Cliffhangers: The Tower of Lore

I know, I was planning to post every day, but when you pull a 20-hour shift in your kitchen, blogging time is hard to come by. And instead of continuing with the Sword and Fist, we have a detour to another Cliffhanger adventure, The Tower of Lore, released exactly 25 years ago today.

This is one of the higher-level adventures we've seen so far, being written for 8th-level characters. It's set in the Duchy of Urnst, so it's a Greyhawk adventure. I wonder if it could be used as a Living Greyhawk adventure. I don't see why not. And it uses an older Map-a-Week from October, The Old Tower. I did a post on this map at the time, stocking it for a quick adventure. But now it's being used for a Cliffhanger, so let's see what happens. Here's the map again, just as a refresher.

There's some background to this; the tower was originally built by an elf cleric of...Lolth?! The hell? Not listed as a drow elf, and why would a drow have a tower built on the surface in the first place? But this is a regular male surface elf who is a cleric/wizard serving Lolth. Okay, I definitely didn't see that one coming. Turns out that this elf, Nithis, was supposed to end up as a sacrifice in a clerical power grab and declined the honor, choosing instead to go all lich on everyone. He ended up being cursed as a drider, but still kept on with his lichly pursuit. He now lives in the tower's basement.

So, many moons later, a wizard (diviner) named Stannis comes looking for rumored treasure in this abandoned tower. He found some of Nithis' stuff, but it turned out that the rumors were planted by Nithis himself, luring adventurers so he could take their stuff. Being a diviner, Stannis was on the lookout for trouble, but got nailed by the traps anyway, and now he's a bodak.

So, that's the background. Now on to the adventure itself. It's a series of four high-level encounters, so having a cleric around to help with the healing is a great plan. There are some potential adventure hooks to get the party interested; they might be looking for Stannis in need of some divining help, for example. They come to the nearby village and learn of the tower's existence and Stannis' visits there and his subsequent disappearance, so it seems like a good place to start their search.

However, outside the tower are a couple of patrolling athaches who recently arrived. These bad boys have 133 hp each, so they aren't going to be pushovers even for a higher-level party. Assuming the PCs do dispatch them, they can head into the tower itself, which takes us to part 2 of the Cliffhanger.

Inside the tower, the party will run into Stannis' shield guardian, which last had orders to prevent anyone from entering the tower. Once they've beaten this creature, they can find some clues about the nature of the tower and Stannis' research efforts. Meanwhile, they are being watched from below...

The very next room (#7) is where Stannis now resides. Or rather, the bodak that used to be Stannis and is now completely engulfed by madness thanks to the mental touch of Lolth resides. He's intelligent, but crazy, and has no tactical acumen whatsoever; he'll just try to stay away and use his deadly gaze on intruders. There's a bit of treasure, but the bodak destroyed both Stannis' spellbook and the tome that was used to trap and destroy him (meaning the party wizard isn't going to be at risk of falling under the same curse). Once they defeat the bodak, the drider-lich will launch a sneak attack by casting darkness on the trapdoor, opening it, dropping a fireball on the party, and closing the door before retreating to his lair to wait for the party to come after him.

If the party discovers the trap door in the center of the room, they can descend to the lair of Nithis, the drider sorcerer lich. I thought he was a cleric of some sort, but apparently not. It makes more sense; why would Lolth have a male surface elf as a cleric in the first place? Anyway, Nithis is not very welcoming to visitors, and he has a wide range of abilities to use on intruders. Although I must say, the treasure in this adventure kinda sucks; there are some magic items, but they really aren't very impressive. But there are four tough combats in a row here, so the PCs can expect a bit of a grind.

This looks like a decent little adventure that could probably be run in a single session, assuming the characters are capable enough to handle four consecutive encounters like this. As I mentioned, it's one of the higher-level adventures we've seen so far; I think the only one higher was Into the Dragon's Lair, which was for 10th-level characters. I would like to run this at some point just to see how mid-level 3rd edition games go. 8th-level characters are going to have a wide range of abilities, so it will prove to be a challenge for many DMs to run this with the right atmosphere and sense of dread. All in all, I like it.

Alright, that's it for this one; the next couple of days will be devoted to (hopefully) finishing off the Sword and Fist book. I'll see you then.