Meepo & Co. - Kobolds in the Sunless Citadel

I know this is the third entry in this series but I have to say: The adventure in the Sunless Citadel doesn't really begin until we meet Meepo in room 15. We're continuing our Dungeon Master walkthrough to this awesome module that kicks off Tales from the Yawning Portal by talking about the kobolds in the Fortress Level. The kobolds are the newest residents of the “Sunken Citadel,” but they looked around at all the dragon iconography and thought, “this is us.” Now they're in the middle of a turf war with the goblins who have lived here for a while. The kobolds somehow managed to get their hands on a white dragon wyrmling, and the goblins recently stole it from them.

Our heroes walk into the scene of the crime and find the most pathetic, weepy kobold they've ever seen whimpering himself to sleep in the corner beside the busted cage. I don't know, maybe it's cheap, but I think this is a pretty brilliant way to entice your players to talk to a monster instead of just killing it. There is a chance you've got some real murder hobos on your hands and we're just going to fight our way through the front half of this dungeon, but if you ham it up and they hear this thing crying in it's bedroll all alone before they see him all scared up, I'm willing to bet they'll at least hear what Meepo has to say. Some players are going to love Meepo, they're going to want to adopt him as their pet or mascot. Other players are going to hate him and bully him. If you end up with a couple party members in both columns, all the better. Meepo is going to tell his sob story of losing Calcryx the dragon to the goblins, and if the party hasn't tried to kill him by the time he's done, he's probably going to want to take them to Yusdrayl.

This is kind of a fast pass, and as a DM I am rooting for it. This side is not super interesting to explore, there are six rooms that share to explanations, the 13s and 16s. 18 is probably the most interesting, and if the party hacks and slashes their way to it then these four imprisoned goblins are definitely going to beg for their freedom and promise the players the moon. But the deck is stacked that they'll side with the kobolds, at least at first. Either way, I don't think this side will be run room by room, as the players are likely marching straight to the throne, or they're triggering a war and waves of enemies are coming at them. It's spelled out room by room, but in total there's 15 kobolds plus the 5 elites to work with, not counting Meepo and Yusdrayl, whose got sorcerers powers I'll also say the players have no idea how many kobolds are here, so there's exactly as many as the DM needs. I've got a quick one on kobolds, and another on waves of enemies, they might be helpful here. If this is a fight among the dragon columns it will be one to remember, and likely wipe a party of level one characters if they don't run. If that happens, and the party returns later, hostile kobolds on their guard will have probably set some more traps, the tripwire ones in 16, and maybe others as well. Again, it's up to the players, so don't get upset if they act up and start a fight. It might be a learning experience for them, and if it goes down maybe let them wake up outside battered and bruised without their gear. Or maybe they'll have to roll up new characters who now have two adventuring parties to track down in the Sunless Citadel.

As written Meepo speaks with bad grammar and repeats broken phrases, but Ysdrayl is dropping the Queen's English. I think this makes it even more likely the players will parlay with her. Having an increasing amount of kobolds escorting the party (and Meepo) to her throne is also a big incentive. I like giving the players the picture of her from the book, dropping it in the Discord, texting it to everyone, or just holding up the at the table, whatever works for you and your circumstances. It's rare you get to hand the players a visual clue and it's a little extra exciting if they spot the key for themselves rather than you tell them it's there. This is likely to be a long conversation and probably the first that they're going to hear about Belak the Outcast, so take your time with it. Some of us are more comfortable running a combat than speaking in character, but just keep in mind what Ysdrayl wants, (more dragon and less goblins,) and react to the players. She's got the key to the dragon door, which we've dangled in front of the players if you took my advice from last time, plus she has an alter full of goodies, so odds are the kobolds and the players are coming to an arrangement.

Now, love him or hate him, I bet somebody's going to think to ask Meepo to come along. He might even volunteer, or be volunteered by Yusdrayl if you're having fun running him. I decided two things about Meepo when he accompanied my party. One, he knew this place only up to the door to room 31, he collected rats to feed Calcryx in 26 and 28, and knows 31 is the start of goblin territory. The second thing is I made him a kobold inventor. The stat block was in Volo's, and it's in Monsters of the Multiverse now, and it's got to be one of the most fun things to run in tier one. The moment Meepo steels himself, wipes the tears from his eyes and the snot from his nose, and marches off to gear up for battle, only to return with a scorpion on a stick, a skunk in a cage, and a sack that's buzzing with a wasps nest, chef's kiss. My players cleared some rooms, went back to town, then came back to get Meepo for round two and I let them roll a d8 three or four times to see what he outfitted himself with the second time. It was a blast.

One more thing worth talking about before we leave kobold territory: room 23 and the entrance to the Underdark. I've thought about this a lot and I mostly don't like when adventures do this. Especially an adventure geared for beginner DMs. I mean, I like that it makes sense on an ecological level, the kobolds, (and down below in the Grove level later the Goblins,) are hunting and gathering in the Underdark for food since they're not on the surface. But I'm a little conflicted about leaving a portal to what is essentially another world in the middle of your dungeon in a published product and telling the DM “hey, you can design something to go here.” It's easy enough to stick an entrance to a tunnel going down into the darkness onto a dungeon, it feels way harder to come up with stuff that's on the other end when you're trying to fit 80 rooms of other material in your brain. So here's what I did: I found a cool Underdark map online, just in case. And I decided that first, if the the players went this way they would come across a party of kobolds carrying a dead, giant insectoid thing strung up between them coming up from the Underdark. These kobolds scoffed at the PCs and suggested they had to business going down there and good luck not dying. That was enough for my players. But the insect thing those kobolds were carrying was a rust monster, and that was the next thing they'd find going down that tunnel. Then I was going to throw a beat up hook horror at them, with like 25-30 HP. This thing is super nasty and something beat it up pretty good, still want to explore the Underdark? If all else fails, now you're running Out of the Abyss, have fun!

When you are finished with this adventure, and you have some level 3 characters, maybe these portals to extra adventure will be more appealing. In the head cannon of my world you can reach the lower levels of the Forge of Fury from here, though there's plenty of creepy craziness on the way. Anyway, there's a couple things you can do, I'm interested to hear what folks did at their tables in the comments. For now, let's stay in this adventure.

Here's something I realized preparing this: Meepo speaks Draconic. Now, maybe he's illiterate, but also, maybe he can read the inscription on the fountain and the door in room 26. It's wild that they've made this fountain into a magical soda machine that dispenses a potion of fire breathing, and then have a pretty much identical fountain in 29 that's going to poison everybody right before Mama Rat and her brood come out to attack them. Fun!

This sanctuary is maybe a spike in difficulty, which feels right to me as a kind of optional bonus room. Remember that skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning. Should they be resistant to piercing? Maybe they are at your table, it would certainly make them more interesting. Also more dangerous. Night Caller is a powerful magic item to hand out at level one. Animate dead is a third level spell, wizards won't see it until fifth level, but here we go. I love it. There's some good treasure in this place if you work for it. Does blowing this necromantic slide whistle cause you to make a wisdom saving throw against being cursed? It does in my game.

If the PCs did not see the footprints before, I'd call for another check here because 4 go in, only 3 come out is good story telling. Plus, the rat tracks, we know about these rats already, or we think we do at least. Guthash, the Bloated One, is six feet long! Keep in mind she's diseased too, so they better make their con saves. Just like the players don't know how many enemies the book says are here, the same goes for treasure. Fell free to throw an extra potion of healing or two on Karakas the fallen ranger here if things are looking rough for the party. You could do an elixir of health too if someone's diseased, but Yusdrayl had those on her alter and would sell or trade for it, all of which Meepo knows so I don't think you need it.

Karakas is the final beat of this little section, and the first hint at what might have befallen the other adventuring party we're down here looking for. I wrote a whole article on how placing a dead adventurer in the dungeon can serve a lot of functions for a clever DM. The fact that he still has all his stuff means the other three in his party must have run away from here. You want to tie him to the Harpers or the Emerald Enclave, or one of the PCs back stories for that matter, go for it. If you are having your players map this place, maybe he was doing the same and is carrying the map he was making, and your players can get some details they may have missed, or receive reminders of things you want to draw their attention to. Maybe Karakas made a note that he thought a cleric or a knock spell might get them into the door at 27, or he just circled the dragon door a bunch of times.

At this point the players are probably going to be riding pretty high because they've proven themselves to be more capable than the last guys who came down here, plus they've got some treasure and a Meepo of course. This is a good opportunity to take a rest, maybe adjourn the session until next time, because on deck is the assault on the goblins, and they are (sort of) ready. That's what we're getting into next time, plus a dragon in our first adventure, good stuff.

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