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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greg Benage" data-source="post: 7240158" data-attributes="member: 93631">Continued from #356, wherein I describe some of the content (borrowed from Scourge of the Sword Coast) I'm adding to bulk up the 3rd to 5th level content in SKT.Our heroes return to Zhent-occupied Nightstone from Harpshield Castle to find refugees streaming to the town. The Zhents are requiring payment for admission inside the walls, and a tent city is springing up along the banks of the river. The characters had loaded their carnival wagon with food taken from the plundered stores of the Iceshield orcs (intended for Grudd Haug), but they returned to the castle with two more wagons to retrieve it all. They encountered a wood elf warband led by Rond Arrowhome, a solitary ranger, and a terribly lost hill giant in the wood, but the trek was otherwise uneventful.When the returned (again) to Nightstone, they talked to many of the refugees and discovered that bugbears (and reportedly at least one giant) were raiding caravans, farmsteads and villages all along the Trade Way between Waterdeep and Daggerford. Xolkin Alessandar hired them to locate these marauders' base of operations and neutralize the threat -- he's trying to get trade flowing again and make Nightstone a hub of commerce. The last thing he needs is a never-ending supply of "filthy refugees." So the second adventure location I lifted from Scourge of the Sword Coast is Phylund Lodge, which is only about eight miles north of Nightstone. The characters with a nifty Investigation check locate a caravan guide among the refugees who knows the area well, and based on the location of the raids, suggests this is likely the raiders' hideout. There are two secret entrances to the lodge: the first is that northward tunnel leading from the Dripping Caves that's left for the DM to do what he wants with it. The second is north of the lodge -- a cave with a stream leading from it. Our heroes didn't bite on either hint, so they tried to approach the lodge by stealth.The bugbears had worgs patrolling the grounds, and the PC scouts did a good job of locating them without being discovered. They lured one into an ambush with a silent image and a thrown rock, and the rogue almost took him out. But he survived the ambush and howled, raising the alarm. Now it went bad: the heroes were spread out in a line from the south to the north. The worgs were able to flank them and attack from both sides. After one round of combat, three bugbears emerged from the stables, and after the third round, the hill giant bunking in the stables came out as well. This was Kogg, and we was originally with Lobb and Ogg wandering in the hills when they encountered the bugbears who told them about "the big farm" to the west. Kogg stayed with the bugbears, who made their way through Ardeep and began launching raids from Phylund Lodge.The fight was deadly, but the heroes managed to defeat the worgs, bugbears and giant with only one death (the rogue, again...rogue #3 coming up!). They retreated to the Dripping Caves, and this time they discovered a broken and discarded morningstar that looked like those crude weapons wielded by the bugbears. This was enough of a hint to persuade them to investigate the northern tunnel out of the caves. It led several miles through twisting tunnels, caverns, and galleries, and eventually emerged in the dungeon level below Phylund Lodge. (Note: Had they explored this tunnel immediately after the Dripping Cave, they'd have gotten to the more difficult Phylund Lodge at 3rd level, before the Harpshield mission. Such is an open sandbox. It's probably fortunate they didn't do that...)They battled some undead and eventually made their way to the lair of Flubnark and his wolves. Flubnark is a former bugbear chief who's been possessed in SotSC, but I had him set up as a chief who got pushed out and sent to the basement when "new management" took over. There was an opportunity to strike an alliance with the disgruntled deposed chief, but I probably didn't drop enough hints and the PCs attacked him immediately. He got in some good shots but was eventually defeated.The characters then found the stairs leading up to the lodge. They discover the Phylund Lith, an ancient standing stone carved with glyphs and runes (you can probably guess the origins of it in my SKT-modified version). They go upstairs and find themselves in a long corridor that's basically a second-floor skywalk connecting two of the lodge's separate structures. A lurking bugbear surprises the front rank, and then Thegger Grynn, a wizard, steps out of a study and launches a lightning bolt down that long corridor...Bugbear reinforcements arrive and the heroes nearly drop Thegger Grynn, but the bad guys seize enough of an advantage with a couple characters down and bleeding out to gain the heroes' surrender. As he's interrogating them, they notice the wizard wears a bosun's whistle on a chain around his neck. I won't say what that means in case some of my players are reading these recaps, but some DMs might be able to guess. Grynn attempts to determine their loyalty, hoping to hire them to kill Xolkin Alessandar and the Zhents in Nightstone (the PCs current employer), but they don't do a good enough job of lying to convince the wizard of their willingness to play ball. He leaves them locked up while he decides what to do with them.That's where we left off. The rogue (#3) this time is the only one to have escaped capture and is on the loose. No pressure...At this point, my party is still 4th level. Compared to the adventure as published, they're having to work a lot harder for those 4th and 5th levels, but they're learning a lot about what's going on and picking up some clues that will be paid off later. Time well spent, and low-level D&D is so fun and suspenseful, I feel like it was a good decision to add this content.Tune in next time to find out if our intrepid heroes escape the oddly nautical-themed wizard and his minions, or whether they meet the executioner's axe.</blockquote>

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