Shadows of the Misty Mountains

The Misty Mountains have always been dangerous. Travellers speak of goblin ambushes in the high passes, of stone giants hurling boulders through thunderclouds, of wolves the size of horses that hunt in packs beneath the pines. But the mountains kept their greatest secret buried deep—until now. Three weeks ago, the dwarven outpost of Khazad-Mhîr fell silent. No caravans emerged from the eastern gate. No signal fires burned on the watchtower. A merchant convoy sent to investigate found the road blocked by a fresh rockslide and goblin arrows waiting behind it. The few survivors who staggered back to the lowlands told of a new power rising in the mountain's roots: a dragon called Ashenfang, awakened from centuries of slumber by the goblins' ceaseless digging. The Great Goblin has bent the knee to the wyrm, and now the entire mountain swarms with his war-parties, emboldened and armed with plundered dwarven steel. You stand at the foot of the High Pass with the wind tearing at your cloak and the clouds sealing the peaks above. Behind you lies the safety of the lowlands and a life of quiet regret. Ahead, the ancient stone road climbs into the mist, and somewhere beyond the goblin warrens and the collapsed dwarven halls, a dragon sits on a stolen hoard. The mountain does not want you here. You are going anyway.