The Forge of Fury: Many Ways In

The Forge of Fury is the second adventure in Tales from the Yawning Portal, and this is the third article in my series on that book. I continue to find interesting things to point out as I progress through these adventures. The titular forge is in an old dwarven settlement now occupied by the orcs who were the sworn foes of the former inhabitants.

This adventure starts out in the usual way, with the party in a small town where they can gather information. They can discover multiple ways in to the adventures. They can accept the mission to find the forge from a noble, or they can get paid by the local townsfolk to exterminate the orcs that live there. I think that’s really interesting. It allows the players to earn more money and make more social connections for interacting thoroughly with the village. Having multiple objectives makes it possible for the players to fail one objective but still progress in the game.

The Forge of Fury has a few different doors…

The module also offers careful adventurers multiple ways to access the the dwarven settlement. Consequently, they can take the main entrance, or find other possibilities that bypass the obvious way in entirely. I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary for a module to be as thorough as this one is in detailing how to access the caverns, but I really like offering players multiple ways to access a given area. This is especially true when the different ways allow different players to shine.

One of my favorite encounters from The Lost Mines of Phandelver does this as well. Cragmaw Castle has multiple entrances and player are rewarded for taking their time to explore with avenue of entry that help them sneak up on the goblinoids that occupy the ruined castle.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be back with more on The Forge of Fury soon. What’s next? You could take a look at the other articles in this series. Or you could take a look at my own adventure module, The Apocryphon of Voivode.