Be proactive. Have scouts and spies out reconnoitering for threats. Order them to kill enemy scouts and spies, capture them, or divert them away from your lair so that they never get near enough to your assets to threaten them, then report back on their presence so that the threat they represent is known. Don’t let those sneaks find out where or how strong your forces are. Launch raids to weaken your enemies before the first assault. Steal or destroy items that give them an edge. Thwart their preparations however you can. If and when an attack comes, fight back—but also do everything you can to disrupt your enemy’s scheme. Cut off lines of communication, divide and scatter foes so that they’re easy pickings for capture, or simply frustrate them enough that they give up and leave. Any of these will suffice to accomplish your goal, which is to keep your assets intact. Be mobile and adaptable, prepared to shift your forces at a moment’s notice —which you can do, because you own the area they’re defending. Establish fallback positions. Don’t ready just one line of defense: Make intruders slog through a gantlet of danger zones. Keep a small force in reserve to replenish losses, reinforce a position that’s under attack from an unexpected direction, or strike hard at a faltering enemy. Remember, you can’t eliminate all risk; you can only play the odds. Therefore, use the knowledge you’re able to gather about your enemies’ numbers, strength, and plans to mass your defenses where you expect an attack to come. Reduce the number of possible approaches to your lair as much as you can. Use both preexisting terrain and constructed obstacles to funnel attackers into areas where you want to engage them, and use archers and other ranged attackers to cover those approaches thoroughly. If, by necessity, your forces are spread out when they come under attack, have them fall back and group up. Large concentrations of defenders are vulnerable to attack from above, so keep an eye on the sky and take down aerial attackers as fast as you can. Meanwhile, cover less probable avenues of approach with as few guards as you can get away with—but do still cover them. You can increase those guards’ effectiveness, and thereby reduce the risk of an attack on them, by placing obstacles along those avenues of approach and ensuring that your guards have good sight lines for attacking with ranged weapons.
Ideally, if and when intruders reach your designated engagement area, they should be confronted by an unanticipated and frankly shocking number of guards, ready to loose a storm of missiles from one or more concealed positions of cover. Once the intruders’ momentum is arrested and they’re in disarray, send your reserve in to engage them in melee, or have your main body of guards switch from arrows to swords and spears and close in. This double blow should crush the intruders’ spirits and force them to surrender—but if not, there’s always the option of massacre. That’s the ideal scenario. Sometimes, however, your foes will prove unexpectedly resilient. If your guards are taking more damage than they’re dishing out, you need to be ready to carry out what the U.S. Army drolly calls a “transition to the retrograde”: While you and/or guards who aren’t in contact with the enemy secure your most valuable assets (possibly including yourself) and prepare to evacuate them, some guards that are still in contact may engage the intruders in battle in order to buy time and inflict more damage upon them, while other guards disengage from battle and withdraw in order to conserve their strength. Keep in mind, though, that even when retreating, your forces are still keeping their eyes open for chances to turn the tide of battle back in your favor. Retreat is not necessarily defeat. THELAY OFTHELAND When defending your lair, you and your guards are engaged primarily in area defense: preventing invasion by outsiders. The main way to achieve this is to position them where they can control paths of access with ranged weapon attacks from different directions. When invaders are weakened, other forces (often reserves) may then bear down on them, engage them in melee, and kill or capture them. Build your defense around battle positions: places where you’ll post guards in anticipation that a fight may occur. These positions should be placed along likely avenues of approach and chosen according to features of the terrain and the number and strength of the guards you’ll station on them. The most important battle position is your primary position, which should overlook the main battle area—the place where you intend to repel, capture, or
kill a determined group of intruders once and for all, which you’ll defend with the bulk of your response force. Your lair is your domain, and you know it thoroughly, so you have the knowledge and the freedom to determine the best place to fight this battle. It should be along the path into your lair that intruders are most likely to follow, and it should be the place along that path where you can most effectively prevent them from getting in. If it’s inside your lair, it should be in a controlled area, if possible: You want to stop intruders before they can get into a restricted area. You chose the terrain your lair is in; the terrain is your friend. When you’re fighting off intruders, you want to force them to fight where they don’t want to fight. You want them out in the open while your defenders enjoy cover and concealment. You want freedom of movement while they’re halted, unable to advance. You want high ground, with good lines of sight and plenty of room to shoot. Terrain features such as rivers and lakes, swamps, thick woods, cliffs, parallel ridges that intruders have to advance across, and built-up urban areas all work in your favor. Even better is terrain that’s so difficult to traverse, your lair can be reached by only one or two possible routes, so that you can predict which direction an attack will most likely come from. Throw additional obstacles in trespassers’ paths to bring them to a sudden, unexpected stop or to steer them where you want them to go. It may come to pass that your primary position becomes unsuitable or untenable. Not only is it okay if this happens, it’s something you should expect and plan for. Give your main force an alternate position to relocate to, one that overlooks the same area that the primary position overlooks but gives your defenders more cover, so that they can stay in the fight longer. In addition, establish fallback positions (also known as “subsequent” positions) that your defenders can move to if they have to cede control of the main battle area. Battle positions generally aren’t defended to the death: They’re abandoned as soon as they’re no longer useful. For each battle position, know in advance under what circumstances it’s time for the unit of guards stationed there to clear out and go someplace new. Remember, the objective is always to keep the intruders away from your assets!
Intruders being intruders, there’s always the chance that they’ll choose an avenue of approach that isn’t the one you predicted they’d take. For this reason, you should also establish supplementary positions: defensive positions along approaches other than the most likely avenue of approach, chosen to provide the best line of sight over the best defensive terrain features. No more guards should be stationed on supplementary positions than you absolutely need, and when they spot incoming hostiles, they shouldn’t mess around: If the first couple of volleys of arrows don’t do the trick, they should immediately fall back to subsequent positions of their own and raise the alarm. As a matter of deterrence, some battle positions will be obvious, but in general, you don’t want your enemies to know where you’ll have guards posted —in particular, where you intend to fight the decisive battle. Do everything you can, both passively and actively, to prevent anyone from reconnoitering your defensive positions. Guards that intruders will encounter before reaching your main battle area should observe possible threats; collect as much information as possible about them and furnish this info to you; and deceive, disrupt, and delay any identified enemies so that if and when they reach the main battle area, you’re ready to squash them. PERIMETER DEFENSE The above recommendations apply to defense of a fortified lair that’s likely to be attacked from only one direction. But what if you’re in the middle of the desert or the ocean? What if you and your followers are nomadic, and your “lair” is nothing more than a camp? What if you simply don’t have the means to build strong walls? You may need to set up a perimeter defense instead.
Perimeter defense takes it as a given that an attack could come from any direction, at any time. Unlike conventional lair defense, in which the main battle area is generally somewhere inside the envelope, perimeter defense treats the entire perimeter as a main battle area; the bulk of your guard forces will be distributed around it and assigned to security operations. If you have a reserve, station it inside, from which location it can respond rapidly to an incursion anywhere on the perimeter, or cover a gap if a perimeter unit has to leave its portion temporarily unguarded. The perimeter isn’t necessarily circular, nor should you necessarily space your guards around it evenly. If there’s terrain you can take advantage of that offers your defenders higher ground or a better view, or that obstructs attackers’ advance, allow the shape of your perimeter to conform to those features. For instance, if you’re setting up camp along a difficult-to-ford river, you can use fewer guards to defend the bank—but if there’s a bridge across it, you’ll definitely want to post more guards on the side of your camp that faces it. Perimeter defense requires aggressive patrolling and security operations to be effective (see “Reconnaissance and Security” below). Beyond your perimeter, if you can spare the personnel, you’ll want to establish observation posts from which your guards can observe likely avenues of approach. If you don’t have guards to spare, or if there’s too much area to cover, you’ll need scouts to patrol the areas outside the perimeter that can’t be observed from a stationary post—at least to a range of 600 feet, the maximum distance over which you can be attacked by archers, siege engines, or magic. Have them set alarms and traps in this zone to detect and deter intruders who might try to slip past your scouts. Battle positions don’t really exist in perimeter defense. When your sentries spot possible intruders, they need to approach, confront them, and as soon as they can clarify that their targets are hostile, attack. If the intruders turn and run, those sentries should pursue. These attacks can be overt displays of force, but if you want to be more subtle about it, you can also have your scouts conduct raids and ambushes against suspected
hostiles, or—if you have flying creatures on your side—harass them from the air. RECONNAISSANCEAND SECURITY The purpose of reconnaissance and security operations is detection: providing early and accurate warning of threats to your assets, so that you have time to organize a response. They’re active, not passive, operations. You’re not waiting for enemies to come to you and be caught in the mischievous act. You’ve got people out looking for threats. Defenders assigned to security missions are posted where they can monitor avenues of approach to your lair, as far from your lair as is feasible. Often, this means establishing observation posts—but then again, depending on the degree of danger, sometimes “as far from your lair as is feasible” is just outside the envelope, or even right on the forward edge of it. It depends on what kind of threats you expect to confront, as well as the landscape. Screening missions, the most basic kind of security mission (and probably the only one you’ll have enough guards to conduct), are often assigned because you’ve received warning of a threat, perhaps as the result of a reconnaissance mission. They’re not conducted all the time. They’re also not large operations: Generally, they comprise as few guards as necessary to get the job done, because assigning more guards to security missions means having fewer available to defend in the main battle area. When you have guards assigned to screening missions, their priorities are to keep their eyes and ears open for any kind of intrusion attempt or preparation for such an attempt, irrespective of visibility conditions; to place themselves between the intruders and your lair; to report back on what the intruders are doing and, if possible, who they are; and not to let those intruders out of their sight. No intruder should get past a security patrol without its presence being
detected and reported, and no enemy scout or spy should survive being spotted by one. To the extent of their capabilities, guards on screening missions should also harass enemies and interfere with their preparations, but it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to devote enough guards to security operations for them to commit to a decisive combat engagement. The term “observation post” suggests a stationary, permanent or semipermanent watchtower, but in reality it’s any position that guards can keep watch from. It can be stationary or mobile, on foot or mounted. Mounted observers are more obvious; observers on foot are stealthier but can’t cover as much area. As I mentioned in chapter 1, “Principles of Defense,” it takes two squads of eight to twelve guards or scouts per observation post to ensure continuous coverage; since it’s unlikely that you can spare this number, send out at least two observers together for no more than 12 hours at a time as needed, based on prudent cost-benefit analysis. If you can spare more, send more. In contrast to security operations, you should be engaging in reconnaissance operations all the time, whether you’re aware of a threat or not, because recon ops are how you become aware of threats. Reconnaissance operations, like security operations, involve reporting on observed enemy activity and maintaining contact with an enemy once it’s made. That’s where the similarity ends, though. Units assigned to security often keep a few members in reserve; units assigned to recon are always fully committed. Security units are focused on preventing breaches of your lair and protecting the main guard force, whereas recon units are focused on gaining as much information as possible on whoever or whatever they’ve been sent out to observe. Security units sometimes confront possible intruders and, if necessary, attack. Recon units avoid combat whenever they can; stealthy surveillance is their preferred modus operandi. Recon is dangerous work. Remember how I said it’s the responsibility of guards assigned to security operations to kill enemy scouts and spies? It’s highly likely that your enemies will take the same attitude toward your scouts and spies. Also, reconnaissance is useless if your scouts can’t get their information back to base. Therefore, recon units can’t let themselves get pinned down or drawn into a fight. When they need to get a closer look, they send just a couple of scouts
forward, so that if those scouts are caught, the rest can escape and report on what happened. That said, in order to discover what your enemies’ capabilities are, it’s sometimes necessary to provoke them into using those capabilities. “Aggressive reconnaissance” is a hit-and-run operation meant to elicit a reaction from the targets under observation; it requires ranged weaponry and superior mobility. It’s also extremely risky, appropriate only when you know you don’t have time to glean the same info by stealthy observation. Scouts and spies are responsible for turning unknowns into knowns: discovering enemy numbers, capabilities, movements, activities, and intentions. In particular, they need to gather enough information to predict which direction intruders will come from and what route they’ll follow. If they have enough time and can get close enough, they look for patterns of behavior, possible vulnerabilities, and—very important!—what magical capabilities foes possess, especially whether they might be capable of flying or otherwise getting behind your lines. When there’s no known threat, or when you’re aware of a threat but lack details on its nature, they can take the time to comb a large area, usually as several small groups moving forward simultaneously. Once they’ve identified a certain location where a threat exists—a town, a stand of woods, a bridge—they relocate to that area and narrow their attention to it. In most cases, scouts try to avoid being detected, taking maximum advantage of cover and concealment to gain as much detailed information as possible from as close to their targets as possible. Sometimes, though, getting basic, general information fast is more important than waiting around for details. In these instances, if the terrain is open enough and the weather good enough to allow it, you might choose instead to send your scouts out on horseback. As with security operations, mounted reconnaissance is much more obvious than reconnaissance on foot; it’s an appropriate option if and only if the situation calls for it. (Flying mounts have essentially the same pros and cons as horses.) VISIBILITY Low-visibility conditions favor the stealthy, so it’s reasonable to expect that intruders will try to take advantage of darkness, fog, or heavy rain or snow to
conduct reconnaissance against you, scale your walls, and slip past your guards. You should expect this to happen and plan accordingly. Any defensive plan you develop has to work just as well in unfavorable visibility conditions as in clear daylight. Of course, fantasy worlds are full of beings that can see in the dark— you may be one of those beings yourself—but the range of this ability is limited, so while you may still spot intruders when they try to breach your lair, you may also find yourself with less time to respond. Plus, fog, rain, and snow remain problems. Don’t expect your ears to save you. According to the Encounter Distance table on the Dungeon Master’s Screen Reincarnated—which, as of this writing, is still not available in any published fifth edition D&D book—the distance at which a creature trying to be quiet can be heard is at most 60 feet, and may be as little as 10 feet! By comparison, darkvision has a 60-foot range for most creatures with that trait. So while listening carefully for stealthy intruders may still give you some warning—especially when you can’t see at all, such as in heavy fog— it’s never going to give you as much as a clear line of sight under good illumination will. Even the Keen Hearing trait only makes it more likely that you’ll hear intruders once they come within range; it doesn’t increase the range. The real jackpot trait to have is Keen Smell. D&D includes no mechanic for smell and never quantifies its range, but the fact that real-world bears and elephants can detect scents at a range of 10 miles or more suggests that it should be extremely difficult for an intruder to get close to a lair guarded by a creature with the Keen Smell trait without being detected, barring some form of magical concealment such as pass without trace. When visibility is poor, move more guards to supplementary positions, send out scouts to keep an eye on secondary avenues of approach, and increase the number of security patrols between stationary observation positions. Also send some guards out in the direction of any terrain features that trespassers might use to orient themselves in darkness or fog, such as ridges, waterways, or forest edges. If you’re conducting a perimeter defense, bring your forces in so that they’re closer together: twice their visual range apart rather than twice their weapon range. Have a system of audible alarms and signals in place; they’re useful anytime, but they’re essential when you can’t see.
Keep in mind that reconnaissance and security operations take more time in low-visibility conditions. Nighttime and low-visibility recon patrols are generally conducted on foot. Mounted reconnaissance in limited-visibility conditions is generally limited to roads and trails, and it forfeits much of the speed advantage of mounted recon in daylight and clear weather. Also, horses aren’t naturally stealthy. Pay heed to the defensive value of darkness, smoke, and fog. Especially if intruders make it inside, these forms of obscuration are disorienting and can slow or stop their advance through your lair. In fact, if you’ve been thinking about the need for traps, forget about the Acme Spring-Loaded Corridor Blades; just have smoke pour out of the walls and fill the entire area. It’s harmless to your people, but it can cause real problems for intruders—and buy you time to respond. In fifth edition D&D, an area of heavily obscured visibility effectively renders everyone in it both blinded and invisible, simultaneously conferring advantage and imposing disadvantage on every attack roll and thereby quashing all sources of attack roll advantage or disadvantage. The result is that the side with the less gimmick-dependent approach to combat is heavily favored. “PLAN B” What if, gods forfend, your guards are overwhelmed by an attack? Then you need to be able to switch from area defense to retreat. But retreats aren’t always forced: Sometimes they’re deliberate, in order to buy time with little risk, to conserve strength, to move into a better position, or to lure opponents into areas that favor the defense. When a retreat is under way, any given group of guards may be assigned to do one of three things: withdraw, delay, or retire. Withdrawing is what we usually associate with “retreat”: when a force in contact with the enemy disengages and moves away, usually to preserve its strength. Withdrawing is dangerous, because the enemy is likely to pursue, and the withdrawing force’s ability to fight back is limited. For this reason, another force may be assigned to delay the enemy’s advance—to run interference for the withdrawing force. A retiring force is one that’s not in contact with the enemy to begin with, and is moving away to a safer location. When your lair is under attack, retiring guards will be the ones helping
secure your most critical assets and get them someplace else, away from your attackers. Delaying is hard. It only works when the delaying force can present a serious enough threat that the enemy doesn’t annihilate it—or simply barge past it. It has to be able to seize and hold the enemy’s attention. For this reason, after it deals enough damage to provoke the enemy, a delaying force doesn’t stick around, but rather moves to an alternate or fallback position before the enemy can strike back, goading it into pursuing. In this way, it wastes the enemy’s time by making it confront one new defensive arrangement after another and adjust to each. In more wide-open areas, the delaying force moves to a fallback position and stays together as a single unit. In tighter quarters, the delaying force moves to an alternate position, and if there’s more than one such position and enough guards to divide between them, it splits up, so that the enemy gets hit from multiple directions. Because withdrawing from an enemy is so dangerous, it’s a good idea to use obscuration—especially smoke, fog, or obstructed lines of sight—to keep the enemy from observing. (In D&D terms, you can’t make an opportunity attack against an opponent you can’t see, so there’s no need for a withdrawing force to take the Disengage action when it’s heavily obscured.) When withdrawing, keep a small security force in contact with the enemy to fool them into thinking the whole guard unit is still present. Any guards you have that possess better mobility or longer-range weapons should be part of this force. Guards farthest from the enemy withdraw first; those in closest contact withdraw only when the security force engages with the enemy and seizes its attention. The security force delays the enemy as described above while the rest of the withdrawing force retreats as quickly as possible. Only when it’s a safe distance away does the security force begin its own withdrawal. Retiring guards also leave a small security force behind while they gather up what assets they can and get them to safety. This security force doesn’t seek out contact with the enemy but rather stays in place until it receives word that the retirement is successful, at which point it moves out. If the enemy shows up before then, the security force tries to delay it.
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AVOIDING THE WOOD CHIPPER One side effect of massing combat power is that it can result in fights that, because of encounter difficulty modifiers, are way more deadly than PCs can handle. While that’s the whole point of massing combat power, it’s not going to be fun for players if they carelessly run afoul of it. Even though there’s supposed to be parity between monster challenge rating and PC level, a lair boss isn’t necessarily a solo boss. A CR 4 or CR 5 boss creature, by itself, might be a good match for a party of level 3 or level 4 PCs, but that creature plus a lair full of minions, in an environment designed to favor defenders, is too much—especially since intruders won’t get the opportunity to rest once the lair is on alert. To avoid inadvertent total party kills by large guard forces, start with a boss villain whose challenge rating is below what would be a match for the party as a solo enemy. How far below? In experience point terms, a lair boss with a full complement of guards in-house should be worth about 20 percent of the XP value of a solo boss at tier 1, 30 percent at tier 2, or 33 percent at tier 3 or 4. This ratio is roughly equivalent to a challenge rating difference of two or three at tier 1, five at tier 2, and seven or eight at tier 3 or 4. Next, cap the adjusted XP total of the fight around the main battle area at half the adventuring day budget for your PCs (see Dungeon Master’s Guide, chapter 3, Adventuring Day XP table). That’s still a lot—it’s going to be a Deadly encounter by DMG standards, and it shouldn’t be a cakewalk by any measure, but your PCs may yet prevail. At a minimum, they should have a chance to realize they’re in over their heads and get out of there before any of them bites the dust. (Remember that you can give your boss villain fewer than the maximum number of guards it can command, especially if having so many guards is hard to justify for any reason.)
Since your PCs will have little or no opportunity to rest once they’ve penetrated a lair, you can’t throw an entire adventuring day’s worth of combat encounters at them. Aside from the main battle, which should account for half the day’s adjusted XP budget at most, all other encounters within the lair should account for no more than one-sixth of the daily budget. In other words, invading a lair—especially one with a hard envelope—will essentially consist of one super-Deadly fight, the equivalent of either one Medium or two Easy fights… and that’s it. Any combat encounters beyond that must take place outside the envelope, where PCs can have a chance to recover resources with a short rest before finishing the job. That being said, you don’t want to nerf your boss’s defenses too far. Magic items, especially ones that confer hit points or deal damage, allow PCs to overcome tougher challenges than their levels would suggest. When you calculate adjusted XP per day, you can account for the effect of magic items by increasing PCs’ levels in your calculations according to these suggestions from fellow DM Jonathan Tsu: I A level 5 or greater PC with a +1 weapon should be considered one level higher; a level 11 or greater PC with a +2 or +3 weapon should be considered two levels higher. For each additional 1d6 damage a weapon deals per turn, add a level. Add a level for each bonus point of Armor Class conferred by magic armor or other items, as well as every 15 hp added. Finally, add a level for each magic item that can cast one or more spells. (Tsu’s actual suggestion is more involved, taking into account the level of spell cast and how many times per day you can cast it, but this is the kernel of it.) I. https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/llvgin/how_to_deal_with_two_common_cr_blind_spot s/. OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER7 TAKING PRISONERS On the one hand, you’ve consumed enough media to know that when your enemies invade your lair, the smart thing to do is not to waste time talking with them but simply to kill them. On the other hand, you have a legitimate interest in knowing whether they might be just the tip of the spear—harbingers of an even greater threat still to come. Also, from a metagaming standpoint, keeping them alive is more fun. And more interesting. Especially if you know how to interrogate them. Before I go any deeper into this topic, however, I’m going to draw a hard line: You can take PCs and NPCs prisoner, you can question them, you can mess with their heads, you can even threaten them with death, but torture has no place in a roleplaying game, period. Both DMs and players alike have a positive obligation to treat sensitive topics with sensitivity. The only unarguably responsible way to deal with so abhorrent a violation of rights and dignity as torture in an RPG is to disallow any hint of it. That being said, even ethical interrogation is still inherently manipulative. Consider this a content warning for the remainder of this chapter. When you’re interrogating prisoners, there are several things to keep in mind: Know what you’re after. The course of your interrogation should always be guided by your objective. If you start to drift off course, you’re in trouble: Your subject will sense that you’ve lost the thread and will grab control of the situation.
Seize and hold the initiative. Your goal is to get useful, accurate information as efficiently as possible, which you can’t do if you let yourself get placed on the defensive. An interrogator who loses control can no longer get good information out of a subject. They need to be taken off the job and replaced by a new interrogator using a different strategy from the get-go. Only accurate information has value. Monitor your interrogation subject constantly for signs that they’re lying. Randomly and casually drop questions that you’ve already asked into your line of questioning: This is a good way to trap them in a contradiction or to catch their hesitation as they try to remember what they’ve already told you. If they’ve told you something you’re certain is a lie, confront them about it firmly and self-assuredly. Coercion is overrated. The application of force, whether physical or mental, is rarely necessary or useful. Mostly, it gets subjects to tell you what they think you want to hear. Obtaining compliance is not the same as obtaining reliable information, which is what you’re after. And if you make a threat you can’t or won’t back up and your subject calls your bluff, they’ve won, and you’ve lost. Maintain a closed system. The only person who should be gaining information from this process is you. Don’t let anyone else observe unless for some reason you need them to. If you’re interviewing members of a group separately—as you generally should—don’t let it slip to Prisoner A that Prisoner B is cooperating with you (unless it’s part of a strategy to flip Prisoner A). As soon as they’re together again, Prisoner A will pressure Prisoner B to clam up. So what makes a good interrogator? More than anything else, patience, poise, good judgment, and self-control. You have to be mindful and in control of the situation at all times, and losing your cool is the No. 1 one way to lose both your focus and your grasp. You also have to be credible: Your subjects must believe that you have the upper hand, but they also have to believe that you’ll fulfill any promises you make, express or
implied, in exchange for their cooperation. Establish your credibility from the first moment your subjects meet you, then maintain it throughout the interrogation. You have to be perceptive, which in D&D terms means strong Insight and Perception scores. And you have to be adaptable, able to tell when one approach is losing efficacy and pivot immediately to another. If you don’t possess these traits, your attempts at questioning will be a joke, and you shouldn’t even bother. I Knowledge is power. You need to know how your subjects were captured, what condition they were already in, what their mental state was then and what it is now, and any other information about them that your forces can provide you, because these data inform how you should approach your subjects to gain their cooperation. Not only must you be equipped with all this information, you also have to be able to demonstrate your knowledge—and to do it without giving too much away. Never show all your cards. APPROACHING AN INTERROGATION SUBJECT You can summon some prisoners to you, or walk into their cells, and begin asking them questions immediately, with no prelude. In many cases, the direct approach is as effective as it is simple. It doesn’t work on every interrogation subject, though, and it works especially poorly on those who’ve been trained to resist questioning, who possess valuable information and are aware of its value, or who are simply recalcitrant by nature. Often, therefore, you have to take some time to get your prisoners in the mood to open up, and only then start questioning them in earnest. Which isn’t to say you can’t ask questions right away, but the questions you ask first should be unimportant ones, ones that have nothing to do with what you need to find out from your prisoners, in order to get them accustomed to answering your questions. Certain factors make people more inclined to respond positively to questioning. When they’ve just experienced a high-stress situation, for example, they open up easily to someone who offers a sympathetic ear—and you want to make sure the first ear they open up to is yours. The more hierarchical the society they come from, the more automatically they defer to someone they recognize as an authority figure. The more values they hold in common with
their questioner, the less they suspect that their answers will be wielded against them. The more unexpected or disorienting the situation, the less able they are to follow familiar scripts, and thus the more they respond to guidance. Flattery is an evergreen tactic, as is exculpation, if they harbor feelings of guilt. Treating a topic as if it’s no big deal gets people to drop their guard while discussing it. Other factors intensify people’s defiance. Challenging their core values elicits extremely negative reactions, as does belittling anyone or anything they hold in high esteem—especially if they already have a reason to dislike you. Also, trying to pull rank on someone who doesn’t recognize you as a superior is a surefire way to undermine your position of power. Quid pro quos, as appealing a shortcut to cooperation as they may seem, may get you information, but they don’t necessarily get you accurate information—and as often as not, they get you a subject who withholds cooperation in order to elicit more rewards. A belligerent, confrontational attitude will get you nowhere with most interrogation subjects. Instead, be calm, businesslike, even courteous and affable (though not too much at first). Show concern for their well-being, even if it’s just an act—and even if they know it’s just an act. They’ll at least take note of the fact that you had enough sense to pretend, which ironically helps burnish your credibility. Maybe you’re a liar, but you’re no idiot. The approach phase begins when you first meet a prisoner and ends when they’re starting to answer important questions. Once you’ve moved on to the questioning phase, if at any time they start to balk, stop questioning and return to the approach phase to get them back into a question-answering frame of mind. You may take the same approach again, or you may decide, based on what you’ve learned and observed, to switch to a different method the second time around. Good interrogators reassess their interrogation subjects constantly, and when they realize a new approach is called for, they make the transition promptly and smoothly. One of the first things you want to pay attention to is how frightened a prisoner seems to be—drawing a distinction between frightened, the emotional state, and frightened, the fifth edition D&D condition. The emotional state, if roleplayed faithfully, opens the door to certain approaches that may prove effective. The condition imposes disadvantage on ability checks while the source
of one’s fear is within line of sight, which allows you to exploit social interaction mechanics by making it harder for characters to deceive you—or for them to use Insight checks to penetrate Deception and Intimidation. II If you have a trait that allows you to impose the frightened condition on a foe, an interrogation is a good time to make use of it. If a prisoner exhibits no fear at all, only patient defiance, you can try the echo approach: Ask an innocuous question. When they answer, repeat your question, repeat their answer, then ask for verification again, slowly and deliberately. Do it again and again and again. They’ll start expanding on their answers out of sheer boredom, in order to get you to quit repeating them. However, this approach doesn’t work as well on a prisoner who’s very introverted or self-disciplined. It’s also slow. Alternatively, if the information you’ve collected tells you that the fearless, defiant prisoner is also an egotist, talk to all your other prisoners first and save them for last. When you finally get to them, treat them with weary disdain. Bemoan that it’s a waste of time to question them because they can’t possibly be of any importance or know anything you might find useful. When they start bragging about their illustriousness, you have your way in. If this approach fails, though, it will be hard for you to reestablish your credibility. Do they give off an iconoclastic rebel vibe? Accuse them of lying about their identity to conceal the fact that they’re a known criminal wanted for various despicable crimes. If they can’t prove they’re who they say they are, you’ll turn them in for punishment. “They’re eager to get their hands on you!” This approach forces subjects to give explicit details about themselves, which you can tell them you’ll have to verify, of course. Do they lack emotional self-control? Pepper them with rapid-fire questions, and don’t let them finish answering one question before asking another. Gradually increase the tempo until they snap and say something they shouldn’t. This approach works all right with one interrogator, but it’s better with two, if you can make use of two interrogators at once—either two trusted underlings or one plus yourself. This way, while they’re answering a question from one of you, the other can interject that they’re a liar, which will tilt them even further. It takes skilled, experienced interrogators to make this approach work.
A prisoner who seems thoughtful and slightly nervous, especially one who suspects that you already know what they know, may be susceptible to the silent treatment: Sit, stare, and wait. Maybe smile a little. Just a little. Let the pressure build up until the dam breaks and the floodwaters rush through. This approach requires considerable patience and the ability to maintain eye contact for a long time, but it’s often more effective over time than it seems initially. If they seem wracked with uncertainty or doubt, and you know things they don’t, convince them that all is lost already. Have they just come from a village overrun by invaders? Tell them the invaders have already overrun the entire province, and they’ll soon overrun the whole kingdom. There’s no point in resisting any longer. If they won’t answer questions, they’ll stay here till they do. If you’re keeping your prisoners separated, tell them their allies have been cooperating, because they just want to get on with their lives. This approach requires you to be well informed, persuasive, and aware of your prisoner’s weaknesses, and without some other, more positive technique to complement it —for instance, offering a reward or incentive that can provide a small ray of hope—it may simply make the prisoner shut down rather than win their cooperation. Sometimes a prisoner is so burdened by some other concern that the fact that they’re imprisoned and about to be interrogated is secondary. Are they pining for loved ones? Say you can send them a message. When you captured them, were they in desperate need of something they’d been deprived of, like food—or something to which they’re addicted? Say you can provide it. (Don’t say you will. Don’t guarantee anything. Provide it when you think the time is right. Conversely, however, never dangle anything you can’t provide.) Have you learned that they were working for someone who routinely put them down, expressing doubt about their competence? Build them up: Display respect and admiration for the all the personal qualities that have heretofore gone unrecognized, and meanwhile turn their ire against those who care so little for them as to put them in this situation. In essence, imply that they’d much rather be working for you. If they seem like they’re just on the edge of opening up but not quite ready to do so all the way, take them away from where you’re questioning them to
someplace else, nicer or more casual, that makes them feel like they’re not being interrogated anymore. In that new environment, ask casual icebreaker questions that put them at ease; from there, you can gradually lead the conversation into areas of greater importance and ease information out of them. A frightened prisoner who also seems confused or in the dark is susceptible to the “We already know everything about you” approach, but to pull this one off, you have to be very well prepared, with a list of specific questions you can ask that you already know the answers to. When the prisoner lies, hesitates, or balks at a question, answer it yourself, correctly. This approach can be embellished by carrying a fat stack of notes containing all the information you have on the prisoner, including things that aren’t tactically important but enhance the act. (Your information may take up only the first page or two, but you don’t show them the rest!) This embellishment is more effective when the prisoner is already expressing a sense of hopelessness. When a prisoner is extremely frightened, it’s crucial to know the source of their fear. If it’s you, then roll with it: Instead of playing nice, take an overtly intimidating approach—not violent but blustering. Verbosely inform them that cooperation is their only hope of salvation and resistance means doom. However, it’s possible that what’s terrifying them is something altogether different—maybe some other peril that frightens them more than imprisonment does, or maybe the possibility that they did something unforgivably wrong. In these instances, show kindness. Let them know they have nothing to fear from you; they’re safe where they are. Don’t spook them by asking troubling questions right away. Instead, establish an easy rapport with safe questions and a comforting tone of voice. It will take a while for them to open up, so work on your other prisoners in the meantime. You may notice that I haven’t yet mentioned the classic dual-interrogator “good cop, bad cop” trope. That’s because it has several major drawbacks. First, it’s only effective on subjects who are frightened already. Second, it needs a second interrogator, and you may not trust anyone else to handle an interrogation alongside you. Third, it takes excellent acting skills. If a subject sees through it, your credibility is shot. Fourth, it relies on physical and/or mental coercion on the part of the “bad cop,” the idea being that this generates gratitude
toward the “good cop” who holds them back (but who then tells the subject, when the “bad cop” is out of the room, “I may not be able to protect you next time; you should cooperate now to protect yourself”). In short, not only is it gross, it’s also a risky bet more often than not, likely to do more harm than good. On top of which, practically speaking, it’s hard for a DM to roleplay two different interrogators at the same time! We all love our tropes, but this one’s three days from retirement. Let it retire. ASKING QUESTIONS Prepare a list of questions in advance. These questions should be almost journalistic in nature—that is, directed toward obtaining the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your intruders’ agenda. They shouldn’t be the kind of questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”: Such questions provoke both terse, uncooperative responses and dishonest ones, and they may inadvertently reveal what answers you want to hear, which your subjects will pick up on. You also need to take care that you’re asking only one question at a time. Compound questions often cause confusion, and they invite evasion. Your questions should follow a planned, logical sequence. Nothing should interrupt that sequence except relevant follow-up questions to incomplete answers or unexpected new leads, off-topic questions that obfuscate the goal of your interrogation, or asides that reinforce your rapport with the subject. You can sprinkle in random questions from time to time as a way to reassess your subject or disrupt an attempt to construct a complex lie, but otherwise, they’re distractions that defocus the interview. When you start digging deeper, mix follow-up questions with ones designed to tell truth from falsehood, and test clever and stubborn subjects by asking questions you already know the answers to. Be thorough and attentive to detail. Don’t let a prisoner waste your time with rambling answers that lead you away from your area of focus. Ask precise questions that are difficult to dodge or answer vaguely, and don’t move on to the next topic until you’re done with the current one. To help you remember the answers you receive, repeat them out loud; you can make this repetition seem more natural by feigning a bit of surprise.
Keep your cool: Don’t ask rude or smart-aleck questions on a whim. You can destroy whatever rapport you’ve built up with a prisoner in an instant by insulting or offending them. (You can ask a rude or smart-aleck question as part of a calculated plan—but be very, very careful with that.) If you start to feel distracted or wrong-footed during a questioning session, end the session immediately—smoothly and matter-of-factly, not in a panic!—and the next time you meet with that prisoner, go back to the approach phase. Once you’ve gotten all the info you can out of your subject, end your interrogation promptly. “Another interview will be forthcoming. In the meantime, we’ll check this information out thoroughly. Is there anything else you want to add? Anything possibly misleading you want to clarify?” I. However, as a DM, you may decide to do it anyway, just to make your players feel superior to their captor. II. Wait—how do you use Deception and Intimidation against PCs when players have free will and full dominion over what their PCs think and how they feel? Great question! You do it by presenting fiction as fact. In other words, if a character or creature wins a Deception or Intimidation vs. Insight contest against a PC, then you, as the DM, tell the player that whatever the character or creature wants the PC to believe is true. Not that the PC believes it’s true, but that it is true. The player believes it, because you, the DM, said so, and they can then have the PC respond or react to that knowledge however they see fit. (In contrast, if the PC wins the contest, you let the player in on the charade.) Yes, lie! Lie to your players! But only when their PCs would believe the lie, and only because their PCs would believe the lie. When the opposing character or creature uses Persuasion, it’s trickier. In that case, a lost contest would mean the PC’s judgment is overwhelmed by the argument; you can convey that by making the argument your argument, reiterating the logos, ethos, and pathos of the appeal (“Her argument is sound, she knows what she’s talking about, and you would do what she’s suggesting if it were your mother”). If the PC’s Insight prevails, present the actual facts of the situation instead. In the case of a strong argument, that might mean reiterating just how strong it is, but in the case of a weak one, it reveals the weaknesses (“There are holes in her argument, she doesn’t have the experience to be so sure of herself, and that emotional appeal was over-the-top”). All that being said, don’t roll dice in the middle of an interrogation scene unless a player asks, “Do I believe her?” or words to that effect. Use passive skill scores instead. It streamlines gameplay and maintains immersion. If you really want to let die rolls influence the outcome, do it once for your villain before the scene begins and once for the PC at the end. OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER8 SIXTEEN LAIRS A NOTE ON DIFFICULTY Every one of these lairs contains an encounter that would be considered Deadly for the minimum recommended party, according to the encounter building guidelines in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Whether that encounter occurs depends on the choices of the characters invading the lair—but it’s always along the route of approach that the owner of the lair believes intruders are most likely to take. To keep descriptions from becoming too tedious and hard to follow, and also for the benefit of gamemasters using systems other than fifth edition D&D, rather than repeatedly inserting parentheticals such as “(DC 20 to detect)” or “(DC 10 to disarm),” I use natural language: “hard to detect,” “easy to disarm.” The descriptors correspond to those in the Typical Difficulty Classes table in the Player’s Handbook, chapter 7, “Ability Checks”: “Very Easy” equals DC 5, “easy” equals DC 10, “moderately difficult” equals DC 15, “hard” or “difficult” equals DC 20, “very hard” or “very difficult” equals DC 25, and “nearly impossible” equals DC 30. Whenever difficulty isn’t specified, assume DC 15. OceanofPDF.com
GRUNG VILLAGE Minimum recommended party: four or five level 3 PCs A band of grungs dwelling in the Emaranhá rainforest have recently started kidnapping interlopers and holding them for ransom. This activity was the brainchild of a grung wildling named Chittittittittittitt. Originally, the grungs simply ate whatever captives they took, and they didn’t kidnap anyone when they weren’t hungry. However, one captive, a merchant, tried to buy his freedom by flashing some impressive-looking semiprecious stones at them, and Chittittittittittitt’s avarice was kindled by the beautiful objects. Now the grungs have amassed a hoard of precious coins, gems, and a previously unimagined treasure: a driftglobe. Out of a desire for ever more captivating treasure, the band has gotten bolder in its depredations and kidnapped a minor noble, Dom Calixto do Margem. The grungs forced him to write his own ransom note, then conveyed it to the nearest village. ASSETS Hatching pool. The pool where the grungs lay their eggs and foster their tadpoles is of the utmost intrinsic (4) and intangible (4) value to them. Its value in other respects is negligible (0). Total value: 8. Cash. The money that the grungs are hoarding—80 gp, 1,000 sp, and 1,800 cp—isn’t an enormous sum even by the standards of the impoverished local economy, and since they don’t use money themselves, they don’t recognize its monetary value, although they are intelligent enough to recognize that others place a unique sort of value on it. The value of the shiny coins, to them, lies in their beauty (intangible value: 2), so they estimate its monetary value to others accordingly (also 2). Total value: 4.
Scrolls. These weren’t part of a ransom payment but rather were taken off the body of an earlier victim of the grungs. They comprise three spell scrolls: produce flame, fog cloud, and detect magic. Chittittittittittitt, who has some druidic spellcasting ability, recognized their potential usefulness and squirreled the scrolls away. They’re worth more money than all the cash combined, but the grungs don’t know that, so they underrate the scrolls’ monetary value. The wildling, however, can make good use of them in a pinch—as could a PC who managed to filch them (operational value: 4). Total value: 4. Gems. Ten strikingly faceted pieces of transparent blue quartz, roughly heart-shaped and worth 10 gp each. Prettier than the cash (intangible value: 3), and presumably also more valuable (monetary value: 3). Total value: 6. Driftglobe. This magic item captivates the grungs, who have never seen anything like it. It levitates! And glows! Amazing! Its mesmerizing quality gives it an intangible value of 4, and the grungs reason that it must have a commensurate monetary value to the dryskins. Even an uncommon magic item is worth a decent amount of money, but the value they imagine it to have (monetary value: 4) is greater than it could actually fetch if sold. On the flip side, while the driftglobe could be quite useful to a party of adventurers, the grungs don’t recognize its operational value, since they don’t use it for anything practical themselves. Total value: 8. Territory. Grungs are extremely territorial. The intrinsic (3) and intangible (3) value of their territory is second only to that of their hatching pool. Total value: 6. Prisoners. Taking prisoners has operational value (2) to the grungs, since they’re getting something they like out of the deal. This fact also confers a certain economic value (2) upon their prisoners: While their economic system is bare-bones, based on barter, they get that they can trade prisoners for the shiny objects they covet. They’re also aware of the intrinsic value (4) that other folk place on the captives’ lives. Total value: 8. Grungs. The village isn’t just an armed camp. It supports a population of six artisans and nine juvenile grungs as well. Their lives have intrinsic value
(4) to the grungs. The artisans have operational (2) value as well, since they make the goods that the grungs barter with, and intangible value (2), since this is a close-knit band and everyone in it is related by kinship. The warriors have a different sort of operational value, equal to that of the artisans, and the juveniles have an intangible value equal to that of the hatchlings (4). Total value of each group: 8. The grungs’ most valuable assets, aside from their own lives, are the hatching pool, the prisoners, and the driftglobe. All of these are protected by a 10-foot palisade of sharpened stakes, lashed together with tough vines. Historically, the grungs have mostly needed to protect their village only from hostile bands of other grungs; only since they began taking captives for ransom have they considered the need to protect themselves from other folk, and they built the palisade as a result. There’s no gate in this palisade, because the grungs don’t need one: They get around via the tree branches above and can easily jump or climb down and back up. Chittittittittittitt’s hut is built below the canopy and has an excellent view of the area outside the palisade as well as within it, so that if there’s a scuffle outside the village, the wildling can assist by casting spells from afar. The village is a restricted area: No one enters but the grungs. The gems, the cash, and the driftglobe are kept in a shrine hut in the village, adjacent to Chittittittittittitt’s hut. The cash is in baskets, out in the open; for the gems and the driftglobe, the grungs have built a special wooden altar. The gems rest in indentations in the top, while the driftglobe is kept inside in a hidden compartment with a cleverly constructed wooden lock, to which Chittittittittittitt holds the key. It’s a rudimentary lock and very easy to pick, but it prevents simply picking the globe up and walking off with it, and the woodwork is skillful enough that it’s moderately difficult to spot the compartment. Four prisoners, including Dom Calixto, are kept in a vine net hanging from a tree limb near the middle of the village. If any were to cut their way out somehow, they’d face a 10-foot fall—and they’d still be inside the palisade. The top of the net has an opening about 1 ½ feet wide, enough for the grungs to toss in scraps of food a couple of times a day.
The grungs are loath to part with the driftglobe—they keep it hidden, don’t mention its existence, and fight to defend it—but in general, their lives matter more to them than their loot and even their territory, and if a fight is going badly, Chittittittittittitt will try to buy off the attackers, first by offering the cash to get them to leave, then the scrolls if the cash isn’t enough, and finally the gems. If pushed to the wall, they’ll even grant free passage through their territory. The grungs’ prisoners, however, are their golden goose, and they won’t bargain for their release. Unless any would-be rescuers can sneak in and free the prisoners without the grungs’ knowing, it’s going to be an all-out fight. DEFENSE The terrain around the village is uniformly overgrown and marshy—difficult terrain throughout. The lowest branches of the trees are 10 to 20 feet above the ground. Where grungs can’t jump directly into the branches, they can easily climb the trees’ trunks. One hundred twenty feet from the wall, the grungs have dug a 15-foot-wide moat to a depth of 6 to 8 feet around the village, leaving 10- foot-wide gaps to the east and west to channel trespassers through. This moat, which winds around trees in its path, has naturally filled in with muddy water, concealing its depth—and the sharpened stakes that line the bottom of it. A reserve of six grungs guards the village within the palisade wall. This reserve responds immediately to any breach of the wall, always maintaining a position between intruders and the hatching pool. Outside the wall, two patrols of five grungs each screen the perimeter outside the palisade, moving and observing stealthily from the treetops at a distance of roughly 60 feet from the wall. Farther out, about 200 feet from the wall, two pairs of grung scouts make a continuous reconnaissance circuit around the village. If a pair spots any potentially hostile creatures, one of the pair returns to the nearest security patrol to report on what they’ve seen, while the other hides and watches. After reporting, the first scout rejoins the second, and they continue to gather whatever information they can. If it seems like an attack is imminent, the scouts call out to warn their security patrols, which in turn call out to warn Chittittittittittitt and the reserves. If the PCs speak Grung, they hear and comprehend the warning; if not, recognizing
that these calls aren’t just normal rainforest critter noise requires a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Nature) check. When one security patrol is warned of an impending attack, it relays the warning to the other security patrol, which sends one of its own grungs to add to the defense of the first one, so that more force is concentrated in the direction the attack will come from. At the sound of a warning, all non-warrior grungs take cover in their huts. Chittittittittittitt, the grung wildling, casts spells from within the wall: first plant growth on the forest floor around the invaders to slow their progress, then spike growth centered upon them to make further passage perilous. While concentrating on the latter spell, the wildling then moves toward the battle and takes shots at the invaders with a shortbow. If the grungs on security patrol outnumber the intruders at least three to one —which they won’t, unless there are only one or two intruders—they fling daggers from up in the treetops until each has only one left. They continue in this manner until they can transition to offense, in which case they leap down and try to grapple their targets and drag them over to a net that they use to hoist their captives over the wall, or must retreat, in which case they try to lead the intruders toward the reserve. Routed grungs withdraw toward the hatching pool, where they make their last stand. Even if one patrol comes under attack, those grungs remaining in the other one stay on their side of the village, just in case there’s an attack from another direction. At night, instead of two patrols of five in the controlled zone outside the palisade, the grungs send out four patrols: three grungs to the east and west, two to the north and south. They don’t conduct reconnaissance at night unless they’re keeping an eye on possible enemies they came across during the day. If a security patrol sounds the alarm at night, any grung in a neighboring patrol hurries over to join it, and Chittittittittittitt comes out to assist as well. OceanofPDF.com
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WERERAT NEST Minimum recommended party: four or five level 5 PCs Commanding a breathtaking view of the Amidland Ocean, the city of Aearfen is ancient, beautiful, and decadent. A center of learning, culture, trade, and ruthless scheming, Aearfen has been ruled since its founding by a single high elf dynasty and the council of nobles that supports it. Detached from the day-today realities of citizens’ lives, high elf aristocrats jockey constantly for social position and political power and consume an unseemly disproportion of the city’s wealth, to the particular detriment of the lower classes, who live and work in a downslope borough derisively called i Ast—“the Dust.” The city’s many put-upon residents—including elves of less fortunate birth, human and halfling migrants from other continents, and large minorities of orcs and gnomes, the latter overrepresented in Aearfen’s intelligentsia and bourgeoisie—are becoming more vocal about their dissatisfaction. A few have already grown tired of talking and begun planning direct action. Into this last group fall Snar, Poe, Gnaw, Sniff, and Mither: anarchists, saboteurs… and wererats. ASSETS Tools. These wererats are skilled artisans who’ve assembled a miscellany of tinkering, coopering, alchemy, and trap-making tools, which they’re using to build bombs and booby traps. These tools are essential to their plans (operational value: 4). Total value: 4. Raw materials. They’re also collecting black powder, as well as the wood, metal fittings, and wire out of which they’re making their improvised explosive devices. These are also important to the wererats’ plans, but they’re more fungible and easily replaced than the tools (operational value: 3). Total value: 3.
Food. The wererats’ workshop and hideout is also their squat. They maintain a stockpile of food in case they have to lie low for a while (operational value: 4). Total value: 4. Clothing. One of the perpetual risks of lycanthropy is losing one’s clothing upon changing into bestial form—and one of the risks of criminality is being identified by a distinctive item of clothing. The wererats take care of both of these problems at once by keeping a supply of plain, common clothes on hand (operational value: 4). Total value: 4. Weapons. Unlike werewolves and other lycanthropes, wererats lack formidable natural weapons. Sure, they can bite, but that often ends up creating more wererats, and manufactured weapons are more effective. Thus, for self-defense, the wererats keep five shortswords, five light crossbows (hand crossbows are easier to wield, it’s true, but light crossbows are more widely available, have better range, and are one-third the price), and forty crossbow bolts on hand. These weapons are a wise precaution, but they’re not essential to the wererats’ purposes (operational value: 2). Total value: 2. Wererats. The members of this little family of choice care about one another’s lives a great deal, not just as kindred beings (intrinsic value: 4) but also out of shared commitment to their cause (intangible value: 2). Total value: 6. The wererats share an “all for one and one for all” ethos. No matter what else happens, they look out for one another first. Everything else can be replaced if necessary, but not their lives, nor the bond they share. Although they live in an area with a significant amount of violent crime, the two most salient threats to their lives are the ruling authorities and lycanthrope-hating mobs. Since their activities—which include stealing food and clothing as well as procuring donations of raw materials from fellow travelers—necessitate going out in public, their existence is precarious, and they must keep a very low profile. Their cache of clothing is unlikely to be of any interest to a looter, but a lot of the wererats’ neighbors could use the food and would sell the tools for whatever they could get, so the wererats have to be on guard against simple burglary. The
food and clothing can generally stay hidden away, but the tools have to be taken out and used from time to time. Fortunately, the wererats aren’t likely to have to deal with a break-in while they’re at work. The bomb- and trap-making materials are of little use to a poor resident of the Dust, but to a guard searching the premises, they’re highly incriminating— enough to get the wererats charged with treason and put to death. Also, it’s easier to put away tools than to put away a half-made bomb. These materials are therefore more critical and more vulnerable than some of the wererats’ other assets, even if they’re slightly less valuable. The weapons aren’t especially suspicious in and of themselves, but if found together with the bomb materials, they’d be taken as further evidence of criminal intent; they’re also one of the first things an opportunistic burglar would choose to steal, along with the tools. DEFENSE The streets of i Ast are narrow and meandering, crowded by a dense agglomeration of firetrap buildings piled one on top of another as the land rises steeply from the coast. The innavigable lanes and indistinguishable buildings of the neighborhood make it an ideal place to hide out. Five wererats (with Intelligence 15) live together in the nest. At any given hour of the night, 1d4 + 1 of them are home. During the day, they’re all home 50 percent of the time; the other 50 percent of the time, one of them is out. The only window is covered by a curtain, and there’s no light inside except for a single hooded lantern in the workshop, used as a task lamp when the wererats are tinkering and extinguished when they aren’t. The entrance (A) is invisible from the street, facing onto a narrow, dead-end alley overarched by the buildings on either side of it. The nest is up one flight of stairs—barely more than a ladder—from that entrance and extends to the front of the building, where its single window (B) overlooks the nameless street at the entrance to the alley. At least one wererat is always on watch at this window; sometimes they’re joined by a second. OceanofPDF.com
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To find the nest, an intruder has to wend through a labyrinth of slum streets, locate the entrance alley, summon the courage to enter it, choose the right door, and ascend the steep stairs behind it. If they manage to do all that, they’re faced with a door in the ceiling that’s barred on the inside. This trapdoor has Armor Class 15 and 22 hp, and it’s immune to poison and psychic damage. (However, if the door is dealt at least 10 bludgeoning or force damage, the bracket holding the bar gives way, the frame splinters, and the door bursts open. The same result can be accomplished with a successful DC 20 Strength check.) The wererats always have an ally on watch at the window who can unbar the door for them— and who, thanks to their Keen Smell, can identify them through the door without a single word being spoken—so they have no trouble getting in. All the rooms in the hideout—a living/sleeping room, a workroom, a kitchen, and a hidden storeroom—are at the same level. Behind these rooms is an escape passage that in turn leads to a landing, with stairs leading down to the maze of streets below—but also a ladder leading to the rooftops above. The wererats favor the former escape route during the day and the latter route at night. There are several secret hiding places in the wererats’ nest. The stockpiled food is stored not in the kitchen, where hungry looters would expect it to be, but in the storeroom, the doorway to which is hidden behind an armoire in the workshop. The only way to find it is to move the armoire, although a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check will spot telltale scuff marks on the floor. The armoire doubles as a place to stash unfinished projects if the wererats need to clean up in a hurry. It’s lockable (although the lock is only moderately difficult to pick), and it contains several very thick blankets that can be used to muffle the sound of objects shifting around inside. The tools are kept in a locked chest in the workshop. The lock is hard to pick, and it’s protected by an acid trap (+5 to hit, 2d10 acid damage) that’s triggered by a failed attempt to pick the lock. This trap, which is only moderately hard to find but hard to disarm, is intended as a strongly worded “go away” message, not meant to kill. The chest weighs 25 pounds, and the tools weigh another 25. The clothes are in a plain rectangular chest in the living/sleeping room; a thin blanket is thrown over it to make it look like a table. The weapons are kept in a
compartment in the living/sleeping room floor that’s hidden beneath one of the wererats’ mattresses. Raw materials are kept in the secret storeroom along with the food. Amid the other bomb- and trap-making material is a single crate, about 2 feet on a side, made of wood of a distinctive color. This crate is a booby trap. If it’s pried open, picked up, or tilted in any direction, it explodes. Every creature in the room must make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw, taking 2d10 fire damage and 8d10 thunder damage on a failure, or half damage on a success. It’s only moderately hard to disarm, which can be done through a small hole in the side, but without tilting the crate—and thereby setting off the trap—it’s not possible to reach in and see in at the same time, imposing disadvantage on the ability check unless one has the ability to see through solid objects or reach inside telekinetically. All the wererats know exactly which crate is the booby trap and not to mess with it. This trap is meant to kill—and to destroy evidence. The wererats have three escape routes: a second trapdoor in the living/sleeping room, hidden under a different mattress, with a crawl space beneath it; a Small door cut into the workshop wall, accessible by crawling underneath a workbench; and a similar door in the kitchen pantry, accessible by crawling underneath a shelf. All three of these doors are hidden from view but obvious when looked at directly. As soon as the wererats hear noises at the door—especially if the one on watch has seen unknown characters lurking suspiciously around the street below —they get ready for action, but what sort of action depends on whom they see coming. If it’s more than a couple of city guards gathering outside, the wererats will have to assume that their secrecy is compromised, because the guards normally assigned to patrol the Dust are notoriously corrupt, lazy, and uninterested in whatever might be going on out of view. The wererats will grab whatever project they’re working on, throw as many tools as they can carry into a sack, and book it out the back way. One will go up to the roof and shift into giant rat form to keep an eye on the street and try to draw whatever conclusions they can from the guards’ behavior after they leave; they’ll rendezvous with the rest later. The others will take the stairs down and head through the snarl of streets toward the waterfront, where they can acquire a rowboat from a confederate and skip town
for a while. They won’t return to this location; they’ll establish a new one elsewhere in the Dust. If it’s one or more local lowlifes, they probably won’t even get in the door (and if they try to get in the window, whichever wererat is on watch will give them a push, which should settle things). But just in case, while the wererat on watch stays on watch, any others who are around hide their project in the armoire, lock up their tools, and retrieve and distribute weapons. Two take cover on either side of the door in the living/sleeping room, two in the kitchen, and one around the corner in the workshop, in that order, and they all load their crossbows and aim them at the door. When they catch the scent of intruders, the nearest wererat shouts a warning to whoever’s outside that they’re armed, ready, and waiting. It never goes any further than that. Where things get interesting is if people are lurking suspiciously around the street outside and the wererats have no idea who they are. In this case, they’ll be on alert, but not necessarily ready to give up their hideout. The wererat on watch will stay on watch, gleaning as many clues as possible from the lurkers’ behavior, and the others will follow the same plan as above, with one addition: They lower the rolled-up, weighted fishing nets that are hung behind the interior doorways. The wererats can easily see and shoot through these nets, but anyone who tries to barge through one gets tangled up in it (i.e., restrained) upon reaching the other side of the doorway, as the weights fall behind them. (See Player’s Handbook, chapter 5, “Special Weapons,” for how to escape a net.) If the wererats’ warning shout elicits a reply that piques their interest, they may be open to a parley. If the door is broken in, they’ll fight, fleeing out the back if it starts to go badly for them and not worrying about hiding their means of egress. If the door is sprung by magic—with a knock spell, for instance— they’ll get spooked and drop their weapons in surrender, figuring that they’re probably outmatched and that their chances of survival are better if they talk rather than try to fight. If they’re ever caught completely by surprise, they fight if they can but flee if they must. Nothing in their lair is worth dying for. OceanofPDF.com
WIZARD’STOWER Minimum recommended party: four or five level 5 PCs Gúlwelch is a transmuter (see Volo’s; if you’re using the stat block from Monsters of the Multiverse, add blink and expeditious retreat to the list of spells he can cast twice per day) who resides in a tower he bought from its former owner decades ago in the valley of Hûn e Hîr. The tower was once the keep of a small castle, and the outer walls still stand, but peace came to the valley long ago, and with it enough settlers—and wealth—that the aran of the shire opted for a more luxurious manor, closer to town, over a stark old castle. Unaffiliated with any order of magic-users (and having established a reputation for being difficult to get along with), Gúlwelch works alone and conducts research independently, casting spells for hire from time to time. Recently, he drew attention to himself when he hired thieves to steal the Tome of Lucid Reason from a collector of rare books who refused to sell it to him. Gúlwelch is a genius; he covered his tracks twenty-five different ways. However, he failed to consider the other twenty-five ways the trail led back to him. ASSETS Research. The study of transmutation is Gúlwelch’s vocation (intrinsic value: 4), and he’s developed some distinctive spells of his own (intangible value: 4). These spells are pure research, without a lot of direct application yet, but they could lead to greater payoffs in the future (economic value: 2). Using his research notes, other wizards could learn to duplicate their effects (operational value: 2). Total value: 12. Spellbook. Without his spellbook, his most prized personal possession, Gúlwelch is undone as a wizard (intrinsic value: 4, operational value: 4, intangible value: 4). As a collection of spells that another wizard could
copy, it could fetch a very good price (monetary value: 3). In addition to the spells Gúlwelch has prepared, it contains the following spells: message; catapult, comprehend languages, detect magic, feather fall, find familiar, identify; arcane lock, arcanist’s magic aura, enlarge/reduce, magic mouth, pyrotechnics, skywrite; bestow curse, fly, gaseous form, glyph of warding, haste, tiny servant; control water, fabricate, private sanctum, secret chest; animate objects. Total value: 15. Material components (common). Like any working wizard, Gúlwelch keeps a supply of magical reagents for his spellcasting (operational value: 4). He has a lot of it, but most of it is stuff you could easily procure from any magic shop (monetary value: 1). Total value: 5. Material components (rare). However, some of the material components required for his spellcasting are rare and expensive (monetary value: 3), and it would be inconvenient to replace them (intangible value: 1). These components include a diamond worth 50 gp; a pearl worth 100 gp; 200 gp worth of gold dust and 500 gp worth of diamond dust; an exquisitely crafted wooden coffer for the secret chest spell, worth 5,000 gp; and a small replica of that coffer, worth 50 gp, also used in the spell. Gúlwelch keeps the 50 gp diamond and 100 gp worth of diamond dust on his person, in case he needs to cast chromatic orb or stoneskin, and the pearl in his workshop, where he uses it to cast identify; the other components are for spells he casts infrequently (operational value: 2). Total value: 6. Potion of healing. Every wizard keeps one of these over-the-counter potions in their medicine cabinet (monetary value: 1, operational value: 2). Total value: 3. Alchemy jug. Thanks to this uncommon wondrous item, Gúlwelch has no need to go outside and use the well. Every evening, he anticipates the next day’s needs and refills his casks with fresh water, wine, beer, vinegar, or oil; tops off his honey jar; or produces some acid for the lab (monetary value: 2, operational value: 4). Total value: 6. Dust of disappearance. Gúlwelch keeps this uncommon consumable item on his person as a self-defense measure (monetary value: 2, operational value: 2). Total value: 4.
Spell scroll of passwall. Gúlwelch recently bought this scroll to study it, but he hasn’t copied it into his spellbook yet (intrinsic value: 4, operational value: 4). It cost him a pretty penny (monetary value: 3). Total value: 11. Ring of mind shielding. Like many wizards, Gúlwelch is anxious about being subjected to enchantment or mind-reading. He wears this uncommon magic ring as a precaution (monetary value: 2, intangible value: 4). Total value: 6. Peace of mind. Also like many wizards, Gúlwelch likes his privacy. The fewer disturbances he must endure, the better. His isolated tower outside a country village gives him the peace and quiet that he enjoys—and that helps him focus on his studies (intrinsic value: 2, operational value: 2, intangible value: 4). Total value: 8. Interesting lore. Gúlwelch has accumulated his own collection of valuable books, some of which contain information thought lost, which would otherwise be accessible only by means of a legend lore spell. He considers this lore to be intrinsically valuable, although not quite on par with his own life (3); institutional libraries would pay generously to acquire it if he had any interest in parting with it (monetary value: 4), but he doesn’t (intangible value: 3). Total value: 10. Tome of Lucid Reason. Gúlwelch had this very rare magical volume (monetary value: 4) stolen and delivered to him so that he could use the exercises in it to enhance his already considerable brainpower further. Aside from the effect he anticipates it will have on his research (operational value: 4), he’s simply thrilled to have such a treasure in his possession (intangible value: 4). Given that he already considers lore to be valuable in and of itself (intrinsic value: 3), this tome is a prize on par with his spellbook. Total value: 15. Cash. Over the last century and a half of his adult life, Gúlwelch has done well for himself as a wizard for hire, despite his abrasive personality. His current cash on hand amounts to 2,770 gp (monetary value: 3), mostly in gold but with a fair amount of silver and copper that he couldn’t be
bothered to exchange. Aside from a small quantity of pocket money, he keeps it in a single chest. Total value: 3. Tower. Gúlwelch needs someplace to work (operational value: 2), and he forked over a lot of money for the privilege of working independently and in privacy. His tower isn’t exactly appreciating—in other words, it lacks economic value—but if he ever chose to move on, he could certainly recoup a good portion of the purchase price. Conversely, if he ever had to flee, that investment would be lost, and replacing it would be costly. These factors make it one of his most significant monetary assets (4), rivaled only by his rare books and the stolen tome. The physical protection it affords adds some intangible value (2). Total value: 8. Gúlwelch. As both a naturally long-lived high elf and a practitioner of a discipline that requires years and years of dedicated effort to master, the wizard considers his life to have more value than most (intrinsic value: 4) —and he can’t pursue his work if he’s dead (operational value: 4). Total value: 8. Since Gúlwelch values his peace of mind so highly, and thus is sensitive to any intrusion on his personal space, he doesn’t make any special effort to secure the less valuable assets in his tower (his material components, his common and uncommon magic items, or his cash), the entirety of which is a restricted area to begin with. As far as he’s concerned, securing the tower itself is enough to secure these assets, and their relative values serve only as a guide to whether he keeps them in less private or more private areas of the tower. In contrast, his lore library, scroll of passwall, research notes, and spellbook, along with the Tome of Lucid Reason, require increasingly stringent security measures in addition to those of the tower itself. These measures are especially stringent right now, since he’s in possession of stolen property. Gúlwelch thinks the theft can’t be traced back to him, but he’s smart enough to be aware of the possibility that he overlooked something and to take some extra precautions. The collector probably won’t come after Gúlwelch personally, and he doesn’t fear the mundane law, but it’s possible that the collector might send hired agents—thieves of his own, perhaps, or worse, an
assassin. The worst-case scenario is that other mages might be sent against him, since they’re the ones most likely to be able to bypass his security. Gúlwelch also has to take into consideration the fact that both his spellbook and the Tome of Lucid Reason are, in essence, tools. A significant fraction of the value of both is operational. He has to take both of them out at least once a day to benefit from having them. Thus, while they have to be kept under lock and key, they also have to be accessible to him when he wants them. He also can’t simply stop doing research while he waits to see whether or not he’s busted. In contrast, he can forgo the pleasures of his lore library for a while. It’s very valuable, but it’s not critical. It’s curious that even an elf wizard could value a single scroll, for instance, more than his own life—but that’s his value system at work. Without his magic, without his accomplishments and discoveries, his life would be empty of purpose, so he’ll go to extraordinary lengths to protect his research and his spellbook. If the Tome of Lucid Reason were stolen back, it would be a crushing loss, especially after all the effort expended to get it in the first place, not to mention a deep humiliation. In the end, however, he’d still be a wizard, and he could recover from the blow. If he lost his research notes, on the other hand, they’d take decades to reconstruct, if it could even be done, and if he lost his spellbook, relearning and rescribing all the spells he doesn’t have prepared would cost him more money than he’s got. Protecting these things is where Gúlwelch devotes the lion’s share of his money and attention. DEFENSE The crenellated walls of the former castle, which are 6 feet thick and 20 feet high, are enough to deter casual busybodies and accidental trespassers, but they won’t thwart a magic-user, who could bypass them easily with such spells as jump, levitate, and fly, so Gúlwelch stations guards atop the walls as well as at the gate. However, their primary responsibility is detection, not response. The guards know better than to engage intruders who use magic to bypass the outer wall. Instead, they take cover in the gatehouse and sound the alarm: four rings of a bell, repeated as long as the danger persists.
The 10-foot-wide, 10-foot-high gate has a double portcullis, with each grille raised and lowered by a separate winch in the guardroom above. The guardroom has two murder holes in the floor, overlooking the space between the portcullises. Gúlwelch employs only a handful of day guards: two in the guardroom to greet (or turn away) visitors and raise and lower the portcullises, two more to go downstairs and deal with visitors face-to-face, and two to patrol the remainder of the wall. They’re armed with shortswords and light crossbows, but these weapons are a somewhat empty threat: For the most part, Gúlwelch’s guards don’t risk their lives fighting enemies of extraordinary ability. Along with paying them well, reassuring them that he doesn’t expect them to expose themselves to undue risk is how he secures their loyalty. As an elf, Gúlwelch doesn’t sleep; he merely goes into a meditative trance for four hours, usually from late at night until around dawn. During this time, he allows no one in through the gate and has four night guards keep watch from atop the wall. Not all his guards are elves, but he does hire elves specifically for night watch duty because of their ability to see in the dark. Gúlwelch doesn’t allow anyone inside the walls around his tower without an invitation. Everyone who arrives must state their name and business and check their weapons at the gate. The double portcullis is operated like an airlock: Both portcullises may be lowered, or either the outer one or the inner one may be raised, but the two are never raised at the same time. When Gúlwelch has supplies delivered, which happens every few days, the outer portcullis is raised, the goods are brought in, and the outer portcullis is lowered again. The goods are then unloaded, the outer portcullis raised again, and the carter sent away. Finally, the outer portcullis is lowered again, the inner portcullis is raised, and the goods are brought to the tower. The guards ring a code on the alarm bell— one ring, then three, just once—to inform Gúlwelch of the goods’ arrival. OceanofPDF.com
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All messages also go through the guards. The guard sergeant (see appendix B), who is on duty during the day only, takes messages from the gate to the tower, speaking a special password that bypasses the arcane lock on the tower door for 1 minute. She leaves the message in Gúlwelch’s parlor, tugs on a bell pull to let him know it’s there, then returns to her post. As she does, the gate and wall guards train their attention on the tower door, ready to sound the alarm if they see any intruder slip in while their sergeant is inside. When Gúlwelch wants to send a message, he notifies the guard sergeant using the message cantrip, and the process is reversed. The guards ring a special code on the alarm bell—one ring, then two, repeated after a long pause—which the couriers in the village market recognize as their cue to fetch a message from the gate. Whenever an alarm bell sounds, Gúlwelch sends out his owl familiar to make a sweep of the area, seeing through its eyes and hearing through its ears, in order to get a bead on the situation. When he’s satisfied that he knows what’s happening, he recalls his familiar. If anyone draws a weapon against the owl, he dismisses it immediately to avoid the inconvenience of having to recast find familiar. The bailey contains a number of wooden outbuildings left over from the castle’s earlier days. Gúlwelch doesn’t use them, and they’re somewhat dilapidated. The guards don’t use them, either: They have a barracks in one of the gatehouse towers and a farmhouse kitchen in the other. To prevent intruders from hiding in the outbuildings, Gúlwelch had the idea of placing glyphs of warding with thunder-dealing explosive runes in them, but he decided against it: It was too expensive a measure to take to protect an area that didn’t matter to him all that much. Instead, he had the floors of all the buildings covered with straw and buried a few ordinary hunting traps (A) in it (DC 14 to notice them). The tower door is made of sturdy wood, reinforced at night with a sliding bar, and inscribed with an arcane lock. Only Gúlwelch can open the door freely; only the guard sergeant knows the password that opens it temporarily. When anyone other than Gúlwelch or the sergeant comes within 5 feet of the door unaccompanied by one of the two, a magic mouth spell activates and says in Common, “You trespass upon the property of Gúlwelch i Rúwiston. Leave now and do not return. I will not warn you again.” The entire tower is enclosed
within a permanent private sanctum spell, customized to cover a cylindrical area of effect, which precludes divination magic, teleportation, and planar travel. The tower’s floors are hardwood. The first floor, which is one story above ground level, is Gúlwelch’s parlor, where he meets with visitors. The second floor is his residence. The third floor, once an armory, is now his library; the fourth floor, once a prison, is his laboratory. The first, second, and third levels of the tower are accessed by a single spiral staircase of stone. The ground-floor kitchen and basement cellar are accessed from the first floor by a separate wooden staircase; the ladder by which the fourth floor was originally reached from the third has been replaced by a wooden spiral stair. The trapdoor between the floors remains, as does its lock, which is moderately difficult to pick. However, Gúlwelch has enhanced the trapdoor with another arcane lock, which opens only to him, for only 1 minute at a time, and only when he speaks the password. He also carries the only key. The opening between the first and second floors of the tower (B) is ringed with trespasser’s bane (see appendix A), so Gúlwelch is alerted if anyone manages to enter the tower and climb the stairs. He keeps the books in his library not in open shelves but in an enormous armoire with windowed doors (C). The armoire is locked—Gúlwelch has the key to this lock, too, but it’s easy to pick— and the backplate is inscribed with a 4th-level glyph of warding containing a polymorph spell (DC 14 Wisdom saving throw to resist) that turns the target into a pig (AC 10, 5 hp, speed 30 ft., Strength 13, no attack—see the D&D adventure Storm King’s Thunder for other stats). The glyph is triggered if anyone other than Gúlwelch touches any part of the cabinet latch hardware: the knob, the lock, or the backplate. Inside his laboratory, Gúlwelch keeps his spell reagents in jars on open shelves and in drawers in an apothecary chest, with no additional protection. His notes are another matter: These are recorded in a book that he keeps in a drawer of his desk along with his spell scroll of passwall and the tiny replica chest that’s a component of his secret chest spell. The drawer is inscribed with a 5th-level glyph of warding containing a bestow curse spell (same saving throw as above) that lasts for 8 hours, during which a target who fails their saving throw must make a Wisdom save at the start of every turn in order to take any action at all. It’s