The Gnoll Tomb

Overview

A 3rd level party pursues a band of gnolls into an old tomb. The gnolls engage a trap in the first room, then swarm the PCs in the second one. The third room contains the toughest gnolls who are facing off against a different horror.

This adventure is adapted by Brent P. Newhall from the fourth delve in the D&D 4th Edition book Dungeon Delve by David Noonan, David Christ, Greg Marks, Shawn Merwin, Dru Moore, and Bill Salvicsek. All monsters are from the 5th Edition Monster Manual.

Getting There

The PCs are tasked to meet a caravan, with which is traveling a contact who has a powerful wand for the PCs' patron. The PCs find the caravan...smashed to pieces, its guards and members dismembered and half-eaten. They also find their dying contact, who gasps that the gnolls found the wand shiny and took it with them. The contact then dies.

The PCs track the gnolls to a nearby hill, where a stone doorway leads into the earth.

Encounter 1: Trapped Foyer

The outer doorway leads down a stone passage that dips sharply into the earth, then opens out into a room about 60 feet square that slopes noticeably upwards. Empty burial alcoves line the walls; each alcove contains a decorative 2-foot-wide hole halfway up the wall.

Most of the gnolls are running down a 20-foot-wide hallway at the other end of the room. As soon as the PCs enter, one of the few on this side pulls a lever that lowers a portcullis, closing off the hallway (effectively ending the hallway 20 feet from the room), leaving 3 gnolls on this side.

A PC who asks and makes a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check will notice the grooves for the channel by the entrance (see Water Trap sidebar).

Two gnolls rush forward to engage the PCs in melee, while one gnoll remains by the portcullis firing arrows until half the PCs have reached at least halfway across the room. At that point the gnoll will pull another lever there, activating the trap, then will engage in melee as quickly as possible.

Gnoll AC 15, HP 22, Speed 30, Init. +1, XP 100

Attacks: Melee (bite) +4, 4 (1d4+2) dmg

Melee/Ranged (spear) +4, 5 (1d6+2) dmg

Ranged (bow) +3, 5 (1d8+1) dmg

Note: The stat blocks in this adventure are intended as quick references; they are not meant to replicate the complete official stat block.

Maps for all rooms.

Water Trap

Two-foot-wide stone spouts are spaced every 10 feet along each wall. When the second lever by the portcullis is pushed, a 3-foot deep channel opens in the floor along the entire row of squares closest to the entrance, and the two spouts farthest away (nearest the portcullis) spew water at each other, filling the squares between them with water. On every subsequent round, the next two spouts do the same. On the seventh round, all spouts stop.

Each affected square is difficult terrain, and each creature that moves into an affected square must make a DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) or DC 12 Strength (Athletics) check or be pushed 10 feet back towards the entrance. Note that this might push a creature into another water flow, which will trigger another check.

If a creature is pushed by the water into the open channel, the creature's speed becomes 0 and it must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) or DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to climb out. The channel remains open.