“A Giant Problem”
Difficulty: This adventure is for 4 to 6 level 7 players.
Run Time: 1 to 2 hours.
Summary
A furious hill giant materialises in the town square. After dealing with that, strange shards of mirrors teleport the party to a demilplane where a Warlock is experimenting on Hill Giants and has a strange magical tower full of traps.
Setup: Giant in the Streets
Enemy: Hill Giant(MM155 1800xp)
The party hears noise outside. It is an angry hill giant that has just been teleported into the middle of the town. It is roaring at anyone around it and swinging it's club wildly to keep the city guards away from it. If the party can calm it down, it will leave peacefully. It is confused and doesn't know how it got there. A DC25 persuasion check or DC20 Intimidation check is enough to make it retreat. Also spells like calm emotions can work. After they handle the giant, they notice shards of mirrored glass littering the cobblestone street where the giat appeared. When they investigate the mirror an explosion of power teleports the party and any NPCs in the area away.
Investigation: Unknown Destination
The party and NPCs arrive in a strange expanse of endless salt flats. A giant black tower looms in the distance. Hill giants are roaming, lounging, or sleeping on the flat ground in all directions. They are not hostile unless provoked. The tower has no visible entrance on the ground floor. A single window can be seen up at the top. Each floor is a circle with a 20ft radius and the cielings of the rooms are 25 feet tall.
7th Floor: Entrance: Anyone who enters this rolls a charisma saving throw DC15. Anyone who fails is teleported back outside the tower at the bottom. This room is a featurless entryway with a hole in the center of the floor. A huge pile of 30 semipure gold bars worth a total of 30,000 gold are here. Each bar weighs 100lbs and is worth 1000 gold. In order to keep the gold, the party must find a way to transport it with them. Remember that a bag of holding only holds up to 500lbs. The party must find a way to transport it.
6th Floor: Kill Room. Anyone who walks on the floor of this room must make a DC15 deterity saving throw for every 5ft of movement. If they fail they activate a pressure plate that causes fire to shoot out of the walls, and anyone in the room must make a DC15 Dexterity saving throw or take 4d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much on a success. One or more of the NPCs will probably die here. There are 3 false doors(DC10 investigation up close) and 1 real door on the 4 walls of the room. The real door leads to a ladder down to the next floor. A DC20 thieves tools can disable a section of the floor, and a DC30 thieves tools check made from standing by the read door can disable the entire trap mechanism.
5th Floor: Poison Room. The air in this room is poisoned. Each round a PC spends in this room without holding their breath, they must make a constitution saving throw DC15. On a failure they become poisoned and take 3d8 poison damage. The door is a round stone slab in the floor that takes an atheltics check DC25 to lift open. Each failed attempt is 1 minute of effort. Most of the NPCs should be dead by now. The poison fog can be dispelled acting as a 5th level spell.
4th Floor: The Kennel. This room contains 3 Hell Hounds(MM182) who attack the party. If any NPCs are left alive, have the hounds kill them first as brutally as possible. The exit is a ramp that spirals down around the edge of the room into a narrow hallway. At the end of the hallway is a locked door DC25 theives tools, DC27 atheletics to open. The door is trapped DC20 Investigation to detect the trap, DC22 theives tools to disable.
Counter Attack:
3rd Floor: The Laboratory Volath(Warlock of the Fiend VGtM219) is here in a laboratory surrounded by strange magic and science tools. A large standing mirror is against one wall. Volath is invisible when the party arrives. After they all enter he magically shuts the door and attacks. If he feels like he is loosing the battle, he uses a scroll of dimension door. If the party defeat him here, then he is not in the Climax battle. Volath will also gloat and use the scroll of dimension door if he kills a PC. After he leaves the room will begin to fill with acid that does 1d6 acid damage each round. There are no visible exits. An arcana check DC20 reveals a magical portal in a large standing mirror in the room. After a few rounds of acid damage, the acid destroys the mirror and reveals the portal.
Climax: Through the Portal!
Enemies: Volath the Warlock of the Fiend(VGtM219), Imp(MM76)
Option 1: Volath is alive. Volath and 4 Imps in the form of 4 ravens meet them for the final battle. The portal has taken them to a large room, 100ftx100ft with 30ft high cielings. There are 16 pillars spaced evenly with about 20ft between each pillar all over the room. There are mirrors on each pillar. Volath can, as a bonus action, step through a mirror to emerge from another mirror. Each mirror has 1 hp and an AC of 5. If a mirror is broken then Volath can't use it as a portal. The imps remain invisible flying overhead until they find an opportunity to attack vulnerable spellcasters with their bite attack. A DC 20 perception check can hear their wings flapping. Along the walls of this room there are cages where hill giants are kept in various stages of health. Some are dead, some look as if they have been tortured, some are sleeping, some are undead. None of the captured giants have any will to fight left and don't attack the party or Volath if freed from their cages. After the party defeats Volath they can discover that the mirrors can be recalibrated to teleport them back to the town where they started.
Option 2: Volath is already dead. A hill giant is rampaging through the room smashing the mirrored pillars. As he destroys each pillar each round, each player makes a dex save to dodge the rocks falling from the cieling as a pillar explodes and crumbles. While the Hill giant is alive, a DC25 arcana check is needed to figure out how to use the mirrors to teleport back to town. If the hill giant destroys enough of the 16 pillars, then the entire tower will collapse on the party. The consequences of that are up to you.
Wrap-Up: Back Through the Mirror
The party uses the mirrors to teleport back to town.Treasure: 30,000 gold and roll once each on Treasure Hoard: Challenge 0-4 and 5-9 tables on DMG p.137
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