Campaign 1: Sunless Citadel

## The Sunless Citadel

Justin

Thuldus Vondor

> **"All things roll here: horrors of midnights, campaigns of a lost year, Dungeons distrubed, and groves of lights; Echoing on these shores, still clear, Dead ecastasies of questing knights - Yet how the wind revives us here!"**
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> *- Arthur Rimbaud*
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This adventure concerns a once-proud fortress that fell into the earth in an age long past. Now known as the Sunless Citadel, its echoing, broken halls house malign creatures. Evil has taken root at the citadel's core, which in deep within a subterranean garden of blighted foliage. Here a terrible tree and its dark shepherd plot in darkness. The tree, called the Gulthias Tree, is shepherded by a twisted druid, Belak the Outcast. he has drawn to the buried citadel twelves years ago, following stories of oddly enchanted fruit to their source. The druid found an old fortress that had been swallowed up by the earth in some sort of magically invoked devastation. With the previous inhabitants long dispersed, vile , and opportunistic creatures common to lightless dungeons infested the subterranean ruins. At the core of the old fortress, Belak stumbled upon the Twilight Grove.

A perfect, ruby-red apple ripens on the Gulthias Tree at the summer solstice, and the tree produces a single albino apple at the winter solstice. The midsummer fruit grants vigor, health, and life, while the midwinter fruit steals the same. In the years since Belak's arrival the enchanted fruit has been widely dispersed through the surrounding lands, promoting good and ill.

## Premise

Kerowyn Hucrele, a veritable damsel in distress approaches the *Three Companions* in the Yawning Portal begging you to help her. A month past, her brother and sister ventured into the depths of the Sunless Citadel in search of a treasure to replace their usual paltry finds in the nearby ruins of Thundertree. They never returned. Fearing the worst, Kerowyn enlists the *Three Companions* to recover or rescue her wayward siblings

## Characters

### Player Characters

* Justin as Sauriv
* Phill as Thuldus Vondor
* Braden as Olo Moonshadow

## Episodes

### Episode 1: In Good Company

1451 DR
 *An unexpected reunion between friends is interrupted when a Kerowyn Hucrele, the matriarch of the Hucrele family and proprietor of a Provisioning Company in Oakhurst pleads for your assistance. With her plight for aid pulling at your compassion and her heavy coin purse pulling at your empty stomach, Olo, Sauriv, and Thuldus venture out from Waterdeep. 10 days later after a short skip on the coast on a cutter and some brief recuperation in Neverwinter sees you on the Triboar Trail to Oakhurst. A momentary fight for your life as a swarm of Kobolds surge out from the forest. Olo dispatched them with an impressive flourish of combat prowess - to the dismay of his companions of course. You arrive at Oakhurst and conduct a brief investigation on the Talgen and Sharwyn as well as the foreboding Sunless Citadel a few miles away. Sauriv discovers druidic markings on some uprooted tree roots. A ritual like chant worshipping a figure named Belak. Thuldus is familiar with the name and new of a Belak the Outcast nearly two decades ago. He was a dark druid focused solely on the corruption of nature for his own nefarious needs.*
*Setting out from Oakhurst, you find the entrance to the Sunless Citadel and begin the journey down into the depths of the crevasse. A brief encounter with some giant rats leaves you winded and startled but you take a brief respite and set off into the gloomy depths beyond to fates unknown.*

### Episode 2: An Unlikely Companion

1451 DR
 *The journey into the Sunless Citadel is fraught with peril. Rats of monstrous proportions, shambling skeletons, and treacherous traps line the treacherous path. After a few bloody encounters, Thuldus, Olo and Sauriv burst into a larger room to find a whimpering Kobold. After some forceful prodding, the creature identifies himself as Meepo, the local Kobold Tribe's Keeper of the Dragon. Apparently he is not a very good keeper as the white dragon wyrmling, known as Calcryx, was stolen by a goblin clan that also resides in the citadel. You convince Meepo to take you to the tribe's chieftan, a female Kobold named Yusdrayl who provides you considerably more context to the issue than the sputtering Meepo. The Kobolds lives in the Citadel largely because of its former patronage to the dragon Ashardalon. They have been left undisturbed until Belak the Outcast and his festering clan of goblins moved in a few years before and began to cause problems, the most recent being the theft of Calcryx. Yusdrayl pleads with the party to assist her tribe in recovering their wyrmling and offers two of their 'holy' items from the alter at the Dragon Throne as well a key to a locked room in the citadel said to contain great treasures. Thuldus, who had been identified as the party leader by Yusdrayl to his clear discomfort, asked her if she knew the whereabouts of Talgen and his company who had entered the citadel a month before. Yusdrayl morosely replied that she had sent them on the same quest to have them never return.*
*Resolved and emboldened, you set out with the sheepish Meepo as a guide - only to discover the Keeper of the Dragons rarely left the dragon hold. Your ventures bring you into a large room and the fetid home of Gutlash, a massive diseased rat which had wormed her way into a packmaster status of the local giant rat infestation. With quick thinking from Thuldus, Gutlash is burned to a crisp by a gout of flame from a potion of fire breath and Olo and Sauriv quickly dispatch the few remaining rats. Bruised, tired, and broken, you settle down for a brief rest before you continue your journey into the citadel's depths.*

### Episode 3: Here be Goblins

1451 DR
 *The journey deeper into the Sunless Citadel is fraught with peril. Countless creatures and denizens lurk in the dark and watch the Three Companions as they wearily trudge through the darkened halls. Your guide, Meepo, proves to be quite useless and instead of guiding your through the dark passageways he instead trundles along behind you. Your delve continues and you arrive at a locked room. Through some thiefscraft you're able to force the door open and reveal a peculiar sight. It looks as if you're atop a snow-covered mountain and not deep within a sunken fortress. The room is covered in frost and ice and appears to have been ransacked. A quick investigation reveals the missing White Dragon Wyrmling, Calcryx has been locked in this room. The wyrmling is quite volatile and attempts to kill you. Even the sight of its old handler and caretaker, Meepo, doesn't seem to calm the raging beast. You are able to calm the creature slightly by feeding it bits of fallen goblin and rats and leave Meepo to care for the creature; knowing full well it's a 50/50 chance the wyrmling will kill the kobold.*
*You arrive at Goblin Town, or rather what appears to formerly be the great hall of the citadel now converted into a ramshackle village. Goblins of all ages trundle about with a few watchful guards circulating throughout the crowd and keeping the peace. Electing not to walk straight through the town, you find a hidden passageway to circumvent the town and arrive at what appears to be the Goblin's throne room. It is there that Durnn, the hobgoblin leader and his advisor Grenl, argue about the ever increasing 'kobold problem'. In the center of the room is a large hole which leads to darker depths below. Without waiting, Sauriv shifts into a hulking bear and Olo charges in, sword in hand and battle cry bursting from his throat. You engage in a heated combat with Durnn's personal guards and dodge explosive sprays of noxious poison from the spellslinger Grenl. You are able to dispatch the guards and strike down Grenl leaving only the wounded Durnn. Rather than letting you strike him down, Durnn throws himself down the dark hole and to the unknown depths below. You search the room and find small treasures. The Goblins in the town beyond, having heard the fight and seeing their leader struck down, have fled. Curious, you stare down the dark hole and listen, wondering what foul machinations are brewing in the dark. With no other places to go, you press forward into the Twilight Grove.*