Kilndelve Campaign: Session 1

 April 4, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP

You were a searching for adventure… until adventure came to you. After several weeks in the hills adventuring outside Kargau, you returned to the small dwarven town only to find it ruined and smothered under a sheet of frozen ice. The once bright tavern was empty, the door hanging by a single hinge. The shops were vacant and neglected. Everywhere there were signs of a terrible battle, bloodstains and broken weapons, but no bodies – and surely none could be buried beneath such frozen earth.

Two types of footprints led away. One great set turned to the east higher into the mountains, moving as a company. The other type was disorganized and led in every direction, with stumbling and dragging gaits that hardly even looked human. Even more alarming, every grave in the town had been exhumed, by all appearances by being dug out from the inside.

After two days of following the more organized tracks the cold weather seemed to lessen despite the rising altitude, and in the distance you could see a thin trail of smoke rising from the pinewood trees. You climbed to the top of a hill to get a better look and to take a short rest. Between the trees were the small silhouettes of tents and human figures moving about. With great excitement you pointed at the distant figures, no more than a quarter mile away. But a shuffling noise from the base of the hill let you know you had been followed and were no longer alone...

Returning to the dwarven town of Kargau (after unspecified prior adventures that raised them all to 5th level or so), the adventuring party discovered the city buried by an unseasonably late blizzard and deserted of all life. The party followed a dense trail of human-looking tracks east and up into the mountains, through forested terrain. The weather mysteriously grew warmer rather than colder at altitude.

Within visual range of a camp with lit fires, the party was attacked by a pursuing host: a mummy, a mounted dwarven wight, and ten zombies with frozen (and highly durable) flesh. They were just barely dispatched after a fierce battle, and all seemed lost as a second throng of zombies wandered over the crest of a nearby hill. But they were themselves being pursued by riders from the camp, and were quickly dispatched by a volley of arrows.

The party was invited to take shelter and counsel at the Kargau refugee camp, a sprawling collection of tents and stakes where hundreds of survivors were huddled together, protected by a mixed force of dwarven crossbows and human spearman. Their leader was Darby Stoutcrank, a human arbalester who invited them to visit him in his tent. He requested their help to maintain and manage the camp under periodic assault from the undead, but also to find a way to escape into the mountains. He spoke of a long-abandoned dwarven fortress high in the mountains that guarded a pass into a secret valley, the site of an ancient dwarven center of industry and commerce, Kilndelve. He also mentioned several other inhabitants of the campsite, including a gnomish alchemist with his own interests in the fortress and an expedition of dwarves who had traveled from a distant land to reclaim their homeland (and the artifacts and wealth within).

The party met with the alchemist, Skafi, who requested (in a roundabout way) that they help him "research his book" by returning with samples from the fortress. The book was about slimes and oozes, and he said that recovering even small amounts of slime and ooze for analysis would be useful to him. Apparently the fortress slimes were subject to an unusually high rate of mutation due to the nearby dwarven mining facility, which at the time of original habitation was uniquely a source of strange glowing 'poisonrock'.

Roster:

• Iulius Dubthach, 4th-level Nobiran monk (Andrew)
• Holly Steel, 5th-level bright cleric (Kyle)
• Robin Renaldee, son of Lucien, 5th-level sword master (Kim)
• Rena Arden, 5th-level illusionist (Will)
• Frigodria (Reba)

Mercenaries, followers, hirelings, riffraff, etc:

• Jorgen Cragback, 2nd-level dwarven fury
• Slade Harlow, 1st-level fighter
• Pertinax, a mule (animal kind)
• Martin Cain, chanter
• Knock, um, another mule I guess idn??
• Wendy Usagi, 4th-level talking-raven-that-definitely-isn't-a-druid

Casualties

None

Treasure

None, since the party decided to burn the horrid-looking unholy symbol dropped by the frog-ish mummy.

Experience

Killed: tsathar mummy [460], dwarven wight [80], zombie dire wolf [460], 10x ice zombie [10x65=650]

Total experience from kills: 1650 xp

Total experience: 1650 xp

Total experience per member: 236 xp

(1/2 share = 118 xp for henchmen)