The Forgotten Necropolis

This is a one-page dungeon type adventure of my own devising which I ran for my daughter using the Dungeons & Dragons B/X rules.  I knew she liked dungeon crawling moreso than hex crawling or role playing in villages, and give the players what they want, right?  So I had her create a separate party all her own of three characters.  These characters (the "Blackroot Three"!) I also located in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, although they started out at the southern edge of the Glow Worm Steppes and were making their way to the regional "metropolis" of Tarantis to seek their fortune.  A characteristic of the Wilderlands is that human settlements are typical small and far apart from each other, so it is easy to justify that the spaces in between contain abandoned, haunted, or re-tenanted towers, forts, tombs, catacombs so forth.  I therefore like to think this terrain is almost literally littered with remains of long gone ancient civilizations, and that although you may stumble upon a tomb, if you try to return to it you may simply not find it, the country being so wild and untamed.

Keeping with an earlier stated overall motive, I wanted to run a good orc adventure this time.  This posed the question: why are these Orcs in this dungeon.  What I devised was a simple tomb the party camps by, containing a single room underground (already long ago looted), but one wall of which has very recently been broken through, leading to secret stairs.  This in turn leads to a central domed chamber with a massive pentagram on the floor and bas reliefs of demonic worship (I also want lots of demons in my setting).  From this hub are further stairs leading down to undisturbed burial chambers, each eternally guarded by skeletons. In the last of these chambers the party finds the orcs' camp and two prisoners.  The prisoners reveal that the orcs are a tribe recently defeated by another orc tribe, but that the chief has found a map or clue indicating that there is cache of magical weapons in this necropolis.  The prisoners (now freed and part of the party as NPCs) insist they must stop the orc chief since he had previously sacked their village.

From the orcs' camp another wall is found broken through, leading to more stairs, a large cavern, and another burial chamber, at which the last of the orcs, including the Chief, are attempting to break through a large stone door.  After defeating the orcs, the party notes some depressions on the door which match brass sigils set into the floors of each of the burial chambers found at the upper levels.  The party removes each of the sigils from above, and inserts them into the spaces on the door, and the door at last opens revealing the crypt of an ancient king and his champions in the classic form of skeletons seated on thrones and benches, along with some +1 weapons and armor (which includes the necessary treasure experience points to level up the entire party to 2nd level).

The Adventurers in this session were:

THE BLACKROOT THREE

Hitty - a first-level figher
Fafnyr - a first-level fighter
Amber - a first-level cleric

JOINED BY

Matis - a first-level fighter (partial NPC)
Lina -  a first-level fighter (partial NPC)