My level 16 Greyhawk campaign, now in its third year (and 64th session) saw the characters back in their home town of Brusington after an extended foray against stone giants serving Incabulos, the plague deity. It had been tough and punishing. They wanted some time off, and so I gave them a few months of downtime to do with as they wanted.

We spent an hour discussing various options as to what they would do. The rogue chose to make allies by carousing, but the paladin and artificer hit the rulebooks looking for magic items to craft, since I’d indicated that was now an option. (I’m using the ToV rules as a base, but will probably incorporate other systems as time goes on). The paladin eventually hit on the Animated Shield as being perfect for the artificer to use, but – since I’m slightly old school – I wanted a special component, a special quest. Namely: the shield had to be one used by a high-level animated construct first.

The pair asked where they might find such a construct – as it happened, one of the contacts that the rogue had made could tell them the answer. That worthy merchant had heard tales of three places: The Land of Black Ice, far to the north. The Barrier Peaks, not far to the west, and in the fabled dungeons of Castle Greyhawk.

My players remembered their adventures in the last campaign in the Land of Black Ice, where they fought trolls in space armour that reflected magic back on the caster, and decided that perhaps this was not a good idea. Instead, they’d try the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. After taking the river boat down to the city – a journey of about a month – they did further investigation and found that the constructs were rumoured to be on the tenth level of the dungeon. The dungeon they hadn’t previous entered.

There is a spiral staircase in the version of the Castle I’m using (Castle of the Mad Archmage, by Joseph Bloch) that leads to the third level of the dungeon, but beyond that the way is obscure. I knew that this high-level group would have options – such as talking to the inhabitants of the castle – to make their way easier. Of course, this is not a party that will talk when there’s fighting available. Mostly. 

And soon enough, they found the first room with monsters – six giant scorpions (CR 3). My very first monster from the new Monster Manual! Hooray!

Against level 16 characters and the artificer’s steel wombat. Sigh.

Not all that surprising that they wrecked the scorpions. The wombat was struck by the sting of one of the scorpions – of course it was immune to the poison. The scorpions had been slightly effective.

The next area was over an open pit, 10 feet deep. The artificer flew over (boots of flying) to discover three apes (CR 1/2) – pets of the hobgoblins that laired here. The artificer drew them out, and the rogue and paladin shot them. The rogue then fell into the pit, unable to jump it. They then found the shrine to the hobgoblin god, and the offended Paladin of St Cuthbert destroyed it. As he began the process, the hobgoblin priest appeared and protested. But the god was undeniably evil, and his priest soon went to whatever afterlife his god afforded him.

Well, there went one chance to find the way down…

Continuing on into the heart of the hobgoblin lair, they found stairs leading up. Up? We want to go down! So they retreated… back to the pit trap. The rogue sighed, but this time made the jump.

Many long corridors later, they found a room with five giant fire beetles (CR 0). The third MM2025 monster of the evening… but, they were getting weaker! +1 to hit vs the paladin’s AC 22. Nah!

Finally they found a room with velociraptors – pets of the nearby lizardfolk tribe. I braced myself for a combat… but the paladin found the velociraptors cute and rolled very well on Animal Handling to befriend them. As the velociraptors gamboled for their new friend, two of them discovered they could make noises by hitting the steel wombat, and started an impromptu concert. Which drew the attention of the lizardfolk.

But, as it happens, the paladin doesn’t mind lizardfolk, and soon befriended them as well (helped by his good treatment of the velociraptors). They were able to tell him the way down to the next level of the dungeon!

They’ve reached the fourth level! Six more to go!

I had gone into this session with vague plans of using the new Rakshasas and seeing what would happen. As it happened, they went into the easy levels of a classic megadungeon and just had fun with the exploration and roleplaying and (very) easy combat. I’d expected to learn about the new MM2025 monsters – but the best laid plans rarely survive contact with the players. Which is why I hadn’t made that many.

But honestly – I had a lot of fun!

Guess I’ll have to wait a little longer until I properly get to see D&D 2024 in all its glory!