The Grand Duchy of Geoff has recently been plagued by a rash of unusually weird and terrible monsters of unknown sort. This western area, particularly the mountain fastness which separates the Grand Duchy from the Dry Steppes, has long been renowned for the generation of the most fearsome beasts, and it has been shunned accordingly — save for a handful of hardy souls with exceptional abilities and sufficient wealth to build stout strongholds to ward off the attacks of the predatory creatures infesting the rugged lands thereabout. Within the last few months, however, a walled town not far distant from the area, and four small fortresses as well, were destroyed by mysterious attacks!
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (Dungeon Module S3, Gary Gygax, 1980)
Our doughty crew — having (mostly) cleared the Black Temple of Tharizdun, and subsequently Tsojcanth, the sometime lair of the demon-consorting Archmage Iggwilv — has set their eyes on a troubled region to the south: The Grand Duchy of Geoff.
Already beset by raids from Giants, Geoff is now plagued “by a rash of unusually weird and terrible monsters of unknown sort.”
There it was learned that several unconfirmed reports have related that monsters have been disgorged from a gated cave at random intervals. The entrance to this place is high upon a rocky face, and sheathed in armor. This protection has purportedly frustrated all attempts to explore the space beyond the metal valve — although several search parties have entirely disappeared, so it is possible they entered but never returned.
The party has met with the Grand Duke, Owen I, and will attempt to rid the principality of this menace.
Meanwhile, the group’s followers will embark on an important side mission: Claiming strongholds for their leaders.
Domain Play & Lieutenants
This campaign I’ve been running the group through the classic modules by Gary Gygax. We play D&D5e, but these games I pull in a lot of elements from old school Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Mostly this means letting the AD&D modules supersede the 5e rules. If Gygax says there is a 30% chance of something happening, I tend to go with that.
One element of AD&D that was often ignored in the old days was Domain Play. Once characters reached Name Level (around level 10, the number varies by class), they’d get a title, and could claim a region and build a stronghold (also varying by class).
Here are the Fighter domain rules from the Player’s Handbook (1978):
When a fighter attains 9th level (Lord), he or she may opt to establish a freehold. This is done by building some type of castle and clearing the area in a radius of 20 to 50 miles around the stronghold, making it free from all sorts of hostile creatures. Whenever such a freehold is established and cleared, the fighter will:
1. Automatically attract a body of men-at-arms led by an above average fighter. These men will serve as mercenaries so long as the fighter maintains his or her freehold and pays the men- at-arms; and
2. Collect a monthly revenue of 7 silver pieces for each and every inhabitant of the freehold due to trade, tariffs, and taxes.
The Cleric builds a temple, the Thief a headquarters, and the Magic-user a tower.
The group’s characters are at the right level, and I was inspired by these passages in the opening of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, “save for a handful of hardy souls with exceptional abilities and sufficient wealth to build stout strongholds” and “a walled town not far distant from the area, and four small fortresses as well, were destroyed by mysterious attacks!“
Four is the perfect number of border strongholds for my group! They all have a lot of gold from sacking the two prior dungeons, except the new character played by my oldest son. And Delmar the thief plans to eventually take on the guild in Gorna, the capital.
So while the main characters are taking on the bizarre metal cave that threatens the region, the apprentices will attempt to capture the lost strongholds in the names of their masters.
Starting with the Tower of Mourning! (The most excellent map is by Dyson Logos.)
The Tower of Mourning
The “B-Team” characters are pictured on the right. Two of the players kept their steadfast gnome followers from Tharizdun and Tsojcanth. They are, left to right, top to bottom:
- Zoltan Shivvy (Lvl 2 Dwarf Barbarian)
- Venlana Farsong (Lvl 5 Half-Elf Warlock)
- Starkin Silvervein (Lvl 5 Dwarf Paladin)
- Del-Li (Lvl 5 Gnome Thief)
- Wil-Li (Lvl 5 Gnome Ranger)
- Ada (Lvl 5 Half-Elf Thief)
The party approached the tower. The baron had not been heard from in a couple of months.
Wil-Li investigated the area, looking for tracks. He found some, but they were a head-scratcher. Two different types:
- Smaller, inconsistent footprints by humanoids whose feet often had missing or extra parts, or the wrong shape. The prints were all over the place, disordered, as if from children.
- More normal, man-sized booted prints. In contrast with the others, these prints were very disciplined.
Starkin used his Divine Sense ability, but could detect no celestials, fiends, or undead.
The tower was sealed by a stout door. It was locked. Del-Li attempted to pick the lock, with no success. Ada worked on it, and unlocked the door. Starkin pulled it open.
Immediately, two shrieker fungi whistled, and creatures stirred. Zoltan chopped up the noisy mushrooms, but it was too late.
They were odd little things, either covered in, or made of, vegetation. Seeing three of them, Zoltan leapt forward to engage. But many more soon arrived. Vegepygmies!
Zoltan found himself surrounded as more boiled out of adjacent rooms.
Del-Li found they were resistant to piercing weapons, like his arrows. Zoltan thought they might be vulnerable to fire, and swung a torch like a club. Alas, his swing was so mighty that he killed the Vegepygmy outright, so it wasn’t clear if the fire had any effect!
There was a whole horde of them. Starkin swung his morning star to and fro, sometimes applying a Divine Smite for good measure.
Venlana (“The Witch”, as Zoltan the barbarian called her) cast Hunger of Hadar!
Many of the vegepygmies were caught in the spell’s footprint, lost in inky, bitter-cold darkness. Those unfortunates soon perished.
After that, the party mopped up the remaining vegepygmies, leaving the room looking like landscapers had been through, pieces of plants everywhere!
With the last foe dead, the place became quiet. The party examined their surroundings.
A raised area with a stone throne was off to the west. Above the throne was open to the floor above. Vines draped down nearby. Wil-Li the ranger sensed something was amiss with the vines, and warned the party to stay away.
Stairs spiraled up and down. The two stairs going up appeared to be warded by some magic field, clear and shimmering. Next to each was a box with magic lights and raised squares. Each was investigated.
On the north side, Venlana sat to cast an Identify spell on the box as a ritual, which required ten minutes. Zoltan pestered her with questions, breaking her concentration, and disrupting the ritual. The barbarian was shooed away.
The witch finished the ritual and discovered…
…absolutely nothing about the box. No magic was apparent, yet the box was clearly creating the force bubble that blocked the stairs.
Meanwhile, Zoltan decided to conduct his own investigation on the other box/bubble.
Lacking any spells, the barbarian decided to use his warpick on the box! Thunk! The pick sunk into the metal of the box. A few lights went out, the force bubble flickered. Del-Li shouted at Zoltan to stop; they were trying to secure this tower intact for Venlana’s master, the sorcerer Rolen!
Undeterred, the barbarian continued his “investigation”. One more puncture from the pick, and the box’s lights went out. Some sparks were briefly seen, and the bubble winked out. Smoke wafted from the ruined box.
Zoltan was proud of his contribution. Venlana sighed.
The party explored the rest of the floor of the tower, it was clear. There was a trap door in the northeast, in addition to the stairwells, giving multiple options to proceed.
Continued next session:
What we’re playing
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
During this adventure walkthrough / playthrough, I use primarily the original module, with some extras lifted from Goodman Games fantastic Original Adventures Reincarnated hardcover.
Amazon | DriveThruRPG (PDF)
Gorgeous hardcover Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to The Barrier Peaks at Amazon
See Also:
I’m running my kids through the Keep on the Borderlands using 5e as well. Next will be Isle of Dread, and hopefully making it to Expedition on the Barrier Peaks at some point. I think it will be a lot of fun, as I was never able to play the module myself. Do any of your players know that it’s a SciFi/Fantasy module? I guess that can only be hidden for so long before they figure it out.
I do remember hating fighting vegepygmies for some reason.
Maybe because there were so many of them and it was like tough Kobolds for high level
players?
Yeah, this is just a taste of vegepygmies for lower-level characters. There are swarms of them in S3 – it’s ridiculous. I can see why you’d have a bad memory about them! ;^)
I’ve been loving these gameplay recaps and I’m looking forward to seeing how this one unfolds! These S-series modules are indeed special. Maybe we didn’t appreciate that when we played them as kids but, 40 years later, I certainly do now. I remember the 10 year old me wasn’t crazy about the mixing of fantasy and sci-fi genres in this module – but the 50 year old me thinks it will be a blast seeing how a new generation of players experiences the adventure!
As a one off, I thought it was really interesting. Though it did end up giving players some ultra powerful weapons for a brief time.
But in general, I never liked books, movies, etc. that mixed SciFi and Fantasy. I think some people saw Star Wars as sort of Fantasy in space. With a princess, magic (the force), armor, etc. As a kid, it was definitely SciFi to me and wasn’t a mix of the two!
I agree that it’s fun to have gone
through the module (as a player or DM) and then watch how a different generation experiences the same thing. My oldest sort of plays it like a boardgame and doesn’t put much thought into it. Whereas I lived and breathed rpgs. Most my free time would be spent thinking about adventures I could craft as a DM or what my characters were going to do next session.