Verbeeg Lair
Image: Verbeeg Lair Map
This excavated complex on the slopes of Kelvin's Cairn was home to Akar Kessell's giant minions during his first attempt to conquer Icewind Dale. The verbeegs (more intelligent cousins to ogres and hill giants) of that time are long gone, but one young giant has moved back into the old lair with a band of goblins.
Davrick Fain's demonstration of Auril's power cowed the goblins and convinced the verbeeg to consider an alliance with the cult leader. Now the giant, the goblins, and a handful of devotees of Auril guard Rycher and the remorhaz egg, keeping a fire constantly burning in the kitchen to warm the egg. Secretly, Davrick Fain plans for them all to serve as the remorhaz's first meals, strengthening the beast for the carnage ahead.
The verbeeg lair is described and mapped in the Campaign Guide.
Campaign Guide:
Locations of Note
Front Entrance
Letting out onto the mountain's southern face, the main entrance is the most accessible way into the lair. It's not immediately evident, though, shabbily concealed by a screen of dry brush. If the characters come up the slope looking for the lair, they will probably spot (or be spotted by) the
goblin guards
outside the main entrance before they notice the entrance itself. The goblins attack the party on sight, raining missiles down from afar while taking cover behind the rocks. The guards fight fiercely but attempt to flee into the lair if the fight turns against them.
Goblin Guards - Encounter Description
Barracks
The barracks are where the goblins live and spend most of their time when not on guard duty. Incurious and cowardly, they don't respond immediately to sounds of fighting outside. If the adventurers do not proceed quickly into the lair, half of the
barracks goblins
come outside to investigate one minute after the first sounds of combat, having been rousted by the verbeeg. The rest remain inside the barracks, ready to repel any intruders, while the verbeeg lurks down the side passage. If the heroes sneak past the exterior guards, they can surprise the goblins in the barracks, with the verbeeg coming to investigate the clamor in the third round of combat.
Barracks Goblins - Encounter Description
The barracks is filled with mounds of untanned animal hides that the goblins use for bedding, as well as piles of rotting food and filth. Any furniture that once was here has been chopped into kindling for the small hearth fire, which lights the room and takes a slight edge off the chill.
Captain's Quarters
This suite of chambers belongs to the
verbeeg giant
, Dardo, who styles himself the captain of this ragtag band. The anteroom is bare, watched by two additional
goblin guards
who are under strict orders not to aid their fellows at the main entrance or in the barracks, but instead to alert the captain at the first sign of a disturbance.
Verbeeg Giant - Encounter Description
Goblin Guards - Encounter Description
In the "sleeping room," Dardo sleeps on a heap of moldering summer grass covered with furs. He is a heavy sleeper, and if the lair is disturbed at night, it takes the goblins 1d4 + 1 rounds to wake him. When he awakes, he sends the goblins to assess the situation so he can decide whether to confront the threat or to escape out the secret door.
Down a short hall is a small room where Dardo keeps the rest of the treasure he has amassed. A few large sacks hold 2,360 sp, 328 gp, and five gems worth 10 gp each.
Verbeeg Lair - Treasure
A secret door in the bedchamber's wall lets out onto the mountainside, providing an avenue for escape if the lair comes under attack. The verbeeg does not hesitate to use this secret exit if an encounter turns against him. Finding the door from the inside or the outside requires a successful hard Intelligence check to search, although after it's discovered, the door can be opened easily - it's neither locked nor trapped.
Main Hall and Storage Rooms
The lair's main hall is lit by a soft blue, magical light near the end of the passage. The chambers off to either side were originally built as storage rooms, although Davrick Fain's loyal
cult assassins
use four of them as sleeping quarters. These rooms have crude pallets laid out on the floor, with scant personal effects tucked into satchels in the corners.
Cult Assassins - Encounter Description
The remaining storage rooms hold an assortment of broken furniture and ruined supplies. A few show signs of having been animal lairs at one point, with dirty nests and frozen spoor scattered among the detritus. The lair's serial residents have combed through the supplies dozens of times, leaving little of use. Still, the party might find something of use or value hidden in a forgotten nest.
The cultists spend as little time as possible in their dingy, smelly rooms, preferring to socialize in the dining area when they aren't sleeping.
Dining Room
When the
cult assassins
aren't resting or out on missions, they spend most of their time in the lair's dining room, eating, gambling, joking, and sparring. The room is adorned with a long table flanked by trestles and is lit by whale-oil lamps in sconces along the walls. A long tunnel framed with wooden struts runs off to the side, leading to the scrying room. The kitchen has a pair of hewn stumps that serve as work tables and a large hearth lit with a roaring fire.
Cult Assassins - Encounter Description
If the party intrudes on this area, the cultists leap to the attack. Any cultists that are resting in their quarters off the main hall respond to cries for help in the fourth round of combat. The cultists use careful tactics to attempt to flank their adversaries, split the party between the two rooms, and draw the fight down the main hall if reinforcements are available there. If the fight goes against the cultists, they attempt to break off the engagement to warn Rycher or the verbeeg in his quarters.
Kitchen
The contents of the kitchen depend on whether Davrick Fain has come to the lair yet. If the adventurers began this part of the adventure immediately after the interlude, Fain is still in Bremen. Otherwise, he is here.
If Fain Is Not Here:
The kitchen is
Rycher's lair
, where he constantly tends a fire in the oven and keeps an eye on the remorhaz egg within. The goblin guards at the back entrance are tasked with keeping an eye out for danger and bringing him wood, usually from the smashed furniture in the storage rooms.
Rycher's Lair - Encounter Description
If the adventurers followed the crag cats to the lair, Rycher is tending to their wounds (and might have had time to heal them to full hit points). Otherwise, there is a 50 percent chance that the cats are in the cave when the party arrives.
Rycher is not immediately hostile unless the characters attack him or his cats. He might initially assume that they are fellow survivalists, and although he doesn't welcome competition for furs, he respects such people more than he does the "soft" residents of Ten-Towns. If the adventurers converse with him, he shares what he knows about Davrick Fain but says nothing about the remorhaz egg - Fain has impressed on him the importance of keeping the egg a secret. Asked where to find the cult leader, Rycher says that he thinks Fain is still in Bremen, and he isn't willing to say where Fain might be going next.
The kitchen contains the simple effects of someone who lives off the land. Rycher's bed is a heap of furs, and all his worldly possessions are stored in or attached to the large backpack he wears everywhere he goes. Those goods include nine foothold traps in three different sizes (appropriate for otters, wolves, and bears), a tinderbox and iron pot, a set of four skinning knives of various sizes, a tinderbox, 30 feet of hempen rope, a tin bucket, a spool of fishing line, a collection of metal and ivory hooks, sewing needles and thread, a miner's pick, and a pouch of dried meat.
If Fain Is Here:
The kitchen is the
remorhaz lair
, where Fain and Rycher struggle to bring the young remorhaz (already the size of a dwarf) under control. Their efforts are quickly aborted when the adventurers arrive, at which point Fain tries to put the intruders between himself and the remorhaz while Rycher prods the creature to attack the characters.
Remorhaz Lair - Encounter Description
Back Entrance
The verbeeg lair has a back entrance that comes off the kitchen and lets out onto a small ledge that drops onto the mountain slope. The back entrance isn't intentionally concealed from view, but it's tucked into an inaccessible rill of the mountainside. The characters aren't likely to notice it on their approach unless they specifically circle around to look for other entrances or they're tracking Rycher's cats, and even then, reaching the ledge requires a successful moderate Strength check to climb up the broken mountainside.
A group of
goblin guards
watches the back entrance, although unless they're under scrutiny, the goblins' idea of "guarding" is to poke their heads out the door every so often. At your discretion, if Rycher had reason to suspect the arrival of hostile adventurers, he might have dismissed the goblins and set three bear traps in the cave entrance, but only if his two cats are safe with him inside the lair.
Goblin Guards - Encounter Description
Scrying Room
This room has a single furnishing - a silver-rimmed mirror about three feet tall, held at face height by a wrought-iron stand. This is Akar Kessell's scrying mirror, formed from the essence of the Crystal Shard, which Kessell used long ago to communicate with the verbeeg leader, Biggrin. Now it is linked to a similar mirror within the Ice Witch's Black Ice Tower so Davrick Fain can communicate with Auril's Chosen.
A character who examines the mirror can determine, with a successful moderate Intelligence check relating to arcane lore, that it has properties of communication and transportation. (It also radiates a strong aura of divination and conjuration magic.) With a successful moderate Charisma check to use this magical device, a character can see into the Audience Hall in the Ice Witch's tower. Looking through the mirror for more than a few moments brings Hedrun to her side of the mirror, where she can see the character.
A second successful moderate Charisma check allows the character to open a portal to the location of the matching mirror. Adventurers who enter the portal appear in the Audience Hall of the Ice Witch's tower.
Audience Hall
If the characters are successful, they might claim the scrying mirror for themselves. The mirror is a powerful item, but retaining possession of it is hazardous. Like the black ice, the mirror carries the taint of the Crystal Shard, and prolonged possession of the item begins to twist the user's mind.
Quick Links
Root - Adventure Contents
Up - Act 2: Deepwinter
Up - Fangs of the Frostmaiden
Prev - Finding Davrick Fain
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