It is every Dungeon Masters’ job to present his players with interesting and challenging stories and situations And if at all possible kill one or more in the course of the adventures. Sneaky traps, cunning villains, or even when providence shines upon you and presents you with a player that makes it too easy to do in.

My case in point this happened at a time when I was the group DM I had set up a small adventure in a dwarven mine in which the miners refused to continue their work in a new vein (too many miners were getting fried). So the mine owners sent a message to the nearest town and to the local magistrate looking for a group of “heroes” to deal with the problem. A reward was offered and the “heroes” found.

The trek to the mine was uneventful (if you don’t count stepping in dung an event) ( I don’t but its worth a dex check and a laugh or two). The party presented themselves to the “dwarf in charge” where upon the whole story was told:

It was the mines sole export and had been for many many years and while tracing a new vein of silver a small work party set about opening a parallel shaft to trace the vein. The vein went at a slight upward incline from a small side gallery. The ore was pretty good and all indications were a good strike had been made. It was early in the afternoon when the small party following the vein broke out of a mountain side into a small alcove in the mountain. The miners got a glimpse of daylight filtering in from vegetative coverings on the mountain. Warily they stepped into the alcove and discovered two things: One a small nest of three eggs Two they were not alone. That discovery cost them their lives. Of the five dwarf party only one made it back, and he was a gibbering idiot from that point forward. When he was found he was scorched and in a severe state of shock, He mumbled the words nest, eggs, and beasts.

“We next sent in our small contingent of guards to investigate, they never came back.” “And so Here you are” “I’ll send for a guide and get you started” And with that the adventure is underway.

I should point out that most DMs at this point would have worn the party down with random encounters on the road to the mine. My town and mine were close together along with a full scale forge and smelting facility.

The Guide I played (as I’m won’t to do with all npcs) was a nervous twitchy wreck on his last raw nerve ending it was all he could do to walk with the party and take them (he was sure to their certain doom) into the gallery that the new tunnel was carved into. When the guide entered the gallery he pointed to the hole in the wall with a shaking finger and said ” there it is good luck” . One of the party members tried to engage him in questions however the guide was having nothing to do with it and said to them “Oh, look its a unicorn” when the party turned to look. The guide did a
disappearing act to make David Copperfield jealous. When they turned back to tell the guide he was mistaken they discovered they were alone.

O.k. at this point they approach the new tunnel and note its only about 26′ to 28′ long and climbs slightly upwards about 10 degrees. with their torches they see movement at the far end of the tunnel but can’t make out too much with all the obstructions (dead bodies) in the opening.

The party mostly human would find they would need to crawl to get through to the other end. Being that the tunnel was new and under construction and made for dwarves.

Now that we have all the ingredients:
1 DWARVEN MINE
1 BAND OF HEROES
1 SCARED (SHITLESS) GUIDE
1 MYSTERIOUS CREATURE (FIRE CAPABLE)
4 DEAD DWARVEN MINERS
1 CONTINGENT OF GUARDS (SMALL ABOUT 6) DEAD
1 GIBBERING IDIOT
1 REWARD FOR SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE JOB
MIX WELL……

Now lets roast a player

At about this time the groups Paladin steps forward and takes charge of the party. He takes the torch and shines it in the tunnel and takes a hard look, after about 2 minutes he makes out the shapes at the other end of the new tunnel. And praise be there in the dark he sees not one, but two small RED DRAGONS (fire drakes) chewing on the dead (waste not want not). He hands the torch back to another player draws his sword stands in front of the opening and tells me “I set for charge.” (yes there is a God) then proceeds to Yell at the top of his lungs down the shaft at the creatures hoping to get them to attack him. (get ready) The creatures turn and look startled the female releases a gout of flame down the shaft at the Paladin who stood there and waited for it.
actually scoring a large amount of damage to the Paladin. Needless to say the Paladin was in no shape to lead them at this point and now the male charges down the tunnel comes out and takes flight in the gallery , leading half the party one way the others to wait for the Paladin who is at the moment receiving healing from the cleric to tell them to go. From this point I think you can see whats coming, And I have as I said I would described how to roast a player.

~Blalock

Fiery red hair and +7 to damage!