This week, I shared my experience altering Axeholm to be run as a three hour one-shot adventure. Today, I’ll conclude those thoughts by sharing the custom adventure hook I crafted for the Axeholm adventure, as well as an adventure summary.

Adventure Hook

The characters find themselves at The Dogwater, a roadside inn at the intersection of the High Road and the Triboar Trail. A Dwarven explorer by the name of Dagrym Axesmith approaches them in search of an adventuring party to join an expedition to Axeholm, a ruined fortress in the Sword Mountains. The previous mercenaries that Dagrym commissioned for this task (the Stone-Cold Reavers) turned out to be unreliable scoundrels who abandoned him at the inn three days ago.

Their errand to Axeholm will be to retrieve a set of gauntlets used in the crafting of adamantine weapons, for which Dagrym’s people have notable skill. After his experience with the Stone-Cold Reavers, the dwarf is reluctant to trust in money as sufficient motivation for mercenaries. Instead, he offers to cover reasonable expenses for the characters, and promises that his people will craft each member of the party an adamantine weapon as payment for their aid in this important task. Each character is promised “a weapon worthy of an heirloom to pass from one generation of your family to another,” so long as Dagrym is safely returned to his people in the Star Metal Hills with the coveted gauntlets.

Adventure Summary

As the characters journey to Axeholm to, Dagrym shares the story of Axeholm’s downfall as it has been passed down over the decades:

Axeholm has been abandoned for a century because it is haunted by the spirit of an Elvish wizard named Vyldara, who once advised the King and educated his children. Legend has it that Vyldara attempted to foment civil unrest, sparking a conflict within the halls of Axeholm, forcing the royal family to flee.

Weeks later, there was an attempt to reclaim Axeholm, only to find the shrieking spirit of Vyldara now haunting its halls as a banshee. Attempts to rid the fortress of this forlorn spirit met with failure. And so the Axeholm was abandoned, with its people eventually resettling in the Star Metal Hills.

The characters arrive to distant shrieks from within the fortress echoing out the darkened arrow slits of Axeholm’s bulwarks. As they venture into the ruin, their errand becomes a dungeon crawl in search of the gauntlets of ogre power Dagrym seeks.

Exploration of the ruins leads to the sighting of a luminous spirit in the shape of a beautiful elvish woman spotted through arrow slits overlooking the Mustering Hall (A4). If passing through the Inner Gauntlet (A11), the characters will discover the headless body of Jabaral the Orc-Biter, a member of the Stone-Cold Reavers. Dagrym identifies Jabaral’s corpse by its tattoos, armor, and gear.

When the characters enter the Throne Room (A14), they will discover the leader of the Stone-Cold Reavers (a woman by the name of Syleen Wintermoon), sitting upon the throne. The mercenary appears to be dead until approached, when her eyes flutter open. She is close to death, and can do nothing more than silently mouth two words over and over: “kill me.”

Moments later, Syleen shrieks in sudden agony. The sounds that come from her are a mixture of human suffering and monstrous rage as two leathery wings sprout from either side of her head, expand, and flap heavily as the flesh at her neck rips and tears in a spray of blood and gore until her head separates from her body in a matter of seconds. The party witnesses the birth of a vargouille, which attacks them immediately and is soon joined by Jabaral’s vargouille.

Should the characters survive their encounter with the vargouilles, Dagrym leads them to the second floor via the staircase behind the throne. It is there they come face to face with Vyldara, who has maintained her elvish grace and beauty in undeath, uncharacteristic of a banshee. This is because Vyldara is, in fact, a ghost. The shrieks heard from Axeholm all those years ago were from a vargouille, and not a banshee.

Dagrym confronts Vyldara about her alleged role in displacing his people, only to find out what really happened at Axeholm. The ghost knows the location of the gauntlets that Dagrym is seeking, and promises to reveal their location if the party does her a favor first (again, see “What Really Happened at Axeholm“).

The headless corpses of the other two Stone-Cold Reavers are located in areas A26 and A30, accompanied by their vargouilles, which attack the party on sight if discovered in their respective areas.

Once the party completes Vyldara’s task, she reveals the location of the gauntlets in the Castellan’s bed chamber, then disappears as she goes on to eternal rest. At that moment, tremors ripple throughout Axeholm in the lead-up to an earthquake that will destroy the fortress. The characters must rush to retrieve the gauntlets and escape Axeholm before it collapses.

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