Okay, I've been editing and re-editing this thing long enough. What we have here is an adventure I ran for a few friends a while back, along with a report of what actually happened in play.

Apologies in advance for the pictures.

First, the maps and the first part of the text.

Barotha’s Lair, or “Bring me the head of Esamur the Hawk!”

Introduction

This is a compact “dungeon” designed for low-level characters (levels 1-3). While only a few small levels are described in detail, the dungeon can be extended to serve as the “entry” to a much vaster underworld. There are certain elements of the dungeon which can be used to give a rationale for exploring it. Or, if the party simply “stumbles across” the dungeon—or enters it “because it’s there,” the same elements could lead on to further adventure. Ultimately the dungeon is a location which the DM may use in whatever manner best fits the needs of the campaign. For example, if there’s a situation involving goblin raiders, the dungeon could be used as a headquarters or outpost within a larger scenario.

Rumors

It is assumed that the PCs will reach the town nearest the dungeon, where they may solicit rumors while equipping and provisioning themselves. A suggested method is to allow spending a g.p. at the alehouse to roll on the following table. If a rumor is repeated, do not reroll. However, for players with charisma bonuses, the DM may adjust rolls by a number up or down equal to the bonus, to the “nearest” new rumor.
 
Rumor table (d6)
1-2  Goblins have been raiding the area, stealing livestock and waylaying travelers.
3     Esamur the Hawk, a famous brigand, disappeared without a trace after foiling the authorities for 20 years. After that, his band was quickly neutralized.
4     A wizard known as Barotha the Mirafect made his home in the hills at the edge of the Howling Wilderness. He hasn’t been seen for some time, but it is feared that he will one day wreak destruction on the countryside.
5     A pair of foolhardy fortune-hunters passed through town and were later found dead. Their corpses were completely bloodless and their bodies had been looted.
6     Esamur the Hawk, a famous brigand who once terrorized the area, and Barotha the Mirafect, a wizard who lives near the town, are one and the same.

The site
 
The dungeon is built into a hill at the edge of a forest, the border of the Howling Wilderness, perhaps half a day’s journey from the nearest town or village. There are some external works including a doorway visible from the east and a tower on top of the hill. In former times, this site was the home of Barotha the Mirafect, a powerful wizard. However, the wizard is gone, most likely permanently due to some mishap while on a voyage in search of arcane knowledge. The site has been taken over by a gang of goblins who came from a cave network and broke through the wall of one of the lower levels. They killed Barotha’s servant and made themselves at home.
 
Wandering monsters

Roll 1d6 every 2 turns. On a 1, a wandering monster will appear on the following turn, 20-120’ away. Note that searching a 10’x10’ room takes 1 turn. A party must rest for 1 turn after moving for 5 turns; otherwise they will suffer a –1 on their to hit and damage rolls.
 
Codes refer to pages of Moldvay/Cook B/X sets. Note that a result of “Goblin” should be followed up with a roll on the Goblin table. If a specific goblin is dead or otherwise unable to be “wandering”, then re-roll. If a goblin runs away and escapes, the DM should assume the other goblins have been alerted to the party’s presence and will begin to take action. If a given goblin is killed, captured, etc., the DM should note this on the key—the goblin will not “respawn” on the map.
 
Wandering monsters can be interpreted dynamically and creatively. For example, in the actual play of the scenario, after the PCs hoodwinked the goblins into letting them move around the dungeon unmolested, an encounter with Gazred would have meant that he’d gotten suspicious. Similarly if the goblins are alerted, then instead of precisely mapping the goblins’ movements, the DM could simply roll more often for wandering monsters, and always treat positive results as 3 rolls on the “Goblin” table.
 
Ground Level and outdoor vicinity (d6)
1.  Stirge from kitchen
2.  Random Goblin—but only at night; otherwise treat as nothing.
3.  Fire Beetle (B31) only at night.
4.  Giant Centipede (B33)
5.  Oil Beetle (B31)
6.  1-100 normal bats (B31) only at night.
 
1st Level (d6)
1.    Goblin
2.    Goblin
3.    Fire Beetle
4.    Giant Centipedes (1-3)
5.    Green Slime
6.    Giant Shrews (1-2)
 
2nd Level (d6)
1.    Goblin
2.    Goblin
3.    Goblin
4.    Green Slime
5.    Oil Beetle
6.    Troglodytes (1-3) (B44). A maximum of 6 Troglodytes will appear per session. Reroll if the quota’s been reached.
 
Goblins (d8)
1.    Nufik
2.    Onion-head
3.    Hartigûl
4.    Gazred (if encountered outside level 2, he will be accompanied by two other goblins, preferably Dodrul and Magoz)
5.    Dodrul
6.    Magoz
7.    Blueface
8.    Shardo
 
[Note, the above is the original table. Optionally, use a d10 for the Goblins table, and treat 9 and 10 as “roll twice keeping both results”. DM should creatively interpret the appearance of goblins—if a large number of them are encountered, they might be setting off on a raiding expedition, for example.]
 
Ground Level Key

 
1.  Kitchen, burned down, roof collapsed, ruined stone walls—the result of an “exploded” stew from the goblins’ carelessness. There are two stirges which have made a nest here.

AC 7
HP 7, 6
+2 to hit when flying, damage 1-3 + stick and suck blood, save as fighter 2
Treasure: 3 gems worth 1000, 100, and 50 gp.
 
2.  Storage closet—linens—locked. Inside is a goblin, Nufik, and a half-empty wine bottle along with 5 electrum pieces. AC 6, HP 4, Short sword 1d6, sling 1d4.

3.  Tower observatory. Walls 5’ thick with a walkway around the perimeter which can be reached by a ladder. Not crenelated. There’s an archway leading to a locked door which accesses the stairway down into the hill, at the end of which is another locked door next to the larder (6) and connecting to the main hall (7).

4.  Servant’s room. Door is stuck. Wooden cot. Under the cot is a locked box that is fastened to the wall. If someone tries to move the box or smash it, a stone block will fall from the ceiling. Save vs. turn to stone or take 1-10 points of damage.

5.  Meditation room. The elegant cushions have been soiled and torn, but there is a fine bronze gong worth 20 gp and some coils of incense worth 10 gp.

6.  Larder. Spoiled and scattered foods include meal, nuts, dried beans, onions, leeks, cheeses and meats. Also a few broken dishes. In the floor is a secret trap door. Below it is a 50’ ladder leading down to the wine cellar, a natural cavern that’s been roughly worked. A very narrow gap in a wall of the cellar leads to room 3 of Level 2. The cellar contains 5 bottles of wine worth 50 gp each, plus one potion of diminution. Onion Head (one of the goblins) is the only living being who knows about the wine cellar; he’s been using the wine to gain favor among the other goblins, who usually bully him. Gazred, the leader, has been frustrated in his attempts to find out where the wine is coming from.

7.  In the center of the main hall are the decomposing remains of Barotha’s servant, who was surprised and killed by the goblins. The walls are decorated with torn tapestries.

Level 1 key

1.  Supply room. In the middle is a shrieker. AC 7 HP 5, will shriek 1-3 rounds with a 50% chance per round of attracting a wandering monster, who will appear in 2-12 rounds. On the shelves and floor may be found the following: an amulet vs. crystal balls and ESP, a rope of climbing, tweezers, a flask, a leather pouch containing caroway seeds, a stowed work bench, and a spool of copper wire.

2.  Laboratory. At the "P" is a 1' raised platform, formerly the resting place of a clay golem (currently in area 2 of Level 2). There are three 10'x5' tables. The lab is filled with smashed up glass and metal. If the room is searched, a mixing rod, a blank book, a white linen sheet, and a beaker will still be found intact, as well as four broken-off table legs. An overturned tank is one corner, leaving the residue of a sticky liquid on the floor. Note: the fourth table in the room was broken up by the goblins so they could lash the golem, which they believed to be a "statue", onto it and drag it downstairs.

3.  Study. There are astronomical notes which if read will reveal the existence (but not location) of a "deep observation room". A search will also immediately turn up a key to all the doors in the complex and a pair of slippers. A secret, locked safe in the south wall contains a large cask containing the a severed head preserved in alcohol, and a +1 bejewelled dagger. The head is missing one ear; the other is pierced by a fine gold ring. The head's hair is reddish-brown, with a well-groomed beard and moustache, and it has an aquiline nose. This is the head of Esamur the Hawk, a famous brigand who used to terrorize the area. It is potentially worth quite a bit of money to the right buyer. The dagger also used to belong to Esamur. (For more on the head, see the scenario notes.)

4.  Bedroom. A folding screen stands near the west wall. Next to the bed in the middle of the room are another pair of slippers, a small container of pomade, and a used dinner plate. The headboard of the bed has a prominent button in it, which if pressed will release a special type of sleeping gas. Anyone in the room who wishes to resist its effect must save vs. poison. Those who are affected by the gas will sleep for 12 turns (two hours). However on waking they will recover d3+1 HP. The bed still has three charges.

5.  This room is accessible only via the secret door from the lab. Inside is a neat shelf with three glass vials containing a transparent blue liquid. (These are "charges" for the golem on Level 2.)
 
Level 2 Key
 
1.  Star Gazing Room. Southern wall has been knocked out from the cave side. There is a large concave silver mirror, 3' across, worth 900 sp. Cabinet in far wall contains star charts worth 300 gp.

2.  The clay golem (G) has been left here propped up against a wall; nearby on the floor is the table top from the lab. He resembles a clay statue of a 7' tall man with thick features. He has a hole in the top of his head with a cork in it, but this will not be visible to someone standing next to it, unless that person is very tall. He has been dressed in a woman's robe that the goblins found or looted somewhere. The goblins tried to drag him up over a 10' ledge just to the south but they gave up and left him here.

Clay golem: AC 6 Hit dice 8 (36 HP) Move: 60' Attacks: 3-30 with fists. Save As: Fighter 4 Morale: 12 Alignment: Neutral. Only affected by blunt weapons and earth/dirt spells. Move Earth will drive him back 120' and cause 3d12 damage. Disintegrate will slow him by 50% and do d12 damage. Earthquake will cause 5d10 damage. Rock to mud will cause 1d10 damage and reduce his attack to 3d8 for three rounds. Mud to rock will immobilize him for 3 rounds but give him back 1d10 hp. Stone to flesh will make him AC 9 for 3 rounds and reduce his attack to 3d6.

The golem is missing his "hat" (see room 3 of this level). He is also immobile unless a full vial of the blue elixir (found in room 5 of level 1) is poured through the hole in his head. Once he gets a "charge" he will be active, but roll 2d6 for each turn of normal activity or each round of combat when he is fighting. On a 12 he runs out of gas and stops moving.

If the golem is wearing his "hat" he becomes sentient, with a will of his own, and can act autonomously. A magic user or cleric wearing the hat can control the golem telepathically and see through his eyes, but must concentrate and do nothing else. If nobody (including the golem) is wearing the hat, he cannot fight but will carry out simple verbal commands. If more than one person issues conflicting commands, use a contest of Wisdom to see who wins.
 
3.  Onion-head's "lair". There is a 25% chance that he will be present. Otherwise he must be wandering somewhere. Onion-head: AC 6, HP 2, Shortsword 1d6, Sling 1d4, Morale 7. The "lair" is accessible via a high crack at the top of the wall at the north end of a long cave passageway. There's also a narraow passage to the wine cellar. In this "lair" will be found one bottle of wine worth 50 gp and the golem's hat. The hat is made of bronze, studded with emeralds and amber, and consists of a circular strip that goes around the head, with a criss-crossed pair of strips over the top. It is worth 1000 gp.

4.  Main goblin lair. Goblin Leader "Gazred" AC 6, HP 7, +1 warhammer, morale 8. Goblin "Dodrul" AC 6, HP 3, Spear, morale 7. Goblin "Magoz" AC 6, HP 2, Mace, Morale 7. Note: Dodrul speaks Common. 23 e.p. can be found here.

5.  Rubbish heap. A big pile of trash behind a gate made of iron bars reaching from floor to ceiling. A worm-like thing with a flattened tip sticks out of the top of the trash and seems to rotate to follow the observer. This is actually the eye organ of a "pet" Otyugh kept by the goblins, and if someone comes right up to the bars, it will lash out with a tentacle. Otyugh AC 3 HD 6 (24 HP) Attacks 2 tentacle @ 1d6, 1 bite @ d4+1. Morale 8. Bite carries disease—save vs. poison or lose 1 HP/day. If desperate, the goblins will open the gate and let the Otyugh out to chase away intruders, while they scurry around side tunnels and carry out hit-and-run attacks.

6.  Goblin (Otyugh-tender) "Hartigûl". AC 6 HP 3. Spear 1-6. Morale 7.

7.  Two goblins. "Shardo" AC 6 HP 5 Spear 1-6 Morale 7. "Blueface" AC 6 HP 5 Spear 1-6 Morale 7.

8.  Just inside the cave mouth there's a green slime on the ceiling. 8 HP. Dissolves wood, metal in 6 rounds. Only harmed by fire and cold. The slime can be seen by a person who examines the ceiling with a light source. Once the slime hits it must be burned off or "healed" with a cure wounds spell; otherwise the victim will be completely digested and converted into a green slime in d6 + 6 rounds. There is a 50% chance that fire applied to the green slime will also injure the victim.

9.  (See General Notes below)

Level 3 Key
 
This level gives a rough sense of what the adventurers might find if they delve deeper into the underworld. The GM may wish to replace some of the coinage with items of equal value. For wandering monsters, use the 2nd level table or the general table from the D&D rulebook.
 
1.    Giant rats (roll to see how many); 2000 c.p.
2.    Chute leading up to 2nd level
3.    3 troglodytes, 6000 c.p., 4000 g.p.
4.    2 troglodytes, 4000 c.p., 3000 g.p., +1 sword (+3 vs. dragons), +3 shield, +1 armor (roll for type), scroll: protection from elementals
5.    Piercer (AD&D monster, looks like a stalactite, attacks by dropping from the ceiling.) Will usually only attack lone individuals since it takes time to climb back to the ceiling.
6.    Giant shrews (5 of them)
7.    White apes (5 of them)
8.    Giant spider of some kind
9.    Giant lizard—Gecko (B38) + Treasure type U
 
General notes
 
If the party leaves the dungeon to rest and return, chances are that the goblins will react in some way to the invasion of their lair. A lengthy delay may call for "restocking" the dungeon altogether, as creatures colonize the depleted spaces. The following tables may be useful.
 
Goblin reaction (roll or choose)
1.    Flee
2.    Get help: goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, or bugbears
3.    Create coordinated defensive plan (ambushes, etc.)
4.    Bar doors
 
Restocking possibilities
1.    Stirges
2.    Bear
3.    Troglodyte
4.    Another adventuring party—this could be another group sent by an impatient patron, or it might just be a group that stumbled across the dungeon.
5.    Giant lizard
6.    Giant toad
7.    Cave locust
8.    Giant rats and ferrets
9.    White ape
10.   Tiger beatle
11.   Gelatinous cube
12.   Carrion crawler
13.   Ochre jelly
14.   Grey ooze
15.   Draco lizard
16.   Giant shrew
 
 
In the actual play of the dungeon, the party left shortly after discovering the clay golem, and the goblins managed to locate a couple of hobgoblins as reinforcements. They were quartered at location 9 on the 2nd level, and a note was made that each would have a 25% chance of being there unless their location was otherwise established by the party. The two hobgoblins were also slotted into the wandering monster tables to replace creatures which had been killed. (Gronk replaced both the stirges and Nufik, and Gwahkur replaced Blueface.)
 
Furthermore, Gronk was stationed in the deep observation room with Shardo.
Gwahkur was placed on sentry duty on top of the tower. From there he could shoot arrows at approaching adventurers, send an alarm down to Gronk, and/or climb down the outside of the tower using a rope.
 
The Hobgoblin reinforcements—Morale 8—between the two of them, have 3000 gp worth of treasure.
 
Gronk
AC 7
HP 4
Glaive 1d10
 
Gwahkur
AC6
HP 3
Sword 1d8
Bow and arrows 1d6

These notes give further background on the nature of the dungeon, how it could be used in the context of a campaign, and how an actual adventure played out.
 
Backstory

As noted in the writeup, the dungeon was the home of a wizard, Barotha the Mirafect, until some time in the last few years. Barotha has disappeared, though, having fallen victim to an unexpected calamity during a voyage to distant lands.
 
After Barotha departed, a small gang of goblins broke through from the underworld caverns, snuck into the living quarters, and killed the servant whom Barotha had left as a caretaker. They then made a mess of the place while using it as a headquarters for raiding nearby human settlements.
 
The head

Esamur the Hawk, whose head is hidden in Barotha's study, was a notorious brigand who at one time had a business and social relationship with the wizard. However, Barotha, who secretly harbored a grudge at one of Esamur's jests, was persuaded to accept a bribe from the local authorities. Promising the aging bandit that he could bestow immortality by means of an arcane ritual, he anesthetized Esamur, removed his head, and stored it in a secret place in his lair. Deprived of their leader, Esamur's band of followers were then hunted down and dispersed.
 
Hooks and Threads

There are several aspects of the dungeon which can be used either as "hooks" to introduce it as a scenario, or as "threads" which will lead on to further adventures.
 
In actual play (see below), a PC's mentor told the party about the dungeon and offered them an award for locating the head of Esamur the Hawk. The mentor's motivation was personal, but the head could just as easily be sought for political reasons, or as a stepping-stone for locating a treasure that Esamur hid during his career.
 
The clay golem is another possible "hook" by which a patron, mentor, or the party's own research could point them to the dungeon.
 
The goblins provide another motivation for visiting the dungeon. The PCs may be recruited to "take out the goblin menace" and given directions to the goblins' lair. Or if the campaign already contains an ongoing conflict with a tribe of goblins, the dungeon could be used as an off-the-shelf location.
 
Because there are various ways that the dungeon can be introduced into play, the DM may want to update or modify the rumors. For example, a rumor could be inserted about Barotha's two servants, one human, the other a strange tall man with greyish-brown skin (i.e., the clay golem).
 
As for threads leading out of the adventure, the underworld caverns could be extended further downward into the realms of troglodytes and other bizarre creatures. Or the aftermath of the encounter with the goblins could include repercussions involving their tribal relations. If the clay golem, the golem's "fuel", and/or the "hat" are located, this could lead to further expeditions or research to "complete the set", or to replicate the magic involved in creating and powering the golem. If the head of Esamur is located, it may become the subject of political intrigue, or someone may get the idea of reanimating it to learn where he may have hidden his treasures.

The Lair of Barotha was conceived and written up as part of a series of rotating-DM adventures. Each of four players, myself, R_, S_, and T_, rolled up a pair of characters, agreeing that this would reduce the sting of character death in addition to giving us good-sized parties for each adventure. After two adventures, I'd lost three characters to a combination of zombies, spiders, and demonic possession, while the other players had also had some casualties. When it came my turn to GM, the characters continuing from the previous adventure run by T_ were:
 
R_: Lortus, a magic user of modest talent, and Agonathea, an Amazon (fighter) who started as an NPC and joined the party as Lortus's girlfriend, to replace a PC who'd been trampled by a mastodon.
S_: Brice, a charming (18 Charisma) but airheaded thief, and Berengar, a dour, hunchbacked fighter.
 
All the characters were second level. This had entailed a fair amount of hand-waving. Our earlier adventures hadn't been all that lucrative, and XP in early versions of D&D come primarily from loot. Since both R_ and S_ were eager to get out of first level, I decided to give a uniform award of just enough XP to allow Lortus, the magic-user, to level up. This was more than enough for the other characters to also achieve second level; in fact, because of the generous thief progression tables and the fact that he was the only character who'd played through both previous adventures, Brice was on the verge of making third level. (I firmly believe that the experience tables in D&D are intended as a balancing mechanism. I also like having different characters level up at different times.)
 
To introduce this adventure I invented the NPC Maqurl, self-styled "Siddig of the Amber Sphere", a powerful mage who lived in a tower in a major city and the mentor of Lortus. I told R_ and S_ that Maqurl had called them into his presence to tell them that he had recently learned that an ancient associate, known as Barotha the Mirafect, had disappeared. Maqurl offered to pay the party 2000 gp for the recovery of a "preserved head" which he believed to be hidden somewhere in Barotha's isolated home on the edge of the Howling Wilderness. They could also keep whatever they might find in Barotha's homestead.
 
The D&D Rules Cyclopedia has explicit guidelines stating that low-level magic users should be assumed to have a "teacher". While the idea helps answer some in-game questions about the way that magic-users gain their spells, it raises other questions. If the mentor is so powerful, why doesn't he or she take a more active role in the campaign? And wouldn't this tend to overshadow the PCs? The answer I've hit on is to take inspiration from one of D&D's "sources". Like the sorcerous patrons of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, high level wizard NPCs who aren't enemies should be played as inscrutable and possibly half-insane. This way they can interact with their apprentices without depriving them of freedom of action or encouraging the PCs to rely on them for help.

Accordingly I thought of Maqurl as a cross between the eccentric mages of Vance's Dying Earth stories and John Houseman in The Paper Chase. I portrayed him as a patronizing character who regarded the quest as a minor errand as well as a sort of "training mission" for Lortus and his "little friends".
 
I didn't give the players much more information aside from telling them that the dungeon was half a day's journey from the nearest town. Prying questions were turned aside—tiresome and irrelevant from Maqurl's point of view! Asked to elaborate on Barotha's fate, Maqurl half-speculated, half-prevaricated, responding that Barotha had probably been exploring the inner jungles of some southern continent when he was captured and impaled on a stake by a race of "pygmy giants".
 
The scene was really just a framing device for getting the characters to the vicinity of the dungeon. I'm not sure I was completely successful at conveying this; it seemed like the players wanted to pump Maqurl, possibly even threaten him. I hadn't even statted him out. It may not have been fair but for my purposes it was sufficient to consider Maqurl as far, far too powerful to be trifled with. At the same time I tried to make clear that Lortus trusted him implicitly—I didn't want the players to worry too much and get sidetracked. On the other hand, the banter with Maqurl continued the somewhat farcical tone of the adventures we'd had so far, as well as fitting in (ultimately) with the backstory I'd developed to explain Maqurl's motivation.
 
Once the four characters reached the town near the dungeon, I allowed them to hook up with T_'s character, Umbeldore, a slow-witted fighter and veteran of the very first adventure. We agreed that he had taken up residence there along with his new friend, a one-eyed female cleric whose name escapes me. Prior to the session, I'd done a bit of "blue booking" via email, in which T_ had recounted a series of comical misadventures that Umbeldore had undergone. I'd encouraged these sorts of embellishments by giving the players a small amount of XP and gold for describing their inter-session activities. The other players had also written some pieces for their characters. In theory I had hoped to weave these into background for future adventures, but so far they'd mainly helped to develop the tone of our play as a group.
 
While in the town, the players continued to investigate Maqurl's story, again with mixed results from my perspective. I didn't want to direct the players too overtly, but I was still concerned about having things spin out of control. On the other hand it made for some comedy as the PCs inquired with a barkeep if he knew anything about "pygmy giants" and I responded (as the barkeep), "Wouldn't those just be, you know, regular people?" I hope this helped reassure the players that they didn't need to fret over the details of Barotha's fate.
 
The players spent a few coins to learn all the rumors. Again, this wasn't entirely successful; I think it would have been more enjoyable to roleplay the conversations with locals in greater detail. But we didn't have a whole lot of time, and it was at least amusing to see the players jump to conclusions about the exsanguinated corpses which had been found—they spent some more money buying holy symbols to ward off vampires. I also enjoyed answering followup questions about what the people of the village thought of Barotha and Esamur. The players intuitively suggested that parents would use Barotha's name to scare naughty children. The players also wanted to know if Esamur was a folk hero with a reputation for giving to the poor; I told them no, but the kids thought he was cool, and this was understood perfectly.

Now was time to head out to the dungeon. The action can be summarized with reference to the map and key. No time was spent on the trip. Arriving at the site, and approaching from the east without much caution, the party got lucky on a surprise roll and spotted the stirges before the stirges saw them. Missile weapons out--some whispered target coordination--good rolls--two dead stirges. This basically set the pattern for the adventure, which turned out not to be very difficult, focusing more on exploration, deduction, and characterization than on survival per se.
 
I also made a few mistakes. My general rule was not to retcon or interrupt the flow of the game unless I was correcting something that hurt the party. E.g., I forgot to tell them about the stirges' treasure when they searched the kitchen. All I could do was to just retcon that in at the beginning of the second session.
 
Ignoring the tower, the party entered the lair and explored the front area, noticed the corpse on the floor, and dealt with a wandering oil beetle approaching from outside by quickly shutting the door and barricading it. They surprised Nufik in the storage closet and quickly dispatched him. In the servants' room, Umbeldore displayed an impulsive tendency by smashing the box found under the cot, but (again par for the adventure) he made his save and avoided being brained by the falling block.
 
They now proceeded down the spiral staircase to the first level. For part of the adventure I tried to enforce expenditure of torches and lantern oil. In my opinion, in the context of a truly old-school D&D adventure, the management of in-game time and resources is crucial to keeping the game moving, generating tension, and creating "interesting" problems that grow naturally out of the in-game action. A number of rules and spells also only make sense if you care about certain details such as light sources and provisions. Between the need to manage resources and the possibility of wandering monsters, one would hope that players will not use up too much out-of-game time planning and cautiously searching. That said, I'm not sure, S_, in particular, was very enthusiastic about the bean counting, and I became lax after a while. I did maintain "wandering monster" checks, though. (I've noticed a similar discussion of resource management in a posting by Matthew Finch, aka Mythmere, on the Knights & Knaves Alehouse forums. You can read it at http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4645.)
 
The party explored the level in a roughly counterclockwise path. They missed all the secret doors on their first pass. Oddly the party decided the best thing to do about the shrieker was to just leave it alone. A fire beetle appeared and chomped on Umbeldore's leg; he fought it until things got a bit dicey, when the mage cast a sleep spell. This gave the party a convenient short-range source of light: the fire beetle's light organs. But it also led to some confusion as Umbeldore/T_ thought that the beetle's presence was a clue for locating further passageways. However insects are very good at squeezing through small cracks, which I explained was the reason that there were no visible "holes" in the walls of the laboratory.
 
Umbeldore again got into trouble over in the bedroom. Actually, T_ clearly enjoyed "doing things" to see what would happen, while the other players' reaction mirrored their characters'. I.e., on seeing the button on the headboard, Umbeldore (T_) immediately announced that he was pressing it while the other players gasped and said "No, don't!" It was easy to imagine them trying to hold him back as he reached for it. I may have called for an initiative roll; however, although the gas came out, Umbeldore resisted, made his save and merely felt a bit drowsy. Too bad, he could have recovered some HP! The players surmised (correctly) that the apparatus was a kind of D&D Sominex.
 
Brice snatched up the jar near the bed and was delighted to find the pomade, which he immediately applied to his hair--one of those little "character touches" that added to the enjoyment of the game both during play and in retrospect.
 
Coming back around the map, the party once again set off the shrieker. Again they ignored it, heading down the corridor to the south of the map. This time the shrieker attracted a giant shrew. I have to admit that this was a sort of "moment of weakness" on my part--not exactly a mistake, but an instance where I felt I was picking up a vibe from the players that things were getting bogged down. So I fudged a bit and ruled that, based on a distance dice roll for the encounter, and the fact that the party had moved away from the shrieker a short ways, the giant shrew actually showed up in the supply room and was now eating the shrieker. (This was conveyed through approprate growling and eating sound effects.)
 
I was a bit disappointed that the party hadn't used its mapping skills to deduce the likelihood of a secret room off the laboratory. They had also missed the secret door at the end of the corridor leading from the spiral staircase. This was more forgivable, and also not really a roadblock to further progress since there were other ways to get to the second level. However, just as the party was going back up the corridor, another wandering monster check turned up one of the goblins, Blueface. This time the party was surprised, so given the limited range of light in the dungeon, I was going to have Blueface run away back through the secret door. But the players laughed at the fact that they were "surprised" by seemingly nothing at all, so, figuring the jig was up, and that Blueface really wasn't that smart anyway, I had him charge them instead. A brief exchange of blows-- I think Blueface must have hit Umbeldore--but one or two hits by the PCs, and the goblin's head went flying off his shoulders!
 
I do not recall if the party had to search for the secret door at this point, or if I ruled that Blueface had simply left it open. In any case, they'd found a way down to the second level. It was interesting what the players considered worthy of looting. In spite of its bulk I'd think a large silver mirror would be an obvious thing to take away, but they only grabbed the star charts. They went cautiously into the caverns after observing how the wall had been demolished. However, it was getting late in real time and I think this began to affect how the players approached the game. Seeing the "statue" (clay golem), T_ and R_'s characters started smashing it with their weapons. With its high hit points, it showed damage only slowly, which might have clued them in on the fact that it was something special. But they kept wailing away at it and it was starting to show some cracks! I must have shown some alarm at the wanton destruction of what I thought was one of the more interesting parts of the dungeon, and I hurriedly suggested that it might be a good time to wrap up for the evening and continue the adventure the following week. The players agreed, and so we froze the action in the caverns.

Prepping for the next session, I planned for two possible courses. If the players wanted to push on into the caverns, then I'd continue the dungeon "straight". On the other hand, if they returned to town to rest and heal up, I'd have the goblins call in some reinforcement. So I added in Gronk and Gwahkur as described in the main write-up. I also spent a short time creating and stocking a third level in case the players got that far.
 
As it turns out, the continuation was rather brief. The players did decide to return to town, which allowed Brice to level up to third level. When they came back, I asked them how they were approaching the site and I believe they told me it would be "with their usual incaution". Thus Gwahkur took a potshot at them, missing. Rather typically, the party had the hot dice with their return fire, and Gwahkur had no chance to raise an alarm, even if I'd thought of it. (In retrospect this was probably a good thing since I hadn't explicitly worked out how the goblins would respond to an alarm. I should have either established "battle stations" for them, or written up an alternate wandering monsters table for use when the goblins were alerted, along with a note to roll more frequently than usual on said table.)
 
The party now decided that, in S_'s words, the cavern entrance they'd discovered was a "sucker's game". (One might suppose that Berengar was the voice of strategy.) Accordingly they explored the surface of the hill. Although they made no effort to climb the tower, they found the broken bottles and guessed what the goblins had been doing. Then they hunted around the back slope and discovered the alternate entrance. Avoiding the green slime, they sauntered into the main lair and were confronted by Gazred and his two henchmen. Time for a fight, eh? No--remember that Brice has an 18 Charisma, one of the goblins spoke common, and I'd already decided to treat them more as "chaotic" in the "uncivilized and nasty" sense than in the "evil" sense. Also, in the earlier adventures, the GMs had been fairly liberal in their use of the Reaction Table. (There's another precedent in the example of play in Moldvay Basic.) So when Brice, aided by his hefty Charisma bonus, took the lead in hoodwinking the goblins into believing that the party had had nothing to do with the earlier depradations against Gazred's gang, I went along with what the dice said. And the dice said: they fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. They even fell for it when the party went on to represent themselves as "security consultants", offering their services to help the goblins keep out future intruders. Consequently Magoz was tasked with giving the party an initial tour of the premises.
 
I went ahead with normal wandering monster rolls, but I made another mistake and forgot about Gronk's station in the deep observation room. Had any of the goblin gang showed up as "wanderers", I could have interpreted it to mean that Gazred had gotten suspicious, but none ever showed up. On top of that, the party was now focused on their plan. They politely refused Dodrul's suggestion that they check out the goblin's state of the art "garbage disposal", while they humored Magoz when he stopped at the clay golem to snigger and mock (via pantomime) at their defilement of the "statue". At the stairs leading up, another giant shrew appeared; once again the party dispatched it with missile weapons and Magoz, running up the stairs, eagerly stuffed it into a sack. ("Them's good eatin'!" laughed the players.) Now the party gestured their interest in having Magoz lead the way up the stairs from the main hall. Reaching the tower, Magoz became agitated at the sight of the dead Gwahkur, but the PCs easily knocked him out and tied him up.
 
Now intent on a 2000 gp prize, the party redoubled their search efforts. This time they did locate the secret room and they took the vials of liquid. (I think they tasted or sniffed them without guessing the purpose.) Then they decided to focus on Barotha's study. They barricaded themselves inside and declared they would search every inch. I handled this by allowing a large number of "search rolls" and I guesstimated a corresponding number of wandering monster checks. Nothing significant showed up (i.e., no goblins), while the party did locate and open the secret safe, from which they took both the head and the +1 dagger (which Brice snagged). Mission accomplished, the party headed back to town and thence to Maqurl, who appraised the star charts, identified the blue liquid as some kind of fuel, and gave the party an elaborately inscribed bank cheque for their reward for the head. Maqurl also offered to the let the party sit in on a ritual involving the head of Esamur the Hawk...

You've probably been wondering why Maqurl wanted the head.
 
Several questions had been troubling Maqurl over the years. First, he strongly suspected that Esamur had cheated in a card game where ownership of a slave girl, Sisilva, had changed hands. Second, Maqurl wondered what had ultimately happened to the girl.
 
I described the spells being cast, the head responding angily and profanely to being awakened. After some arguing and threats, Maqurl compelled Esamur to reveal the truth, which of course was that he had, indeed, cheated. But Esamur also reported that he hadn't gotten to enjoy Sisilva’s company very long, for she ran off and eventually turned up as the consort of a distant ruler; shortly thereafter, she engineered a coup and has been in control of the city for decades, enjoying a reputation as a iron-fisted autocrat. Maqurl blanched on hearing the name by which Sisilva was now known, any interest he might have had in resuming the relationship dissipated, and he swore the PCs to secrecy.
 
Needless to say this was basically a shaggy dog story, and as such you probably had to be there, but I think the players enjoyed the "punch line", which was, I think, in the vein of the "source material" and previous group interactions.

I considered the adventure a success in game terms. Outside of an earlier attempt with Men Against Fire, which is a highly focused semi-wargame, it was the first time I'd GMed a game in over a decade and it had gone fairly smoothly in spite of a few hiccups. It was also a bit disorienting and exhilarating to be the constant center of attention. The players seemed to enjoy themselves overall, and I was complimented on providing a situation that could be resolved effectively. I had been mindful of problems with the earlier two adventures. Both had excellent atmospheres, but they'd been quite deadly. The second, run by T_, had also seen a large amount of wandering around and confusion, which I blame mainly on the fact that it's very difficult when creating an adventure to appreciate just how knuckleheaded players can be, and also how helpless in the face of very strange or highly magical encounters. So I wanted to make something that would hopefully be interesting whichever way the party turned, and not arbitrarily dangerous, so that the natural desire to move forward and explore wouldn't be cramped by an excess of caution.
 
I may have gone a little too far in the other direction, though. This was partly because of certain mistakes I made (such as forgetting about Gronk and possibly not playing Blueface and Gwahkur a little more intelligently). At the same time, the party got lucky in places, they fought well, and they ultimately resolved the most dangerous portion of the adventure by their wits instead of combat. Also, although they could have done a more thorough job of "cleaning out" the dungeon (e.g. by descending to the third level), they chose to pass. Had this been part of a more robust campaign continuity, there might have been more of an incentive to descend into the dungeon again--or there might have been repercussions such as the goblins "getting wise" eventually and tracking the party. But to some extent I think this reflected an interest, by the players, in treating the "dungeon" more as an episode than as a campaign setting to be explored for its own sake.
 
A word about "challenge". It should be obvious that the dungeon was calibrated at least roughly to the level of the party. Now to a certain extent, "classic" dungeons are self-calibrating by means of the guidelines that encourage correlating the level of the dungeon with the level of monsters found there. Players know not to go too deep until they're prepared. Even so, the calibration of the dungeon goes against the "sandbox" or "status quo" setup that I tend to prefer, where PCs may wander anywhere but have no guarantee that the only things they encounter will be "survivable" let alone "beatable". But my reason for making this a "level-appropriate" adventure was that, given the overall structure of the game (shared campaign, disjointed adventures), it wasn't really possible to engage in "world building"; on the contrary, in the wider scope of things, the party really had no choice but to take up the adventure offered without gathering information to build up a "strategic perspective" on their environment. Ergo, my convention or conceit was that, had there been a more robust "world", the party would have done due diligence--not to mention, they had the implicit confidence of their patron--and therefore I could assume that any adventure they took on wouldn't be excessively hazardous, as "adventures" go.
 
There were some opportunities for "fun" that were missed. That is natural and in my opinion preferable to forcing every element of the dungeon to be explored. E.g., when designing the dungeon I had hoped that either the otyugh or the golem would come into play as a fighting force...ideally both at the same time! It might even have been fun (and could certainly be added) to have a "berserk" table for the otyugh so that it might, under some conditions, turn around and eat a goblin or two! Similarly I'd built in the possibility of some sort of small-scale politicking or intrigue involving Onion-head, but he never came into play. (One change I'd consider, to increase the viability of a complication on those lines, would be to give knowledge of Common to more of the goblins and especially Onion-head.)
 
But those are the breaks. The benefit of not nudging the players in a particular direction, or arbitrarily "triggering" certain elements, is that the evolution of the adventure is more truly in the hands of the players. And in this case, instead of things turning out in a way that I thought was interesting beforehand, they developed according to the players' own interests combined with my ad-hoc judgment and and the luck of the dice. I'm reminded of accounts I've read online about how game groups would never manage successful infiltrations because their GMs believed it was always more interesting to have a fight. Well, that leads to frustration. In designing and running this scenario, I tried to avoid frustrating the players and ultimately they chose the scope on which the "action" of the adventure would play out.

Oh, yeah. Some of the critters are adapted from AD&D.

Tip o' the hat to Doc Rotwang for his Adventure Funnel. It was a great brainstorming tool in developing the adventure.

I wish I could remember the website that I used to generate the layouts of the lower levels. I'll try to find it and post it later.

Also, the use of semi-spawning wandering monsters is an idea that I first saw in House of Kurin, a Dragonquest adventure by David James Ritchie which appeared in Ares magazine.

EDIT: I should also mention that even though this is more of a "micro dungeon", Melan's article on mega dungeons had some useful tips.

Very interesting read.

Honestly, this drags me back to my first forays into roleplaying. This is quite awesome and many thanks Elliot... all I can think of right now is bringing back the old school to one of my gaming groups for sheer retro fun.

Thanks Elliot, awesome writeup.

Wow, great write-up: very well-designed lair with good notes on running it, and a great AAR.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the kind words. And also, thanks for reading.

I just noticed that I didn't mention a treasure in the box under the cot in the servant's room. Pretty sure that there was one.

Very good Elliot. Maybe you should inform Kyle that this should go into his Biglist. I learnt a lot about "dungeon type" adventures and I'm sure it would be an interesting read for others too.

Regards,
David R