[A&A] The Eagle's Eyrie Dungeon

The Eagle's Eyrie Dungeon is part of the setting offered in Greg Christopher's The Last Candle module. If used along with the module, the characters likely come to the dungeon in search of historical scrolls on behalf of the priory. This is the task I set my party with. Here are some notes:

• The goblin player didn't want to start with party. He wanted to be a captive found during the first encounter. This was his excuse/justification for traveling with the others. It took a while, but he was found with the Dark Elves holed up on the other side of the frost maggots. 
• The first door the party went to was locked and scrawled with a warning "STAY OUT". The dwarf cultists used the spell Peek to look into the room and see the Ghouls walking around the pillar. Since the spell was relatively long-lived, he also looked into the sitting room.
• The human sorcerer knew what she was looking for right from the get-go and cast Detect magic. The spell pointed beyond ghoul room (to the circle holding the demon). They were too wary to enter the room with the ghouls, however, and never got to the large source of magic she detected.
• In the sitting room, the players lived up to the game name, Ambition & Avarice, when they very diplomatically fought over the coins and gem. The dark elf knight wanted to carry the money, but the dwarf cultist talked her out of it. He stated that the spoils were in danger if the knight was cut down and the rest of the party couldn't retrieve the money from her killer. The human was off to the side threatening to cast a Charm spell to make sure she got her fair share.
• In the pool room, the knight sent her dwarf huskarl into the water when the neophyte's quarterstaff met something solid and movable. He came up with rusted battleaxe and bad attitude. The sorcerer later realized she could cast Cleanse if they ever wanted to. The Cleanse never happened.
• The Knight was the only one to round the corner and see the frost maggots. They were warned off by the smell. One attacked and hit the knight. She pulled it off and stepped on it. She killed the others with mirror (for aiming) and torches (for tossing onto the carcass).
• Again, the Dark elves had the goblin as prisoner. They were willing to sell him to the party as a "guide" for 20gp. The group didn't have that much but were willing to give the gemstone from room 2 for the goblin. They regretted their purchase for the rest of the night. What I really liked about this encounter was that the game as written stated that the elves were willing to parlay with their tourmaline for their freedom. Instead I got a gem off the party.
• The door to the adjoining room was locked, and the goblin said there was nothing worth opening the door for, so the party went back out into the hallway. The beauty of this is that the goblin player had no idea what was behind any door and had no idea where he was going in the dungeon.
• Goblin said he knew where everything was and started leading them where they "want to go"...without asking them why they were there and where they wanted to go. The rest of the players never seemed to catch on and just followed the fast-talking, obnoxious goblin character.
• When the party encountered the severed leg in the hallway, the goblin claimed it was from his cousin Tibbitz. When they encountered the dying goblin in a nearby room, I mistakenly told them it was the one missing the lower leg. They couldn't do anything to save the creature, so the dwarf cultist sacrificed the goblin to heal the knight of her maggot wound. 
• The goblin PC loved the Chanting Room to send his voice booming throughout the complex. The dwarf started chanting, and the hidden scrolls shook free.
• The goblin PC used the body of his dead "cousin" to check for traps in the next room they came to. He threw the body as far as he could into the room...which meant it was barely in the doorway. There were no traps to be found.
• The goblin PC recruited the other goblins in the hospital to help them search out the rest of the complex and get revenge on their dwarf attackers. This was a poor promise, as there were two dwarves in the party.
• The goblin PC got his new conscripts to haul over a large piece of rubble and batter down the door with the dwarf NPCs behind it. The first attempt at battering only moved the door a slight bit, and the rock came bouncing back to land on one of the goblins. He was crushed, dead. The next attempt opened the door wide enough for one creature to go through.
• The goblin PC summoned an air elemental. We both viewed the elemental as a swirling vortex, so he had the creature pick up the 5 bags worth of caltrops scattered nearby and spin itself into the dwarves. This caused a lot of damage to the dwarves in the hospital (5d4) and killed the one that was already wounded. Also, the goblin's attack caused the dwarf cultist PC to retaliate. 
• The cultist charged the goblin PC. He attacked and killed one of the conscripts on the way. The goblin PC cast Shockwave and ran off when the dwarf was knocked over. Thus ended the extremely entertaining adventure of the goblin PC (there were other entertaining stories about the goblin conjurer, I just don't remember them all). I allowed the goblin's player to take on the role of the dwarven leader. 
• The dwarven leader knew where the bugbears were (according to the adventure as written), and led the party there on the way out. The bugbears were willing to share their fire and their stew (for just a few gold). The party threw in the gold and then attacked when the bugbears opened the door. 
• The party nearly died in the bugbear fight, but were saved with some timely spells from the sorcerer and by the might of the dwarven leader. They obtained the scrolls in the next room, and the game was over because we were running out of time.

In the end, I cut out almost half of the size of the dungeon. I just told them there were walls where the map shows corridors. There was no way we had the time to explore the entire place, and both these corridors were located in convenient locations to wall off without suspicion. 

Also, the party never tried the huge room in the middle of the square. They went through the halls all the way around it, but didn't attempt the double doors to go in once they had found the scrolls. Again, we were out of time for our sitting.

We had an extremely fun time. All the players were smiling and laughing and playing their roles to the hilt. It's unfortunate we had a bit of party in-fighting, however the goblin conjurer is all personality. I've had very clever players both times he has been played.

The players made very good use of their spells. I allowed them to just pick their spells whenever they wanted to use them instead of memorizing at the beginning of the day because they had never played this game before. I think that approach worked VERY well. Next time these players sit down to play A&A they will have a great working knowledge of the spells and what they might want for the type of adventure they are expecting.

I still haven't had any players encounter the demon or the magical bead of the sea. This is unfortunate, but it keeps me excited to run this adventure over.

Almost forgot, the goblin's player spent his downtime drawing his character (with companion):

And finally, I have to apologize to Greg because I used an earlier version of this dungeon and not the released version. My experience and the experience of my group may not be representative of the actual published material.