one knows where.

Finally, there is an artifact here – Daoud‘s Wondrous Lanthorn:

The Lanthorn eats crushed gems – diamonds at a value of 1000 gp crushed for 10 years of charge; Topaz, Ruby, Sapphire, 400 gp per 10 years so its easier; generic gems for 1500 per ten years. Maximum 100 years storage.

It is already fully fueled.

Each face can be shuttered so no light shines. It has crystal lenses in each of the four directions. They will heal 1d4+4 hp daily after full exposure, and half poison and disease – but not cure it.

A replacement gemstone can be made from 10000 gp gem of that time and Enchant an Item and Permanency spell. Three are missing.

When three openings are closed and one of the gem prisms is inserted into the one remaining, a spell effect occurs that burns fuel aimed in that direction after commanded by the owner:

Ruby – Hold Anything
Topaz – Slow
Emerald – Haste
Diamond – Color Spray
Sapphire – Fear
Amethyst – Emotion, Rage
Jacinth – Flame Strike

Each uses five years of fuel.

If a gem is placed n each side, and spun, ten years is used and Confusion an all in the room.

All seven gems in one closest off direction fire a Prismatic Spray that burns 50 years. A Prismatic Sphere can be made by two colors in each socket and diamond in another for 50 years of fuel.


Because the potent Demonomicon of Iggwilv is made useless by the Second Edition taking all of its rare spells and, making most of them common, I have given it some additional rarer spells and one common spell to make up for it.

XP – 95650 gained

777,496 total and Alzar is now level 12, level 13 is at 1.125 mill

5/5/5/5/5/2

His new spell list includes:

Sleepx2, Charm Person, Hypnotize, Comprehend Languages; Empathic Control, Blastbones, Knock, Tasha’s… Laughter, Ray of Ondovir; Dire Charm, Slumberx2, Skulltrap, Vampiric Touch, Dispel Magic; Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer turned into Slumber, Evard’s…Tentaclesx2, Shield-Maidens, Charm Monster; Conjure Earth Elemental, Dominationx2, Animate Deadx2; Invisible Stalkerx2

WG4. The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun



The sequel to Caverns sorta and one of Gygax’s final modules for D&D was published in 1982. It’s #23 on the countdown of best modules etc but I don’t think so. I think the name Gygax carries more than it should.

With this side show, we did a module not on the list, #30 in Ghost Tower, #22 with Caverns, #23 with Temple and we’ll hit #11 on our way back to #1 which is the seven modules in a row.

Alzar moves back out and returns to the Svartafar mining camp. When he hits them, he can return with them to their village, and from there, find a path back to where he was before. Days pass and he arrives but not to the scene he expected. Here, instead of nine people, he sees only six, and they are all dead. They have been slain by violence and one of which managed to survive a bit after the battle. She wrote a note to her fellow people, and Alzar casts Comprehend Languages to understand it. It says that her group was attacked by number of humanoids that were working together, and took the other three prisoner, as well as the ore and raw gems they had mined. The note tells what direction they went, but the one who wrote it saw nothing else.

He sets off to find the Svartalfar. Without them, he does not know the way back to their place, and so he moves in after the bandits. If he can find them and pay for a hostage or free them by force, then he can find he route again. Without it he’s just wandering in the dark.


Alzar grabs the lens of Detection to track them like a Ranger could. Just 7 miles and two days later Alzar has fought through a swarm of flies and a giant spider’s web, and found an end to the trail left by those who slew and captured the miners. The trail moves up the right hand side of a vast cavern. The size of it gives people on top of the right side a good view of anyone coming up. Spying and Scrying shows that there is just one trail up, so it’s easily defended. There are a few rock vantage points to hide behind boulders and the trail enters a cave mouth. Alzar spies about 10 goblins at the top on guard. He summons a Vrock from the Orb and it casts Image. He will have it teleport to the mouth the cavern, preventing any from running in, right as he attacks. He grabs Zadaxx and rides it, while Zandran turns into a giant owl, and his familiars and Manticore join him.


He moves up and the Giant Owl and Manticore melee on the front while the demon moves in. The goblins use slings and such to attack at range, and Alzar flies it and leaps off, hewing a goblin with an axe. In two turns, all of the goblins are dead, and he has taken the top without incident. The Manticore used four spikes and has twelve left – it takes a week to grow them back.

Up come 27 skeletons to assist.

On top is a plaque carved into the wall with magic runes. Alzar’s Monocle shows it to be a curse to the “Bringers of Light.”

Alzar goes invisible and slips on the Elven Boots. He moves into the open cavern to see what it beyond. It’s about 25 feet tall and 40 feet wide. He moves in. While the front is natural, the inside is carved. It is a square 80 feet by 80 feet after the doorway. There are stairs down on the other side. There are 11 gnolls and 29 goblins in various positions on guard in here. Alzar’s hasn’t entered the area yet, but the Gem shows a trap about five feet in front of him. They are making noise which covered up the fight outside, so Alzar switches to Slippers of Spider Climb and moves to the ceiling. Without any traps up here, he moves in.

The stairs are blocked by a Wall from each other, so he can’t drop down and block anybody from moving down. He orders the group in, and just before they do, he drops a Wall of Ice blocking the way down across both stairs. Now all of the humanoids are trapped.

Battle begins. Sleep drops 6 goblins and next turn another 4. While just three skeletons die, the rest are taken out. 24 skeletons left after Alzar frees two in the net trap triggered that he avoided. They drop the Wall and Alzar moves to scout the next level.

Piece of Jade, 1000 gp
Quaal’s Feather Token, Arrow

There is an oddness to the stairs. Alzar uses his Gem and reveals the walls of the stairs have souls trapped in them from goblins. Creepy.

Three are two goblins standing at the end of the stairs sounding the alarm after seeing the Wall of Ice. Doors are opening and people are moving in for aid. Alzar had checked down there and had seen none on sentry duty, so they must have gotten lucky and walked by.

Alzar grabs the Stone, Mud Ring Spell and Orb and summons four 12 HD Earth Elementals due to the strong ground all around. They will form a vanguard of power to his force. The stairs are huge, and anything can fit down them, including the Earths and the Manticore. Out from various doors come two Hill Giants, two more goblins – 4 total, 6 trolls, 4 ogres, 10 gnolls, 1 giant troll and 1 mountain giant who is in charge of the whole operation.

Alzar’s troops move down. He orders the Vrock to the end of the great hallway to block any exit and the Manticore sprays and brings down three goblins. Alzar moves his skeletons in front to screen the Elementals and battle begins.

They win init. There are large pieces of furniture in the hallway, and the three giants throw them like boulders. They smash three skeletons dead. Attacks by goblinoids in the front slay another four skeletons and he has 17 left. The Earths move in behind the dead skeletons and smash kill an ogre and two gnolls. The skeletons take out the final goblin but little else. The Vrock slashes an Ogre in the back but it’s still alive. The Manticore sprays and slays a unwounded Ogre. Alzar casts Domination on a nearby Hill Giant and it works. The Giant joins his team.

Alzar’ group wins init. The ogre is finished by the Vrock and all other ogres bite. The dominated Hill Giant smashes his fellow with a giant club for 14 damage. The Elementals smash slay a gnoll too. The Manticore uses its final missiles to bring down a troll, and the Giant Owl finishes a gnoll. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir on the Mountain Giant and it fails its save, and it must throw a non-existent item again this turn. The Hill Giant attacks it’s peer and hits for 20. Two more skeletons are crushed – 15 skeletons remain.

They win init and the Mountain Giant retreats to the Vrock and attacks, but only smashes an Image. Their Giant smashes the dominated one for 17 and their trolls take out two skeletons. 13 left. The Elementals finish the gnolls. The Hill Giant misses theirs. Alzar Animates 12 dead behind their lines and sends them at the Mountain Giant. 25 skeletons left. Their line has mostly fallen, and the skeletons carve the remaining trolls which were already wounded.

They keep init. Their giant hits ours and slays it. Their Mountain tries to get around the flying Vrock but cant so he smashes and misses. Elementals slay their Hill Giant, Alzar stays behind and uses oil and fire to officially slay the trolls and the Vrock deals 15 to the Mountain Giant. The Manticore flew in and will attack it next turn and it takes 7 from skeletons.

Alzar wins init and finishes off the Mountain Giant.


Solo: 43 goblins; 21 gnolls, 4 ogres, 3 trolls, 2 Hill Giants, 1 Mountain Giant

Used: Sleepx2, Wall of Ice, Earth Elemental from Orb, Domination, Conjure Earth, Animate Dead

They search around the rooms on the second floor.

2500 gp in the Hill Giant’s lair
Troll lair leads off it and has nothing in it. Secret door found though – behind it is a secret room. This floor and wall has many carvings and such around it. The Gem shows a rotating door hidden in the carvings, from eh secret chamber, which is pushes into. On the other side is a small inset area.

Alzar, the Vrock, and a few skeletons move in here, but it’s not that big. The Gem shows a pair of secret doors leading from the chamber. One is a secret closet, which the skeletons open. Inside are:

3 strange hooded, magic robes
2 strange magical iron thuribles with iron chains
Iron Box, magical

The box won’t open. It has no cache. Alzar casts Knock and it opens. Inside are 18 small globes of Incense. He presses open a Thurible and it’s inner space is exactly the same size as a ball of incense.

The other secret door moves to a large space in the area. The skeletons open it and he moves in. There is dust all over, and a large shaft moving down. The Gem shows two more secret doors. The first on the other side of this room.

Akzar moves to it and opens it. Inside is a another secret closes opened by the skeletons. Inside is

4 more robes
Iron Horn with two handles, magic
4 iron holders
Iron Box. magical

Alzar can’t open the box. He grabs one of his Knock Scrolls and tries again. It opens and reveals 24 black cones. Each one fits into an iron holder.

With nothing else here, he returns to the other secret door. There is nothing back here but shattered items or those worn with age. Alzar returns and heads to the shaft down. Light illuminates hundreds of rungs down. Alzar takes a ball of incense and a cone of black and places them in an holder and thurible. He lights them and then blows the horn but nothing happens.

He climbs down the shaft by himself with the two items lit, hoping they might reveal something on the way. 333 rungs later Alzar arrives at the bottom. He had to use a second ball of incense, but the cone is still burning. He stands at a hallway and enters a small chamber. Light is dark here and extends very little.

There are magic runes at the bottom of this chamber “Look Above You to Know Your Fate”

Alzar looks up and spies three sets of runes that read:

“Those whom I find unfit I place on my left”

“Those who succeed I place on my right”

“The chosen may come before ME!”

The ceiling then fades to black as the runes disappear

Alzar moves forward. The light from the smoking black cone grows in this hexagonal room, but there are thick vapors here. Alzar tries the horn and the floor glows, brightens, and pulses. Something happens beyond the mist that is very cold, and Alzar cannot push through te mist. He moves the incense up, and notices a bit of retreat from the fog. He twirls the incense around dispersing it into the room and blowing away the magic fog.

A doorway has appeared with frigid cold descending. Alzar switches to Ring of Warmth from the Spell Turning one. He descends

Alzar has to light another black cone as it gives off light. This is a very cold circular room at the base of 50 stairs or so. There is a feeling of death ,wrongness, darkness and vileness beyond what Alzar normally feels. He moves to the south of the corridor and enters a hemispherical chamber of roughly 40’ diameter. The name comes unbidden to his mind of the name- the Black Cyst. There is some form in the middle of this chamber and Alzar gets closer. Is is so black that is it lightless. It absorbs all radiance from the torches.

The stone block is 12’ long, 4; high and 6’ wide. On it rests a shape wrapped in a black haze. Under the haze is something so black that It hurts to look at. As Alzar moves around the block, and uses the Gem, the entire place radiates magic. The altar has places for the cone torches and incense.

Alzar tries to wave the incense around and sheds the light but nothing. He tries the horn again and reverberations begin. After the room shakes, a doorway has opened in the other side of this chamber. Alzar moves to it. In here are 60 black cones and balls of incense, and the burners and rods for them. There are also two keys, but nothing else. Alzar returns to the altar-ish thing. He puts on the robe, places the torches and incense burners around, and lights everything, He places the two keys into a hole in a step in front of the altar, and turns, He doesn’t know which of those was needed, but an opening appears in a block underneath the step. Inside are the following three items –

A long tube of black metal – Wand of Force with 90 charges

A small black box of metal

A large bag of metallic black cloth with something n it.

Alzar opens the nice bag. There is a book here called Lament for Lost Tharizdun, and a takes 15 damage and blanks out for 3 rounds after opening it and using the Monocle on the magic inside. This is a unique book that tells the full story of the worship of this ancient temple and the creature who resided here, who was an avatar of Gontia, Goddess of Night and Ice. The box has a Cube of Force as one of its legs which Alzar takes, and he pockets it for later, when he has a Knock spell again

3x per day the wielder can use it to make a Wall of Force around himself, including up and down.


(Later inside alzar will find 5 5000 gp gems and 328 10 gp gems.)

Alzar moves back upstairs and moves to the two side rooms. Inside the first is a small magic orchard. There are metallic trees that are black, green, crimson, blue and purple and there have leaves and fruit. Alzar moves to a black trees and picks a fruit. It dissolves in his hand, and he gains a point in strength. This won’t do much, because his strength is now 17, but 18/00 with the gauntlets. Alzar moves to the green tree and picks a fruit but takes 27 damage from the shock. He moves to the crimson one and picks it, and again takes 25 damage. He quaffs four healing potions. He picks fruit from the Blue one and…gains a point of Intelligence. Alzar moves to the purple tree and picks a fruit, and loses 25 hp again from a shock.

(If done in a different order, Alzar could have gained a Con and Cha point as well)

Alzar moves to the other room, the one where found people according to the rune. This room is permanently black, and something moves to attack. Alzar backs up and it does not follow. He summons a Hezrou from the Orb and orders it in. It attacks something and Alzar dashes in. It’s a Shadow Demon they are fighting – too powerful to control.

After three rounds, the Hezrou is dead and the Demon is reeling. It slashes Alzar for 14 and then takes 16 back and dies. He finds a Wand of Light with 27 charges on the corpse.

After spending two hours down here, he returns. The Elementals will be out in about forty five minutes so he continues to explore this second level. A rear hallway has kitchens, a refectory, and two Annises in a kitchen. They are now free and getting ready to leave having been forced into servitude by the Mountain Giant. The evil hags thank Alzar for freeing them and then take off.

Alzar finds a moldering library that the ogres used as a home. He also discovers a scriptorium that has been converted to a supply closet with barrels of oil and a container of acid. They move into a room with several dire wolves kept as pets, and they attack. Alzar’s Elementals smash them and due to speed he will come back later to search.


(what they will find later)

-2 sword
Amethyst Chalice, 5000 gp; Jeweled Gold Flagon – 3500 gp; Ivory Box – 2000 gp; 2 small carved ivory tusks, 1000 gp each
4300 gp

Several other rooms are explored and empty. They come to the front of a temple. There are pillars and pews, aisle, and an altar and vestry. No creatures. The Elementals slay some Brown Mold and that’s it. Alzar grabs 3 Beads of Force from the magic area.

The Earths go and their magic ends. They explore the rest of this level of the temple. Alzar finds the cells and frees the three Svartalfar, as well as various dead creatures. They also find a spider lair with six huge spiders and slay the inhabitants. Alzar lost four skeletons in that battle.

The Spiders had:

500 gp gem
7x 50 gp gems
+1 dagger
Cloak of Protection +1
Human Sized Elven Chainmail
Scroll - Protection from Magic
11x Dust of Appearance


There is a door down to a dungeon level. Alzar has everything he came here for but since he’s here, he might as well finish it. He summons two Invisible Stalkers, goes invisible himself and explores with them.

There is a large room with four idols – one Black, one Red, one Green and one Blue. The Gem of Seeing shows magic, but Alzar can’t figure out how to work it. He moves on for now. There are three exits and six doors from this large square chamber. Alzar starts with the room on the south west and moves around the doors first.

This is a store room with food and supplies like shovels and rope used by the raiders above. The next is an empty room but there are footprints on the floor. The next door is another storeroom, but this one is in a mess, Nothing appears to be in here. Room #4 is a jumbled room with a damaged door. There some broken kegs that have made everything sticky and messy. Nothing is detected in here. (remember that Alzar is still invisible and has two stalkers with him ,the rest are upstairs. )

Room #5 has three goblins and Alzar’s Gem detects them as a creature taking the form of goblins. He orders the Stalkers to attack these Boggarts and he moves in as well. He takes 10 damage and a Stalker took 31 from lightning discharges.

He orders his undead down the stairs. The Manticore can’t come down. He summons a Vrock with the Demon Staff and a Glabrezu from the Orb.

Room #6 is a storeroom, but this one has a +2 battle axe in it. Alzar heads left and goes big with his skeletons leading the way. He and his Stalkers can’t be seen, but two demons and a bunch of skeletons can.

First room has two Otyughs here to eat trash and rubbish from above. There are a number of rats in the area. Alzar grabs his pipes of the Sewers and summons 8 giant rats from the area. He orders them to attack the Otyughs, and his follow. The rats are slain in three turns, but they give Alzar’s party time to slay the first and badly damage the second. It tries to hit a Vrock and slay an Image, and then dies.

The next room from a corridor out of here shows an empty and disused room. Alzar searches and finds nothing and then move to one of two rooms moving off from it. The first as nothing, but then a skeleton is attacked and slain by a jelly in the wall. Alzar’s powerful troops slay the Stunjelly in three turns with missile weapons and he moves on. The final corroder opens into a room with a giant pool that reaches into the depths. A Gem shows something down there. Skeletons cant; scout underwater so Alzar risks it.
Of course there is something down here – a grell.



Alzar is attacked by it and it misses after snapping tentacles at him. Alzar’s axe is out Battle begins.

Alzar wins init and carves into the Grell for 16 damage. It attacks back and Alzar takes 4 hits for 16 damage. His regeneration healed a lot since underground temple area, so he is fine. The grell wins and snaps him with 3 tentacles for 18 damage. These would cause paralysis, but Alzar’s Ring of Free Action prevents it. Alzar’s axe snaps once and twice for one hit of 18 damage, Alzar wins inti and finishes it off.

At the bottom is a Decanter of Endless Water and two Jars of Preserving that is a bit open and made this pool. Alzar caps it takes it.

This section is finished so he moves to the next one. The corridor ends at a door but turns right. The door opens into a torture chamber that is empty of anything valuable. The hallway moves to several doors on either side. The first is a crypt that was used by the servants of the temple. In here is a Guardian Daemon protecting the lair. Alzar recognizes it.

There are several sarcophagus being protected the area. Alzar runs back to the pool and summons a 12 hd water elemental from it., He then brings in two 8 HD airs. With his elemental squad and demons, Alzar returns to the crypt.

His troops moves in and the Daemon changes form and attacks! It wins init and attacks the wounded Invisible Stalker, which it can sense. He this twice and doles out 18 damage to it. It has an AC of just 1, but the Elementals and Demons and Stalkers are all high level creatures. They dole out 41 to it. It casts Heal on itself, healing it completely. Alzar’s group tears into it again, this time aided by Alzar’s double axe, and it falls. (It had 56 hp)

In here are:

10x5000 gp gems, 2x10000 gem, Platinum Mask, 12000 gp;
5x very old potions of Longevity, may not work.


They move to another door and this one is a another crypt but fully empty. A third door is another crypt and a casket has a +2 mace in it The last door is the final crypt. There is nothing here either.

Alzar returns to the main room and takes the final hallway.

It passes a shrine. It radiates evil and magic slightly but nothing else is here . Alzar even tried tossing coins into a fountain and nothing. They move on, and arrive at a Diamond Column.

The large 20’ corridor continues, but there is a diamond column in the middle. There are giant statues carved into the wall itself. Alzar has a skeleton move across them, and two animate to attack and smash it. They are Caryatid Columns and made of out a rough diamond like material. The Elementals move in to smash, and an Air Elemental is cut to pieces, but not before a column is smashed. The remaining group badly damages the last column, who misses, and then is slain. There is nothing else here. The diamonds melted as they died.

The tunnel ends in a huge cavern. There are several ways to move about and Alzar’s group moves in. They head to the east after Alzar spots something moving. There are two Meazels, small evil, powerful magic humanoids. The make no move to harm Alzar big party, and there is nothing magical here, so they move on.

Alzar checks out the rest of the cavern but there is nothing else back here. The temple has been fully explored.


Solo: 43 goblins; 21 gnolls, 4 ogres, 3 trolls, 2 Hill Giants, 1 Mountain Giant, Shadow Demon, 3 dire wolves, Brown Mold, 6 huge spiders. 3 Boggart, 2 Otyugh, Stunjelly, Grell, Guardian Daemon, 2 Caryatid Column,

Used: Sleepx2, Wall of Ice, Earth Elemental from Orb, Domination, Conjure Earth, Animate Dead, Knock

XP – 33620 XP total or very little indeed.

811,116 XP no

Alzar has his people carry the Ore back with his escorts, but they reach a place the next day that only the small creatures can move through as it is 2.5 feet tall. Alzar leaves behind his undead and Manticore, and grabs the Diminution Stone and shrinks – he follows them for a mile and then grows again.

They know ways to avoid most encounters here, and only two major battles occur in the 11 day trek to their home. Alzar handles a trio of harpies and sends an Umber Hulk fleeing after losing most of its hp. They arrive at the village, and Alzar finds out that his party was brought here by the other Svartalfar. Wassilon, Estaish, Carum, Aleigh and Maerie are here, plus his undead Gargoyles and Hell Hound.

The Gates of Firestorm Peak

This clocks in at #11 on the module list and is quite detailed and intricate. It’s high on power and low on rest. There is a huge pressure on the party to succeed with a clock running and all of these powerful enemies around – tons of them. There are going to be lots of enemies that hit very hard, are very smart, and die very quickly because they aren’t that tough, technically – so low XP. It’s an odd combination.

This is a controversial module, because a lot of old school players don’t like it that much. The same people who talk about the awesomeness of Temple of the Reptile God or The Vault of the Drow or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (yuck) also find things not to like with some of the later modules. A classic example is Ravenloft, the best selling D&D module of all time and Top 10 on the list of modules. It has a heavy handed plot that forces you to do things, and people rightfully point out modules such as Vault, Temple or Village of Hommlet that gave the DM the ability to craft their own adventures around the setting and the party. That’s true. But it’s a different sort of storytelling craft in Ravenloft and you can like both. Gates is often unloved because it prides itself on used the Player’s Option stuff, which, hello, we’re using. (Not most of the combat stuff though, it’s too complex – D&D is not a wargame). It’s also unloved because of the addition to Far Realm to the D&D mythos. People need to understand that by the time it was made, the game was more than 20 years old, and there had been tons of modules made. A lot of the “best of” modules that people like are pretty by the numbers to my mind – such as Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and the Forgotten Temple of Tharizun. There’s not much under the hood comparatively. Gates really does something new and its fresh. Plus, making these little Duergar the major villains for the first half in a very well conceived place and making them dangerous is really interesting. It’s worthy of a high spot, and we’re doing it.

I want to show off the interior art by Arnie Swekel but it’s hard to find. He used to live in the Detroit Metro area and was a huge fan of Magic. We played once in a large tournament, and I won so I asked him to sign a Swamp he drew and he did. I still have it in one of my decks. I’d love to show you some of the interior illustrations, but it’s hard to do so.

Allons-y!

Still reading along and excited to see the upcoming module is one that is 100% new to me.

Awesome!

Alzar stays here for three days, and Wassilon tells him that the locals have been increasingly offended by various things, and the village is getting harder and harder to sustain. The local mushrooms have been tainted in flavor and sustenance. A type of lizard used as a steed has become skittish and hard to use, some of the villagers have behavior that has become disturbed, and more. After living here for a while, the party has become sensitive to the unusual situation.

Wassilon has been informed that odd emanations have been occurring for a while now, maybe as long as 3 years. Wassilon connects Alzar with a local cleric. After casting Tongues, they have a conversation. About 27 years ago, an adventuring party of humans and a Dvergr entered the area under a Peak at the time that a certain comet was in the sky called the Dragon’s Tear. It caused a certain set of gates underground to open up for the 28 days it is in the sky, and afterwards, the doors close when it leaves. These giant gates are ancient, and speak of an old era bygone. The gates won’t open for another two weeks, but there is an UnderDeep entrance to the area the gate guards that merchants sometimes take. It’s a week out of the way to get there though.

There is an outpost of a rare Dvergr sub-race called the Duergar. They have magical powers, and some communities tend to be mentally unbalanced due to the way they are raised, but there are exceptions. This one is an example. They have been in the area for more than 200 years, guarding what is behind the gates. Their most powerful magic items are their ability to turn invisible at will and to enlarge or shrink items or themselves.

After finding out more information about the outpost, the Gates, and the incoming comet, Alzar starts investigating with divination and scrying. After a week, he believes that the two are connected, and the emanations are of a highly unusual form of corrupted magic coming from the outpost. Alzar gathers his party and allies, and they move out.

For this adventure, Alzar has given each of the fighters and thieves two packs of Dust of Appearance. Due to his intelligence, Alzar can sense where invisible things are.

It takes six days to arrive at the gates, and Alzar and his party wait a day and then they open when the Dragon’s Tear Comet is in the sky. Alzar and his party move in. A corridor 20’ wide and equally high leads to the east behind the doors. The walls and floor are perfectly smooth and ancient. Alzar has summoned a Babau, since he does not know what may be inside but they are a demon that automatically sees invisible. Because he had to leave them behind, Alzar currently has no undead beyond the Hell Hound and Gargoyle cloaked skeletons.

Invisible, Alzar notices a shimmer on the floor and reaches down to pick it up. It’s a caltrop with poisoned smeared on it that has been turned invisible. It’s made from a rare metal that is clear like glass and strong like steel. These Duergar are prepared for the gates opening. Alzar wishes he had the time to go around in the UnderDeep to their back entrance, but he didn’t. So, he has to smash through the front door. There is a large 10’ stone wall with no door or window facing him and preventing access deeper to the room. On top are spikes and barbs pointing down. The craftsmanship is crueler, and this is obvious Duergar work. Alzar invisibly collects the Caltrops and stores them so there is no chance someone will step on them.

With his Axe, Alzar casts Passwall on the wall to create a hole and then goes invisible again. He sees nothing behind it, but there is the telltale shimmering he expects from invisible. It appears the guards have magically enlarged themselves as well as going invisible. Alzar returns to give that news to his party and they are prepared. He will move back in, and they will flank him. Then the babau will teleport behind the opened wall and attack while the gargoyles fly over and assault their position. With attacks from behind and above, Alzar and party will hit from below and overwhelm their defenses.

Here we go.

Alzar wins init. The babau is behind the four Duergar guards, and the gargoyles are flying over to attack. His party is in position, and two guards attack gargoyles and miss because their polearms aren’t magic, and they turn visible. They win init and two attack the demon and both miss it’s very low AC. They have enlarged damage multipliers as well if they hit. The others move from the gargoyles to attacking the hole in the wall at the bottom and cleave it. They miss the party because Alzar is in front but they have shot at attacking him despite his invisible state, because their knowledge of invisibility is better than most. The babau attacks the magically enlarged Dvergr subrace and misses once, and hits for 13 damage. The gargoyles deal 12 to another. Alzar cleaves the legs from one for 14 damage. The fighters finish off that one. Alzar’s group them wins init. Damage from the gargoyles badly wounds theirs, and Alzar finishes it. The demon finishes his and the fighters tag team (double attacks this round) to claim the fourth. These small creatures retain their hp level when growing.

Behind this wall is a tightened gate. It is made by walls built on the left and right, bringing the room down to a 20 foot arch, with walls behind it stretching for at last 15 feet, creating an ad hoc gatehouse. Alzar moves back to scout and discovers many more invisible and enlarged sentries here, ready to attack.

Alzar backs up and readies an assault force. He casts Conjure Elemental, uses the Stone and Mud Ring and summons three Earth Elementals, each 12 hd strong. He has his fore charge in, led by the elementals and with the gargies and giant owl flying overhead. Add a teleport in by the bebau and the fighters and you’ve go yourself a melee!

The Elementals move in and are attacked by the giant polearms of the duergar before they get into range. The one in front takes 22 from several attacks as they become visible. Alzar casts Sleep and drops three and there are five left. They shout for aid. Behind them are two boltholes just large enough for a small Duergar to come through, and a passageway to the forward left. The Hell hound misses. Battle begins.

They win init. Five pikes cleave into an injured elemental, two hit for 18 damage total. It has 21 hp left. The Elementals smash slay two and the fighters a third from missile weapons The gargoyles mostly miss or deal small damage. There are only two left, but out of the boltholes pour more who grow and movein. There must be another rthree…no…five…no…ten more coming out. From either side.

They win init again. The two lft miss. The ten reach melee range. Alzar casts another sleep and drops two. Another dies from an Elemental and the demon lays a fourth. The fighters mostly miss or deal little damage and the gargoyles push one to 3 hp left. 8 duergar remain.

They win init yet again. Pikes and Ranseurs carve the Elemental and destroy it. The fighters finish the injured one and badly injure another. The gargoyles finish a second. The two elementals left each miss. The demon stabs one down to 5 p and the giant owl finishes it off. The Hell Hounds ignites one with its flame breath and Alzar stabs it with a dagger from 20 feet away to finish it off, four left.

Alzar’s group wins init and finishes them off. With 22 corpses here, Alzar casts Animate Dead and makes 12 skeletons their normal size. He grabs the Stone of Dimunution and moves up the right bolthole with a skeleton escort. In here is a barracks sized for Duergar at their normal size, and secret bolthole door that Alzar opens that leads to a normal sized hallway. The other bolthole is to a similar barracks with a secret door bolthole on the other side too, and it leads to a cave with nothing in it, but it continues on.

Alzar returns and his party has cleaned up. He moves to the hallway forward left, because he can’t take his whole party through the other ways. This is a long carved and paved tunnel 120’ straight. While walking down, a skeleton triggers a trap and falls into a pit. Wassilon and Maerie move to the front and discover three more pit traps in the corridor that they disarm. The door at the end of the corridor opens after being picked, and they move into a cave. This case is roughly worked, and about 40’ x 30’. There are exits to the front, left, and front left. There is also a door hat won’t work, and some old trap mechanism in the room that no longer functions.

As they begin to move into the complex, this whole place has a sense of oddness, like things are a bit out of sorts.

The Gem reveals that a person is under a rockfall in here, and it’s an old boulder trap. The Elementals dig in and after a few moments, a corpse is revealed. It belongs to a bard adventurer who was probably a member of that party that came through a the last time the gates were open. There is a pouch that includes a diary page which discusses an Alienist named Madreus who is trying to command powers that will drive men mad, and unleash them on the world. The only way to stop it it to refocus a gate to another place by finding three components of crystal. On the corpse of Derek Windcaller can be found:

Ring of Sustenance
+2 Broadsword, +3 vs goblinoids, orcs and regenerators

They take the left passage out, and Alzar finds a side tunnel that takes him to the room on the other side of the bolthole from the right of the entrance. The tunnel ends at a cave with the giant skeletons. These aren’t normal skeletons, which happen to be giant. They throw fireballs at the skeleton in front as Alzar moves in and tries to control them. They wipe out the skeleton and Alzar takes 44 damage from all three. Then he tries and he managed to control one, but not the other two. Everybody else move sinto range.

Alzar’s group wins init. The Elementals and demon attack the skeleton in front. It has an AC od 4 and that’s pretty easy by now. It takes 30 damage from them. Gargoyles follow and finish it off. The fighters slice deep into the other, an Alzar finishes it with his axe. Two dead and one controlled.There is nothing in the room

15/59 hp – Alzar

Giant Skeleton – AC4, 33 hp, 1d12+3 with sword, or 8d6 fireball once per turn.

They return and take the forward left exit. It Ys and Alzar heads left. They arrive at a room that widens just a bit from the natural cave tunnel and then continues. Inside the room is an undead which may not be turned or controlled called a Crypt Thing. It’s special power is a mass teleport away, which is uses now, and NMany fail their save and disappear!

Alzar failed as well and is gone! Estaish takes command and orders full throttle attack. Fire, demon, elemental, and more attack into it and take it out the next turn. There is nothing in here, and he has the group move on. The tunnel continues and a branch to the left has a pit trap in it that leads to a room with four Wraiths ready to attack. Alzar and his teleported helpers arrived in this room and he controlled them. Down here is:

788 gp
+2 dagger, +4 vs trolls
2 pots of extra healing
12 +2 arrows

The path continues and doubles back on the one that was on the Y, but not before widening again into a room which is empty. Alzar returns and takes the route forward from the first room. The debris scattered passageway opens into a cavern some 40’ wide and an equal amount across. In the center of the room Is is the beginning of a steep narrow stone staircase leading down into unlighted depths. Alzar moves in and uses the Gem n the room but finds nothing. Megala flies down and looks, and the stairs end in a iron door. A skeleton walks down an d triggers a trap. The staircase becomes a slide, the door fall down, and the skeleton falls into a pit of acid. Then the trap resets. 8 skeletons left. Maerie manages to disarm one trigger mechanism and Wassilon the other, but the entire staircase is just one trap that goes nowhere.

The passage continues and winds to the left. Corridors split off from both directions from the main tunnel, and Alzar checks out the one on the left first. In here is a large cavern with many giant scorpions. Alzar leads with his gargoyles and wraiths, since they may not be damaged by normal weapons. While the claws all miss, the poison from their stingers stabs into a Wraith and slays it. Two scorpions fall and the army of Alzar moves in. Damage is doled out accordingly. The Scorpions win init and stab into another Wraith and slay it, while fists and weapons slice four dead. Alzar orders the gargoes to fly into the air while they mess with the wraiths. The wraiths finish one as Alzar wins init. The Elemntals slay another and his ax bites and slays a third They damage a wraith bu t don’t bring it down. They win init and finish off the wounded wrath and hen Alzar’s group slays the remaining four scorpions

The gem finds magic in the seam of a nest used to house their eggs. It’s a whistle and Alzar does not recognize it:


The Whistle, “Nightcaller”

The corridor branching off to the right stopped abruptly ay a small room with a pool of fresh water in it only a few inches deep. There appears to b nothing else here and th corridor is used. Another pair of tunnels branch off, this time both to the left. The first ends in a rough cavern about 25 by 30 feet and with debris and shadows but nothing else. The next is chamber that widens to the back, forming two large caverns. There doesn’t appear to be anything of interest in either of them, and the floor is wet and muddy. As they move in, a party of 20 large bats flies down to attack. Alzar orders everyone back and a blastbones clears them out, save for three who were outside the zone of danger and fly away.

The demon’s time is up and Alzar summons a Glabrezu instead. The corridor is about to end, the presence of a horribly rand putrid odor can be detected. The stone floors and walls in the caveway have been coated with a sticky resin or secretion. Bolted into the end of the tunnel as it opens into a cavern are six sets of manacles, and Duergar bones about them. The vast cavern opens, and inside are a large number of carrion crawlers. They are content to watch the party and are not attacking. It appears that this is the execution chamber for the society next door. They lock someone in and the Crawlers eat them. It takes a bit for Alzar to finish exploring the chamber, and they exit by a tunnel on the right. It leads into the UnderDeep, and this is the back exit. Alzar and company arrive at a door that UnderDeep merchants and such would use. They have been informed of an invasion at the gate and are on the lookout.

Alzar greets them, but no one is to be permitted past this point under any circumstances. He thanks them for their time, casts Passwall with his axe again, and his group moves in, with the Elementals moving behind a group of skeletons as shields. . As they move in, 10 Duergar already grown fire crossbows at the hole made and destroy two skeletons. Half drop their crossbows and grab pikes and move to a defensive position to protect the crossbowmen. Alzar casts Hypnotize and four fail their saves and skip their next turn. Battle begins.

The Elementals smash and slay a piker, and another falls to Maerie’s dagger. Gargoyles finish a third. Then a concentrated attack on an Earth Elemental brings it down despite it’s undamaged state. They win init and with four more attacks bring down the other and hit Carum for 11 damage. The glabrezu smashes one and slays it. Carum;s spear stabs another in the knee for death and the pikemen have all fallen. Alzar has Megala claw one for 2 damage and it makes its save vs poison. Zadran, the owl, smashes for 7 damage and 2 on the same one. Alzar flings a dagger into its face for 12 damage and slays it. They win init and hit Carum twice more for another 18 damage. Alzar’s team finishes them.

Alzar’ group searches, finds nothing and continues to a section of new tunneling that is not natural like the previous place, or made long ago like the place they entered. Its practical, and within the last 200 years. They have finished the tunnels and entered the Mines.

Slain – 32 Duergar, 3 Giant Skeletons, Crypt Thing, 13 Giant scorpion, 17 large bats,

Used – Conjure Earth Elemental, Stone and Mud Ring Elementals, Sleepx2, Animate Dead, Blastbones, Passwallx2, Hypnotize,

Alzar – 20/59 hp
Estaish –69 HP
Carum –52/81 HP.
Wassilon – 56 hp
Aleigha –72 hp
Maerie –61 hp

They move forward and enter a network of mining tunnels. There aren’t an Duergar in here right now, and they move down first one, and then the other. They come across a giant rift in the ground. This is the trash of the Duergar. All corpses, food, refuse, broken items, and more are tossed down here. Alzar orders Zadaxx out and hey fly over 1000’ to the ground. He expects a nasty odor as they close, but nothing. He sees instead about 30 gelatinous cubes down here cleaning the entire area. He flies back up and they move on. They arrive at a mine station where the corridor opens up into a very large chamber 30 feet by 50 feet with seven mining carts lined along the western wall There are mining implements in rack, three giant spiders called Steeders in unusual harnesses and three Duergar feeding them and tending to their needs. Alzar’s party appears to be ignored, so he moves in and talks to one, going with the cover of trading items from the UnderDeep. He asks about the Steeders and they let him pet one. They tell him that they sell some in the bazaar inside their place, and just to follow this tunnel down. Alzar thanks them, and his menagerie of Hell Hound, gargoyles, undead, Svartalfar, humans, and a demon continue on.

They pass a chamber where another large spring opens, on the other side of the spring in the first chamber in the caves. It has a large pool and 5 Duergar are bathing off the mining dust. He continues and arrives at mess hall with 8 Duergar eating and 3 goblin slaves serving food. His party continues on and moves closer and closer back to their original entry way. Fifty feet move and they pass a jail cell with 20 goblins slaves – their home.

The corridor opens ahead into a 20 x 20 room with three figures standing here on duty. They hold polearms and look ready to use them. There are flagons and a vessel of the Duergar ale called cresch. Alzar detects an invisible Duergar that sees them and retreats back down the passage to the other side of this chamber. They demand to see Alzar’s goods. He reaches into his Otherspace and pulls out the casks of wine from the Døkkálfar. They inspect them and approve his travel. Two escort his party while the other remains on watch. They escort his party 80 down and they arrive in a large chamber identical to the one they entered behind the gate initially. They are right behind that chamber, but they have pilled tons of rocks against the wall to prevent a Passwall spell from working and giving someone like Alzar immediate entrance. Smart

They pass through and to several rooms. The first is a cluttered chamber with the nephelium ore that is translucent like glass. It has been smelted into rods, ingots, and such. Then they enter the smeltery where eight Duergar smelt ore from the mines. The entire time they have been following the track of the ore carts and now they end at an elevator. The Duergar escorting Alzar’s party arrive and each enlarges a small piece of rope attached to it. Now it fits into the pulley system, and Alzar’s party is taken down an elevator to the lower level.

It opens to another storage area for nephelium but this is where the ore has been turned into items. Behind is a tunnel that opens into the nephelium forge. They are escorted left from the elevator and arrive at a large, two level bazaar.

Before them is a tremendous open space, obviously carved from the rock ages ago. It’s a 140 x 80 foot promenade that has tents and stations where people shop, and magical lights keeping enough light to se by. Duergar are milling around and shopping. Several duergar on steeders walk the ledges and walls of the place on guard. There is a balcony level above on the level that Alzar just left, and many rooms and doors can be soon opening off it on both levels

The guards escorting him leave and he enters. Luckily he doesn’t seem that out of place. He can see many duergar vendors, but also a few Døkkálfar, a few Svartalfar, two humans, and even a Mind Flayer. He decides to explore to see what can be bought here. There are 25 stands up and running. They are selling, in order:

Nephelium Sheets and Rods
Goblin Slaves
Medicinal Lichen and Fungi
Gemstones and Jewelry
Cresch
Steeders
Steeder Accessories
Sweatmeats
Handicrafts and Decoratives
Spices and Legumes
Grilled Meat, including stirges
Charms and Fortunes Read
Soapstone Sculptures
Slaves Accessories
Furniture
Household Items
Maps, Compasses, Chalk and More!
Fried Crayfish and Blind Fish
Duergar Adult Entertainment
Poisons
Pets
Personalized Mining Equipment
Games of Chance
Decorative Fungi
Coffee and other Stimulants
Grain Alcohol

Alzar is immediately drawn to a few. He begins with the Duergar at the poison tent. There’s nothing too special here, and ends up buying nothing. The next place that picks up his interest is the Døkkálfar at the maps store. He is from the city Alzar will be visiting soon, and he buys a map of it for 10 gp. He also has a special UnderDeep compass that detects not only directions, but also the nearest source of water. That’s 25 gp and well spent.

UnderDeep Compass; Map of City

The next stall of interest is the one selling jewelry. Alzar would like to convert some of his heavier coins into lightweight jewelry. He ends up cleaning out three bags of holding plus some coinage in OtherSpace and loses 10% to make it lighter.

The pets booth is selling things such as eyewings and other friendly underground creatures. There’s nothing here of worth. The steeders are interesting, but again, nothing of major value. His party can’t ride them – they are too large. And Wassilon doesn’t know how,

As Alzar wraps up his shopping, suddenly a group of 12 Duergar emerge from the side tunnels and the 12 on Steeders above move to drop down. Behind them, a cleric opens a door and steps out and addresses the group. He is the chief priest, and Alzar and his group are demanded to surrender and come with him, he knows they are the group that broke through the gate.

Alzar tries to decide what to do. He dismisses things such as Hypnotize or Sleep - none would work on the 24 giant Duergar facing his party. He doesn’t have any heavy hitters right now , just the Glabrezu and his fighters/thieves plus folks like the hell hound and gargoyles and the undead giant skeleton and wraith and skeletons. He considers and dismisses a Wall of Ice or Fog to cover a fighting retreat. Similarly, a spell like Skulltrap would hit too many civilians, and he doesn’t want to add a bunch of combatants that grow or others like Mind Flayers or Døkkálfar. There is no Deus Ex Machina that will pull his party out of this or swing the momentum to him and his. Any battling would be tough and rough. No potion, no scroll, and no spell will protect not only Alzar, but his party as well. This is going to be tough. Alzar reaches for his Bag and pulls out the Horn of Valhalla.

“If I blow this horn, it will bring a lot of pain to you and yours.”

“I heal pain. I also inflict it. Men, ready?”

Alzar was hoping to delay the battle by a bit, by making a weak bluff. He blows and summoned 9 level 2 berserkers and ordesr them to fight the 12 Duergar on the ground with undead support while his army save the Glabby focuses on the mounted ones and Alzar focuses on the priest. Meanwhile, the priest casts Silence on Alzar and it fails. The Glabby is powered on the priest with a Power Word Stun.

Melee range is reached and battle begins.

This will come down to who wins init. They win init. Four berserkers are slain. The Priest casts Flame Strike on Alzar and he takes 18. He has 10 left. The mounted ones carve deeply into several fighters. Then the fighters reciprocate. Two knights are taken down, the berserkers slay one, and the undead manage another. The civilians are mostly leaving, although five have grown and join the fray. The glabby’s Stun works, and the Priest is stunned for 6 rounds. Alzar casts Vampiric Touch on a nearby Steeder that broke through and slays it for 22 hp, which he gains.

They win again. The berserkers are down to two and they slay a skeleton. The giant owl smashes a Steeder for death, and the glabby finishes a soldier on the ground. The gargoyles take out one and Estiash carves the legs off a steeder. There just aren’t a lot of spells to help right now, so Alzar casts Vampiric Touch from a ring to slay a Duergar and be fully healthy again.

On the next round, Alzar’s group wins init. The undead manage one more and the demon adds a second. Carum spears a Steeder and the Hell Hound breathes and slays a mounted Duergar. Alzar grabs his axe and moves into battle, slaying a wounded civilian that joined the battle right by him. They hack away two skeletons and all of the berserkers, and then damage Carum badly and he pulls back from the front line. Right by Alzar enters a dvergr, not a Duergar, and silence reigns. He orders Alzar’s retreat, and appears a bit crazy. Half of his face is wriggling and swollen and it appears there is something under there. Since he is right by Alzar, he moves in with his axe to face this dvergr.

At that point, battle stops. Alzar has officially challenged the leader of the duergar, and they don’t like him at all, not only because he’s weird and infected, but also because he’s not one of them.

(for duels, we alternate initiative, and don’t roll)

The dwarf spits some sort of slug from his mouth to try and hit Alzar with it. It misses. He moves his axe at Alzar and hits, but actually misses, due to the cloak. Alzar’s axe is up as well. It doesn’t have a plus vs Wellfast because he’s chaotic evil, but Alzar rolls an 11 and hits for 10 damage, and then switches weapons to a +3 axe. Wellfast swings and rolls a 5 and misses. Alzar’s axe is out and swings and misses. (both fighters have good AC – Alzar’s is -3 and Wellfast’s is 0).

Wellfast is the first to connect dealing 14 damage with Axe Specialization, a +3 axe and strength, and Alzar returns the favor with 14 back. Wellfast attacks twice and hits once, missing once for 15 damage. Alzar attacks twice and hits twice for 28 damage.

Wellfast misses, Alzar misses. Wellfast hits twice and Alzar takes 24. Alzar has 21 hp left. He stabs Wellfast for 14 damage and then follows with a grab of a potion on his belt (he can use his free hand when battling with just an axe, as a reminder). Wellfast attacks and misses. Alzar doesn’t and deals another 12 and quaffs the potion of speed, and he now attacks twice as much Wellfast ends the turn by spitting another gibberslug and missing.

Wellfast stabs Alzar for 16 and Alzar attacks four times and hits three for 42 damage. Wellfast is reeling. He misses, and Alzar attacks twice, hits once for 19 and finishes off Wellfast.

With his victory over Wellfast, Alzar claims the Dvergr’s belongings and rulership of the tribe. He orders the awakened priest to heal him and his party and he does.

+3 Battle Axe
+1 Ring of Protection
+3 Chain mail, acts as Feather Fall 3x daily

Alzar orders the Duergar to take him to Wellfast’s chambers and offices and they do. The priest is ordered to follow. The only item of note in here is a Scroll of Protection from Possession and a secret door to a room with a large crystal rod and a chest made by Illithids and trapped. The priest and Alzar sit and have a chat. Alzar explains that he has no intention of ruling the Duergar, he is here to explore the strangeness that emanates from deeper in the complex. Perhaps he’ll stop it, and perhaps not, but that’s the goal. The Priest gives him the backstory.

Twenty- Eight years ago, a party of three adventurers arrived here and broke through to that area. Wellfast returned changed, slew the chieftain and chief priest and ruled. There have been many examples of corruption here, creeping through the walls and such. His people came here a few hundred years ago to mine the nephelium. A while back, a crazy sorcerer arrived and penetrated to the back of the cave, and then forced them to change their main goal to keep out intruders. Wellfast was sent to force them to do so and has been a cruel ruler of the Duergar.

The priest doesn’t know everything that is going on, but it is clear that some baleful influence is corrupting the area and beyond, and it has increased in power the last few years There is a passageway there that the Duergar guard to make sure nothing comes up it, because sometimes foul beats stumble up that must be slain. It’s a half mile up. There are also some Duergar that were taken by the sorcerer some time ago as slaves. The pries gives Alzar a diary written by one of the adventures named Nigel, for him to read further.

The priest shows Alzar’s party where the entrance to the Twisted Caverns are, and they leaves. Meanwhile, Wassilon and Maerie figure out how to open the Illithid chest, and inside is a book written in Illithid braile. It’s a Tome of Clear Thought.

Alzar and his party are now leaving the Outer Complex and entering the Twisted Caverns. They slept and recovered spells. Alzar placed a Dire Charm in the Ring of Spell Storing and learned two Vampiric Touches. He animated another 12 skeletons before they rested. He has also read the diary.


Slain – 42 Duergar, 3 Giant Skeletons, Crypt Thing, 13 Giant scorpion, 17 large bats, 4 Steeder

Used – Stone and Mud Ring Elementals, Passwallx2, Speed Potion,

Many millennia ago the forerunners of the Døkkálfar built a great complex of rock here. They were mighty in word and deed, and their magic was at a level beyond any others of their age. Here a magical research laboratory and workshop was constructed out of the rock. They explored and produced great magics and created fields of study. They began to forge portals and ways to move across the gulf to other planes and worlds in the multiverse.

Eventually they decided to build one great gate that would surpass all others, they named the Vast Gate. They wanted to create a gate so powerful it could reach any world at any distance. Over a century, they constructed their masterpiece. The power needs of the Vast Gate were beyond their ability, so they tied to the Dragon’s Tear comet. The vast mystical energies it has served as a reservoir for running the Vast gate. Therefore, every twenty eight years, for twenty eight days, the Vast Gate opened. It has the power to reach the unreachable. The first three times it opened, the Døkkálfar were quite pleased with their calibrations and the worlds they reached. The worlds were new and unusual.

However, their fourth time they calibrated the Vast Gate and it reached to a world and perhaps a time so different that it was wholly unlike our own. It was beyond our multiverse and outside of our logic. It was a place with its own geometry. There were inhabitants abiding beyond the hate but were they truly alive by our understanding of the term? This lunatic vision of incomprehensible beings warped reality around them in horrid ways by their very presence. The lethal contradictions in physical laws came into existence as they crossed the threshold and entered our world.

Desperate to close the portal, the Elder Elves began, but before they finished, a powerful entity from the other side came onto our world to visit out of curiosity. It’s very presence twisted our reality and death followed it. Bored it returned, but not before slaying most of the ancient ones. They fled, but before they did, they closed the outside Gates with great magic, and tied it to the Tear, so they could only open once in 28 years. The Vast Gate and they close as the comet leaves, but open as it returns.

This was imbued to Nigel after much divination and research, but he does not know about the Duergar and when they came, or the vile Aiienist Madreus, who is said to have come here decades and decades ago for research.

As they move closer to the source of the Vast gate, Alzar is struck by the increasing sense of life being off. It is increasingly uncomfortable. A chill comes to the air, but skin is warm. It’s a cold of the soul. There is a disquieting sense of palpable wrongness here.

The party nears the caverns, and Alzar summon aid – a Vrock from the Orb, an Earth Elemental from his spell, and both Invisible Stalkers. it’s just a little too soon to use items that recharge daily – no Stone or Ring yet.

The rough tunnel opens into a larger cavern of irregular shape. Rocky columns hide the full extent of the room but from the tunnel entrance can be seen several 5’ heaps of earthy material scattered throughout the large chamber.

Alzar turns invisible and sneaks up to a mound. It doesn’t look alive. It slips back and he orders a skeleton forward with a stick. It pokes into an earthy clump and suddenly, it turns into a lump of flesh all eyes and mouths that begins to burble. The other mounds do so as well. These are Gibbering Mouthers, from the realm on the Vast Gate. It appears that over the millennia some creatures from the Gate entered the world on its various openings, and the Mouthers were one such creature.

They scream and the party has to roll a save or be confused. Estaish and Wassilon are confused, and no one else is. Alzar orders undead, elementals and demons to handle this. They are not foes for creatures of flesh to fight. They can attack with 5 mouths on one person. They are nasty brutal creatures, but they have low hit points and are easy to slay. The undead, unbothered by them attack and two die. The demon dices the third badly and the Hell Hound finishes it off with its breth. There are four more. They attack and slay six skeletons. Alzar’s group finishes them off.

There is no treasure in this large cavern. The corridor continues on forward. Right and left. There is a corruption in the walls itself. This used to be a built complex of rock, but over the years ,some creatures have chewed the walls and claws marks have rend them and no it almost looks like a natural cave system.

Alzar heads left. There is a small corridor about 8’ wide and a side tunnel to the left Alzar hits up. The floor of this large irregular cavern is covered with what appear to be skins of various underdeep creatures. There are also many skins not identifiable. Dozens of jabbering hunchbacked humanoids dance a lunatic waltz about the chamber, accompanied only by their hoarse shrieks. Several of the creatures are larger than the others, and they are giving orders. Underneath them appear to be small creatures writhing inside their skin. These gibberlings are the remnants of some lost humanoid race that encountered the corruption from the Far Realm and this is the result.

The large gibberlings with the slugs underneath order the pack to attack Alzar’s group. He casts Skulltrap and drops 25. The rest come on, and the powerful ones aren’t really badly damaged by the Skulltrap.

Battle begins. They win init and the Earth Elemental takes 17 damage from the broods and the remaining gibberlings. Alzar’s group slays the five left. He throws a dagger into a wounded brood and slays her. Four brood gibberlings are left. They attack and dash the Elemental for 8 more and Alzar’s finishes them/. There is no treasure here. Alzar animates 12 and then 12 more skeletons.

The tunnel continues. Twenty more gibberlings haunt this cavern and Alzar loses 7 skeletons slaying them. They continue on and arrive at a cavern where a Duergar and a Døkkálfar are hosting gibberslugs and alive. There is nothing Alzar can do for them, so he slays them to end the process. He finds on their bodies:

623 gp

The longsword Bloodfear – A +3 sword that absorbs blood during combat = for every 20 points of damage vs a flesh entity with blood, the sword gets +1 in damage to a total of +7, after which is drops back to just +3 because it’s satiated and has to be built back up again.

There are a few dead ends back here, but Alzar is brought back to the same corridor he left, just 250 feet down chamber. Here is a giant colony of Gibberlings. There appear to be 100 of them here, plus the 8 Brood Gibberlings. Alzar orders everyone to step back and moves in, revealed. He shines a light at them, and they turn. They are ordered to charge him and slay him and he is just outside of the corridor. As they do, he uses the Orb to cast Earthquake at the ceiling, and drops it on them. He slays more than 50 and another 15 squeeze through and are dispatched by his army. The rest are buried and extricating themselves. He orders his group to retreat to the first cavern, and head right.

They head right and arrive at a cavern after a tunnel. A small pack of 12 gibberlings are snacking on a corpse. They are alerted and charge, and Alzar loses two skeletons before they die.

They move around for twenty minutes, checking out one tunnel or another. The Vrock’s time is up and Alzar summons another. They can’t find anything major, until they uncover a room with three exits. The first enters a very low cavern, ceiling rising to just 5 feet near the center. A mound of thick soil reaches up to the ceiling forming a fat natural pillar. Remembering the gibbering mouthers, Alzar orders bolts shot into it, and it screams. It’s a giant one. It’s screaming causes Maerie, Aleigha and Estaish to be confused. Alzar orders missile attacks against it as it closes ranks. The fireball from a Giant Skeleton deals 20 damage. It closes and attacks the Wraith, slaying it. Alzar’s fighters and army dole out 41 damage total and finish it off.

This cave heads nowhere else, so they move to the center passageway. It enters a medium cavern that appears empty. There is no evidence of lair or nest. Rough pillars of rock formed of calcite and aragonite break up the chamber in random symmetry, making it impossible to view the entre extend of the hollowing from one observation point. A large pile of rubble rests against the southeastern wall and the dampness of the earth looks recently disturbed. There is the gleam of metal and maybe even the hilt of a sword from there.

He orders the troops to fire into the fresh mound trying to see if another mouther is there, but nothing. A skeleton moves across. As it reaches the mound, suddenly a mass of eyes on stalks, tentacles and mouthed tentacles emerge from the ground. One casts Hold Person on the party and no one is paralyzed. Another has a giant sword in its grip and a third a magic wand that spits magic missiles at Alzar for 7 damage. The others move to attack and the skeleton is destroyed.

Battle begins against this Deepspawn, from the Far Realm

Alzar’s team wins init finally. Invisible Stalkers are ordered to face the wand tentacle while the demon goes head to head with a sword one and the others are undead targeted. The Undead stab a mawed tentacle and the others bite and slay a second skeleton. Alzar finishes the round by using the Mud Ring to clean out the rock in the bottom of the floor and expose the Deepspawn hiding below. Alzar took 6 from two missiles.

It wins init and slays two skeletons and Alzar takes another r9 from two magic missiles. The sword carves into a Vrock image and the Earth Elemental pushes it in the body for 16 damage. It takes another 26 damage from ranged weapons from the fighters and hellhound and the gargoyles flying it against its body . It casts Heal on itself, and then Alzar takes another 7 damage. They carves the tentacles gone and the body takes another 32 damage. It moves to flee and Alzar’s team finishes it off.

+2 Two Handed Sword
Wand of Magic Missiles – 2 charges

A large crystal rod

2 potions – Fire Breath and Diminution

This chamber enters another with a large amount of fungus. Alzar recognizes a rare mushroom called Darkscape. It’s famous in manuals as a massive intoxicant. If you eat one of those its like drinking tons of alcohol. It’s also a powerful narcotic and pain reliever. Alzar cuts twenty of them for storage.

This chamber ends and they take the third one out of the room. It moves south and hits a room that has five exits. A small widening of the tunnel ahead forms a small chamber from which a total of four other tunnels branch. Standing guard are four tall, gangling humanoid figures with mottled skin and sharp claws on their hands. These are trolls, but not as Alzar knows them. They have been severely mutated and some have extra arms, extra legs, purple skin, warts, vestigial wings, and so forth. A large drum stands in the middle of their guard post, with a drum stick in the hand of a maiden. There are four of them total. They do not bang their drum at Alzar, and instead peer at him and his group closely and menacingly. Alzar casts Tongues and speaks with them. He wants to come through to go elsewhere. They do not want him to enter, and there is no exit from their chambers, save for one way through the northeast corridor leaving this room. It is not their complex, and they will not fight if Alzar leaves now and goes that way. He does and moves on.

In the next chamber it is wide and clean and empty. There’s an exit to the southeast. Before Alzar leads his party there he goes invisible and takes the Spider Climb Slippers. He wants to go explore the troll mutates chambers. The three chambers behind this one are a nursery and home of the matriarch, and main chambers for eating, sleeping and socializing. Alzar uses the Gem of seeing and notes nothing in the two outer chambers, but two items glow in the matriarch; s chambers. Both are in her trash and not considered important – there are 26 troll mutates plus the double headed matriarch. Alzar wants the items, but facing 26 trolls is not easy, especially if they have extra attacks. Knowing their fear of acid and fire which they cannot regenerate, he grabs a few flasks of oil in a corner where no one is and lets the oil drain out and accumulate. Then he strikes flint and sparks it on the first try and starts a fire. The trolls notice immediately and an alarm sounds. While they panic, rush about and come to take it, Alzar walks across the ceiling and falls, grabbing the two magic items when no one is looking and leaving.

Cloak of Displacement
Gauntlets of Striking – deal 1d6 damage each time melee damage is dealt

The quest continues. The demon has to go in a few minutes s Alzar moves it to the front of the line. This large cavern seems empty. There do not appear to be any other exits by which one can leave and a large chasm breaks up the ground. There is nothing at the bottom or down it, save for webbing about twenty feet down if incredible size. A gargantuan spider moves up along the lip of the chasm and moves to attack firing a web at 50’ fee t at the party. Alzar moves in front (immune to web – Ring of Free Action) and takes it. Alzar’s army moves it and it skitters away. Alzar moves to the edge but can’t see it anywhere. It was very fast and very huge and it’s difficult to find it.. There is a doorway on the other side of the chasm, and Alzar has to find a way across, because it’s very deep, perhaps a quarter of a mile. Alzar grabs Zaddax and flies down and finds the spider hiding underneath the edge where a 40’ ledge covers it. He summons a Water Elemental with the Censor from the stream a the bottom and orders it to attack the Spider. Meanwhile he uses both the Demon Staff and the Orb to summon two Vrocks and they teleport in and attack from above. The spider turns and bites a Vrock, but is immune to this nasty lethal poison (normally a -5 to poison save).

After taking 15 damage, the spider flees and moves diagonally to avoid the elemental. The Vrocks teleport in front of her as Alzar’s dagger flies into her for 13 damage. A few more round so fighting retreat fail and she is dead.

He sees some rock here than can be used as a ledge across the chasm and orders the elementals and demons to get it up so that the party can cross. Alzar uses Broom of Flying for humans and gargoyle cloaks to ferry across undead.

They arrive at a room with a wounded Duergar and another that were knocked off course while hunting Darkscape mushrooms. They know enough to try and lay low. Alzar tells them that they will return for them after investigating the nature of the corruption. They doubt he will, but he leaves behind water and food for them for a week, just in case.

They arrive at the western edge of a nasty bit of corruption. It has been blocked by a wall, but what a wall. The barrier appears to be a rotting bulwark of limbs, hands, bones and faces. Twisted and fused together into a mass of protoplasm and with a humanoid form in the center. She demands to be pulled free from the wall.



Alzar pulls out a crossbow and takes aim, firing at the wall. A hand snakes out and stretches with the protoplasmic matter and reaches him from 20’ away and attacks him. He backs up 45 feet away, the max, and attacks. It can’t reach that far. He orders everyone back here to attack with missiles. It takes a while, but they manage to destroy it, and he uses Acid and Fire on everything to prevent regeneration.

As they move through the area protected by the wall, they leave behind the Twisted Caverns and enter the Inner Sanctum.


Slain – 42 Duergar, 3 Giant Skeletons, Crypt Thing, 13 Giant scorpion, 17 large bats, 4 Steeder, 7 Gibbering Mouther,115 Gibberling, 5 Brood Gibberling, 1 Giant Gibbering Mouther (worth 1950 XP), 1 Whisper Spider (worth 3000 xp), 1 Living Wall (5000),

Used – Conjure Earth Elemental, Stone and Mud Ring Elementals, Passwallx2, Speed Potion, Skulltrap, Animate Dead x2, Invisible Stalkerx2, Earthquake from Orb,

As he moves closer, this area radiates the wrongness even more strongly. His soul hurts with a new pain no human has felt before with each step he takes. Revealed beyond the fused flesh of the western wall is a large rectangular room obviously carved by the original hands. A dull blue sludge covers the floor of most of the area, apparently secreted by the dozens of white, wet and doughy looking hand sized lump moving upon the ceiling. They are fixed to the ceiling along with a satiny black bulb with a mass of fibrous roots with orifices eating the roots by the lumps. The floor is canted so that the blue goo slithers along out of here. Alzar studies the unusual organisms here, and clearly they are from the Far Realm. He uses two Jar of Preserving on the black balls and white lumps, and hopes he can study them at length later.

He follows the good trail to a cavern where a glacially slow flow of the blue sludge snakes into a pool of it in the southeast about 15 feet across and of unknown depth. The surface of the liquid is regularly agitated with ripples, as if some sort of large creature swims below. Alzar orders a skeleton to approach the pool and when it gets about 7 feet away, four Wystes burst out and attack it, slaying it.

Alzar orders attacks on the four worm-like creatures and battle begins. The army slays one but not any others. The three turn to attack and they each attack with four clawed cilia and a gargoyle is slain due to their apparent ability to take out magical creatures as well. Alzar’s army engulfs them and slays the other three. Alzar moves the gargoyle cloak to a skeleton and after uses the Censor to summon a Water Elemental from the sludge and doesn’t know what will happen, but he just gets a 8 HD one. He was hoping for a bigger one, but no, that wasn’t to be. It only has 49 hp. He summons another with the Ring of Water Command.

They enter a vestibule that has several breaches in the eastern wall to another chamber beyond. There are some resin of a greenish nature extruding from the next room and gray polyps that have come into it. There is nothing else here, and the polyps are the size of tulip bulbs. They appear to be some sort of vegetation creeping from the next room, so they move to a room where a rockfall happened centuries ago and destroyed most of the normal walls and opened up a new passage. These grey polyps ar ethickly congested in the room and in he middle of the room is a large, plantlike growth with wide fan-shaped leaves of bright yellow that cover the floor thickly. Alzar has a skeleton move into the room, and it brushes a leaf of a plant. It releases a puff of acidic pollen that eats into the bone. The gray polyps are the seedlings of the yellow fan-plant with the acid leaves and that’s quite interesting. Alzar takes them for a 3rd Jar of Preserving.

They take the scabrous tunnel out coated with the same resin from the plants. Out from behind some rocks comes Melf’s Acid Arrow at Alzar, and it hits and he takes 10 damage this turn, and an equal amount of damage next. He orders the army in and it reveals a Neh-thalggu behind the wall, a spellcasting monstrosity that sucks the brains out of its victims, puts them in pouches in its head and uses the extra gray matter to supplement its spell casting ability.

It wins init and casts another Acid Arrow at the Giant Skeleton, dealing 9 damage this turn and 9 next. Alzar’s swarm attacks and cuts it to just 10 hp and Alzar tosses a dagger to fish it off but misses. The creatures wins init and hits Alzar again and then goes down. They find a couple of rooms the creature made into its lair but none have any items of value.

They move to a large domed chamber open to the hall to the west. It looks like it was originally designed to display art, but now a grayish sludge is pooled in the chamber and is quite turbid. As Alzar’s group nears it, it gets more agitated. A skeleton that nears it gets no results. After ten minutes of nothing, they move on.

They then move to and through another display room with a large stone statue in the middle that looks like a thundercloud carved into a blue stone of about 2 tons of weight. Suspecting a trap of a golem, Alzar moves in a skeleton, but again, nothing. This statue would be worth 5000 on the market, but it too heavy to move.

They move down a long, wide corridor that turned north right after the second display room. There are small alcoves, empty, in the walls. The hallways is free of any growths from the Far Realm on the other side of the Vast Gate. The Gem of Seeing notes a discarded statuette in the back of an alcove that is magical. Alzar collects it:


Dragon, unrecognizable, statuette with crystal – thumbprint on back. Placing thumb there casts burning hands for one charge. It must be placed in sunlight for one full hour to get a charge, and it can hold five before exploding. It currently is charge less.

As they continue on, a few tentacles reach out of nowhere and destroy the skeleton in the lead and then move in and stab the demon for 11 damage. This is a Dharculus, a creature from the Far Realm that stays mostly in another plane of existence for safety, and phases in its tentacles and mouths to attack and feed:



If this creature were on one of the four elemental panes, Alzar could move there with the Orb and fight it. But it’s not, so Alzar has no way of slaying the creature. The tentacles are destroyed and severed and it leaves

They continue along this area and arrive at a crossroads where Alzar can go forward or right. He continues his strategy of going clockwise when he can’t tell which is the better direction. There is a silvery grass like growth on the floor which grows in size as the tunnel heads forward, so that’s the way to go.

In this room is another display chamber but the silvery grass has thickened in density and height. In the middle is a giant amber pulpy bulb five feet tall. It slowly thickens and then contracts, like it might be breathing or something else. A skeleton moves up to it, but nothing happens. Alzar grabs his 4th Jar of Preserving and puts some of the tough silver grass into it, with roots, and they move carefully on.

There is a locked door of nephelium and it is picked by thieves. Alzar’s group then opens them and moves into a corridor with a light strip at the bottom being drained of energy, but Alzar can tell that a Continual Light was cast upon it sometime long ago.

They move to a corridor of many door four to be exact. The first are old quarters that hold mostly dust. There is a crystal nephelium sphere in the dust, and it detects as magical. When holding it, Alzar sees a family in the ancient past in this area, waving to the viewer and then the image returns. He concentrates and it happens again. This object is called a Memory Sphere, and it only shows the memory printed on it.

Another door is just a lavatory from ancient times, so they move to the third door. This opens into a very interesting workshop. It has four stone tables equally spaced about the room and most hold dust, but one holds a strange item – manufactured of iron, nephelium, and crystal cables about 2’ in diameter, and making a roughly caged-shape ellipsoid item. The tubes glow dimly. Alzar takes the object.

There is a locked door here which is picked and trapped and they are found, picked and disarmed. The door opens to a closet. It’s lined with lead, and on a pedestal is a carved box of bone. Inside is a Ring.

Ring of Djinni Summoning – Can only open a gate to a random Prime Material Plane once/month, and nothing else.

He can’t ID it yet, so he doesn’t use it and instead pockets it.

There is nothing else here to they take the final door; a complex locking mechanism is figured out by Wassilon. The chamber’s rounded crystal walls rise upward to form a 30’ circular dome. The chamber has 6 equidistantly placed cages like the one Alzar found. They are placed in iron mounts and connected to the center by crystal rope. In the center is a flickering manifestation of an upright pool of quicksilver that rotates about the center on the room on its upright axis. Two of the inversion engines are broken, but four remain working.

This is a gate to another world. Alzar can’t determine where, but it’s clear that this is not the Vast Gate nor is that the Far Realm on the other side. This is one of the earlier gates Nigel’s diary spoke of.

Alzar leaves the gate for now, and then return to take the left passage from the crossroads. There are great black doors of an unknown stone and Alzar can sense the closeness of the Vast Gate. It’s time for subterfuge and he moves to the front and grabs the Ear Ring. He can hear the voices of Duergar beyond this door. There’s enough noise in there to cover his tracks, so he slips on the spider climb slippers.

He allows the time on the demon to ebb and summons a Glabrezu. With a new ally on the force, Alzar grabs his stealth items and moves to the top of the doors. His Axe casts Passwall on the top and…the Duergar do not notice. Now, they will as soon as he causes a commotion, but it’s way above their line of sight.

From here Alzar casts Sleep and goes invisible. 4 of the Duergar drop sleeping. The others look puzzled and Alzar drops another Sleep and all of the others fall asleep. No alarm sounds and no Duergar come rushing out of the three doors on this room. Alzar climbs in and opens the doors for his party.

They have left the Inner Sanctum and arrived at the Support Complexus.

This chamber is a work room and kitchen. The duergar were cleaning clothes, preparing food, and other tasks for this area. There are doors to the right, left, and forward. He heads left. The first room is just storage and the next is vacant. The third room has been colonized by some dark plant growth with hundreds of vines. A skeleton is slain by them and there is nothing in here. He returns, and based on emanations from the front, that way is the Vast Gate, so he heads right instead. He finds a door that opens a beautiful planetarium. Using this, the ancient race could track the Dragon’s Tear comet despite not being deep underground. It has been restored by Madreus recently. It shows the constellations, and later experiment will allow Alzar to see how to zoom in on some constellations and stars, and to focus on the comet.

At the back of this corridor are two doors and Alzar takes the one of the left. In here is a bedroom with shelves of many books – the entire northern wall is covered with them. There is a large table of stone, used as a desk with ink wells, and papers around. There is a mattress, basin and wardrobe. There are no occupants, so Alzar will return later.

The other door opens into a room with a large fountain and a door in the back. There are iron dippers and a bucket and this appears to be where people get fresh water here. There is nothing else in the room.

The next room is another bedroom. It has cloth draped on the walls reflecting the many candles and just a mattress, bathtub, chamber pot, and chest of wood. There is also a statue of a beautiful women with a faint smile carved of onyx. A crystal rod rests against the chest and Alzar takes it.

Knowing that nothing back here can flank him, he moves to the last doors, casts Haste on the elementals, demon, gargoyles, Hell Hound , the Stalkers, and a few skeletons, casts Shield-Maidens, and the doors are flung open to the Chamber of the Vast Gate.

Past the metallic door lies a vast quadruple valved chamber lined with nephelium. The crystal heart of a god hollowed out to contain vast energies is in the center of the spectacle. From that stream three beams of searing white light that spring from three crystal columns. There are shapes moving in the spherical gate of malevolence. Near the center of the chamber is a podium with a large black tome on top. Madreus, the Alienist himself, is there, incanting, when he stops to look at Alzar and his party. At a nearby table is another mage, Nigel himself, who looks up. There are allies charmed and dominated in here. Five Duergar enlarge and shield Nigel and Madreus from isle attacks. Two myconids, 3 brood gibberlings and 4 troll mutates are also here and move forward.

Battle begins.

Alzar wins init. He orders the hasted elementals and demon to smash into their Duergar. With double attacks, they slay three of them outright and badly wound the fourth. The Invisible Stalkers, hasted, move around to combat the flank of the duergar where the other monsters have arrived. They carve both myconids – living intelligent fungus creatures. The undead can’t get in attacks but the gargoyles fly over and get in the face of Nigel, but don’t hit. The fighter fire in an take out the wounded duergar, leaving just one. Alzar casts Evard’s Black Tentacles by the mages in the back. Several of the 13 that are summoned attack the podium and a nearby column and table, but three attack Nigel and one brings him down and four attack Madreus and two bring him down. The monsters move into the place left by the dead Duergar and carve deeply into a Water Elemental. The Duergar finishes it with a great hit for 22 damage. Nigel cuts himself free of the one tentacle on him, and Madreus uses his dagger to teleport to the other side of the room behind everyone else and away from the tentacles.

They win init. The monsters wound another water elemental. Nigel casts Acid Arrow on a gargoyle and brings it down. Madreus Dominates Estaish successfully and he is now an enemy. Estiash attacks nearby Maerie and hits for 13 damage. Alzar’s group moves and slays the Duergar and the trolls. The fighters slay a Brood Gibberling. The gargoyles peck at Nigel for 9 damage and Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir at Madreus and he fails his save.

They keep init. Madreus casts domination at Estiash but misses. Estaish his Maerie once out of two swings for 12 damage, and Nigel finishes another gargoyle with another acid arrow. The gibberlings damage the water elemental again but can’t bring it down. They fall and the monster flank is gone. Several close with Nigel. Alzar casts Charm Person on Nigel and it works and breaks the charm already on him, and he is back. Alzar orders his army to move away from Nigel and converge on Madreus.

Madreus loses init. He is attacked by a variety of forces. Nigel casts Acid Arrow on him as well, and he falls. Alzar steps forward and collects the Book of the Gate and begins a conversation with Nigel. Madreus was performing a ritual outlined in the Book that had to be performed for eight hours a day and all twenty eight hours of the Vast Gate’s opening. Had it been completed, Madreus would have received a greater patron from the Far Realm which would have had the power to keep the gate open permanently.

Nigel was part of an adventuring party that came through the last time the Gate was open to try and stop it. Three of the four made it this far before the Dvergr Wellfast and himself were charmed and the other was turned into a Living Wall. He has been a thrall of Madreus ever since. Time passes differently in the Inner Sanctum, and it’s been less than 10 years since he arrived. He has become a seer on the Gate and various other gates by researching them.

Nigel is Lawful Neutral, and let’s Alzar know that the Book of the Gate will cause someone to lose some Wisdom, but will enable them to cast spells attuned to the Far Realm versions of normal spells. In fact, Madreus destroyed his spellbook, and Nigel was forced to use it during his stay.

Nigel wants to use the three crystals objects to refocus the Vast Gate onto another plane. Alzar does not, not yet at least. He wants to keep it open during this opening to analyze it. If he can find a way to study it, and tap into its power. The world has survived exposure to the Far Realm for thousands of years. The only reason it pushed outside of the normal spreading, according to Nigel, was Madreus’s experiments.

Madreus’s workshop here in the Vast Gate room is extensive for spell research. During the next month, Alzar creates a new spell, and learns about the Gate and gives Nigel a new blank spellbook and lets him copy some generic spells. Meanwhile, Alzar collects the items from Madreus, and there are some nice ones:

Robe of the Archmagi, Evil
Eyes of Humanoid and Monster Charming
Unifex
4 Pots of Extra Healing
Wand of Light – 23 charges
Ring of Arista

Bars of Platinum, 1000 gpx5
3245 gp

Alzar’s Far Summons (Conjuration/Summoning)

Level 5
Duration: 1 turn/level
Range: 10’/level
Components: VSM

The caster opens a gate to the Far Realm and summons a creature from there to serve the caster for one turn per level of the caster or until slain. Due to the nature of the creature summoned, communication and telepathy are not possible, and the caster cannot control it with the exactness of other creatures. He may only give it basic instinctive commands, such as attack, flee, move, and so forth. It will not attack allies of the caster. When summoned, roll randomly to determine what answers:

1 – Gibbering Mouther – 29 hp
2 – Neh-Thalggu – 36 hp – knows 4x Acid Arrow
3 – Wyste – 30 hp
4 – Sharn – 33 hp
5 – 4x Whipsting – 9 hp each
6 – Casura – 30 hp

The material component for this spell is a small bit of material from the Far Realm, not bigger than a fingernail, which is destroyed in the process.



At the end of the month, the Vast Gate closes, and Nigel wants to stay and guard and explore it and World Gate Omega, in the other room which Nigel wasn’t even aware still worked. Madreus was obsessed with the Vast Gate and refused to have anyone explore the rest of the complex. Alzar gives him the crystal components so he can rekey it when needed

Slain – 57 Duergar, 3 Giant Skeletons, Crypt Thing, 13 Giant scorpion, 17 large bats, 4 Steeder, 7 Gibbering Mouther,115 Gibberling,17 Brood Gibberling (950), 1 Giant Gibbering Mouther (worth 1950 XP), 1 Whisper Spider (worth 3000 xp), 1 Living Wall (5000), 4 Wystes, 1 Neh-thalggu (2000), 2 Myconid (420), 4 trolls (1500xp each).


138515 XP Total, which is divided into really small chunks and done later (I still haven’t divvied the XP for the fighter/thieves after Descent…


A look at the items Alzar got at the end – very nice stuff.

The Eyes are a pair of crystal glasses and Alzar can, at will, use either Charm Monster or Charm Person with a -2 to the save. Alzar also gives a -1 to the save with his class ability. Now, here’s what is really potent

Robe of the Evil Archmagi – 5% Magic Resistance – when targeted by a spell, there is a 5% chance it won’t work. It counts as AC5, which doesn’t improve his AC. But if he has to shift to other Bracers, his AC only drops two. +1 to all saves by Alzar. The target’s save is at -4 when targeted by Charm and Hold Person and Monster, Polymorph Other, Suggestion, and Friends.

It does not give -4 to Dire Charm ,Mass Charm, or other spells with those in the title, just those seven spells. So, when using the Eyes, people get a -7 to their save, and Alzar can use it every round. With that, you can see why Madreus charmed Estaish easily and kept Nigel under a leash for years.


Unifex - +2 Dagger made from unicorn horn, AC2 given and can teleport once/day

Unifex replaces one of the daggers on Alzar’s bandolier, and he wears both the Robe and Eyes.

The Ring of Arista will drain one hp permanently when worn, and then allow the user to turn a person to onyx but there is a chance is will backfire and turn the user to onyx instead.

The Book is a spellbook, a list of the Rite, and a description of the connection between this world and the Far Realm, and was written by Madreus. It was how Alzar created his spell, but he did not lose a point of Wisdom because he has not read it in its entirety. Because he has not, he cannot access the spells or use the Rite himself.


Alzar takes the spell component research lab now that he freed space by swapping to the jewelry in the market.

The items here were a major haul and a big upgrade in Alzar’s power level.

Here are the spells Alzar now will typically memorize during the trip:

Sleepx2, Hypnotize, Identify, Comprehend Languages; Empathic Control, Blastbones, Knock, Tasha’s… Laughter, Ray of Ondovir; Dire Charm, Slumberx2, Skulltrap, Vampiric Touch, Dispel Magic; Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer turned into Slumber, Evard’s…Tentaclesx2, Shield-Maidens, Greater Malison; Conjure Earth Elemental, Dominationx2, Animate Deadx2; Invisible Stalkerx2


Despite the fact that the Gates have been closed off for a while, Alzar’s plan is simple. They will take the back exit, and then not worry, because it’s closer than the gates in front to the Døkkálfar and their original route. There are about 12 days journey away from getting back on track.

Meanwhile, Alzar has Dispelled Magic on several captured spellbooks and learns:

4th – Detect Scrying, from second Lich book
5th – Presper’s Moonbow, from Darr’ess’s book


After leaving the Duergar complex on a friendly basis with the new ruler and his lawful evil Duergar, Alzar heads off to the UnderDeep to return to their original path.

D2 . Shrine of the Kuo-Toa

During the next 12 days, the group has several battles. They fight off a trio of Ropers, they handle a dozen Piercers, a Gelatinous Cube is slain, twice they destroy a Cave Fisher, a flock of Dire Bats is scared away,a slicer beetle is taken out and a Giant Slug is defeated. It’s a normal set of travelling.

At the end, they arrive back in the same tunnel they left, but down the tunnel by three miles or so. The road had divided and split into two sections temporarily, then the avalanche happened to close down one of the two branches, so the tunnel still works on the other path. They resume their travels. Two quiet days later, save for a pack of silent cave lizards, they arrive at a spot where a red rock is facing east and a large tunnel comes from that direction. Alzar was informed that this signifies that the Kuo-Toa establishment is nearby.

The group leaves the tunnel and after a little more than a mile, they arrive at the shrine.

The building itself is a stepped pyramid shape, with water at the base. The fish people are equally at home in the water or above ground. Alzar leads the party with Wassilon next, since they both speak languages the Kuo-Toan might now. They one they met knew UnderTypic.

The entrance is a low cavity, open to the outside, with no doors. Greenish phosphorescence from lichens combined with the grayish luminosity of slug-like creatures as large as a fist on all of the walls gives the area an undersea appearance. There is a salty tang in the air as well. There is a giant statue in the center on top of a large raised dais, but that is some distance away. There is a hallway and door to the right. The shape of the stones is worn with time, and the architecture here is akin to the that of the elder Døkkálfar who cared the complex behind the Gates. The entire area does not have the same proportions that land-based creatures would expect and based on the wear, Wassilon comments that it was likely undersea for some time.

There are stairs up to the left, in addition to the door and hallway on the right. The space to the north is a large sunken area with steps leading down before a dais heads back up. There are many hallways and doors leading to this central area. There is traffic in the area, and no one seems to be paying much attention to Alzar or his group. He moves forward and begins to descend. This appears to be an arena which be able to hold up to 2000 humanoid creatures of human size. The Kuo-Toans are a bit bigger and much pudgier. The steps descend into water, but the water is never more than four feet deep, so Alzar moves forward and has everyone else hold their position. He arrives at the dias and there are three altars on three steps, much like a small ziggurat. At the top is a 20’ statue of a malachite impression of a creature with a combination of human female and lobster parts.

On each altar are a large number of shells in a stacked section, and a donation shell, quite large, with 300 or so gp in it. He moves to the second level and third to study the statue. As he does, a gate opens up and he is taken to the Elemental Plane of Water. There, the Sea Mother herself finds him and Geases Alzar. He fails his save. Alzar arrives back to the Shrine.

His geas is thus:

He must either give 60000 gp in gold or gems or jewelry to the Shrine or bring back 60 levels of Døkkálfar combined for sacrifice. He chooses the second. He is also permanently gifted the ability to speak Kuo-Toan, and he cannot hurt the worshippers of herself – Blibdoolpoolp, he is given knowledge of her service and the other Kuo-Toa will know he has been marked by her and will grant him passage.

(This is actually not how the Shrine is supposed to work, it’s supposed to be your normal attack, assault, take everything, go home, but Alzar is inherently evil, and in a place where evil is embrace and accepted. So I’m turning the Shrine from a place to fear to a place of safety and sanctuary using what Gygax gave me in the book itself in section 4 about non-worshippers reaching the statue and just pushing it.)

Considering how much the Kuo-Toa despise the Døkkálfar and how few and far between civilizations that aren’t xenophobic or massively evil are here, Alzar get sanctuary now from two evil places – the Duergar outpost and now the Shrine itself.

Six miles away in a Døkkálfar outpost with a wall and such. Alzar will head out there and take them out, capturing as many as possible. Then he’ll bring them back here for sacrifice. Once he does, his Geas is over.

D3. Vault of the Drow




For a bit, these modules are going to ping-pong back and forth, because that outpost is the first encounter area of D3. This is the best module of the series and one of the best modules of all time, to my mind.

He heads out and gets no issue with nearby creatures. Unfortunately, Døkkálfar are immune to Sleep and similar spells, so Sleep, Slumber and others won’t work. He has a different set of spells to replace them. He has out both Ropes of Entanglement and the Prison of Zazig. His goal is to capture as many Døkkálfar as possible. He will be wearing the Ring of Spell Turning and Mud Ring.

Spell list is very different, for example, no Animate Dead.

He arrives at the battlements with allies – two invisible stalkers, three earth elementals as a smash force, one air elemental, two water elementals, four gargoyles, one glabrezu with 16 Dretch, one Vrock, both Zadazz and Zadran, Dryshik and Megala. Everything else is home. He has handed ropes to the fighters and thieves as they are the most intelligent of his group – they will bind Døkkálfar as they fall. The rest will smash hard. Alzar also has a slightly different set of magic items out and ready to be used. As a reminder, Døkkálfar are also immune to charm person and monster.

This is a large chamber 130’ long, 150’ high and 12’ wide. Buttress and flying arches protect an outpost of dozens of soldiers. There are 4 fighters on sentry on the wall and five more at the gate below, which is up. Alzar’s invisible+elven boot scouting reveals an eastern building with about 15 off duty men in the barracks. The western building has the commanders and a much smaller group. That’s the compound, and a pathway to the city and further canyons is on the other side, but un-gated and un-guarded.

Alzar’s plan is thus:

The Earth Elementals will lead the other elementals to the wall of the outpost and bash on the wall. In so doing, they will rile everyone else. The dretch will swarm around them. The flyers will hope over the wall and block people from fleeing and Dryshik will drop a Wall of Fog, preventing escape easily that way. Dryshik will breathe three times, trying to blind enemies without slaying them. The glabrezu and Vrock teleport in, and the glabby with Power Word Stun the strongest looking enemy, who will be tied up by the fighter/thieves. Alzar will open with casting the Transmute Rock to Mud spell he memorized at the five people on the gate, and then will use Ropes and Prison and other spells to capture people. The goal is to capture the entire outpost. None of those serving him are given a command to slay.

The Transmute spell is away, and the area in front of the gate turns to deep mud and the five Døkkálfar are temporarily caught in it. The fighters run in while the elementals start smashing the wall next to them. Cracks immediately appear. The flyers move up and crossbows from the four on top of the wall miss them, as they are surprised. Dryshik drops a Wall just as he gets line of sight to a place for it.

They win init. Crossbows move to Alzar, who is clearly in control. They all miss (Cloak). 16 soldiers pour out of one building and 12 move to the wall and four towards the creatures and the Wall. Several commanders arrive and one flies out and hovers above the scene. Alzar throws the Rope of Entanglement at the ones on top of the wall and gathers them. They can’t break out with strength, but perhaps by attacking the rope they can. Carum blows the Whistle of Flying Alzar gave him and flies up to gather them before they can try to attack it. The others capture two fighters in front. The rest take damage from those fighting back. The Glabrezu casts power word stun on the one flying around and he falls, taking 8 damage from the fall and will be stunned for 8 rounds. The glabby brings him back to the front. Cracks in the wall splinter and the wall will be brought down next round. Dryshik blinds one of the four running to the back but just for two rounds.

Six level 2 fighters captured. Mage/fighter captured.



They win init. The four heading to the back reach it after the one is led by the others. They attack a gargoyle and slay it. The rest push down the gate and pout out, hacking at an Earth Elemental and bringing it down. Four globes of Darkness sprout out. Alzar tosses in a Ropes blind and captures five fighters. Maerie captures one of those in Mud, and the other two climbed out. The Vrock flies over to help out the flyers after Alzar sees what is happening. The wall is opened by the elementals.


12 level 2 fighters captured. Mage/fighter captured.

Alzar’s group wins init. Alzar casts Dispel Magic at the darkenesses and drops them. Dryshik blinds the Døkkálfar again and the Vrock captures it. Estaish gathers those in the Rope of Entanglement and brings it back. An Invisible stalker has managed to wrestle a fighters to the ground and is tied by Wassilon. They attack back and hack an Air Elemental, and then drop four more globes of Darkness around.


14 level 2 fighters captured. Mage/fighter captured.

They win init. An Earth is badly damaged and a gargoyle, damaged last round, falls. Alzar casts Dispel Magic at the globes and drops them again. Three more are captured by wrestling Dretch, who can now get in there.

Alzar’s group wins init. He grabs the Horn of Blasting he prepared and blasts the area with sound. He captures Maerie in the blast, the elementals, Dretch, and many of the enemy. Everybody is stunned next round. Three aren’t, and attack and finish the damaged Earth Elemental. Another gargoyle is damaged.

They win init, but most can’t do anything. The three in each section who can finish a 3rd gargoyle and try to break out only to face an angry hell hound and carve into it. Most are gathered this turn while they are stunned. Alzar puts the front person in the group of three into the Prison of Zazig. There are just two left, and three in the back.

20 level 2 fighters captured. 2 level 5 fighter, Mage/fighter captured.

Alzar’s group wins init. The dretch managed to wrestle down the last two in the front, and Alzar runs throw the open gate to the other side, where he casts Empathic Control on a guy in the back. He fails his save, and Alzar orders him to be tied up. The Vrock ties him up. They flee in the back, dropping Darkness globes to cover their tracks.

Alzar moves after them and keeps up. A Suggestion spell at a -5 penalty to the save works and forces one to turn back. The other is gathered two rounds later after he made an Empathic Control save but failed a Domination one.

24 level 2 fighters captured. 3 level 5 fighter, 1 level 7/7 Mage/fighter captured

Døkkálfar Items:

24x +1 chainmail; 4x +3 chainmail; 24x +1 shield; 3x +2 shield; +3 shield; 24x +1 short sword; 3x +2 dagger; +3 dagger; 4x +2 short sword; 24x hand crossbow; many vials of sleep poison

2 pairs of tinted lens; 4 black medallions

Wand of Viscid Globs – 48 charges
Wings of Flying

Wizard Scroll – Wall of Fire, Invisible Stalker, Charm Monster, Passwall, Acid Bolt

10x 100 gp gems; 4x jeweled goblet 3500gp each; Platinum Tube – 1000 gp
2 potion of healing, sweet water; plant control


Alzar’s group gains 12,745 xp. The Døkkálfar are carted back by Invisible Stalkers, demons on rotating shifts, and other various creatures Alzar has at his command. Their binds are very tight, checked regularly, and Alzar casts Domination on other and brings it under his control, giving him two allies in keeping them in check.

They reach the shrine the next day and he turns over them to Va-Guulugh, the head priest. He entertains them in his own private wing, and not in a pseudo-throne room, since Alzar is an honored guest.

He initially has a conversation with Alzar in Kuo-toan as thanks, and then they share a meal together with his guards and a conversation is held in UnderTypic, which the group can largely follow now.

Alzar is encouraged to visit, stay in a guest quarters, and explore as he wishes. He agrees to, and the following day explores the Shrine. He first comes across the slave quarters. He offers to buy some of the slaves, and while they aren’t really for sale, he manages to purchase several anyway with a large amount of money for the temple. He has purchased:

2 dvergr, 3 svartalfar, 1 half-orc. He leaves behind the 21 humans, because there are too many to buy, and there’s a lawful good paladin who’d want to cause problems by attacking the Kuo-Toa or something silly. He spent 10000 gold on all six slaves. He goes on an “expedition” to outside the shrine for a while, and lets anyone go who wants too. The short guys all leave together, but the half-orc decides to stick around for a bit:


Gamholt, level 4 Neutral Evil Half-Orc
Priest of Camulos, God of Conflict and Strife
HP- 24
XP -10,000
Str – 10, Dex – 11, Con – 15, Wis – 15, Int - 13, Cha – 9

Alzar and his retinue return and explore. He uses his Gem of Seeing everywhere. They find meditation rooms with scriptures and religious texts of a valuable nature. There is a breeding pool for the Kuo-Toan females to lay eggs, and a fighting chamber to train physically. Kuo-Toan culture has lapsed after millennia, and the normally neutral evil people sometimes have people go crazy and turn chaotic, and they have to be culled. Special agents called monitors guard the place and look for any Kuo-Toan who has gone crazy and needs to be dispatched.

Alzar finds a library with 1786 books according to the catalogue. The Gem shows a secret panel in the wall, and Alzar slips Maerie a Ring of Invisibility for her to use. She manages to find the opening trigger for it, pulling down one of the six incandescent lamps held by ropes from the ceiling. The inside is lined with lead and bronze to block some detections, and there is a black iron box. Maerie picks it and there are no traps. Alzar opens it and there was a curse on the box and he is teleported to the Elemental Plane of Fire. He can survive there because the Orb of Golden Death is on his person and he just comes back and continues.

Inside are four tomes, and Alzar has them taken. They are all magical. Here is what he finds:

Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms – Fighter gains a level by reading
Grim Grimoire – Assassin gains a level by reading
Book of the Planes – See later
Libram of Gainful Conjuration - +1 level for neutral wizard

Alzar takes all four. His geas to not harm the worshippers of her does not apply to these books. Maybe they don’t even know these are here. He couldn’t steal from the high priest or anything, but these he can take.

He continues to explore. He visits several other pools, including ones for fingerlings and a pale to send out a request for help for their deity. Alzar even manages to find the temple’s hidden treasure in a well with a secret door. He checks it out, but his geas prevents him from taking anything from it. There’s nothing here that he truly covets.

He finishes exploring the Shrine, and his party readies to head out and slay some guys and investigate.

The shrine is three days from the Døkkálfar city – Erelhei-Cinlu. They return to the Døkkálfar outpost, and face a flock of Stirges that are slain or driven off and a patch of brown mold covering the tunnel that had to be burned off. The outpost is still empty, and he presses on. A mile later, a side tunnel opens up. Alzar’s map of the area shows this side tunnel hits the side of their destination. After capturing an entire outpost of them and taking them to the Kuo-Toa for sacrifices, Alzar is not sure if he will still be welcomed in Erelhei-Cinlu, so he decides to take the side tunnel.

Another mile ebbs quickly, and they arrive at an unusual place. Overhead is a starry sky, bright crescent moon, dwarf flowing trees, and shrubs and bushes. There is an odor of sweet flowers and lovely grotto in the center of the place. There is a breathtaking sculpture of a nude human female and bird are twittering.

Alzar’s Gem is out immediately, and this room is covered by a permanent illusion. None of the things seen are here, save for the statue, which is actually Silussa, a succubus. Alzar tells the others and then tries to control her and succeeds!

This is very bad though. As she comes to him, her lover in the room gets quite upset and materializes, a powerful Døkkálfar vampire! Meanwhile the “birds” are actually 60 bats and a horde of rats and bats attacks the party! A few pecks are taken before Alzar blastbones them and does some damage to his party as well.

Battle begins!

The vampire wins init. He tries to charm Alzar and fails (immune to charm due to belt with Gauntlet Gem). The party lashes out. Alzar begins with an attempt to control him, but he fails too. Estiash lashes out and misses, but Aleigha hits with her Sword of Spartusia. He takes 8 damage. Maerie hits for 5 and that’s it for the fighters.

The vampire keeps init and lashes at Alzar with his claws for an energy drain attack but misses (cloak). Aleigha attacks twice and hits once for 9, Estiash hits once for 10, Carum hits twice for 12. Alzar’s Axe is out and he hacks into the vampire for 13 damage. Alzar’s party wins init and finishes him.

Alzar takes the Succubus and orders her to tell him what is in the cavern and what she knows She does so. Succubi are really poor in combat, and are best at charming, suggesting and manipulating behind the scenes. They are also very hard to control and after showing him everything, he orders her to free a male svartalfar charmed slave from her charms, and dismisses her. The male chooses to leave back to the Shrine and thence to home alone. Meanwhile, Alzar collects the items here:

Ring of Protection +1
Gemmed Basin, Ewer, Chalices 13000 gp set; Coffer of Rose Quartz – 1000 gp
6 gems, 5000 gp each; jewelry worth 35000 gp total
Oil of Etherealness 3 doses
Poisonous Cloak
6 Magic Mice

Ring of Spell Storing (8, 2, 4, 5) – Maze, Knock, Polymorph Self, Animate Dead

Alzar knows how to use all of those items immediately due to the info from the Succubus

The Magic Mice turn into real mice that can chew wood, and answer yes/no questions. They can’t attack and have just one hp. They stay for a half hour or until dismissed or slain, per day. That is a powerful Ring as well.

Alzar decides to rest here for the night and in the morning, they set out on the side path again. Two miles pass. Another large cavern opens up. From the tunnel can be seen many corpses, bones and such littering the floor. Sensing a need for subterfuge Alzar goes invisible, grabs the Elven Boots, and heads to spy.

As Alzar enters, despite his invisible nature, he is detected, and 3 webs launch at him from above.. he is immune (Ring of Free Action) and he assesses the situation. In the ceiling are many giant spiders of various sorts. They appear to be great black widow spiders and seven are scurrying down to attack Alzar right now.

He casts Skulltrap and launches it at them and hits three in its radius. One dies, and two are badly damaged. They arrive and battle begins.

Alzar wins init. He casts Skulltrap from a Ring and blasts right beside himself. He clears out four of the spiders, fails his save and takes 30 damage. Just two are left. Missile attacks fly in and slay them.

Alzar moves into the cavern and investigates, but not before summoning a Glabrezu to help out. There are several off shoots, and down one is the queen, who attacks him for daring to intrude on her. As she scuttles towards him she fires a giant web and he is immune. He responds by ordering te glabby in and he casts Power Word Stun and drops her. She is slain easily.

There are several items back here:

8 +1 arrows
8 50 gp gems
Poison Potion
Wand of Polymorph – 2 charges

2 sets of crystal lenses

Lolth Statuette – 200,000 gp – Immediately tells Alzar that he can use it to fire a Web, 40’ away; immune to webs; walk on them as giant spider; cause Fear in spiders all size as per the spell


They keep moving, and end up staying the night just four miles from the city. That night, a group of 6 wererats attack but are slain easily by magic and monster alike. Alzar has added 24 skeletons to his retinue form the spider room with all of the corpses. The morning opens, and they move with some degree of speed. There are no further incidents.


They have arrived at the Vault of the Døkkálfar

The party leaves the passageway and enters the Vault, a strange sight greets Alzar. He is unable to see clearly past 40 yards. He grabs the lens that he found and puts them on, and he can se out to 240 yards clearly and 480 vaguely. He gives them to the other humans – Estaish, Maerie, Carum and Aleigha. He doesn’t have pairs for Wassilon or Gamholt, but they have the ability to see in the dark anyway, although not as well as with the Lenses.

They are walking down a descending gorge, and it’s open. Alzar grabs his Gem and the Vault is splendorous. Here is a radiation that he Lenses tap into for seeing, and this is a gigantic cyst in the crust of the earth. A domed, fault over six miles in length. The entire space that’s inhabited is like a big great bowl. There is a radiance of nodes of gems in the top, and lichens growing in many places.

The road stretches down between the cliffs o neither side and abnormally large lichens flank the road. There are all sorts of fungi, from mushrooms to mosswort to toadstools and more. All sorts of fungi known and unknown are growing here, of all different sizes.

About a half a mile down the road they close on a great black tower built on a mesa like mound of rock that corks the bottle neck of the entrance and the road splits off to two sides. There are dozens of Døkkálfar soldiers on guard here, with ballistae on top of pivots and arrow holes. Alzar is commanded to stop and present himself. He does and presents his Black Medallion. They ask how he got it and he tells them he took out a Mind Flayer outpost and was given it. He wants to come to their city to explore their market and make purchases. The Black Medallion is confiscated (he has 5 more hidden away), and his party are given cloaks to wear. Everybody must wear one at all times and are otherwise free to move about the city. The cloak glows lime green in infravision.

The city proper seems to be on the right path, so they head that way. Left sees some warehouses, a ridge, and a gate and wall about a mile away near the wall of the cavern. A mile passes, and they see some merchant houses throughout this area, and many more fungi forests. They approach the gate to the city and pass through the tunnel to Erelhei-Cinlu.

This made me laugh.

Alzar has never seen quite a sight. Not only are there many Døkkálfar walking about, and of course humanoids of various underground races such as the duergar spin off of dvergr, illithids, and kuo-toa, band of course various evil goblinoids that are slaves or servants such as bugbears and orcs. There are also humans in small number, undead moving about freely, the occasionally demon, and more. This is like a crossroads of evil with about 7000 people living in the city, an equal number of servants and slaves, and up to 1000 visitors for a total population of 15000. This is the sort of place that is thick with thieves, so Alzar orders all valuables secured, and drops some magic items from his bandolier, belt pouches, and so forth.

This is a place without a lot of structure. Alzar stops by a tavern and in into check into a few rooms and gather the lay of the land. After a few hours, he has a lot more information than he had before.

This city is run by noble houses and to a lesser degree merchants houses. Each merchant house is tied to a noble house. There are eight noble houses, and each is vying for leadership of the group, and they are ranked 1st through 8th based on power and support. His enemy, Eclavdra ,is the matron of the top house, Eilservs.

Recently, they’ve cast aside their support of the Spider-Queen Lolth “religion” and embraced a new cult around an eldritch entity. None of the 27 deities of Thorasia are officially worshipped in the noble houses, but Lolth herself is a servant of Baetylus, god of deceit and greed. Therefore, he grants Lolth’s servants their spells and power.

The rest of the city has been very irate with House Eilservs due to their abandonment of the Lolth worship. However, due to the power of the house, little has been done. An alliance with the 7th ranked house, but a big mover recently, has been House Tormtor. They are willing to set aside the anti-Lolth invective in order to advance themselves, and the alliance has been quite beneficial for both houses thus far. The three houses at 2nd, 3rd and 4th each are banned against the Eilservs-Tormtor alliance. They are Kilsek at #2, Despana at #3 and Noquar at #4. They each want to take down the Eilservs, which would bring them up, but since two are also anti-Kilsek eventually, they have not been as effective as allies as Tormtor and Eilservs, because Eilservs has nothing to fear from them.

The #8 house is Aleval, and they are officially neutral and have no alliances. They will join whichever side wins, and no one comes after them, because they are the weakest house, thus the only one with no one looking over their shoulder. Also biding their time is #5 Everhate, which nominally dislikes the anti-Lolth stance but is doing nothing about it. Finally, at #6 is Godeep. They perceive that they will gain more from a victorious Kilsek, and thus are helping the triple alliance behind the scenes.

Luckily for Alzar, the folks he is moving to aren;t exactly unified. They are the very opposite

Recently, in order to expand their power, the Eilservs House tried to expand above ground by forging a nation, but failed with Alzar’s slaughter of the three major giant outposts and a few other setbacks he is not aware of. This loss of prestige has forced Eilservs to hole up for now and take a more defensive posture. Raids and attacks are not uncommon, and neither are politics, and the houses must be good at both.

Each house and merchant house has a pin that their folks wear. Behind the city of E-Cinhu proper, is a plateau with the noble houses, and behind them the temple of Lolth. The Vault also has two outposts for the military in various sectors, and some bugbear and trog dens in various places on the outskirts.

Due to the chaotic nature of the Døkkálfar, Alzar could slay four outposts and still be welcomed and used by one house against another. He could also be enemies with some and allies with others. Alzar spends three days here getting the lay of the land and fully exploring.

Erelhei-Cinlu is an odd city. Despite the presence of many Døkkálfar, it’s a bit of a cesspool. The best and brightest are taken for the armies, the priesthood, the mages, the merchant houses or the noble houses. With all of those vying for attention, there are few Døkkálfar that fall through the cracks who are competent. Therefore, the great mass of Døkkálfar are those who weren’t good enough for the various institutions, and they are forced to lesser jobs. Even the thieves’ guild, which Alzar had initially suspected would be really powerful, is very minor. Most thieves are individuals working for themselves, with fencing very easy and high quality thieves being used by merchant and noble houses, it leaves the less useful ones as cutpurses and confidence men. The power to mobilize and the need for it is small. You can buy thieves tools at a store on the promenade and there are no questions asked about how you acquired your merchandise.

The same is true of assassins. It’s a bit different here, because the houses usually want the others to know about the hit. There’s no amount of subterfuge needed. The mages towers are in the west of the city, and there are connecting pathways above the city, so even the magi don’t need to muss themselves with the great unwashed mass.

That is where Alzar is today, trading spells with several Døkkálfar wizards and getting some very useful ones, including one he really wants:


Døkkálfar Teleport – 6th Level


This spell is exactly like teleport, save that it ignores the magnetic vibrations within the earth.


Backlash – 4th Level - ,made by Døkkálfar

This spell enchants a person until they cast a spell and either the target makes the save or interrupts them casting a spell or a spell is used against an immune target. When that happens, the spell immediately hits the caster instead at full force with no save. There is a save to be affected by Backlash and it stays until used.


Summon Least Yugoloth – 6th Level

Need truename of one, and you can bind it to service for a long long time. Alzar currently does not know of any.


These spells are all rare to Alzar, and he trades some that he made for them. He also runs into a sorcerer who makes some of his own spells, and picks up one.

Hornung’s Random Dispatcher – 8th Level


Alzar trades four of his spells for it, since it’s such a high level and he can’t cast it for a while. It sends a creature within 30’ and their stuff to a random plane of existence. There is a save against it and that’s it. It’s a powerful Abjuration.

The following day, Alzar teleports back home and checks on everything and it’s all fine. He drops off some things, clearing up some space, and then heads back. He also notices that some dark hair is growing on his left arm. He cuts it off.

The fifth day there, some more dark hair is fast growing, and it’s beginning on his right thigh and stomach as well. Again, he shaves it. The hair grows back after a few hours and darkens in color.

On day six, Alzar casts Remove Curse on himself as the hair deepens, with the intent of curing a curse he picked up along the way somewhere. After studying his items, he believes that this is a curse affected with the Lolth statuette he picked up. However, later that day, it’s not enough. There is a smaller temple to Loth in the city and he visits it. The priest doesn’t have access to the high level magic Alzar needs, so he uses the teleport spell to teleport himself to a large city he has visited and spied through his Crystal Ball, and then gets a powerful set of spells all cast on him, including Cure Disease, Naturalize Poison, Remove Curse, Restoration, Atonement, Bless, Heal, Regenerate, and Dispel Evil. He teleports back after paying the temple 2500 gold and it has worked. Those spells ended the curse. The statuette is still able to be used, and will certainly curse another, but Alzar is free of it.

Alzar and he group explored the area around the city, and found the trog and bugbear homes while he was cursed. He also tried to find some nice magical items, but nothing he found was really worth the money or trade.

On day eight, after finishing exploring, Alzar takes a meeting with a representative from House Noquar. They know he has had an issue with Eclavdra and Eilservs, and want to meet. He was expecting this, but it came a little later than he thought it would. He is sent to a merchant home in the Vault outside of the city walls. He meets with a merchant who is allied with Noquar. They have a common enemy in House Eilservs and want to know if Alzar is willing to assist their alliance against the house. He says he might be, and is given a pin that is a bronze nightmare head. He can take off the cloak and put his displacer cloak back on, and this is his ticket, not only through the Vault, but also into the Noble Plateau and through the gate there. None of those with him are given one.

Three hours later, Alzar is moving past the gate and entering the noble area. There are eight estates here and the one he is heading for is near the front. The estates have various men at arms, pets, steeds, hunting beasts, monsters, slaves, servants (often the same thing) and more. The Noquar House is opened and Alzar is ushered into a room with the matron of the house.

She greets him and explains that she knows who he is and his whole history with her race.

1). He ran into a House Eilservs outpost at the Fire Giant place and destroyed it, as well as destroying two other giant outposts, which Eilservs were working with – this is very good for House Noquar.
2). He then chased Eclavdra and ran into a checkpoint of Døkkálfar which he annihilated. There were no Noquar nobility there, so she doesn’t care.
3). Then he met with some merchants and traded with them without attacking them. This shows he can be on good terms with her people.
4). He slew a small mind flayer outpost, and freed a Døkkálfar merchant and escorted him to a checkpoint where he received a black medallion. This again shows his value to them.
5). He then left the main area for a while, having little adventures. The demons he summoned were summoned back and they learned about him then.
6). He arrived at the Kuo-Toa shrine about two months later and was geased by them and left to capture an entire Døkkálfar outpost, which he did and turned over priest for sacrifices There were a few soldiers from her house there, but no officers, so this was not a major blow to her.
7). He slew vampire Døkkálfar who protected one of the entrances to the Vault and again, he was not of her house.
8). He arrived in the city and did not slay a single Døkkálfar, showing that he was no longer under the geas and that he could get along with them.

Due to his actions, other houses have lost officers, outposts, soldiers, clerics and more, but hers has only lost 5 level 2 fighters, easily replaced. Therefore, her house has gained strength as a result of his actions. She proposes additional assistance. She will get Alzar to the Eilservs compound, and he is to assault it with all of his might. If he fails to crack it, then nothing happens. He will have slain many of their people, and helped her out a lot. If he succeeds in breaking in and doing some serious damage to them, he can get the revenge he wants.

She knows how high of a level he is, and as the highest level mage in the city unassociated with anyone, he will become a valuable commodity. The highest leveled mage in a house‘s nobility is the consort of Eclavdra, who is a bit stronger than he. While most magi associate with a house, they rarely fight on their behalf. Alzar’s assistance would be highly valued. As a thanks, she will give him two death lances right now, and she will make sure his troops get through into the plateau to assault the complex.

Alzar agrees and takes two Death Lances, with six changes each. A charge is used each time they hit in combat, and they deal 3d6 extra force damage and poison for another 2d6 damage. He will strike the following day and he is escorted out. He plans his assault with the fighters/thieves and prepares spells and items for an all out attack on the Eilservs complex.

Alzar will use the Demon Staff, Orb, Stone, Censor, Brazier, Mud Ring, Water Ring, Figurines of Wondrous Power, Horn of Valhalla, and more to create a large squad of enemies. What he will do is summon a demon from the Orb – and if it succeeds in gating in a demon, then he will bring out everything else. He will be bringing out items such as Ropes of Entanglement and Horn of Blasting for the battle, and his spells are as seen below:

Sleepx3, Hypnotisex2; Continual Light, Blastbones, Empathic Controlx2, Tashas…Laughter; Dispel Magic, Skulltrapx3, Vampiric Touch; 2x Evard’s Tentacles, Shield Maidensx2, Minor Globe of Invulnerability; Dominationx2, Conjure Earth Elementalx3; Invisible Stalkerx2

Haste is in Ring and he will use it on Earth Elementals #1-6, Stalkers #1-2, and demons from staff and Glabrezu from Orb, plus random air elemental.

The day begins, and the Glabrezu summons a Vrock successfully. Dryshik also brings out another Mist Mephit. Alzar uses the Orb for four elementals, as well as the other elementals. He conjures three, conjures two invisible stalkers, blows the horn, the Vrock from the Demon Staff fails to summon any Dretches, summons Shield Maidens, brings out Zadaxx and Zadran and here is Alzar’s army:

Earth Elementals, all 12 hd – 61, 65, 57, 70, 63, 59; Water, 8 HD – 40, 42; Fire, 8 HD - 44, 44; Air, 8 HD – 50, 39.

Vrock, Mirror Image, 63; Vrock, Mirror Image, 67; Glabrezu, 77; Mist Mephit – 18 hp

Level 2 Berserkers – 15 hp

Invisible Stalkers - 55, 53

4 Gargoyles, 1 Hell Hound, Dryshik, Megala, Zadazz, Zadran

39 skeletons

Estaish, Wassilon, Maerie, Aleigha, Carum, Gamholt


Their troops total numbers:

5 nightmares, 10 displacer beasts, 50 slaves, 15 bugbear servants, 25 trog servants, 22 “unarmed” females, three demons – Vrock, and two Hezrou, 32 “unarmed” males, 15 2nd level fighters, 18 3rd level fighters,10 4thlevel fighters, 5 5th level fighters, 3 6th level fighter, 1 7th level fighter, and these are not the actual nobility but their troops. You have some children, and Eclavdra and her mage consort, and a few more clerics and magi about in the family.

Alzar likes his chances. Several wizards on a friendly basis with the house cast seven passwall spells on the giant wall behind the Eilservs compound, and Alzar’s army flows through and he casts passwall on their walls twice and they are in as the alarm sounds. There is no subtlety here as Haste drops and battle begins.

Round 1 – Due to the small nature of the compounds and Spartan nature of their homes it does not take long for their force to arrive. Many are already in the ground and they came in at the stables and kennels so the nightmares and beasts are in front. For this battle, we will not be rolling initiative, but just determining who goes first each round and trading blows.

The major point of Alzar’s raid is not to take out nightmares and displacer beasts but their soldiers and such. Alzar’s group wins init. He orders the demons, stalkers, undead and berserkers to handle them while the backbreaking elementals focus on the fighters pouring out, with fighter/thief and hell hound backup. The demons tear into nightmares and two fall from them and undead. The stalkers focus on displacer beasts and finish one. The berserkers take out two of the beasts. Elementals smash four male and female unarmed folks (they have +1 daggers in fact) and ready for the attack. Long range fire takes out two more unarmed folk by the fighters. Alzar casts Minor Globe of Invulnerability.

The counter attack arrives. Beasts slay two berserkers and nightmares cleave 3 skeletons. Their soldiers arrive at the elementals, and some missile fire flies over, mostly missing.


Slain in this battle – 2 Nightmare, 3 Displacer Beast, 6 unarmed,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons

Round 2 – The demons and crew finish the mares and beasts. The Elementals, with double attacks, smash six fighters dead. Missile attacks finish the remaining three unarmed fighters. The Mist Mephit drops a Wall of Fog behind the first row of attackers. Zadran slays a fighter. Alzar casts Shield-Maidens.
Attacks pour in and they slay a Fire Elemental and badly wound a Earth. They drop six globes of darkness around the battle as reinforcements arrive in force.



Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 9 unarmed, 4 level 2 fighters, 2 level 3 fighter, 1 level 4 fighter,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons, 1 Fire Elemental



Round 3 – Alzar casts Continual Light and blows away the darknesses. The demons and crew move up and slay 6 fighters and the elementals five more. Alzar’s missile attacks come in. The Hell Hound finishes a level 5 fighter that Carum hit with his Sling of Seeking. Their fighters bring down a wounded Earth and slay an Air. Casting magic is heard and a lightning bolt cracks into Alzar but does not effect him – Minor Globe. Another casts Silence, which also does not work. A third casts Hold Person at Estaish and that works and he is frozen for 7 rounds. Their demons teleport in and slash the hasted Fire Elemental badly. Unarmed ones arrive and drop six more globes on the party



Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 9 unarmed, 10 level 2 fighters, 7 level 3 fighter, 3 level 4 fighter, 1 level 5 fighter,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons, 1 Fire Elemental, 1 Earth Elemental,

Round 4 – Alzar casts Dispel Magic and drops the globes. The glabrezu casts Power Word Stun and blasts a cleric/fighter female for 6 rounds of stunning. The berserkers and undead slay the bugbears that came to enforce the battle – 8 fall. Carum, given a Ring of Spell Storing by Alzar for the battle, casts Sleep form it and drops three more Bugbears. Elementals savage a Hezrou and slay it, and the other is badly damaged. Gamholt’s Cause Moderate Wounds spell finishes it. Dryshik fails to blind the mage with a mist ball and the other Mephit also fails. Their fighters blast the hasted Fire and carve into the last Air badly, and the Vrock finishes it. An Acid Bolt flies into an Earth Elemental from their mage and does at least half of its hp in one blow due to a failed save. Eclavdra has arrived and casts Flame Strike on it and finishes it. Six more globes of darkness drop.


Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 11 bugbears, 9 unarmed, 10 level 2 fighters, 7 level 3 fighter, 3 level 4 fighter, 1 level 5 fighter, 1 level 8, level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 2 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental,

Round 5 – Alzar casts Skulltrap and aims at the area with the first cleric in the back. He hits and slays eight trogs, two bugbears, and several fighters. He can see with the Lens, as can the humans, despite ht magical darkness. The fighters finish the wounded cleric with missile weapons. Elementals punch but a few misses with darkness drop their combat ability and they finish the last bugbears, and a fighter. The mass finishes some trogs and a few unarmed folks that closed. They carve into an Earth Elemental and finish it, while the mage summons a trio of giant spiders and Eclavdra conjures an Earth Elemental of her own.



Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 15 unarmed, 13 level 2 fighters, 12 level 3 fighter, 4 level 4 fighter, 1 level 5 fighter, 1 level 8, level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 11 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental,

Round 6 – Alzar casts Dispel Magic from a Ring and blows out the Darknesses. Carum uses his Ring for another sleep and drops 7 trogs. The demons dash into a high level fighter and finish her. The remaining elementals smash more fighters. The fighters slay another as well. Dryshik manages to blind the mage for three rounds. Stalkers finish the spiders, The minor attacks take out five unarmed folk, 1 fighter, and a few trogs. They smash a Water Elemental and slay it and blast an Air deep. Their Earth wades into battle and punches our Glabrezu for 21 damage. They are out of people to drop globes, since they don’t want to skip fighters’ turns. Eclavdra retreats after fully healing a badly damaged level 8 fighter. Alzar orders the Vrocks and Glabrezu to teleport after her.


Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 20 unarmed, 16 level 2 fighters, 12 level 3 fighter, 5 level 4 fighter, 2 level 5 fighter, 1 level 8/level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 20 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter, 1 level 7 fighter, 3 giant spiders,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 3 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental, Water Elemental


Round 7 – Alzar orders his troops to focus on their Earth Elemental. We just drop it, and only the undead and berserkers can hit anywhere else, and they finish another 5 trogs. Alzar follows with a n Evard’s Tentacles and he finishes three wounded fighters and ties down two more. They smash a Water and slay it and bring down two skeletons. The demons have gotten in front of Eclavdra and force her back. She orders a retreat!

Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 20 unarmed, 18 level 2 fighters, 12 level 3 fighter, 5 level 4 fighter, 2 level 5 fighter, 1 level 6 fighter, 1 level 8/level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 25 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter, 1 level 7 fighter, 1 Earth Elemental, 3 giant spiders,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 5 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental, 2 Water Elemental

Round 8 – Alzar pulls the Horn and blows it, stunning all living creatures in front of him for a turn and they all take a small amount of damage. He slays a level 3 fighter, his tentacles bring down a level 5 one, and all of the people in front lose this turn stunned, including the demons and Eclavdra and the blinded mage. Taking advantage, the undead and elementals smash their army badly. All of the remaining level 3 fighters have been slain, all but one level 4 one as well. Meanwhile, Carum uses the final spell in the Ring – Ray of Ondovir on Eclavdra and….it works, She will spend the next turn doing what she did this turn (nothing).



Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 20 unarmed, 18 level 2 fighters, 18 level 3 fighter, 9 level 4 fighter, 3 level 5 fighter, 1 level 6 fighter, 1 level 8/level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 25 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter, 1 level 7 fighter, 1 Earth Elemental, 3 giant spiders,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 5 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental, 2 Water Elemental


Round 9 – Alzar’s crew attack as they retreat. More fighters fall. Hasted demons stab Eclavdra twelve times for 7 hits (easier to hit her) for 56 damage. Alzar tosses a skulltrap at her and the fleeing and destroys her, badly hurts her consort, and finishes some wounded fighters. Only the mage, a level 8 fighter, a level 5 one and a level 6 one managed to escape. Alzar orders his troops to clean up and gather forces while he gives pursuit with the Stalkers, hasted, earth elementals, hasted, and demons.



Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 20 unarmed, 18 level 2 fighters, 18 level 3 fighter, 10 level 4 fighter, 4 level 5 fighter, 2 level 6 fighter, 1 level 8/level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 25 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter, 1 level 7 fighter, 1 Earth Elemental, 3 giant spiders,

Slain by them – 2 berserkers, 5 skeletons, 2 Fire Elemental, 3 Earth Elemental, 1 Air Elemental, 2 Water Elemental


Round 10 – Alzar runs into the compound building where they are gathering forces and smashes face. He launches a Tentacles and grabs everyone with at least one tentacle. Teleporting and hasted creatures arrive to smash – this is the last round of haste for them. Their mage teleports away, and Alzar;s group finishes the fighters. His outside group finishes the Vrock


Slain in this battle – 5 Nightmare, 10 Displacer Beast, 15 bugbears, 20 unarmed, 18 level 2 fighters, 18 level 3 fighter, 10 level 4 fighter, 5 level 5 fighter, 3 level 6 fighter, 1 level 8 fighter,1 level 8/level 5 cleric/fighter, 2 Hezrou, 25 trogs, 1 5th/3rd cleric/fighter, 1 level 7 fighter, 1 Earth Elemental, 3 giant spiders, Vrock

They search and loot the mansion. Many unarmed fled the battle and aren’t here now. Two other noble wizards are unaccounted for and never fought in the battle. The magic items and vault were ransacked and most of the items gone – only those on bodies were found. There is no spellbooks, magic items, gold or gems or anything else.



Wand of Viscid Globs, 19 charges
+3 Ring of Protection
Cold Sword, +2, +4 vs Fire Creatures, deals 3x damage when natural 20 is rolled; acts as Ring of Fire Resistance when held
Stone of Earth Elemental Summoning

The Cold Sword works for triple damage when hitting anything, even non-fire enemies, so it’s a bit like a minor Frost Brand but with that special ability.


Døkkálfar Items:

20x +1 dagger; 18x +1 broad sword, 18x +2 broad sword, 10x +2 longsword, 10x atlatl, 8x +3 broad sword, +3 dagger, +4 short sword, 3x +3 long sword; 40x +1 shield, 15x +2 shield, 40x +1 chainmail, 15x +2 chainmail, 4x +3 shield; 4x +3 chainmail

Great tentacle Rod

The massive blow that Alzar has dealt Eilservs will last for a while. In a few weeks, the consort will reveal a clone of Eclavdra, and together with the treasure and two missing mages they will re-establish the House, but back at #8, and everyone has moved up one in the order. The alliance that put Kilsek into #1 spot is already pushed Kilsek to ally with Godeep and Everhate against a new alliance of Noquar and Despana who have brought Tormtor into their alliance. Alliances shift and change.

Now that he has access to the plateau of noble houses, Alzar decides to finish exploring the Vault. There is a tunnel to the temple of Lolth and he takes it. He’s by himself, as this is a solo visit just to explore. A third of a mile later he arrives at a large hexagonal room carved from the rock with a egg shaped temple in the middle, at least five stories high. Around the temple is another path and Alzar follows it, and arrives at the Døkkálfar docks. This is the same Svartjet River they crossed on the Kua-Toa raft a long time ago, and it wound its way here. There are two galleys on the wharf, with undead and demon guards. Alzar returns to the temple.

There are numerous people moving about, and giant black widow spiders protect the temple from any who are not noble Døkkálfar from entering. No one else is allowed in. A small shrine to the left holds two great altars outside that sacrifices are allowed at, even by non-Døkkálfar. A priestess is overseeing the ceremonies of sacrifice, either blood or money, with one altar for each. Alzar moves to it and there appear to be many people and a great tapestry at the back with Lolth on it.

Alzar doesn’t serve any god in particular. They are there certainly, and they do sometimes reward good service, but it’s a bit random. Alzar would rather rely on himself than on another. He wouldn’t dispute the right of another to worship a deity, but it’s just not his thing.

Alzar slides to the back of the shrine, and the great tapestry hides a set of stairs heading down. He moves forward and joins the worshipping, placing ten gp on the money altar and then leaving. An hour later, he turns invisible while in the tunnel to the wharf, and then returns, with Elven Boots. No one seems to see him. He arrives at the shrine and the same underpriestess is performing ceremonies and rites. He slips to the back easily and drops down the stairs. There are a few normal rooms here – supply room, barracks for a few guards, slave chambers, jails for sacrifices, kitchen. He finds a six room complex in the left that houses the clerics. At the front is the high priestess of this shrine for the normal Døkkálfar and those not of the race to worship and Alzar’s eyes pique. He notices she has a demon staff at her side as she studies and eats. The rest of the chambers here have another underpriestess, and two acolytes. Alzar wants the Demon Staff badly. He leaves for ten minutes to a quiet chamber where no one is, and summons a glabrezu. He will move to the high priestess, and then he will teleport in and casts Power Word Stun. Assuming success, Alzar will grab her stuff and the demon will slay her noiselessly and the assassination will be complete and quiet.

It works, and she is slain. Alzar takes the Demon Staff, and a few Døkkálfar items. The glabrezu teleports to the tunnel above and waits for Alzar to summon it back. With a death in the shrine, it won’t be long before she is discovered. Alzar moves invisibly into the priestess quarters where he saw riches before. An Empathic Control spell captures an acolyte, and Alzar uses her to finish exploring. This is swank place and he finds the head priestesses chamber. Alzar arrives and slays the controlled one. Then he begins a search led by the Gem. He absconds with everything that looks nice and then teleports away after finding a trap door and trap with the shrine’s treasure.

5780 gp
Jewelry – 8400 gp total
Platinum Coffer – 2500 gp
100 50 gp gems
1000 pp
Jeweled Platinum Temple Service Set, Ewer, Chalice, Dish – 60000 gp set

He got away with the death of the high priestess, but someone will eventually magically figure out who did it. He might not be welcome in the area again. While he is here and largely worn out his welcome, he moves to the Egg which is the Great Fane of Lolth for just the nobility. The windows are guarded and there are 50 gargoyles in the roof probably ready to attack, plus spiders everywhere. It is guarded well. Alzar’s invisibility does not shield him from the Spiders, as he has noticed before.

He moves to the rear of the Fane when the fungi obscure him somewhat, and when the place is clear, he casts Passwall at the ground with his Axe and does it again. He moves down and then uses his Mud Ring forward and cancels the first two, and they leave. He wants to be below the temple and come up, but he is facing a dungeon wall on a floor below it, and he uses the Mud Ring again to get through it.

Alzar is near a jail complex probably holding people for sacrifices. The Glabrezu teleports in and Alzar uses his staff to bring out a Vrock, and the Vrock manages to add 8 Dretch. Alzar senses undead guarding it and controls them. He now has four large ghasts and eight large ghouls. They open the cells. Inside are 11 prisoners. There are one way doors that open from the other side that come into this chamber. He uses the Ear Ring to spy and hears a rustling behind them. He casts Passwall at the door and there are countless webs in here. The undead and demons move forward and Alzar enters the chamber.

This web-strewn chamber is the current temporary home of Lolth herself, and she is angry that someone would dare invade her home!

This is the second battle between Alzar and a demon lord. The first was against Zuggtmoy in the Temple of Elemental Evil, and now this is the second. However, Alzar is unprepared. He doesn’t have the right spells nor has he summoned an army ahead of time. Without preparation or allies, he is fighting her cold.

He orders the demons and undead to charge her, but the Dretch can’t fight a demon prince so they stay where they all, but the others move in. Alzar wins init and gets a chance for a spell or item. Alzar grabs the new Ring of Spell Storing and throws a Maze at her. Let’s talk about how likely it is to work.

As a demon lord, Lolth has 70% magic resistance, and then her normal chance to make a save. Therefore, any spell cast at her has to get past both. Spells that don’t require saves, such as a Power Word or Maze still have to penetrate the Magic Resistance. She only has 66 hp, but she also has an AC of -10. The combination of a great AC with a powerful magic resistance and very good saves means it will be really hard to injure her.

Alzar knows that he only has a 30% of it working, but if it does, she will b in the maze for a few rounds until she comes back, during which time he can prepare by summoning allies. He rolls a 74 and pierces her resistance and she is gone for 3 rounds.

When she returns to the same spot, three Earth Elementals await her from a Stone a Mud Ring and a spell. She wins init and battle begins again.

Lolth tries to Gate in a demon ally and she succeeds and brings in a Vrock of her own. Alzar summons a 4th Earth Elemental. Not all of the allies can attack Lolth, but the elementals, demons and some undead can. In come attacks and one Earth managed to smash her for 17 damage. 49/66 hp left for her.

She summons 11 giant black widows to her aid. Her Vrock carves into an Earth for 17 damage back. The elementals and demons miss and the Dretch can attack the Vrock and it loses an image. A Mist Ball flies in and fails to blind Lolth. Alzar brings out an Invisible Stalker. His party misses.

Her spiders slay four Dretch. Her Vrock misses the wounded Earth Elemental. Lolth fires a powerful web spell at Alzar and he is immune. She scurries out to him and stabs him with her bite and misses naturally. Alzar casts haste on the four elementals, Vrock, Vrock, Glabrezu, Stalker, and four ghasts. They attack Lolth 22 times, and that’s a lot of chances for a hit on an AC – 10. An Elemental punches her for 20, and she takes 15 from a Vrock and 5 from a ghast. 9/66 hp left. His undead ghouls slay a spider.