My Go To Starter Adventure: Pink Dice's Version of "A Dark and Stormy Knight"

"A Dark and Stormy Knight" is a 1st level adventure written by Owen K. C. Stephens. It was released by Wizards of the Coast for d20 aka D&D 3.5.  It is one of my favorite starter adventures because it covers all the major bases for a starter adventure -- introducing characters to each other, introducing some lore, hitting all the major rules, and teaching many beginner lessons of D&D. I personally have used this adventures in different forms for D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, and D&D 5E.

The adventure takes place in a tomb covered in a large hill, often called a barrow.  As the story starts, a squall sets in from the coast that is throwing heavy rain, wind, and deadly lightning at the PCs. They are traveling through the woods on their own, unconnected, when the storm hits. One of the lightning blasts cracks open the doors of this tomb, and the PCs take shelter there one by one.

In this part of the country, which I usually set on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms, ferocious storms hit often. As a result, people follow storm peace. It basically states that travelers caught in a storm agree to peaceful coexistence while taking shelter. As a result, all of the PC travelers feel reasonably safe to take shelter together, even with strangers.

Arriving in the Main Entry

I have the PCs roll initiative (often the first roll for new players) and arrive in the order of their rolls. I have each player describe what their character looks like as they enter. I usually give each PC some time to explore before others arrive.

The door of the tomb has been recently blown open by a near lightning strike, perhaps seen by the first PC as they approach. The interior, beyond the stone double entry doors, is very dark except for the occasional strikes of lightning outside. The room is perhaps 30 ft square with 3 sets of double stone doors leading further into the tomb to the north, east, and west. There is a decorative stone border about the top of the room which will reveal when it was built and who built it, for those that know those sorts of things.

The stone doors to other areas cannot be forced opened. There are no traps and not much in this main room except for some debris. With little effort, one of the PCs can start a fire for warmth and light. The fierce storm will build as the PCs start to chat by the fire (or in the cold, I suppose) until water will start seeping into the room, especially in the back corner (farthest from the fire). Water will pool and rats will start to crawl into the room, escaping the flooding. The party will most likely engage the rats, but if not, the rats will attempt to take food and perhaps bite at the PCs. This is a good first level combat that introduces not only the mechanics, but how each of the party members fight.

If you are using sounds effects, the raging storm is nice to have in the background.

It is also very good if you give the PCs a plot hook for the campaign before they get here. If they are all going to the same town or to see the same person, they can talk about that. Essentially, this mini-adventure can form the party for whatever lies ahead in your campaign.

The storm will continue to get worse and worse until another lightning strike will blow open the doors to the east and west.

The Statue to the West

To the west, the corridor bends left then right and leads to a wooden door. The door is locked. Upon opening the door, the party will see a small pedestal across the room. On this pedestal, at first glance, sits the statue of a small fiend.

With a really good perception check, one of the PCs might notice that this is in fact a living creature. Idenitfying what kind of creature and what they know about it is a good thing to cover. I typically use a quasit for this little guy. His name is Merf. Merf can fly, can turn invisible, and can scare the party. His motivations are to 1) get out of this tomb and 2) to get something to eat. He might also have a tendency to look for a "bigger" creature to protect and direct him. This is very much meant to be a social encounter.

If the party tries to hurt him, Merf will scare the attacker and turn invisible.  The party cannot hurt Merf -- he is too empowered for them. He can fly almost silently, but the slight flutter of his wings can be used to taunt the party. He will happily engage the party in conversation. If the party gives him food, he will trust them. He knows about the spiders later in the tomb and the mage knight and will offer the party this information freely to help them.

Merf will also tell the story of being summoned to be the mage knight's familiar, about how evil and mean the knight was, and how he got locked here when the mage knight died.

Merf is a great future story hook. If the party sets him free, he may wreak havoc in the world nearby. If the party ask Merf to join, he will do so. Merf adds a bit of comic relief to the party. He often will try to help, but really has no idea about adventuring and will often to the wrong thing.  He also likes to fly in loop-de-loops.

Inevitably the paladin always gets one whiff of Merf, thinks he is evil, and tries to kill him. Merf is an evil creature, but is essentially an innocent. Make sure you use this distinction to engage your expectations with the paladin about how good, lawful, innocents, and other alignments play out in your campaign.

The Chest to the East

To the east the corridor bends and winds to a wooden door. Behind this door, in the center of a small room is a chest. The chest is locked. The thief or similarly skilled PC in the party will be able to open the lock. However, inside the chest is a trap that has only slight tell-tale signs on the outside, making it difficult to detect. If it is detected, the exact nature of the magical trap will be unknown. (It can also be detected as magical.) This is a good time to cover your expectations for active and passive perception, and how you treat magical traps.

If the chest is opened, the trap will go off and everyone within 20 feet will get hit with a fireball. This should do more damage if the PCs don't take cover or hide under the edge of the pedestal. This may result in the chest-opening PC getting downed, which makes for a wonderful discussion of death rules. No one will die, because of the loot contained therein.

Inside the chest are healing potions to help the party along. This helps reinforce the fact that the party doesn't need a dedicated healer. A magical light source is a good thing to add here too.

Further into the Tomb

As the storm continues to pelt the barrow, another lightning strike will blow the doors to the north open in the main room. There is a very dark corridor leading to a large room (40 ft square) lit by smoldering embers. In this room are 3 hobgoblins with solid armor and weapons that don't recognize storm peace. Successful stealth will allow a PC to sneak into range. Two foes will be near the door and attempt to surround and gang up on the weakest combatant in range, once they notice the PCs. Across the room the third hobgoblin will be using a ranged weapon like a crossbow or bow.

The hobgoblins are meant to be really tough in melee. This is the scenario where the party learns who has characters that can engage effectively in melee and who can't. More times than not, the first character into the room is the rogue / thief / sneak who is woefully outmatched in melee by two hobgoblins.

This fight also gets to show that not all fights end in everyone dead. Once the first two hobgoblins are defeated, the third will make a quick escape by the north hall that goes deeper into the tomb. After a moment, the party will hear the hobgoblin's scream as he meets his unfortunate end.

The party also gets to loot a couple of corpses, which is always fun.

The room itself contains the fire made from pieces of broken furniture. There is also a rope that leads up to a collapsed portion of the ceiling and presumably to the surface of the barrow where the hobgoblins got in. Water dripping down from here has caused the fire to smolder.

Webs and Corpses

North, down the corridor where the hobgoblin fled, is nothing but pitch black darkness. This is a good time to talk about who has darkvision and who needs a torch. It is also good to describe how bad a torch is for stealth. I also like to describe the light blindness caused by the torch.

Heading down this corridor leads to a T. The whimpering screams of the hobgoblin will be to the right, often leading the party in that direction.  Down this corridor will be an increasing number of webs. The corridor ends in a web infested room with a number of web-wrapped corpses. If the party approaches, a spider on the ceiling will attack with webs to attempt to entangle the PCs. Two other spiders lurk in the room.

Poison and webs make this an interesting fight, but it isn't really hard. Still, it is the sort of fight that feels dangerous, so definitely play it up. Getting caught in existing webs is a real danger, so tell the PCs when there are webs before they move, so they understand what happened when they get stuck.

Raiding the web-wrapped corpses will provide some loot, including that of one recently-killed hobgoblin. A PC may also try to harvest poison from the dead spiders.

The Knight

The final room of the barrows is the tomb of the mage knight which can be found by taking a left at the T. The room has two large stone doors at the entrance. If you want to enforce play order, hide the key for these doors in the spider room loot.

In this case, I usually use a zombie / skeleton of a large creature like a troll or ogre for the knight.  Merf, if he is with the party, will be scared and refuse to enter this room "with the mean master". Upon entering the room, the PCs will find a sarcophagus broken open. Once one PC gets within reach, the knight will stand up and attack. I usually make sure the knight has a reach weapon to illustrate that in combat. I definitely make it so the party has to fight for a few rounds before taking this guy down.

The sarcophagus in this case makes a nice piece of terrain to play around with. With it and the reach weapon, you can make the PCs have to attack from odd locations, resulting in more interesting combat.

Of course the loot for this room should be the best. By the time I get here, my party usually levels up to 3 with their final victory.

Summary

So, in summary, this is what you can get out of this little 6 room dungeon covering levels 1 and 2:

• Introduction of the party
• Lore (storm peace)
• History / stonecunning (decoration in the main entryway)
• Social interaction (with Merf)
• Alignment (dealing with Merf)
• Traps (Chest room)
• Combat with melee and ranged (hobgoblin fight)
• Stealth (sneaking up on hobgoblins)
• Darkvision and lighting (dark north corridor)
• Non-lethal encounter endings / chase (retreating hobgoblins)
• Poison (spiders)
• Entanglements (spiders)
• Harvesting poison (spiders)
• Loot and looting (throughout)
• Identifying potions (chest room)
• Reach weapons (mage knight)
• Terrain (mage knight)
• Future plot hooks (throughout)
• Nature for monster info (throughout)

I suspect there is a lot of other stuff I probably missed too, but you get the idea.

So grab this and/or the original and hack it into something you can use in your game.