Description
High in the coastal cliffs east of Stannasgard, the proud dwarven city of forges and ships, an ancient fortress sits empty, facing the sea. The dwarves discovered the place before they built Stannasgard, and those early settlers named the place Binalric, the watcher’s keep. At first, the dwarves thought it perfect to house them as they planned their city and sourced the stone it required, but the fortress proved inhospitable in long-forgotten ways. A few old stories still circulate through the dwarven capitol about Binalric, but none now live who remember why their ancestors preferred hide tents along the beach to the stone walls of that desolate place.
A scholar visiting Stannasgard claimed the place once belonged to a lost clan of seafaring dwarves, whose reach extended far and wide. The scholar believe Binalric was a vault where the dwarves kept some of their most valuable artifacts. She attempted to mount an expedition into the fortress, but she could not find enough willing souls in Stannasgard and moved on.
Today, the fortress is empty, housing only cold wind and memories. What treasures remain within its cold stone walls?
This short adventure is designed for five 1st and 2nd level characters. This 5th Edition adventure is written by Jon Sawatsky and features cartography by Dyson Logos and art by Karl Waller.
senordread –
First off, I have ran so many adventures with Warlock lairs and every one of them is fun and easy to run. I typically run these as one night encounters that last no longer than 3-4 hours and this was no exception to that. The encounter is written pretty straightforward and brief. The encounter takes up about 4 pages not including the amazing Dyson maps we have all grown to love, but even includes links to digital versions which transfer well to digital map users (I use a 41 inch television and it worked for me). The rooms are described just enough to let you use your imagination, so if you are one of those GMs that like to read the description right out of books, you won’t find it here. The only complaint I have that seems to be a recurring one is the reference to Deep Magic books when it comes to the mention of spells specific to Midgard. Overall, great little dungeon crawl that wasn’t too difficult to my headstrong adventurers that like to “run and gun”.
mw52240 –
This was a lot of fun – a new DM ran this for our group of three level 2 PCs with only a little modification. She found this pretty easy to run for our group. This took us about 4 1/2 hours to get through, but mainly because we (the players) weren’t very efficient with how we handled certain aspects of the exploration. Any evening where the players are laughing so hard at their own antics that one nearly spits her drink across the table is a good evening.
garrett moynihan –
I had a blast DMing this one. The entire adventure is contained to one location, so I just started the players at the entrance and ran them through like it was a haunted house. Most of my fun came from making the adventure my own by making all the creatures in the bastion in some way under the influence the of final boss. So I figure someone reading the “as is” may not have as much fun, but I’m definitely going to be using this as my go to one shot for new groups. I’m excited to run it again with what I learned the first time through.