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Beyond the Battlements is an adventure for first and second level characters. The XP thresholds are designed for a party of five, but can be easily modified for one less, or up to two more player characters. Reducing or increasing the difficulty of each encounter to allow for different party sizes can typically be accomplished by adding or subtracting one creature. Additionally, some groups are better optimized or have more experienced players than others, which means that some might require a higher or lower degree of difficulty than what is presented here. The best rule of thumb is to gauge how the PCs are dealing with the challenges of the adventure and adjust the number of monsters as needed.
This adventure is designed so that a party of first level adventurers will reach second level before advancing to the second floor of the barracks, which would provide too great of a challenge for first level characters, so it is important to ensure that the PCs play through a fair amount of the ground floor and Uncivilized Arendan before moving on to the final encounters of this ad-venture. In the same vein, PCs who employ wit, guile, and stealth to avoid encounters should receive ad-hoc experience awards for doing so in order for them to reach level two before attempting the second floor.
Beyond the Battlements is the first adventure in the Retaking Arendan campaign. The tale begins when the player characters take on a commission to capture the gnoll, G’aard’k Bloodsnout, who has been given command over the goblinoid forces who patrol the streets of Uncivilized Arendan. Bloodsnout is unusually intelligent for a gnoll, and possesses a keen mind for strategy, troop development, and deployment. It is believed that capturing him will allow the king’s forces in New Arendan easier access to the uncivilized portion of the city, and they will also likely learn important secrets about their enemy’s operations.