The Troglodyte Caves

I was thinking about Troglodytes last night and started researching these little devils. Unfortunately I found that the Third Edition Troglodytes are basically unusable in my eyes. They're too big, too powerful, and far too lizardman-esque. After all if they're nothing more than a bestial version of the lizardman than there is absolutely no reason to ever use them in your campaign. So instead I went back to the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual and used that version.

Lair of the Troglodyte by Charles Akins

Okay, now in the map I used the box hatching around the caves and alternated it with a bit more of the classical crosshatching. I don't think that the box hatching was as successful next to the cave as it tended to lose the line. Next time I'll use the box hatching further away from the line of the dungeon.

The cavern entrance is partially submerged and the cavern hall leading in is only two feet wide causing any creature above small size to fight at a -2 modifier. The river entrance is populated by four trained and hungry alligators who begin attacking once the players enter into the cramped entrance. There is an alarm just north of the entrance with a group of troglodytes camping in the cave just above and to the right. The idea is for them to begin attacking the invading players while the alarm alerts the tribe.

For this dungeon I set up three secret caverns. The first one is the treasure cavern where the troglodytes have been stashing all of the goods and gear they've collected from raiding the nearby trade route. The troglodytes have trapped this room with two mimics. Each of them are further in the cavern rather than being near the entrance. The idea is that the players will get greedy and let their guard down when the mimics finally attack.

The second secret area in the southeast is where the troglodytes are hiding their 'god,' a slumbering Linnorm (you can find them in the 3.5 Monster Manual II, pg. 140). The Linnorm is essentially a flightless dragon that is incredibly old, incredibly powerful, and just loves the idea of eating player charterers. The idea behind this sort of huge danger in what should be an easy encounter for these players is to set up a series of future encounters with the Linnorm as a major reoccurring villain - something I've been wanting to do for quite some time.

The third secret area in the north of the map is where the troglodyte women and their eggs are located, hidden away from the possibility of discovery by wondering adventurers and a hungry Linnorm. If the players manage to find this secret area then the troglodyte women will fight with everything they have and at a +1 challenge rating.

Lair of the Troglodytes by Charles Akins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.