T H E S N O W J O B
As the plane of Risia becomes coterminous with Eberron, frigid winter descends upon the Ironroot Mountains. Lack of food and supplies drives the Jhorash'tar orcs out of their lands deep in the wilderness to within striking distance of Korunda Gate. The forces of House Kundarak and the clans of the Mror Holds rise to face the threat head on, defending their ancestral lands and the many rich vaults in their care that lay deep underground.
As the brave dwarves defend their homes from Blood Spiller and the howling horde at his back, few remain to guard the vaults of Korunda Gate.
Opportunity knocks...
T H E S E T U P
The Snow Job is a D&D 5e heist scenario set in Keith Baker's Eberron campaign setting and draws upon some of the rules for Eberron presented in Unearthed Arcana. The format is inspired by two excellent blogs on heists, bawylie's Heist By Numbers and Runagame's Heist Framework. Thanks to both for their advice in the creation of this scenario!
The Snow Job is intended to be a one-off adventure on an off-night for your campaign or can be slipped into a regular campaign with some modifications. It might be fun to have this scenario be played as a vignette in your game where the regular player characters must then deal with the aftermath created by these characters in a later adventure.
This adventure is built with 3rd-level player characters in mind. Some pregenerated characters for this scenario can be found in the spoiler block below.
Pre-Generated Eberron Characters
Tchotchke d'Cannith, human wizard 3 (guild artisan)
A scion of House Cannith excoriated for creating Colonel Clank after the Treaty of Thronehold
Colonel Clank, warforged fighter 3 (soldier)
The latest model of warforged, designed for command and ruthless efficiency
Billy Gruff, shifter rogue 3 (criminal)
The meanest second-story man in the business
The Visage, changeling bard 3 (charlatan)
Jack and Jill of all trades, Master and Mistress of Disguise
Once the hook is accepted, it's time to identify the Big Problems. Before the would-be thieves can even get close to the vault, these Big Problems must be resolved. There are a couple of ways to do this: You can, as one blog suggests, collaborate with the players and have them establish what the Big Problems are. Or, you can use the Big Problems I suggest below. The point of the Big Problem is to identify an obstacle that must be overcome with an Outlandish Solution. (See this blog for more on that.)
No matter what, the Big Problem will be resolved by the Outlandish Solution; however, depending on how the scene(s) involving that Big Problem play out, other stakes are in play. Using the example Big Problems below, the characters have a tough time of getting to Korunda Gate, but they will definitely get there. As the scenes play out - actions taken, ability checks made - it may just cost them something in the process.
B I G P R O B L E M S
Getting to Korunda Gate
War and winter turn a fairly simple task into a logistical nightmare with the added risk of having one's head put on a spike by fearsome orcs or suspicious dwarves. Freezing to death on the mountain is also a possibility. While the Outlandish Solution will definitely work, the stakes in play might be the adventurers' hard-earned gold, the threat of exhaustion, or the expenditure of hit dice.
Access to the Vault
The Warding Guild of House Kundarak have security measures that can thwart even the most concerted of efforts to rob their vaults. Even getting close to the vault, let alone getting inside, is a major challenge. The stakes in play here might be gold, the promise of favors that must be fulfilled, or leaving incriminating evidence behind that may come back to haunt the adventurers.
The Other Key
As part of their security measures, the Warding Guild uses a system of dual control when it comes to locks and keys. In order to open very secure vaults, two people must use two different keys at the same time. The quest-giver (or team leader) has but one of these keys. The stakes here might again by gold, favors, or accidentally tipping off House Kundarak who put guards in the lift just in case.
An Escape Plan
Once the theft of goods in their care becomes known (and that'll happen quickly for sure), there will be precious little time to get out of the vaults and Korunda Gate. There needs to be a plan in place or else the adventurers are as good as caught. Again, the stakes here might be gold or favors or anything else that's reasonable for the situation.
O U T L A N D I S H S O L U T I O N S
This is the players' role! Don't you be coming up with solutions for them! The key thing to get across to them is that, whatever craziness they come up with, it's going to definitely work (but maybe at a cost). So encourage them to come up with Rube-Goldberg style solutions and/or cinematically pulpy actions. Try to get one character to deal with one Big Problem - that character is the "lead," and the rest of the characters act in support as "features." Set some stakes for the scene(s), then play them out, throwing some dice if you find actions to have uncertain outcomes. Cut the scene when it's been resolved and jump to the next one. For example, if a player proposes he calls upon his Criminal Contact to get The Other Key, present a social interaction scene with that contact. If the player does well (and rolls well) in the scene, then he gets the key, no problem. If he doesn't do so well (or rolls poorly), then he gets the key but it costs him something.
T H E T W I S T
At a point that most makes sense in the action (after the PCs are in the Lift or Vault), one of the four Big Problems come back to threaten the whole scheme. As it turns out, one of te adventurers' Outlandish Solutions just doesn't work out even when they thought it would. Choose one that'll be most interesting or just pick one at random. Then throw that monkey wrench at the characters and see how the players deal with it. It might be that The Other Key doesn't work or the airship they arranged for their Escape Plan isn't at the docking port. Whatever it is, give the players a fair chance of resolving it, rolling ability checks or the like when the outcome of their actions are uncertain.
T H E L I F T
Once the Big Problems are resolved, cut to this scene: The Lift. This is the top chamber of a 10-level vault deep under the mountain where the Warding Guild stores its clients' valuables. While ten floors of loot may make gold-hungry adventurers paralyzed with avarice, they need to focus because time is of the essence and what they're seeking is on the final floor. The challenge here is to get the lift to function in a timely fashion and without summoning this area's defenders. Within five minutes of the adventurers' arrival here, a guard rotation will come along - one knight (MM p. 347) and two guards (MM p. 347) with dwarven traits. You can adjust that time limit upward or downward to make it an easier or harder challenge for the players.
Turn to page 122 of the Players' Handbook and show it to any player whose character speaks Dwarvish.
F E A T U R E S O F T H E A R E A
Entrance: A grand marble arch bounds a set of heavy stone and metal doors that lead into the area of the lift. On the inside the arch is incribed in Dwarvish: "The Eyes of the Manticore Be Upon You."
The Lift: A magically-powered apparatus that can be controlled to hold a half-ton of weight and raise or lower it to one of the ten floors of the vault. It is emblazoned with the seal of House Kundarak. It cannot be used unless it is unlocked (see below). Once unlocked, touching the Dwarvish runes ("I, II, III, and IIII") will send it to the desired floor (e.g. "I" and IIII" will send someone to the fifth floor") after a short pause to allow for people to step on the platform.
Paintings: On the walls west, north, and east of the lift are fine paintings. The west painting depicts a manticore observing a battle between dwarves and Jhorash'tar orcs on a wintry mountaintop. It is initialed by the famous Dwarven artist Deft Otak ("DO" in Dwarvish script). The northern painting shows dragonmarked dwarves forging an alliance with manticores in a vast cavern warded with runes. It is unsigned. The final painting, on the east wall, shows crossbow-wielding dwarves flying atop manticores, driving orcs before them and out of the Ironroot Mountains. It is initialed by another famous Dwarven artist, Welv Naldra ("WN" in Dwarvish script).
Hexagonal Pillars: These pillars are constructed of metal and stone. On each side are letters in Dwarvish script. On the SW pillar are the letters, H - K - L - D - Z - G. On the NW pillar are the letters, C - E - I - O - Q - R. On the SE pillar are the letters, V - N - B - T - S - N. On the NE pillar are the letters, W - X - A - F - J - Y. The pillars can be rotated clockwise which each face of hexagon pointing toward the Dwarvish runes on the lift apparatus. When placed in the correct sequence, the lift is unlocked with an audible "click." If, however, the wrong sequence is set (all four pillars must have been manipulated in some fashion), then a manticore (MM p. 213) is summoned from one of the paintings and it attacks. Three manticores can be summoned in this fashion after which the lift completely shuts down, useless until reset by the Silver Keys.
The Correct Combination?
I - D, II - O, III - W, IIII - N. The initials on the two paintings provide a clue to this. As well, the only letters of the alphabet missing from the hexagonal pillars are "U" and "P," which may provide a hint since this lift is at the first floor and can't go up at all.
Wait - isn't this a problem with One True Solution? Hell no - the players remembered to bring a rogue along, right? Good. The rogue can always try to hotwire the lift or whatever - it just takes more time and probably has a chance of failure. If that's the case, consider adjudicating failure on the check as "progress combined with a setback." For example, the rogue gets the thing working, but the thieves' tools are ruined or it takes up more time than expected or it shocks the crap out of him for 2d10 lightning damage.
T H E V A U L T
If you've made it this far, then your player characters haven't been arrested by House Kundarak or eaten by manticores. That's good! But things are just getting interesting now...
At the bottom of the lift shaft, two metal doors open to trapped hallways which lead into the vault proper. Once past those hazards, the adventurers will have to deal with a shortage of time, their own greed in the face of immeasurable wealth, a precarious pit, and a guardian in the form of a helmed horror (MM p. 183) The helmed horror is dwarf-sized, uses a battleaxe instead of a longsword, and floats silently above the pit and will accost anyone who is not affiliated with House Kundarak or in the company of the same. In addition to its normal abilities, it can also innately detect the keys to the vault and will try to take said keys as its primary objective.
Remember, the characters have only a five minute window including the time they spent on the lift to successfully get what they came for and get out before a guard rotation comes around. If any traps are set off, however, the guard rotation shows up one minute later.
F E A T U R E S O F T H E A R E A
The Lift: There is a control panel on the wall northeast of the lift that can send it back up.
Beyond the Northern Door: A 20-foot-long empty hallway ends at a locked metal door with no obvious keyhole, doorknob, or mechanism. Above the door is carved in Dwarvish: "The Wise Tongue of Lord Morikkan is the Key." Along the walls are variously-carved dwarven faces, mouths agape as if talking, four on each side of the hallway (about 5 feet apart from each other). There is an obvious seam on the ceiling at the midpoint of the corridor.
The carving that correctly depicts Lord Morikkan d'Kundarak is the second one on the left.
A D J U D I C A T I O N
When it comes to adjudicating the actions of the characters in this scenario, I recommend that the DM use the "middle path" discussed on page 236-237 of the DMG. That is, you keep a balance between granting automatic success (or failure) and asking for checks. You want the player's skill to matter in a game like this and checks to come into play only when dramatically appropriate.
As well, consider using "progress combined with a setback" (Basic Rules, page 58) wherever possible when adjudicating failure on a check. This means that on a failed check, the character succeeds totally or partially, but it costs something. Because of the timed nature of the scenario, a good cost is simply time. With only five minutes (50 rounds) to do what they need to do in the lift and vault, taxing the players 30 seconds on a failed Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) check to pick a lock stings, but doesn't stall the game or force the player to repeat actions. Another example of partial success would be in the traps in the vault. If the player fails an Intelligence (History) check when trying to figure out which of the bloodlines are correct, give them half of the answer (say, the two correct names nearest the spiked door).
Also remember that any character that takes 10 times the normal amount of time needed to resolve a task automatically succeeds (DMG, page 237). So if picking a lock or disabling a trap takes a round with a check, then taking one's time about it, it takes a full minute without a check. This makes the time they have a resource the players can manage. If they're ahead of the game, they can afford to take their time.
A F T E R M A T H
This scenario is called "The Snow Job" and there's no snow and no lies? What gives?
First, there is snow - it's set during a wintry period in the Ironroot Mountains when the plane of cold is coterminous with the world. Also, the MacGuffin is an ice laser gun. But to beat that horse some more, let's throw in another twist: This heist was all a ruse by some shadowy group to get the Ice Ray of Graystone out into the open where it can be stolen from the adventurers. Perhaps The Chamber knows it will be necessary to fulfill some aspect of the Draconic Prophecy. Or maybe The Trust orchestrated this whole thing to test the Warding Guild's security measures and get a feel for whether the adventurers might be capable of performing an even more dangerous and unlikely mission. Better yet, could this have been the work of a strange race of beings that live on the dark side of one of Eberron's moons, eager to get back a piece of technology they lost years ago in Cyre?
I leave that to you and future follow-up adventures you might understake that are inspired by this scenario. Thanks for reading. I welcome your constructive feedback. If you run this adventure at your table, drop me a line and tell me how it went!
Question 1, what map program do you use?
Phobos wrote:
Excellent, I'm curious to see how this plays out. Thanks for posting it.
Nice to see my ice laser being used as a central quest item 
Also, good premise for an adventure and the maps look really good.
Phobos wrote:
Really nice. Thanks Iserith.
Gnarl wrote:
So, am I sensing the possibility of you taking up a 5e Eberron game sometime soon on Roll20? Hmmm?...
If so, dibs! I call dibs!
Ha ha! Called it! Suck it losers!
Maybe. I think my time will be short after Summer at the Lake is concluded, but we'll see!
gsnyder70 wrote:
Nice. Nice! I'm probably going to steal that four-pillars riddle (though I'll have to change the word or the number of pillars to make it work in Italian :D)
And the pregens look really cool.
Emanuele_Galletto wrote:
I really loved this mini adventure and decided to use it in my campaign. I am currently running Hoard of the Dragon Queen (WARNING!! Might be some spoilers with HoTDQ and RoT) with a mixture of new and veteren D&D players and inserted this at the point in the campaign where the adventurers head to Baldur's Gate to intercept the wagon train and join the caravan going north. I really felt like there was a lot of missed potential for adventure in Baldur's Gate while the party waited for the wagon train to arrive and this fit in quite nicely. I modified it only a little bit to fit more with being in Baldur's Gate than Eberron and changed the"prize" at the end to a something not quite what the players were expecting.
A little history on the party/campaign. 6 players:
Human Hunter Ranger (archer) literally modeled after Oliver Queen from the Arrow TV series. This character's backstory was with father being prominent merchant in BG who got mixed up with the Cult of the Dragon to fund his merchant business. Was on merchant ship with father when ship was sabotaged by CoD and went down. Lost on deserted island and trained into weapon to avenge father and bring down the cult. Zhentarim contacts in BG set up the mini adventure.
Dwarf Life Cleric. Sailor and great, great grandfather was renowned dragon slayer. This backstory will come up later in RoT when dealing with good dragons (ancestor wasn't picky about slaying good/evil dragons).
Human Open Hand Monk. Gladiator from GB. Relative captured by CoD in raid. Rescued in early part of campaign and staying with party to see it through. First time D&D player and catching on quickly.
Dragonborn Vengence Paladin of Bahamut. Actually an ancient gold dragon who got a little to prideful and Bahamut turned him into a Gold Dragonborn to learn a little humility. Bahamut pointed him in the direction of the CoD. Amazing roleplaying from this character so far while he is perceiving the world (and the people in it) from the perspective of a dragon really well. His background will also come up big later in RoT with the council of good dragons.
Elf Assassin Rogue. Noble background. Distantly related to King Melandrach and his son Neronvain. Was actually framed for a crime by Neronvain and fled vowing vengence. His backstory will come up big in RoT when dealing with Melandrach and Neronvain. Also a first time player and doing very well.
Gnome Illusionist Wizard. Spy background. Was recruited by Leonsin of the Harpers to spy on the CoD. Infiltrated their ranks in BG and learned of attack on Greenest. Maintained cover so far with CoD and the party.
On with the adventure! I decided to use the Oliver Queen back story and ran with it. The vault was set up under an illegal casino run by the nefarious dwarf crime lord only known as "Brick" who is obsessed with his clan history with the manticores and dwarf history in general. His right hand man is Colonel Clank. No one really knows exactly what he is and where is is from but he is utterly loyal to Brick. A mysterious individual known as the Dark Archer (Eldritch Knight archer) is Brick's personal assassin and helped with much of the magical protections in the vault.
The characters arrived with plenty of time ahead of the wagon train but knowing how transporting goods through BG occurs and not knowing the final destination they decided to call on the Ranger's Zhentarim connection in BG to watch all the roads/ports in and out of BG and tail the treasure horde for the party in return for a favor. The Zhentarim agent was tasked by an unnamed source to steal something from Brick's vault. Not wanting to risk a turf war and implicate himself in the heist he recruited the party to steal it for him. With some assistance from the agent 2 party members infiltrated the casino as a bouncer and waitress to gather as much intel as possible. The dwarf cleric used his family lineage to buddy up with Brick as well. Through excellent distractions and timely events they managed to get the intel and key they needed for the vault.
The race was on! They got into the elevator shaft room with little difficulty and managed to figure out how to operate the lift rather quickly. Down they went. At the bottom, some really good history rolls from the dwarf and some good work by the rogue got them through the east trapped hallway without incident. Once there they decided on an all out frontal assault on the Helmed Horror guardian. The cleric showed some very good out of the box thinking by using a Create Water spell to fill the Helmed Horrors suit of armor up with 10 gallons of water. This was obviously out of the normal realm for the spell but I ruled on the fly that the sudden increase in water and weight would give the Horror disadvantage on attack rolls and dex checks/saves for 1 round. I really like players being creative and felt that rewarding that type of thinking warranted something and I think my ruling felt appropriate. Opinions? It paid off on the Horrors next round of attacks by turning a crit into a miss! The party dispatched the horror with only one party member going down in the fight. They quickly figured out the keys to open the main vault while the party split up trying to open and loot the minor vaults. The session ended with the main vault door opening and finding a human woman chained to the dias in the center of the vault! Surpise! Even better, as they do not know it yet, the woman is actually a Succubus captured by Brick and the Dark Archer. Her patron, a minor devil with some influence is the one who hired the Zhentarim agent to free her from the vault. The devil will owe the party a favor (much to the Paladin's chagrin I can imagine) that can pay off in RoT when the devils faction gets involved. It was actually kind of funny when they found out it was a woman in the vault as one of the players said outload "She's probably a succubus because our DM is an ***hole like that." I think I kept a good poker face for that comment.
Thanks again Iserith for the mini adventure! Wont know the full outcome for a while as I'm going on vacation and it will be some time before we get together again to play. I can post then what the party's reaction is when they find out just who they rescued. I also plan on using your Quiet Please! mini adventure as well for the trip on the road to the north. I'm going to have the golden stag be one of Dewey's apprentices who was cursed to wander the land as the golden stag until someone got the knowledge to reverse it from the library. Fun times ahead!
Thanks for the awesome recap! I like how you made what I wrote into something you could use. I, too, love succubi - just look at my current campaign!
As an aside, one of my regular players who passed away some years ago had a very memorable character named "Brick," so it reminded me of him and his character which was a lot of fun for my gaming circle. Also, thanks so much for taking the time to make a response to my scenario one of only 14 posts in almost 5 years of being a member of the community. That means a lot to me. Please let me know how Quiet Please! goes. That's one of my favorites.
Thanks for the kind words. I have actually been following your current campaign from the start. Unfortunately for my vacation timing, I am going to now have to wait another week before I will be able to read it (stupid lack of interwebz at a lake)!
I will definately let you know how Quiet Please! goes when we get to it.
This looks awesome. Excellent work Iserith! Love the maps too.
worrgrendel1 wrote: