“Mountain’s Toe Gold Mine” is designed for characters of 4th level, but characters of 3rd level can survive if they avoid unnecessary combat or possess a magic weapon. Characters of 5th level or higher will face less peril but should enjoy the roleplaying opportunities.
Location Overview
The Mountain’s Toe Gold Mine, owned by a business consortium in Neverwinter, has been troubled by recent productivity problems. The owners have hired a no-nonsense overseer named Don-Jon Raskin to sort things out. But neither Raskin nor the owners know that the troubled mine has recently been taken over by a band of wererats calling itself the Whiskered Gang.
Quest Goals
To complete the area Mountain’s Toe Quest, the adventurers must escort Don-Jon Raskin safely to the mine. Once he sees that Wererat have infested it, Raskin urges the characters to eradicate the “varmints.” If the characters refuse, Raskin is left to negotiate a truce with the wererats on his own—and is quickly turned into one.
Roleplaying Don-Jon Raskin
Full of bluster and stories of his great exploits, Don-Jon Raskin walks and talks like a giant. He has worked as a gold prospector, miner, fur trader, privateer, and whaler. He even ran a trading post on the outskirts of Neverwinter for a few seasons. If the characters take up the quest to escort Raskin to the Mountain’s Toe Gold Mine, they’ll find him staying at the area Stonehill Inn in Phandalin. Townmaster area Harbin Wester has an agreement with Raskin’s employers to ensure the overseer reaches the mine safely.
If his employers didn’t insist on providing an escort, Raskin would just as soon make the trip alone. That being said, he expects that young adventurers will delight in his recounting the tales of his exploits, and he secretly looks forward to the company.
Travel to the Mine
The fastest way to reach the mine from area Phandalin is to head northeast, skirting the foothills of the Sword Mountains. The mine is only 15 miles from Phandalin, so if the characters leave at dawn, they’ll be there before sunset.
Mine Features
All tunnels and caverns in the mine are hewn from rock that has thin veins of gold ore running through it. Other common features are described below.
Ceilings: Ceilings throughout are 8 feet high and braced at regular intervals by wooden pilasters and beams.
Doors: All doors are made of wood with iron hinges and handles. The doors are fitted with locks, but none of them are locked. The keys needed to unlock and lock them are gone—stolen by a previous overseer who fled the mine.
Light: Oil lanterns hang from ceiling hooks in every room and tunnel.
Dead Orcs
When the party gets within five miles of the mine, read the following boxed text aloud:
A low ridge rises to your right, beyond which you see the Sword Mountains scrape the gray sky. But closer in, something is strewn across the rocky ground ninety feet ahead.
“Well, ain’t that something,” says Don-Jon, pointing at what appear to be six dead orcs.
The orcs were killed by Cryovain the white dragon. They are clad in hide armor, and their greataxes and javelins litter the ground around them. Any character who examines the corpses and succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (
Arrival
The characters arrive at the west entrance to the mine, which you can describe as follows:
Hidden among bushes, a tunnel burrows into the foot of a soaring, snow-capped mountain. Above the mouth of the tunnel is a wooden plank with the words “Mountain’s Toe” carved into it in Common.
Don-Jon doesn’t have a map of the mine and has never visited it before, so he knows nothing about its layout.
Mine Locations
The following locations are keyed to the map of the Mountain’s Toe Gold Mine.
M1. Guard Post
This cave is guarded by two female Wererat in hybrid form. They offer to escort new arrivals to the mine’s overseer, Zeleen Varnaster, in area M4.
M2. Wooden Posts
Wooden posts used for shoring up tunnels and caves lean against the walls here.
M3. Crates and Casks
Stacked against the walls of this storage area are a dozen empty crates and a similar number of empty casks.
M4. Wererat Den
Scattered about this cave are pickaxes, shovels, and other mining tools. The northeast section contains four Giant Rat. The southwest section contains Wererat in human form: one male wererat for each party member (including Don-Jon Raskin but not sidekicks) plus a female wererat named Zeleen Varnaster—the leader of the Whiskered Gang. If Zeleen dies, another wererat takes over as leader as long as any of them survive.
The wererats invaded the mine after orcs pushed them out of their previous lair—an old shrine near area Conyberry (see “Shrine of Savras”). The wererats say they’ll go back to their old lair if the characters get rid of the orcs at the shrine, but this is a only a ploy. The wererats have no intention of abandoning the mine.
Treasure
Characters who search the cave find two sacks hidden under debris. One sack contains ten fist-sized chunks of gold ore worth 10 gp each. The other holds 82 sp, 450 cp, and a pair of
M5. Storeroom
A dozen crates of dry foodstuffs and nine casks of drinking water are stacked in the middle of this cave.
M6. Sleeping Quarters
This cave contains a dozen wooden cots.
M7. Gold Storage
This cave contains two wheelbarrows and an empty bin.
M8. Equipment Storage
Picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows are stored here.
M9. Dead End
Leaning against the back wall of this tunnel is a dead human miner with a pickaxe. Inspection of the corpse reveals that the miner was stabbed to death.
M10. Overseer’s Office
The wererats ransacked this cave, whose furnishings include a desk, a chair, an empty wooden chest, and a cot.
M11. Carrion Crawler
A carrion crawler lairs in this tunnel, the north end of which is 20 feet up the mountain’s rocky slope. Characters can scale the slope with a successful DC 10 Strength (
M12. Sleeping Quarters
This cave holds six wooden cots.
M13. Rat-Infested Cave
This cave contains five Giant Rat that attack anyone who opens the doors to area M14.
M14–M15. Miners' Retreat
These caves are home to five hungry dwarf miners. They are Commoner who speak Common and Dwarvish, and who have
M16. Graveyard
This field contains a ring of earthen graves with pickaxes sticking out of the ground where headstones ought to be. Buried here are ten miners who died fighting the wererats for control of the mine.