Ancient Dwarven Town overrun by orcs centuries ago

[Gilladian]

Okay, my PCs took a turn into left field, left the track I had been working on for them, and chose to follow up another lead. They're now investigating a 400+ year abandoned dwarven town/outpost. 450 or so years ago, before the fall of the human empire, this was a semi-secret dwarven town, where dwarves could take shelter if the oppressive humans got too aggressive. It wasn't a huge place, but it was well-fortified, and relatively concealed. It had connections to an underground river, but the dwarves had NOT explored deeply enough to find a connection to their nearest other underground realm, which is located more than 800 miles away. Then, during the fall of the human empire, a human-led orc army over-ran the dwarves. Many dwarves fled into the hills, and one largish group retreated, cut off from the surface world, down the underground river, and vanished from the ken of the dwarves. Several rescue parties were sent, but the fate of those dwarves who went down was never discovered. Now, the PCs (led by their dwarf wizard) have followed a lead to the old ruined town/outpost, which is still inhabited by orcs. At least one level of the place is still defended by dwarven automata/constructs, and there are orcish undead in several places as well (their human leader was a necromancer).

This is a 5e campaign, but I borrow freely from all editions. My PCs are about 6th level. What sorts of things would you place IN the dwarven outpost/town? Where would you have the underground river go? What was the fate of the fleeing dwarves? Note: there are neither drow nor duergar in my campaign world. There IS a massive underdark, which this river could easily connect to, though at this level, so close to the surface, the core radiance that "underlife" feeds on is pretty weak and the area is fairly barren.

 

[Dandu]

There should be dwarf skeletons and zombies in the town.

River should lead to the Underdark, and a tribe of dwarves that has descended into barbarism, eager to rejoin their kin, but having lost the cultural knowledge that makes them dwarven.

 

[Umbran]

There should be dwarf skeletons and zombies in the town.

It is 400 years later, and the orc still inhabit the place. No zombies (flesh has long since rotted away), and no *free* skeletons, as they'd fight with the orcs, and have been destroyed long ago. You'd only find the undead in closed places the orcs *never* go, or under the control of an orc cleric.

A ruined temple that the orcs don't enter, because it is guarded by some more powerful undead, could be interesting.

 

[Gilladian]

Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking. The "upper" floor of the map that I'm using is a temple, so I have a mess of crawling claws and other skeletal undead (orc origin) on the stairs, whose purpose is to keep the creatures that are still "up there" away from the orcs. Actually, I don't necessarily think they're the SAME orcs; the orc army marched off after defeating the dwarves, but there are a lot of orc tribes in the area, and over the centuries, various tribes have moved in, tried to live here, and either left because it didn't suit them, or were hunted into oblivion by whatever IS up there... or further down in the lowest level of the town where the river-gates are permanently jammed open at one end of the river, and are jammed shut at the other (I imagine that the escaping dwarves jammed them as they fled, to minimize the chance of being followed).

Also, in the centuries after the dwarves vanished, at least two expeditions have come here and searched for the lost dwarves. Neither found anything, so where-ever they went was far enough off, and well-enough hidden, that they were not found. I suppose it is possible that one expedition also vanished, or was badly beaten up by monsters and forced to retreat, but the other simply searched and found no trace of their current location. Maybe they went the wrong way down the river?

 

[LostSoul]

Traps
Automatons (possibly)
Ghosts and spirits
Booze ooze
Crawlers from the underworld
Unstable constructions

And possibly another adventuring party that has made a deal with the orcs - for safe passage they will provide a map and a cut of what they find in there. (One of their member thinks they can't trust the orcs. One of them is a necromancer. One is a dwarf.)

Maybe the reason no one found anything is because the dwarves locked up the place before they left, but erosion/tremors/other geologic forces broke open the wards and seals. That could give you more monsters to work with, and some interesting stuff as the two ecosystems mix for the first time. Maybe the orcs actually want people to help them out.

 

[Mark CMG]

Lizardfolk.


My Dragon's Teeth campaign is very similar. Seven towers carved from a series of tors in a one-hundred fifty mile arc were once used as way station outposts centuries ago across a great moor but have long been abandoned. Most reach down underground into the cavernous network below. Many things reside there but in particular a tribe of lizardfolk have been discovered.

 

[Gilladian]

Traps
Automatons (possibly)
Ghosts and spirits
Booze ooze
Crawlers from the underworld
Unstable constructions

And possibly another adventuring party that has made a deal with the orcs - for safe passage they will provide a map and a cut of what they find in there. (One of their member thinks they can't trust the orcs. One of them is a necromancer. One is a dwarf.)

Maybe the reason no one found anything is because the dwarves locked up the place before they left, but erosion/tremors/other geologic forces broke open the wards and seals. That could give you more monsters to work with, and some interesting stuff as the two ecosystems mix for the first time. Maybe the orcs actually want people to help them out.

Hmmm.... I like the idea of the other adventuring party. The PCs only found this place because they were following clues from a partial map that was inscribed on the side of a drinking mug they found in another treasure. I can see the other party possessing a similar artifact... there might be a whole slue of them, perhaps carefully dished out by the orcs' tribal shaman who is hoping the adventurers will finish clearing out the top layers of the temple so he can convert it to his beast-god without doing any work himself, thus bringing down dwarven curses on his tribe.

 

[Gilladian]

Lizardfolk.


My Dragon's Teeth campaign is very similar. Seven towers carved from a series of tors in a one-hundred fifty mile arc were once used as way station outposts centuries ago across a great moor but have long been abandoned. Most reach down underground into the cavernous network below. Many things reside there but in particular a tribe of lizardfolk have been discovered.

The lizardfolk could live down below, along the river. More likely to be trogs or similar. The "upper world" is a northern-temperate area, heavily forested and fairly rugged (think Adirondack Mountains). Not particularly lizard-man climate. But below the lost town/outpost, there could be just about anything. Oh! Mongrelmen! Degenerate HUMAN survivors of the Empire's collapse. If asked the right questions, they could easily have at least a legend about the dwarves who passed through... or perhaps they even have some ancient physical evidence. Dwarven tools, maybe.

 

[Mark CMG]

The lizardfolk could live down below, along the river. More likely to be trogs or similar. The "upper world" is a northern-temperate area, heavily forested and fairly rugged (think Adirondack Mountains). Not particularly lizard-man climate. But below the lost town/outpost, there could be just about anything. Oh! Mongrelmen! Degenerate HUMAN survivors of the Empire's collapse. If asked the right questions, they could easily have at least a legend about the dwarves who passed through... or perhaps they even have some ancient physical evidence. Dwarven tools, maybe.

Despite there being bas-relief carvings of lizardfolk in mortal combat with the dwarves of the era decorating the interiors of the towers, the lizardfolk tribe have legends of the dwarves as revered neighbors.

There are also trogs who are current enemies of the lizardfolk. The lizardfolk have herds of larger lizards they raise for meat and hides.

 

[Gilladian]

Despite there being bas-relief carvings of lizardfolk in mortal combat with the dwarves of the era decorating the interiors of the towers, the lizardfolk tribe have legends of the dwarves as revered neighbors.

There are also trogs who are current enemies of the lizardfolk. The lizardfolk have herds of larger lizards they raise for meat and hides.

There are, of course, many folk who viewed those whom they fought as good neighbors in some ways - the English and the French fought a LOT, but they still went on crusades together...

So perhaps the lizardfolk or whoever they are DID respect the dwarves, but also sometimes fought them. OR they fought the dwarves when they lived on the surface, but once the smaller group of dwarves fled underground, they and the lizardfolk became allies. Eventually the dwarves moved on, but the lizardfolk remember them with friendship from that time.