In this post, we’ll cover the minor factions that are located underground, in and near the ruins of Gauntlgrym.

This dwarven city was a major metropolis in its heyday, and the capital of the dwarven empire of Delzoun. Its underground location allowed it to survive the fall of Netheril mostly unscathed, but it would fall to an orcish invasion a couple of centuries later.

The original inhabitants of Gauntlgrym either perished in this attack or fled to the surface, and the location of the city was lost to them after a few generations. The history of the city did not end there, however, as passed through the hands of several Underdark factions over time. It’s also still inhabited by the ghosts of the dead.

This means our encounter table here is mostly undead. While some dwarven ghosts might be helpful to their descendants, most of the undead here are of the usual mindlessly murderous variety. The table contains several skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wraiths, ghosts, and even mummies. It also has dire corbies.

Dire Corbies

These critters look like buff skeksis, and are given the same header style as actual Gauntlgrym factions, but they’re not really organized enough to be called that. This is mostly a “new monster” entry. Looks like they made their debut in a Gauntlgrym-focused post in Dungeon 183.

This entry says they’re descended from predatory birds who were lost and trapped in the Underdark a long time ago. The evolutionary pressure and uncanny radiation of the Underdark changed them into these monstrous humanoids. Their wings have been changed into powerful clawed arms, and their coal-black feathers blend into the darkness. They’re predatory and ravenous, pulling themselves through narrow underground tunnels and viciously attacking anything that looks even remotely edible.

Dire Corbies are Medium Natural Humanoids and Level 7 Brutes with 96 HP. They attack with Gashing Beaks that do immediate and ongoing damage, and when first bloodied emit a Rending Screech that covers a Close Burst 2, deals psychic damage, and inflicts Vulnerable 5 to Everything for a turn. A miss does half damage with no riders.

Since they’re classified as Humanoids and have an Int of 11, it might be possible that they could form more complex communities and interact with PCs in non-violent ways… but as written the typical dire corby is Chaotic Evil and an enthusiastic cannibal. Even if they weren’t, the stronger factions are fond of enslaving them, so the PCs would still end up fighting dire corbies when facing those groups.

Mind Flayers

The orcs that invaded Gauntlgrym were eventually conquered by mind flayers. Those mind flayers ruled for a while, conducting an extended experiment on illithid-derro hybridization, but that got out of control and the resulting creatures kicked them out.

When the primordial Maegera woke up for a brief time thirty years ago, the resulting shakeup in Gauntlgrym allowed a new mind flayer colony to move in. I guess they initially wanted to reclaim their old haunts, but shortly after arriving their Elder Brain was targeted by the Abolethic Sovereignity’s Symphony of Madness and infected with the Spellplague. Now the brain and its colony are completely under AbSov control.

The mind flayers are researching the bound primordial on behalf of their masters, and also act to protect it from meddlers and would-be conquerors. As the aboleths funnel more and more Spellplague radiation to them, both the Elder Brain and its subordinate illithids are becoming more mutated. The brain knows what’s going on, but it’s become addicted to these energies and will keep obeying the aboleths in exchange for its regular fix. The individual mind flayers’ perceptions are clouded, however. They believe all is business as usual and are incapable of perceiving their own mutations or discovering their elder brain is working for someone else.

We get stats here for a Plaguechanged Mind Flayer (Level 8 Controller) and the Plaguechanged Elder Brain (Level 9 Elite Controller). They work a lot like their baseline versions, adjusted to Heroic Tier. The illithid is of the type that can perform thrall surgery on PCs instead of eating their brains. The brain is mostly immobile (unlike its nimble base version) but has the usual assortment of psychic attacks and an aura (3) that can strip resistance to psychic damage. It can also use an interrupt to redirect forced movement effects back to the enemy who tried to impose them.

Duergar

These duergar are relatively recent arrivals to Gauntlgrym. Led by an unholy warrior of Asmodeus named Kholzourl the Fire-Speaker, they have come here under orders from their diabolical master. They’ve occupied a section of the ruined city and resumed some of its ancient and abandoned mining operations. They’ve enslaved dire corbies and other nearby sapients to work for them, but fear the ghosts and undead that plague other areas of the ruins.

Only Kholzourl knows the expedition’s real goal, which is actually left for the GM to determine (the book gives several options later). Regardless of that true goal, they have been profiting from the ores extracted from the Delzoun mines, which include iron, mithral, and a metal known as Hellthorn which takes remarkably well to enchantments based on infernal magic.

The duergar and Ashmadai do not know about each other, and despite serving the same masters the two factions have no inherent inclination to cooperate unless directly ordered to do so by a devil emissary of Asmodeus. The default reaction of the duergar to outsiders is “kill or enslave on sight”: they’re not here to do diplomacy.

There is one notable exception here: a duergar named Nimor Ironvoice found a tunnel leading from Gauntlgrym to the surface. He disguised himself, explored a bit, and found out about the Ashmadai. Now he has a profitable side gig smuggling small quantities of hellthorn up the well and selling it to the cult. He knows Kholzourl would punish him if he found out, and soon he will have to decide between severing his ties to the surface or turning against his fellow duergar. He’s hoping an infernal sign will tell him the way before either his boss or Mordai Vell discover the truth by themselves.

The duergar get their own encounter table, which as expected is mostly made up of duergar from the MM2 and Monster Vault. Kholzourl gets a stat block, which is fairly typical aside from being level 9. We also get stats for Steeders, the disgusting devil-spider-things these duergar use as mounts; and for Hellthorn weapons, which start at Level 10/+2, do immediate and ongoing fire damage on a critical, increase your fire resistance if you have any, and can let an allied devil make a free attack once per encounter when you miss one of your own attacks.

House Xorlarrin

This Forgotten Realms drow house is said to be “atypical” because its matriarch is less authoritarian than the others and even occasionally asks for input from male advisors. But it also has a full-on eugenics program where males are “bred for magical ability” and sacrificed if they turn out to lack it. So we’re back on icky old-school drow territory here.

The newest arrival to Gauntlgrym is a Xorlarrin expedition. They’re after the sleeping primordial, wanting to control it and use it to turn Gauntlgrym into a drow capital to rival Menzonberranzan. Their encounter table is all drow and unlike most others it goes up to level 14. We also get stats for a Drow Spellspinner, a Level 8 Artillery mage that uses lightning-based spells.

These drow feel like an optional addition, and work best if you have a Bregan D’Aerthe spy in your party. If that’s the case, they work well to tie that PC more strongly to the campaign’s “endgame”, since the Bregan would want to prevent a Drow house from gaining control of a primordial. For added drama, the Xorlarrin could have been the ones responsible for destroying the PC’s own house, or that of one of their friends. They’ve sent their own spies to the surface, so that can provide the party with an initial lead to follow.

The Fires Below

This is less of a faction and more of a grab-bag of thematically related monsters. These are the elemental creatures that live beneath Mount Hotenow and usually feed on slumbering Maegera’s ambient magic. They got very happy with her awakening and the volcano’s eruption and some of them want to find a way to awaken her for good.

Unlike most other groups with a similar goal, they don’t intend to control the primordial once she’s awake, but to serve her instead. I don’t think they are likely to succeed on their own, since they’ve been at it for 30 years with nothing to show for it. They’re more intended as a group of secondary antagonists that you find on your way to Maegera’s resting place… or as an additional complication if someone else does manage to wake her up. Whoever ends up controlling Maegera will also get to order these creatures around.

The encounter table here is all about fire and/or earth elementals, and it goes up to level 14. We also get a couple of new stat blocks for salamanders.