Dungeon of Deception

A Four Against Darkness Adventure

After receiving reports of monsters issuing from an abandoned dungeon, the Temple has sent a neophyte paladin, Brother Bargor, to investigate. With him is an elf warrior, Edenil, whose tribe has been terrorized by the marauders.

Brother Bargor is armed with light armor, a shield, and sword.
Edenil has light armor, a sword, and a bow. Illustrations of his adventures show him with a shield, but that is artistic license.

Game note - To simplify my record-keeping, I played with only 2 characters. To help matters, I gave Brother Bargor a Healing scroll.

Our heroes entered the dungeon and proceeded to explore the right fork. The first few rooms were empty.

Game note - I used miniatures to record my progress. The "finished" map is shown below.

An overview of the dungeon

In the fourth room (4) they ran into a troll. Edenil quickly dispatched it. In the next room they discovered a minotaur. It bellowed with rage and charged them. Edenil dodged but Bargor was impaled on one of the creatures horns. He recovered and plunged his sword into the beast. Edenil followed with a slashing attack that opened a large wound in the minotaur. It panicked and fled. In its lair, our heroes found a Blessing scroll and jewelry worth 70 gp. After the battle, Bargor felt that this experience taught him a lesson and made him a better fighter (he leveled up).

In subsequent rooms, they found more treasure. Then they ran into an ogre (10). They attacked. Edenil hit it but Bargor missed. Off balance, he was unable to avoid the ogre's massive club. The blow crushed a couple of ribs and knocked him aside. He quickly recovered, however, and struck a telling blow. Edenil also attacked and struck. Furious, the ogre swung at Bargor. He dodged but the ogre's backswing struck Edenil! Despite the pain, he counterattacked and scored another hit. The creature swung again; this time Bargor took the brunt of it. Bruised and battered by the ogre, our heroes realized they had little stamina left. If the fight continued, they would succumb. Mustering their last reserves of strength they rushed to attack. Both the bladed buried themselves deep into the ogre's flesh. It collapsed in a pool of blood.

For all that effort, they only found 4 gold on the monster. Fortunately, they were able to heal, and continue their exploration.

In subsequent room (11, 14) they encountered and defeated vampire frogs. They discovered a strange puzzle (12) but they did not feel like they could solve it so they left it alone. By this time, they (actually me) were weary of adventuring so they began to backtrack. They passed an empty room (15) then defeated goblin swarmlings (16) and orcs (17) before making their way out of the dungeon.

While they did not find the main villain terrorizing the countryside, they managed to wipe out some powerful monsters and find some "donations" for the Temple.