Death in the Pincers

“Death in the Pincers” is a short adventure for five 1st-level characters that takes place in the Chaos Scar, near the King’s Wall. It starts as a fight with drakes modified by a Chaos Shard, turns into a battle in the middle of shifting magical terrain against giant ants that are trying to steal the drakes’ treasure-laden bodies, and ends with a second battle against giant ants fixated on eating the characters instead of the drakes. Although this adventure is set in the Chaos Scar, it can be adapted to any location in any campaign.

This is the place. The tunnel slopes down steeply at first but is high and broad. It’s dark, but even those of you who read only books, not tracks, can see the footprints of man-sized reptiles in the debris and mud outside the tunnel mouth. At first it looks like the tunnel ends ahead of you, but then you see that it’s a 15-foot wall of boulders. It looks like it would be easy to climb, but smaller boulders and piles of bones are jumbled in the heap, complicating your steps. There’s a faint purple glow moving about somewhere above the top of the cliff.