This is part 3 in my reporting on the party’s playthrough of “Orcs of Stonefang Pass“. There are spoilers in the following, so if you plan to play this adventure at some point, you should probably stop reading pretty soon. The following covers two encounters well into the adventure. By this point, the heroes been traveling through the pass for a couple of days.
See also: parts 1 and 2 of this series.
Having just defeated an orc shaman, his pet ogre and archer buddies, the heroes rest and continue into the secret section of Stonefang Pass. They are surprised to hear dwarves call out a warning, just before running into another group of orcs. It’s an ambush, but the orcs are no match for the fully rested heroes. After the fight, the heroes meet four exhausted dwarves who have survived using magic to keep the orcs at bay.
Here, the party learns of the titan, trapped underneath the mountain, and that some powerful magical items (of which the characters have one) are required to keep the Titan imprisoned. Another quest is added as the heroes agree to obtain the remaining items.
From that, it’s back into the main pass for another day or so of trudging the dark corridors, before there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. Ahead of them, the keep is lit by blazing fires set by the orcs who occupy the stone fortress. The heroes waste no time (apart from resting again and waiting till daylight) before dispatching the courtyard guard. They made clever use of line-of-sight blocking Stinking Cloud and fear causing spells to disrupt tower archers and the scariest looking Orc, mixed with brute force to tackle those on the ground. Again, this encounter proved to be no real challenge for the party, who all leveled (to 7) after the fight.
It seems like the inventiveness of the adventure’s earlier encounters have worn off a little here. On the other hand, the roleplaying encounter, the added quest and the threat of the Titan all worked really well. We have less than a handful encounters to go at this point, and though it has been fun to play a published adventure, I have to admit that I look forward to continuing my homespun campaign. That said the 2-3 levels Stonefang Pass will add to my group fits perfectly into my Grand Scheme.
Insert evil Dungeon Master laugh here.
