In our Greyhawk Irongate campaign (I'm a player), we've recently determined that our first step in satisfying the long-term goal of freeing the surrounding area from the tyrrany of the Scarlet Brotherhood is to look to Onnwal. (The campaign is set during the GW.) Unfortunately, there's only so much that even a group of adventurers as powerful as we are can accomplish--so our pre-first step is to reduce some of the pressure on Irongate in the hopes that we might be able to safely raise support from the dwarves when the time comes to liberate the rest of the former Iron League.
So our first order of business is to return to a nearby Dwarven fortress and help to re-take it for Irongate. We were there when the fortress fell, and it was very much Not a Good Thing--a whole army of barbarian brought in by the brotherhood (which we did manage to slow for some time), along with numerous vile beasts, and at the end an enchanter of great power (who we were fortunate enough to know of only in his effect.) After a bit of scouting, we discovered that while the Suloise barbarians that had invested it have disappeared, the former Dwarven stronghold is now populated with undead former Dwarves.
We decided to attempt a lightning raid--since we know the layout of the place, we determined that there were two places that a necromancer would be interested in setting up shop--either in the lord's chambers or in the chapel. We planned to enter using one secret passage, check the lord's chambers, then fight our way across to the chapel. With luck, we would be able to enter, slay the necromancer, and get out using a different secret passage before we drowned in undead. Once their dark master had been destroyed, we could return and clean out the lesser undead at our leisure.
But of course things don't always go the way you want. For example, the elves who we had heard would be part of the raiding party were called away for another urgent task. This left us working with a group consisting entirely of Dwarves to go in with us. Dwarves are doughty fighters--but they are most definitely *not* fast.
As another example of how things can go wrong, well, of course the necromancer was *not* in the first chamber on our trip.
Also, the scouting we had done prepared us for the large number of dwarf wights, but we were not originally aware of the ghasts, nor of what appeared to be some form of skeletal umber hulks with mysteriously elongating claws.
Then the first of the undead spellcasters appeared--formerly a Paladin we had known when defending the fortress.
And then we arrived in the chapel, and found rather more vampires than we hoped, along with a strange wolf-like creature that we encountered when we were escaping the fall of the fortress.
It will be interesting to see how we can survive this, since we had to stop at this point last session, and both of our spellcasters were running very very low on spells.
Our party consists of:
Sir Gronk Duthmok d'Ahlissa, a half-orc brawler who trained himself by watching his captors in the Scarlet Brotherhood (Half-Orc Monk 11)
Sir West d'Ahlissa, a human earth-friend with strong ties to the land of the Iron Hills (Human Druid 12)
Triben Miran, a human planeswalker who is looking for a way to return to his native land (Human Diviner 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 6)
Ann, a halfling ascetic who is lately seeking to redeem her soul (Halfling Rogue 3/Monk 8, having taken a vow of poverty) [my character]
Tyrion, a dwarf of strange aspect, who joined us with the other Dwarves to assault this keep (Dwarf Rogue 11, I believe)
And our former companions:
Sir Oleg Ironbelly d'Ahlissa (Dwarf Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight), lost in our escape from the fortress when it fell. [my old character]
Minos Tagarten (aka Kossoth Ren) (Human Psion?), delivered by our party only a short time ago into the hands of the Irongate watch after committing murder most foul within Irongate itself. (Do not mess with the Dwarven Inquisition.)