Lord Of The Iron Fortress.pdf

L Ord Of the I rOn F Ortress

Credits

Designer: A NDY C OLLINS

Editor: G WENDOLYN F.M. K ESTREL

Creative Director: E D S TARK

Art Director: D AWN M URIN

Cover Artist: T ODD L OCKWOOD

Interior Artists: D AVID D AY AND W AYNE R EYNOLDS

Cartographer: T ODD G AMBLE

Typesetter: E RIN D ORRIES

Graphic Designer: C YNTHIA F LIEGE

Business Manager: A NTHONY V ALTERRA

Project Managers: J USTIN Z IRAN , M ARTIN D URHAM

Production Manager: C HAS D E L ONG

Playtesters: Bruce R. Cordell, Steve Miller, John D. Rateliff, Ed Stark, Owen K.C. Stephens, Penny Williams

Based on the original D UNGEONS & D RAGONS ® rules created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the new

D UNGEONS & D RAGONS game designed by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, and Peter Adkison.

This Wizards of the Coast game product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be

reproduced in any form without written permission. To learn more about the Open Gaming License

and the d20 System License, please visit www.wizards.com/d20.

Sources include the Manual of the Planes by Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, and David Noonan, the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook by Matt

Forbeck and David Noonan , the Planescape campaign setting by David “Zeb” Cook, Planes of Law by Wolfgang Baur and Colin McComb,

Hellbound: The Blood War by Monte Cook and Colin McComb, and the Player’s Primer to the Outlands by Jeff Grubb.

This adventure is dedicated to the fans of the P LANESCAPE ® campaign setting.

Special thanks to Monte, for showing me how to do this, and to Gwendolyn, for giving me a reason to keep doing this every day.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...............................................................2

Preparation.............................................................2

Adventure Summary ..............................................2

Character Hooks ....................................................3

Planar Travel ...........................................................3

Beginning the Adventure ...........................................3

Powerful Divinations..............................................4

Moving the Action Along.......................................5

Part One: Rigus..........................................................6

Sidebar: City of Rigus ............................................6

Sidebar: Adventuring on the Outlands .................7

Part Two: Avalas .........................................................9

Sidebar: Slaad Alternate Form.............................14

Sidebar: The Hive ................................................17

Part Three: The Iron Fortress ..................................20

Sidebar: Unhallow Effects Highlights..................20

Sidebar: Blade Golems of Zandikar ....................21

Sidebar: Lydzin’s Symbols ....................................25

Sidebar: Zalatian, the Fallen Archon ...................31

Conclusions..............................................................34

Appendix I: NPC Statistics ......................................35

Appendix II: New Monsters ....................................43

Appendix III: New Magic .........................................46

Appendix IV: Pregenerated PCs ..............................47

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INTRODUCTION

I ntrOductiOn

“Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of

man. . . . Anything built by man can eventually be

destroyed by him.”

shards of the blade across the planes—its powers lost

for eternity.

Or so it was thought. Today, the Blade of Fiery Might

is being reforged by the warlord, Imperagon. The

son of a duergar prince and a mighty red dragon,

Imperagon rules the Iron Fortress of Zandikar, a

mighty stronghold built of scrap metal located on

the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron. Here he has

gathered the spirits of the greatest forgemasters of

history, stealing their very spirits from across the

planes. These slaves labor endlessly in the Pit of Toil,

channeling their great skills through Imperagon

himself in an attempt to recreate the blade.

Once completed, Imperagon plans to wield the

Blade of Fiery Might at the head of a great army in an

attempt to carve out a kingdom from the Material

Plane. To this end, he has sought alliances with other

powerful evil forces—including the drow, the illithid

city of Ilkkool Rrem, certain natives of Acheron, and

the hosts of Hell itself.

Now the blade nears completion, but Imperagon’s

need for slaves and materials grows ever stronger. His

fears of discovery have grown, and he eagerly seeks

the end of his preparations. Only a matter of weeks,

perhaps days, separates him from his destiny.

—General George S. Patton

In Lord of the Iron Fortress , player characters (PCs)

travel to the Outer Planes to stop a half-dragon war-

lord bent on conquering entire worlds with the help

of a reforged artifact of legend.

Encounter Levels: Lord of the Iron Fortress is

designed for a party of four 15th-level D&D® charac-

ters who should advance through 16th level by mid-

adventure and reach (or be near) 17th level by the

end. As always, a good mix of PC classes and races

works best, and though chaotic characters may find

Acheron a bit unfriendly to their nature, it shouldn’t

significantly hamper their activities.

Because of the extraordinarily deadly nature of

encounters at this level, Dungeon Masters with inex-

perienced or smaller groups may wish to modify

some encounters to give PCs a better chance of sur-

vival. On the other hand, larger groups should be able

to handle more difficult encounters, and the DM

should have no qualms about adding a few monsters

to encounters here and there.

ADVENTURE SUMMARY

The adventure begins when the PCs decide to investi-

gate the strange events surrounding local craftsmen.

Following the trail of these events leads the PCs to the

gate-town of Rigus, front door to the Plane of

Acheron. A bit of investigation in Rigus turns up ref-

erences to the Iron Fortress of Zandikar, located on

the layer of Acheron known as Avalas.

Once on Acheron, the PCs encounter a variety of

foes and potential allies, including formian settlers

from Mechanus, whose hive can serve as a base of

operations for the characters during their assault on

the Iron Fortress.

Golems and Imperagon’s steel predator servants

guard the Iron Fortress. Within its walls, the enslaved

forgemasters toil endlessly under the watch of their

azer overseers. Meanwhile, Imperagon entertains visi-

tors from other worlds and planes who have heard of

his path to power and contemplate alliance with the

would-be warlord.

If successful, the characters can throw down the

mighty Imperagon and destroy his works, preventing

him from establishing himself as a power to be reck-

oned with on the planes. If unsuccessful, they may

join the slaves in Imperagon’s Pit of Toil.

PREPARATION

As Dungeon Master (DM), you need a copy of the

three core D&D rulebooks to use this adventure:

the Player ’s Handbook , the D UNGEON M ASTER ’s Guide ,

and the Monster Manual . If you want to expand the

planar travels in this adventure, Manual of the Planes

would be useful, but it is by no means required to

run the adventure.

In the adventure itself, the shaded boxes provide

player information for you to paraphrase or read

aloud when appropriate. Sidebars contain important

information for you, including special instructions.

Information on nonplayer characters (NPCs) appears

in abbreviated form in any encounter in which the

PCs meet them; see Appendix I for full NPC statistics.

Adventure Background

Ages past, the sultan of the efreet wielded a mighty

sword called the Blade of Fiery Might. This great arti-

fact served him well in his wars against the djinn

and other enemies of the City of Brass. Eventually a

daring jann and his allies, a band of adventurers

from the Material Plane, destroyed it, scattering the

BEGINNING THE ADVENTURE

CHARACTER HOOKS

As the DM, you know best how to involve your

players and their characters in an adventure. Use

these adventure hooks as suggestions or spurs to your

imagination, modifying them as necessary to make

them appropriate to the characters’ interests.

by a steel predator. The more you can weave the

adventure into your campaign’s fabric, the more real

it feels for the players (and the more involved in the

plot they’ll be).

PLANAR TRAVEL

In this adventure, the heroes travel from the Material

Plane to the Outer Planes. While it’s unlikely that

this is the first time your PCs have ventured off the

Material Plane, planar travel probably isn’t something

with which they’re intimately familiar.

Some important basic differences exist between the

Material Plane and the Outer Planes. The Manual of

the Planes discusses these in detail—and if you plan to

run extensive adventures on the planes, you’ll defi-

nitely want to use this resource—but the product you

now hold provides all you really need to know to run

this adventure.

Both of the Outer Planes appearing in this

adventure—the Concordant Domain of the Outlands

and the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron—are relatively

simple to use in your game. Neither requires any

unusual protections to explore safely (although

Acheron’s environment slightly hampers chaotic char-

acters). For specific information on the Outlands and

Acheron, see Part One: Rigus and Part Two: Avalas.

Since the PCs won’t be on their home plane, some

spells that banish extraplanar beings don’t function

normally. For instance, banishment doesn’t work (since

it only forces extraplanar creatures out of your home

plane), nor does holy word and its variants ( blasphemy,

dictum , word of chaos ) banish such creatures (for the

same reason). Dismissal functions normally, as do

dispel chaos/evil/good/law , since they don’t depend on

you being on your home plane.

B eginning

• Dwarves attempting to raise a dead forgemaster slain

by an orc assault can’t locate his spirit. They might

seek out the PCs to determine the cause of this prob-

lem (particularly if there is a dwarf among the PCs)

or the PCs might simply hear of their plight.

• When the PCs try to have a magic weapon or suit of

armor made or improved, they find that the cre-

ator/forgemaster they normally visit has been killed.

His workshop is in shambles, but a Search or Wilder-

ness Lore check (DC 26) can find week-old clawed

animal prints (not unlike those of a great cat) on the

floor. The tracks can’t be followed out of the building

due to the other foot traffic in the town or city. Speak

with dead confirms that he was killed by a large cat-

like creature that seemed to be made of metal.

• Imperagon’s agents steal a shipment of adamantine

ore due from the city of Rigus. The heroes might

have been waiting for this ore to arrive for the con-

struction of a weapon or suit of armor, or perhaps

they simply overhear a merchant explaining to an

angry smith why the ore hasn’t arrived. Investiga-

tion reveals that the ore never left Rigus, and a guard

who survived the attack on the shipment relates

that just before he was knocked out, he caught a

glimpse of a great metallic lion. A Knowledge (the

planes) check (DC 20) reveals that the city Rigus can

be found on the Outer Plane of the Concordant

Domain of the Outlands.

• If any PC is a skilled weaponsmith (Craft [weapon-

smithing] skill modifier +15 or higher), a steel pred-

ator attacks that hero in broad daylight.

• If your characters take part in the adventure Deep

Horizon before playing this adventure, you might

plant a clue in the salamander forge located in that

adventure. Perhaps Imperagon’s agents contacted

the salamanders for assistance (or slaves), only to

be rebuffed.

the

Adventure

At some point, the PCs assemble the clues provided to

them (including those detailed in the Character

Hooks, above). They probably turn to divination

spells to assist them (see Powerful Divinations, below)

and should be able to determine that the trail leads to

the Plane of Acheron. A Knowledge (the planes)

check (DC 20) reveals that the most reliable path to

Acheron goes through the Outlands gate-town of

Rigus. A simple plane shift gets the PCs within 5 to 500

Ideally, you should strive to place this adventure

into your campaign without the characters realizing

that something significant is happening. Consider

dropping a couple of the hooks into ongoing events

without making much of them—perhaps a bard PC

picks up a rumor about missing forgemasters or

stolen ore a couple weeks before the PCs are attacked

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