A neat little adventure to drop upon the party whenever they are travelling high in the mountains. They'll welcome a friendly settlement with a welcoming inn where the ale is good, the food excellent and the beds warm... but they won't expect to wake up in a cage!

The DM's Background explains what is going on, and points out that there are a lot of NPCs, so it is worth taking the time to get to know them before the game. In particular there's a powerfull wizard, you'll need to get your head around all that he can do. The adventure will work particularly well if the party has visited the village of Feldspar before, but it doesn't matter if they have not.

The adventure begins as the party arrive in Feldspar. It's already dark and they'll soon find their way to the single inn, where they will be made welcome... until they have gone to sleep. That's when they get captured. As described, they are attacked when asleep. As this is a pretty high-level adventure, you may have some difficulty with this, so work with what you know about the party to make the attack successful. Troubleshooting notes suggest that the adventure can be run as a rescue mission instead if just one party member gets hauled off, or maybe the villagers ask for help in getting their children back. Or - the idea that came to my mind reading this - maybe they get drugged rather than being attacked!

The rest of this work is a description of the nearby silver mine which has been appropriated to serve as the evil wizard's lair. Captured characters will have to escape, find out what is going on and put a stop to it. Hopefully they'll rescue those children as well. The map and descriptions are clear. Even if the party succeeds in freeing themselves and at least driving off what is down there, if not killing it, there's the potential to acquire one or two really powerful enemies that may plague them in the future. On the other hand, the villagers are extremely grateful for their assistance.

This makes for a good interlude between regular adventures, something to keep the party on their toes when they think it's time to relax a bit!

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Reviewed: 17 March 2018