The Mountain's Throat
The Mountain's Throat
“Break the engines. Spill the commander's blood. Claim the mountain below.”
— Hook · Infiltration raid and military sabotage
“You emerge from a forgotten tunnel beneath Dhol Kuldhir as war drums shake dust from the ceiling. Six goblin raiders wait behind you, while Warlord Kragga One-Eye points toward the dwarf city above and names your targets: break the ballistas, kill Commander Hadrik Varn, and leave the mountain unable to answer the next attack. Tonight, the goblins do not steal from Dhol Kuldhir. They begin taking it.”
— Hook · Infiltration raid and military sabotage
In a cavern beneath the undercity, Warlord Kragga addresses the player characters beside a crude map of Dhol Kuldhir. Six goblin raiders prepare rope, hooked blades, oil, and stolen tools. Kragga explains that the Ashen Stranger revealed an entrance through an abandoned watercourse, but she warns that the tunnel has not been used since the ancestors vanished. The players choose which three goblins will accompany them in the lead group and which three will carry supplies behind them.
Warlord Kragga One-Eye
The player characters are summoned to Warlord Kragga's war chamber before the raid. She presents the mission as the first operation in a planned goblin reclamation of Dhol Kuldhir.
Rumours
d6 · table- 01The dwarves built Dhol Kuldhir over a city that was already ancient when the first stone was laid.
- 02The eastern ballista terrace has a maintenance bridge that only engineers and executioners use.
- 03Commander Hadrik Varn keeps a map room beneath the main barracks and never sleeps without two guards nearby.
- 04A pale stranger has been seen in the lower tunnels, always walking toward sealed doors.
- 05Some goblin elders believe the promised inheritance is a trap, but Warlord Kragga refuses to listen.
- 06The mountain shakes whenever the old foundation bells ring, though no living dwarf admits to hearing them.
If the raid succeeds, the goblins gain a strategic foothold and Dhol Kuldhir loses much of its ability to repel future attacks. If it fails, the dwarves may discover the undercity and begin a campaign of extermination. Beneath both outcomes, the raid risks damaging ancient seals that protect all of Syldora from a buried evil.
Background Lore
For centuries, the dwarven mountain city of Dhol Kuldhir has been built above a second civilization. Beneath its foundations lies an ancient goblin undercity, sealed away after a forgotten war and preserved by hidden cisterns, fungal gardens, and ancestral shrines. Now Syldora darkens as an unseen evil gathers strength, and a mysterious emissary has convinced the goblin warlord that the coming age belongs to the goblins. The first step is a raid designed to cripple Dhol Kuldhir from within.
The goblin undercity has survived beneath Dhol Kuldhir for hundreds of years. A mysterious emissary has promised that when evil rises across Syldora, the goblins will inherit the dwarven mountain city. To prepare, the goblins must infiltrate Dhol Kuldhir, destroy its ballistas, kill Commander Hadrik Varn, and damage enough infrastructure to make the city vulnerable to future raids.
