The "Dungeon Interludes" Party

My wife Erika is currently running the Dungeon Crawl Classics module Dungeon Interludes, which is a series of six interconnected side quests designed to be inserted between other adventures in a campaign. She ran it once before, using it as written for D&D v.3.5, but that group was never able to play the sixth and final part. Ever since then, she has wanted to run it again so that she could complete the series. Our group's current default RPG is Pathfinder, so she has converted all six parts to that system. However, she is dispensing with other adventures in order to focus on completing Dungeon Interludes. She started us at 1st level, and we've been advancing our characters two levels after each completed adventure. We just finished Part 5 this past weekend, with 9th-level PCs, and we will be 11th for the conclusion.

We have a much larger party than the adventure was designed for because we invited another friend to join us, as well as his two teenaged children, bringing us up to 8 PCs. (This is the other family I'm running the D&D 5E Starter Set adventure for, and Jeff will be playing in my upcoming "Time of the Tarrasque" campaign, too.)

The party's racial mix is highly unusual, too. Erika has been encouraging us to stick to just the Core Rulebook as much as possible, but let us choose classes from the Advanced Player's Guide and races from the Advanced Race Guide. We ended up with only one human, though half the party could pass for human if they had to.

It was a great deal of fun to build miniatures for this motley crew! Erika has been trying her hand at building LEGO minis for the enemies in these adventures but, with one exception, I built all the minis for the party members.

Kaori is a kitsune rogue. As a shapeshifter, she needed a miniature for both her natural fox-woman form (left) and her human form (right). In play, she usually stays in human form in order to blend in, but on the map, we normally just use the fox mini to make it obvious which one she is. For the fox form, I used Furty, a Fox Tribe character from Legends of Chima. For the human form, I used the Kimono Girl from Miniseries Series 4. 

Enakai is a gillman barbarian. This race looks mostly human except for gills and webbed digits, so I gave her a Pirates of the Caribbean mermaid head, turned to the angry side with the gills and scales. Her body is from a Native American minifigure (Old West theme), to suggest her tribal background as well as the light armor she preferred in order to run and swim at full speed. Now that she can afford mithral gear, she has started wearing heavier armor, so I've added a chrome breastplate from an Imperial Armada conquistador. Her falchion is the Desert Warrior's (Minifigures Series 16).

Kuroda is my character, a tengu cleric of Iomedae, goddess of justice and valor. His head, body, armor, and wings are a combination of parts from a couple different Raven Tribe characters from the Legends of Chima theme, and the fire tile on his chest is also from that theme. His shocking blade is a Ninjago energy sword.

Maladross is a dhampir (half-vampire) inquisitor of Pharasma, the shepherdess of souls. His studded armor is from an old Castle set, and his head is from a Professor Snape minifigure (from the first wave of Harry Potter sets). Maladross has recently upgraded his favorite weapon, a heavy repeating crossbow, to one of Huge size--essentially, he's Rambo-ing* a ballista--so I've given him one of the bigger bows from the new Nexo Knights theme. (These can fire a 1x1 round plate or tile, but we leave the mini unloaded so that I won't lose pieces.)

* This is a term that I first saw in a miniatures game for toy soldiers in Dragon Magazine, where it described a hero picking up, carrying, and firing a big machine gun.

Jonah is an elf wizard with just enough human blood for an aristocratic mustache and goatee. His head is from a Castle noble; his body is a Dragon Knight wizard (Kingdoms). (The torso is unprinted because it was hidden by a beard on the original minifigure.) He very rarely resorts to melee weapons, so carries only a simple staff and a few daggers.

Byg is a human paladin of Iomedae. His sword and armor are, naturally, from the Castle/Kingdom theme. His NPC cohort, the elf ranger Talathel, is a combination of a Mirkwood elf body with the older elf hair and ears from the Minifigures theme (Series 3).

Caboose is a gnome bard. He wears a chain shirt (recently upgraded to mithral, so he got one of the fancier printed torsos). He fights with a rapier, but due to his size, I used shorter Heroica sword rather than the Pirate cutlass I normally would. A pirate's sextant make an excellent crossbow for a Small character.

Finally, we have the snake gang. Sukisha is a nagaji summoner. Nagaji are snake-like humanoids, so I used a Hypnobrai minifigure from a Ninjago set. I later acquired the skull helmet (same theme), so added it just to accent the snake motif. Like Jonah, he carries a plain staff, but has never really used it in a fight--that's what his at-will cantrips and summoned creatures are for. (Not shown is the mini for Sukisha while he's using reduce person: a Crocodile microfigure from the Legends of Chima LEGO Game.)

His eidolon, Ruchika, started out as a Medium serpent with two arms and a humanoid head. As she gained evolution points through advancement, she grew two more pairs of arms, so she now resembles a marilith demon. Sukisha's player, Chris, built this mini from his own brick collection: the head is the Wicked Witch (Minifigures Series 2), the torso is a Manta Warrior (Atlantis), and the torso extensions are from the four-armed version of Garmadon (Ninjago). Because of the bit of groin armor at the bottom of the torso extensions, one has been turned backwards, and its arms were swapped so that they would bend the same direction as the other four. Ruchika recently grew to Large size, so now finally has a proper snake tail (Ninjago) rather than the small slope bricks Chris had to use to fit her into a Medium space. This bigger base makes her a much more stable model. Like a marilith, Ruchika wields six swords at once; hers are gladiuses (or more properly, gladii), which are the Gladiator's swords (Minifigures Series 5).

Finally, we have Sukisha's NPC cohort, Tsukasa, a vishkanya alchemist. Vishkanyas are yet another race with snake features, but mostly look human. His head is Darth Maul's (Star Wars); the body a Stone Warrior (Ninjago); and the hair is the Sumo Wrestler's (Minifigures Series 3). A flame has been attached to the Female Scientist's beaker (Series 11) to create a bomb. His shuriken is a Ninjago weapon.

Bonus: More Summonings!

If Ruchika is badly hurt in a fight, Sukisha will dismiss her and summon other creatures to fight for him until we have a chance for everyone to take a breather and heal up. (If she's slain, he has to wait a full day before calling her back.) To date, most of these summoned creatures have been elementals (which Chris has D&D minis for) or mephits (which I do), but now we're high enough level that Sukeisha has access to some varieties of good outsiders, too. In order to give Chris better options that what his mini and brick collections offer, I have prepared some archon and azata minis for our final Dungeon Interludes adventure.

These hound archons are an Anubis Warrior (with khopesh) from the Pharoah's Quest theme and three Wolf Tribe characters from Legends of Chima. The gray greatswords are from Lord of the Rings sets, while the gold sword is from the short-lived Knights Kingdom II sub-theme to Castle.

For bralani, I've equipped LEGO Elves minidolls with bows and swords. The lillend is built from a Medusa tail (Minifigures Series 10**), a Pirates of the Caribbean mermaid torso, Eagle Tribe armor and wings (Legends of Chima), and Farran Leafshade's hair (LEGO Elves).

** For those counting along at home, that makes 7 out of 16 Minifigures series represented in this column. As some of you probably already know, I've been actively collecting them since Series 3, and they are one of the best sources for unusual minfigure parts and accessories.