THROTL

1. Entrance/Exit to Overland – Contrary to the statements made to you in the outpost, Throtl is indeed guarded. The guarding force consists of several hobgoblins, hobgoblin leaders, and four warriors. You must defeat the guards in order to enter the city. Use Sleep, Charm, or Hold Person spells to get past them.
2. The Plan – A party of hobgoblins and hobgoblin leaders are in this room. This is your first clue to the existence of something called “The Plan”. You may leave without fighting but choosing PARLAY or FIGHT leads to conflict. Again, Sleep is a very useful spell.
3. Rumor – You will meet a terrorized man in one of these two places . He will gibber about Caramon and some sort of attack before he runs away in fear.
4. Undead – Several zombies and many giant rats are in this corridor. If you run, you may avoid the zombies but the rats will catch you.
5. Temple Key (Quest) – This room is empty until you find and release Caramon, then you will find the cleric with the keys to the Temple here. He is guarded by many skeletons and two zombies. Note that this cleric will cast Hold Person if given an opportunity, so you should try to injure the cleric every round to prevent him from casting spells . Make certain your clerics TURN the skeletons and zombies.
6. Mortuary – This room is filled with coffins.
7. Scars of battle – You will find the remains of a battle in one of these places. Some of the battered pieces of equipment contain the heraldic device of the Solamnic Knights. After you find Caramon, the central area is littered with frozen draconian and hobgoblin bodies.
8. Dropping Eaves – When you enter this room you will overhear something about a plan. If you decide to EAVESDROP on them, you will hear a little more before you are attacked. If you leave, you will not be stopped. You may also attack. If there is combat, you will fight two baaz draconians, four hobgoblin leaders, and three warriors. Sleep spells can often affect baaz, so use them here as well.
9. Treasure – There is a treasure in the first one of these rooms that you enter. You must defeat a cleric and five skeletons in order to gain the steel pieces, the shield +1, a Potion of Healing, and the two clerical scrolls of Neutralize Poison.
10. Remains – This room is littered with decaying bodies. If you remain, you will have to fight many giant rats and skeletons.
11. Battle – You meet some of the enemy as you enter this room. A few of them run through the south wall (illusionary) in the southwest corner of the room. If you stay, you will have to fight many hobgoblins supported by two clerics. Make sure you kill the clerics quickly or else they will Hold your party, and you are sure to lose someone. Sleep and Charm Person spells are excellent choices for use on the clerics.
12. More treasure – Someone runs out of the room to the west as you enter. This room contains a treasure of steel pieces, gems, and jewelry.
13. Caramon (Quest) – Caramon is found here. After he tells you his story, a tremendous crash and screams are heard. A beautiful young woman then enters and tells Caramon and your companions that they must leave. You are directed to find the cleric who has the key (see #5), get it from him, and then explore the Temple as you continue the investigation of Throb. You gain an extra 3000 experience points.
14 & 15. Magical Parchment – You will find a magic-user scroll in each of these places.
16. Ambush – You are caught in an ambush from above. You must defeat five Baaz draconians, three human warriors, two clerics, and a black robe mage to continue (or survive). Make sure you have your Sleep and Hold spells ready here. Don’t hesitate to cast every spell you have in order to win this one. The black-robe mage is the most dangerous opponent you face here, as he will Charm members of your party and they will join the enemy forces. You should try to take out the black-robe as soon as possible!
17. Trap – There is a gas trap here. If you have Larcent Strangbourn (from #19) with you, he will trip the trap harmlessly. If not, then you will get a chance of detecting the trap. Having a thief in the party will help here greatly. If you detect the trap, you will get a chance to remove it and if you do so, the character who removes it gets 300 experience points . If you don’t detect the trap or you fail to remove it, gas will be released that may cause up to 10 points of damage to each party member.
18. Residential Area – If the trap at 17 has been sprung, a cleric and his minions are coming to investigate as you enter the room. The first time you enter the room, you may avoid a fight by leaving. If you attack or enter the room a second time, however, you must fight five hobgoblins, two Baaz draconians, and a cleric. You gain a treasure of steel pieces and gems, if you win.
19. NPC Join – If you have the soldier from room #23 with your party, you will meet some hobgoblins here. The soldier turns on you and attacks. You will fight one 7th level fighter and many hobgoblins. In any case, you will meet Larcent Strangbourn, a Solamnic knight who had been with Caramon. He describes the circumstances of the battle and offers to join your party. If you refuse twice, he will leave. This NPC is on your side and will help you until he leaves with Caramon, or you leave Throtl. You should allow him to join, as his presence may make the difference in the fight at #18, and he knows about the trap at #17.
20. NPC Join – You meet a kender who offers to join your party. If you refuse, he will leave. This NPC is a good guy and will help you if you let him join your party.
21. Pit trap – There is a pit trap here. If it is successfully detected and removed, the character removing it receives 300 experience points. If the trap is sprung, several characters are likely to be injured in the fall. The pit is occupied by many skeletons and giant rats.
22. Dead-full Trap – This is a dead-fall trap . If successfully removed, the character performing the removal will be awarded 300 extra experience points . If sprung, you can expect someone to get injured.
23. Bad NPC – You meet a soldier who tells you that he has just left Caramon, who has returned to the Outpost. He asks if you wish to join him in searching for a treasure. If you refuse, he will signal his hobgoblin allies who will jump from the shadows and attack. Fighting him here will result in a smaller fight than if you let him join and fight him at 19.
24. Arrow Trap – A flight of arrows hits you from the north. They may hit up to four party members for 1d6 damage each.
25. Temple Entrance (Quest) – These are the secret entrances to the Throtl Temple. You must have found Caramon at 13 and defeated the cleric at 5 to get the key that will allow you to enter the Temple.

Synopsis: You have been sent by Sir Karl Gaardsen to find Caramon in the ‘abandoned” city of Throtl. Throtl was built by hobgoblins and was deserted after the War of the Lance. As you enter the city, you realize that the information you got is extremely out of date. You are stopped by hobgoblin guards that try to kick you out of town. As you penetrate deeper into the city, you find evidence that fighting has been going on between the forces of evil and the troops under Caramon.

Goals: You must find and rescue Caramon from the clutches of the evil forces that have retaken Throtl. After Caramon’s rescue, you must defeat a Cleric and his undead minions in the southwest corner of the city, in order to get the key to the Temple area. The Temple lies in the northeastern quadrant of Throtl.

Note: There are many traps in the city. You should have a thief with you if you wish to pass safely.

If you leave the city for any reason, such as getting trained at the outpost, any NPCs that you have picked up in Throtl will leave you. Those NPCs are lost forever, so you should not leave Throtl, once you have added the kender and knight NPCs to your party, until the NPCs leave with Caramon. There are many random encounters in the abandoned city and they vary radically in difficulty. For this reason, you should save the game often while you are exploring Throtl.

Giant Centipedes are particularly dangerous, as they can poison your characters, killing them instantly. You should try to obtain the scrolls of Neutralize Poison from room #9 as soon as you can.

Where you can rest: Room 9 is safe and you may rest freely there. Otherwise, you risk interruption but can probably rest for a short time without danger.

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS:
There are six random encounters possible in Throtl, but this number is reset every time you leave the city to either the temple or the overland. The number of monsters you will encounter is usually small. The types of creatures you will encounter include giant rats, giant centipedes, hobgoblins, skeletons, zombies, ghouls, baaz draconians, and evil spell casters. You should be very cautious when wandering Throtl, as some random encounters will include evil clerics and the dreaded black-robe mages. If you see these enemies in an encounter, you should try to eliminate them as quickly as possible.

Because of the danger of some of the random encounters in Throtl, you should go back to the outpost to rest and train if you are becoming depleted while exploring Throtl. Resetting the number of enemy patrols is not as bad as losing one or two characters because you were too weak to continue.

Objective: Find Caramon who has been lost in Throtl.

Starting location: The party starts in a small outpost just South of Throtl. You are told that Throtl is abandonded, however, that is a lie. Throtl is crawling with monsters ans patrols.

Armor: At the Armory, purchase Ring Mail (you will find Scale, Chain and 1 Plate Mail in Throtl) and shields for the appropriate classes. When bringing back loot to sell, bring back Scale Mail. The rest is only a few Steel Pieces, and take up slots, whereas Scale Mail can net 20 Steel Pieces or more each.

Weapons: Purchase long swords for the fighters and shorts bows and arrows for your second line if they can equip and use them. After selling loot, purchase more arrows for your archers. You don’t have to Detect Magic on magical items right away to receive their benefits.

Experience: You can upgrade your party’s level at the Hall. You should probably wait until Throtl is cleared out and Caramon is found before upgrading, since you’ll need all the experience of the area to level up. And each time you leave Throtl, the random monsters reset.

Quests: Upon entereing Throtl, you are immediately attacked by the guards. Although the Clue book mentions only Room 9 as a safe place for resting, I found that resting in other rooms less than 6 hours went uninterrupted and I was able to heal the party and re-memorize all spells so I didn’t have to leave Throtl.

Leaving: Once you have the Temple key, go to area 25.

The adventure begins after the good armies have recovered lands seized by the Dragon Armies in the War of the Lance and pushed the evil forces from the continent. After establishing outposts to watch over these territories, the good forces withdrew. Your party is
sent to man one of these outposts.

Supposedly the main evil forces have long fled and only the occasional wandering monster remains. On your first patrol, you find this just isn’t so. You find draconians ambushing agroup of the good settlers who have been moving into the reconquered lands. You defeat the baaz draconians. An aurak draconian, who could easily destroy you if he chose, seizes an ancient book. He takes this and Dimension Doors away, ignoring you as beneath his notice.

Returning to the outpost to report all of this, you find Sir Karl, aknight sent to investigate strange reports from the outposts, battling the outpost’s commandant. Sir Karl kills the commandant whose body changes into that of a sivak, a draconian warrior/assassin who assumes the shape of his victim.

From this and your report, Sir Karl quickly realizes that evil has been operating the outpost for its own ends, sending back false messages that all is well, while systematically wiping out the good forces sent to keep an eye on things. One of these forces is now in the (supposedly) abandoned hobgoblin city of Throtl, just northeast of the outpost. The force is led by Caramon Majere, one of the heroes of the War of the Lance. You are sent to warn him of the danger.

1 – Caramon

2 – Maya

3 – Kildirf

4 – Evil Clerics

5 – Hobgoblin

6 – Warrior

JOURNAL ENTRY 82

“So! At last, you’ve come to rescue me. You know these things are quite clever. Not clever enough for me of course. I’ve just been improving them somewhat. Oh dear. I do hope you didn’t come through from the North .. .oh, sorry. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to get me out of here now. Oh, there are more people back there. Strangbourn is around here somewhere, He’s looking for Caramon.

 

JOURNAL ENTRY 38

“They’re back …back there . ..who, look out! No, no, no . I stabbed one but it took my sword. I couldn’t get it out of its body!
Caramon!”

His eyes clear for a moment and he becomes more lucid. “Listen to me,” he says, “they’ve captured Caramon. Most of our party has been wiped out.”

He suddenly jerks about. “What’s that! Get them! They’ve got Caramon. Find him. I’ll find him. North, north and west and south. Traps! Back up… go back now. Quiet, quiet, quiet…look out! above you! oh no, oh no, oh no… “

He gets a sly, slightly mad conspiratorial look on his face. “I saw a money chest in a room to the east. I’m gonna get it and I’m set.” He looks around and leans towards you, “You wanna help! Huh, what d’ya say?”

The terrorized look comes back. He screams and gasps in terror.

 

JOURNAL ENTRY 35

“I was with a party of knights and others under Caramon that came in here to explore. We haven’t really found anything. Caramon’s already left to report. I guess you must have missed him.

“Oh, one thing we did find out was that there is a treasure left over from the previous occupants of Throtl . We got word of it from a hobgoblin who was sneaking in to claim it. Before he died, he told us that it was located in the south-central area of the city. Tell you what, if you help me find this treasure, I’ll split it with you . All right?”

 

JOURNAL ENTRY 7

“Listen, Sir Karl is the most honorable of men. I would follow him anywhere. But there is something very dark and strange going on around him . He seems obsessed with a young girl named Maya. The fact that he’s about 40 years older than she is isn’t really the problem; if they’d just settle down and declare themselves! All that would happen is that a few gossips will snicker and that’ll be the end of it. But they won’t do that. Maya is extremely valuable to us. She has sources of information that are astounding, especially for one so young. But whenever the two of them are in the
same room the tension is so obvious that…

“Ah, never mind. You say that he seems to be all right. I will go on that hope, and let troubles find me in their own good time. Let’s go.”

 

JOURNAL ENTRY 73:

 “After the battle I was taken to see a powerful cleric. He laughed at my defeat. They led me to some doors that glowed in the darkness, opened them with a key that he pulled from his robes, and took me to a dark temple. I saw a bronze dragon egg on the altar! He told me that they were going to start the corruptions again! Then he had his minions beat me.

“I woke up here . If it hadn’t of been for the treachery of a dark elf, and a sneak attack from behind, they never would have captured me.” He pauses . “I’m sorry for my men .” he says, ‘They had no idea what we were getting into. Krynn’s blood, I didn’t know either. We were unprepared for the extent of the evil forces. ‘The ambush was a complete surprise.”

  

JOURNAL ENTRY 9:

She explains to Caramon, “I’ve been sent by Sir Karl to get you back to the Outpost. There are rumors that large forces of draconians, hobgoblins, minotaurs and others are gathering . We need you to direct scouting and raiding operations. I see now that things are worse than we thought. Throtl was supposed to have been abandoned.”

Caramon says, “It’s even worse than that. I have seen Brass Dragon Eggs!”

She gasps, “No! They must not do this again!” Then she pauses, “Wait, how can they do it? I thought the process was lost during the War of the Lance . Did you see any evidence that they were successful?”

“No,” says Caramon, “I was knocked unconscious before I had a chance to look further.” He turns to you . “I need you to investigate this matter. Find the key, and go to the old temple in the Northeast part of the city. Find out what you can.”