Arduin: The Caverns Beneath the Forgotten Tower

My brother and I played the sample dungeon in The Arduin Adventure rulebook. There’s a few suggested encounters, but it’s mostly a blank canvas “to allow the GM a chance to practice doing this himself.” Challenge accepted. The map of the caverns beneath the Forgotten Tower is in the wonderful classic Hargrave style: full of secret doors, nooks, crannies, secret doors, twists, turns, and secret doors.

I heavily altered the map. This was our first time playing Arduin and we wanted to focus on evaluating the combat rules, instead of getting bogged down in mapping and graph paper bitching. So I eliminated most secret areas and nooks and crannies. Really smoothed it out. 

Then, I added verticality and water features. Pools, slides, dripping, waterfalls, rapids, fungus, fog, wet sand, mud, etc. There should be no doubt…this is a wet place. Probably inspired by The Goonies. 

Also: natural stone stairs. I’ve always wanted to use them on a map ever since I saw the mapping symbols key in the red basic D&D book. Dream fulfilled. 

Here’s what I ended up with, alterations in pencil:

Game time. The stalwart adventurers, Gromm the Warrior and Robyn the Ranger entered the Forgotten Tower. A giant tarantula jumped them in the great hall, but escaped downstairs to the caverns. And so down down down the spiral stairs they went…

They passed through a cavern of large columnar formations connected floor to ceiling. Next a chamber bursting with fuzzy mushrooms and toxic spores. Then a slippery, drippy passage and a sloping floor…swoosh. Splash. Into a pool. 

A waterfall also cascaded into the far side of the pool, which emptied out in a series of swift rapids. The ranger was swept away by the current, lost to depths unknown. The warrior boldly pursued, but his pal was nowhere to be found and the warrior found himself in a strange cave with a basalt altar. Blood grooves, moon and star etchings, and nearby embedded in the stone wall: an irregular metal blob, giving eldritch vibes. 

The warrior wanted no part of it so he backtracked and entered a side passage enshrouded in fog. A haggard voice called out “Stop there foul beast!”  It was Cragor, leader of a decimated party of dwarves. They took heavy losses from a battle with a cyclops deeper in the caves before retreating to this hidden passage to regroup. They sure could use the warrior’s help in defeating the cyclops and claiming its crystal lair. 

Thus the adventure proceeded. The warrior and the dwarves went down natural stone stairs to an antechamber of skulls and bones. The cyclop’s lair was just beyond, so the raiders made a plan of attack. 

The warrior and dwarves charged around the corners and the cyclops roared awake, its huge glowing eye illuminating the amethyst dome of his geode lair. A great battle ensued and they were victorious. 

The dwarves began mining the crystals immediately. The warrior helped. This went on for several hours. The dwarven leader had a bottomless barrel that would hold all that was mined for easy transport. He then gave the warrior a small portion of amethyst and thanked him. 

The warrior asked for a larger share. An argument began and it came to blows. In the end, the warrior had slain all the dwarves and claimed all the loot for himself. He left the caverns below the Forgotten Tower and returned to Shadizar. There he cleaned up and purchased new clothes. Indeed, a very fine ensemble of new clothes.