In the city of Zobeck, in the world of Midgard, trouble was brewing. It began, as many might expect, amongst the kobolds. And likely, there were gnomes involved as well.

Despite years of supporting Kobold Press in their Kickstarters, I am quite unfamiliar with the world of Midgard, my players even more so. Following the underwhelming ending of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, I felt I wanted a break from Wizards of the Coast adventures, and so I grabbed one that had been intriguing me for a while now – Empire of the Ghouls.

(Also close to being chosen was the Scarlet Citadel by Steve Winter, but Richard Green won out. So it was time to see what he and his team had put together).

This would also prove to be the very first campaign we ran with the D&D 2024 rules. We created all characters using only the new Player’s Handbook, happily ignoring all the custom Midgard content I own.

Character Creation

Four players, four characters.

• Ocea Veo, a gnome bard
• Fen, a tiefling wizard
• Galadris Stonethrow, a gnome rogue
• Volstagg, a dwarf barbarian

Character creation was without reference to the Midgard Campaign Setting. Who needs background information when making character choices?

So, the players were in for a few surprises when the campaign began and I showed them what the setting said about gnomes, dwarves, and tieflings. For those unfamiliar, as we were, with Midgard – nobody trusts gnomes. The main gnomish kingdom of Niemheim made deals with devils to escape the clutches of Baba Yaga, and so all gnomes are now tainted by association. And we have two gnomes in the group.

The comment from Fen’s player summed it up: “Wait! I’m not the most distrusted person in the group?”

One wonders what Volstagg has done to end up with such an unsavory party!

Plight of the Kobolds

The adventure begins with the kobolds of Zobeck facing a few problems. So many problems that they’d even turn to a group that had gnomes and a tiefling!

There had been a number of kidnappings in Zobeck and due to the low gnome population in the city, the inhabitants had turned to blaming the next most likely group: the kobolds. When a young kobold was accused of kidnapping a young human woman, his employer, a kobold innkeeper, turned to the party for help. Not in proving the accusation wrong (although it certainly was!), but in just protecting the young kobold as he went around his deliveries and chores while the city watch investigated.

Because, as all kobolds know, humans are hot-blooded and prone to lynch kobolds on very flimsy evidence before the investigation concluded!

We never really established a great reason for why it was these adventurers the kobold innkeeper chose, but nonetheless we had started the adventure and would now continue!

Life as an Errand Boy

One of the fun things about how we were role-playing this campaign is that Galadris was very opinionated and did not like kobolds at all, buying into the general prejudice against them. And, meanwhile, being rather oblivious to how the gnomes were regarded!

The wealth of role-playing options helped us get through what I believe is a rather average opening chapter of the adventure. There are nice ideas, but mostly indifferently presented. There are also bits – like the errands the kobold goes on – which are left sort of up to the DM to choose the order of, but mostly don’t have quite enough detail to become special.

Thankfully, the City of Zobeck is interesting enough that a DM who has spent time reading the material can come up with stuff to enhance these mostly mundane tasks. (The populace’s reaction to seeing the kobold in the daytime going through the streets could be better handled). Things perk up when there’s combat involved; I would have like more developed material for role-playing.

From Errands to Kingly “Refinement”

After four days of these mundane errands (including giant rat catching), the father of the missing woman decided to get together a lynch mob and come after the young kobold. He was not expecting the youngster to be protected by gnomes.

This fact helped drive the mob back, and now very worried, the chef was forced to turn to his king for aid. The kobold king – one of many, it seemed – had been paying attention and gave the party clues about the real culprit, who had been seen fleeing into a crypt under the cartways.

Yes, he was worried about all his subjects (and himself) if the xenophobia now sweeping the city continued to worsen. The adventure makes it clear that this level of racial tension is not normal. Of course, for my players, it’s normal in Zobeck, as it is the only experience they’ve had!

The Crypt

Now second level, the players had fun finding lots of secret passages and taking out ghouls and other undead as they sort of followed the trail of the kidnappers. I say “sort of” because they were just checking what was in the crypt rather than actively tracking.

I like dungeons. My players like dungeons. And they were doing a really good job of getting through this one well. The new 2024 rules were also helping them, because disarming traps now had advantage if they were proficient in both Sleight of Hand and the Thieves’ Tools. DC 13? No problem at all!

The final room of the crypt – which wasn’t the last they investigated – had a couple of the kidnappers in it. A ghoul and a Red Sister. What’s a Red Sister? They’re followers of one of the more unpleasant evil gods. The ghoul is meant to try to run for it. He didn’t get a chance. And the documents on the Red Sister were really interesting, although the players may not understand them all yet. Context is a lot of it, and we’re still getting to grips with Midgard.

The Kidnappers

This then led to the big confrontation with the Cult of the Red Goddess in their hideout. And my first big problem with the adventure. You see, it’s a really difficult encounter. A lot of combatants, and the party is only second level. And they’re not that weak. Yes, cultists are, but you also had an acolyte, a scout, and a Red Sister.

For a fully rested party, this is a challenge. For a party who had just come out of a multiroom dungeon, it was nearly impossible. I frantically made changes to how the cultists were acting so as not to overwhelm everyone.

It’s an adventure construction problem: the moment you go “I know where the kidnappers are”, then everything goes to a higher level of urgency. At that point, you have to pay a lot of attention to how much content there is and how difficult it will be. A lot of adventures, in both RPGs and computer games, fall afoul of this problem. It’s nice having urgency, but there’s a limit to what you can do after you trigger it.

A related problem is that urgency falls away when you end up with session after session of drawn out encounters. This isn’t a problem in this adventure, but I thought it worth mentioning.

The good news is that the party won, and they rescued the kidnapped woman! Hooray!

Wait, that isn’t all?

The Lair

There are a lot of rooms to explore in the cultist lair. And more things to fight – primarily glass golems. Also, a few other cultists are still in residence who weren’t in the big fight. And we’ve wandered into another adventure construction flaw: Why are the party still here?

You’ve rescued the woman, so the obvious thing to do is make sure she’s safe and escort her home. And then come back the next day. So, why are there still cultists around? Well, obviously they’d have fled for their lives, and that’s how I ran the adventure after the party came back the next day.

The glass golems were still there, though. Guess what the party doesn’t have? Bludgeoning weapons – and these golems were resistant to many other types of damage. The rogue was having a horrible time of it. Upon finishing the exploration, he declared he was buying a sling!

It’s not the biggest dungeon to explore, and has some lovely features to engage DM and players. A pity the furnishings on the map don’t always match the text in the adventure. But it’s still a fun dungeon, even with the cultists gone to ground.

Ending Dread Chambers of the Undercity

As an opening to the Empire of the Ghouls campaign, it’s fine. It introduces the Red Sisters, the City of Zobeck, and a ghoul or two quite effectively. Well, at least the Kobold Quarter. It also sets up a few pieces of information that will become relevant later on.

The structure, while I think struggles in its execution, has good thoughts behind it. It’s by no means unplayable, and the sequence of play makes sense. It’s just something that I feel could be better refined. More definition on the errand missions, a less difficult “rescue the kidnappee” fight, and a better understanding on where the break points actually are.

This first section was really carried by the role-playing possibilities. I was using bits of the Midgard Campaign Setting and the City of Zobeck supplements to enhance everything, but merely the tension between the kobolds and the rest of the city gave so much to work with. While we’re not the most role-playing focused party, with material that helps enable it, we were doing a lot more than in our recent Wizards adventures.

We’re playing this campaign weekly on Roll20. I expect to report more as we finish each section of the adventure. (And yes, I will be getting back to my long-awaited reports on Phandelver and Vecna).