Ogre Keep

This adventure is set in the Highland Freeholds on the world of Mananya, details of which can be found elsewhere on this website. It is however suitable for any semi-settled area inhabited by ogres. The adventure is designed for 4-6 characters of 5th-8th levels (about 30-33 levels in all). The characters are unlikely to win in a toe to toe battle with the ogres, spellcasters or sneaky characters would be a great advantage.
If the adventure is played as part of the "return of an ancient god " campaign (imfo about which is also avaliable elsewhere on this site) the characters should be of 6th-9th level (about 35 - 40 levels in all). Writing in italics applies to the ancient god campaign.

Basic outline
A group of ogres have raided a small village, killing or capturing the inhabitants. The captured villagers have been taken by the ogres back to their base. Lawful or Good aligned characters should feel duty-bound to help the survivors.
The ogres are slave raiders capturing slaves to work rebuilding the capital of the ancient ogre empire.

The village
The characters are riding through semi-settled farmland when they see a plume of smoke in the near distance. The smoke is coming from a small group of recently burnt-out farmhouses, some of which are still smoldering.
The bodies of four men, who are dressed like farmers, are scattered among the smoldering rubble. Ogre tracks lead away from the farmstead, as do the footprints of seven humans. Two sets of footprints look like they belong to children.

The keep
If the party follow the tracks, they find that they lead up into the surrounding hills. The tracks stretch for two days travel, and terminate at a semi-ruined keep set among forested hills. The tracks aren't particularly hard to follow. The ogres didn't try and hide their tracks as they expect to change bases soon.
The ruins are the remains of a keep the ogres destroyed roughly two months ago, and have been using as a base for their raids since. The prisoners the ogres have captured, and their captors, are inside the main keep building.
There are two ogres for every member of the party.
The ogres are mostly located in the main hall of the keep, but have posted two lookouts, one on the roof of the tower, and one on the northwestern guard tower. These ogres are alert sentries, and will definitely see the party if they just ride up. The parties best bet is probably to sneak through the trees to the south of the keep, and enter through the breach in the southern walls. If they remain relatively quiet the party has a 50% chance of entering the southern breach unseen. If the party attempts to enter the eastern breach they have only a 10% chance of entering unseen. These chances should be increased if they come up with any more complicated plans. Unless the characters are invisible they will be spotted once they enter the breaches. The sentries raise the alarm and the ogres fight the characters in the courtyard.
If the characters are spotted before they enter the breaches the sentries raise the alarm and the other ogres man the outer walls, defending them against the party. Two ogres will guard each of the breaches in the walls, while the remaining ogres throw rocks at the party from behind the lines. The rocks do 1-8 damage each, and the ogres throw every other round. If an ogre is reduced to less than 10hp he will fall back and allow another ogre to take his place. The characters may get an attack in against the retreating ogre as they change places. If half of the ogres are killed, or reduced to less than 5 hp, the ogres make a fighting retreat into the safety of the central tower. During a fighting retreat the ogre's ac is lowered by one (they are harder to hit), but their to hit score is penalised by -1.
There is only one entrance to the tower, a wooden door that can be barred from within. The ogres defend the door for as long as they can, before locking and barring the door.
While the party attempts to batter down the door, two ogres will head for the roof, where they and the sentry posted there will throw stones, from a stockpile on the roof, down on the party. These stones do 3-18 hp damage per stone, and the ogres may attack once every two rounds.
Once the party manages to enter the keep, the ogres will retreat back up the spiral staircase defending as they do so. Those standing on a higher point on the staircase gains a +1 bonus to hit and damage rolls. The ogres fight to the death.

Reinforcements
Once the party have beaten the Ogres, they are able to release the prisoners from where they are being held on the second floor of the tower. As the party are preparing to leave, they spot another, larger, group of ogres coming towards the keep. There are three ogres for every party member with more than 50% of their hit points remaining, and two for every party member with less than 50% of their hit points remaining.
The ogres that hold this keep had split up into two groups to go raiding, with the group the party killed raiding the village the party found, and the larger group raiding a larger village to the west. The new ogres were beaten back by the defenders of the village they raided, and are fleeing back towards their base of operations
The party has two options.
1/ Defend the keep against the approaching Ogres. - The party can either just defend the keep, or else try and defend the keep while someone goes for help. If someone goes for help they will encounter the guardsmen after two miles.
2/ Quit the keep and make a run for it, with the ogres chasing. Eventually the prisoners just can't handle the pace of the chase, or a horse falls, and the adventurers are forced to defend themselves in the open.
If things are going badly for the party (at least 1 party member dead, and two reduced to less than 1/4 of their hp), a group of guardsmen dispatched by the village the ogres raided arrive to help the party. There is one guardsman for every remaining ogre. The ogres fight to the death. If the party is not in enough trouble for the guardsmen to arrive during the battle they arrive approximately half and hour later.
The guardsmen are all 1st level fighters armed with swords and wearing ringmail.

The ogres are all worshippers of Myrg. Three of the first group and four of the second group of ogres are duel class fighter/priests, while the rest are able to cast 1 first or second level spell as per the rules for lay worshippers of Myrg casting priest spells. The second group of ogres are led by a black guard who has three wolf allies.

Split class ogres
HD 4+4, AC5, At 1, Dmg 1-10+1, NE, THACO 15. Effective priest level 2nd (dragonlance cleric neutrality).
spells - 1st - Cure light wounds, Cause light wounds
- 2nd - Spiritual hammer

Black guard Ogre - AL - pure neutral, AC 5, Mv 12", HD 6+2, #AT 1, Dam1d12, Thaco 15, SA casts spells as a 5th level priest of neutrality (4/3/2) (Note, in this campaign as originally played the priest spell charts were as per Dragonlance rules. All references throughout campaign related material are to these figures.)
Typical spells - 1st - Bless, Animal friendship (often used to gain wolf / hawk allies who fight with the Black guards), cure light wounds, cause light wounds.
-2nd - Charm person or mammal, Spiritual hammer, Heat Metal
-3rd - Pyrotechnics, Meld into stone, Dispel magic.

Aftermath.
The lords who owned the keep were all killed during the ogre attack, and the keep is now uninhabited. Under Freehold law the characters are able to claim lordship of the keep and the surrounding ten square miles of land. There are currently no free farmers remaining in the area, but the land is sufficient for an annual income of 20gp/year if willing farmers were found. Offers of land would go a long way in this respect, but only if the keep was first restored so their safety could be guarenteed. The keep counts as a dun if the party wishs to found a clan or knighthhod.
If the characters don't want the keep, they may sell the contents, except for the food stored in the stables, which belongs to the survivors of the villiages attacked.
The survivors rescued by the characters are greatful, but have lost all they own to the ogre attacks. The survivors may look to the characters again for help in the future.
If the characters defeat the ogres, Myrg sends one of the eyes of god to get a look at the party, and gain some revenge. Three days after the characters defeat the ogres the eye of god arrives and unleashes a swarm of birds against the party.

The party should receive 1000xp for successfully rescueing the villiagers from the ogres, 200xp if they successfully sneaked through the breaches in the walls, 500xp if the successfully defend the keep against the second group of ogres and 1000xp if they succeed without the help of the guardsmen.

The keep

1 Main Gates
The main gates of the keep are made of iron bound hardwood, and are still in reasonable repair. The Ogres didn't attack the gates when they took the keep, so they didn't sustain any damage. The Gates can be barred, and wedged, with iron wedge holes, and foot long wedges. The gates are extremely resistant to ramming, and should be almost impossible for the party to open, short of using powerful magic.

2 Breaches in palisades
When the ogres invaded the keep they smashed two large holes in the wooden palisade. The ogres have repaired these breaches to some extent, piling dirt and brush in the breaches. Two ogres are able to defend each breach at one time, and three human sized characters may attack at one time (four smaller characters). Defenders gain +1 to hit and damage when defending the breaches, while attackers lose -1 to hit.

3 Main keep

1 Front door.
The front door to the keep was smashed by the ogres when they took the keep, and has been only inexpertly repaired since. The door is able to take 50 hp of damage before it is broken open. Only one attacker may enter the door at one time, and only in the round after the ogre defending the door has been killed. Once a character enters the keep, he may be attacked by three ogres at one time. So long as one character is inside the keep, one character may enter each turn. Once three characters are inside the keep, the ogres start to retreat up the stairs of the keep.

2 Main hall.
The main hall of the keep is a single large room, scattered with the bedrolls and equipment of the characters inhabiting the tower. A large hearth in the east of the hall burns fiercely, warming the room. A spiral staircase to the other floors of the keep starts in the south of the room. There is a large oaken table against the far southern wall of the room which could be used to barricade the door. If the table was used in this manner it would take 30hp damage to destroy.

3 Barracks
This was formerly the barracks of the keep, the splintered remains of two bunks remain, the rest having been burnt by the ogres.

4 Captain's room.
This was once the room of the captain of the keep's war band. It is now empty.
The ogres have erected a shrine to Myrg in the captain's room. A small idol of Myrg sits on a table draped with a crimson cloth. The idol has no magical powers.

5 Male Servant's quarters.
This was once the quarters of the male servants of the keep. It is now where the prisoners are kept by the ogres, the ogres have barred the doors from the outside. The room contains a few simple sleeping pallets, and blankets, but nothing else. There are twelve prisoners currently being held in the room.

6 Corridor
A corridor, where the stairs upstairs and downstairs meet, and from which the doors to the other rooms on the second story lead.

7 Solar.
This was once the solar of the keep, it has a hearth set into the western wall, and a trapdoor to the roof of the keep set into the ceiling. The solar's walls are hung with the tattered remains of tapestries, defiled by the ogres. The floors are muddy, from the coming and goings of the ogre sentries.

8 Lords quarters
This was once the quarters of the Lord of the keep. The frame of a great bed is the only remaining furniture in the room. The mattresses were taken by the ogres for their own use. The bed frame is an intricately carved piece, and would fetch up to 250 gold pieces if it could be removed from the keep and sold.

9 Female Servants Quarters.
This was once the quarters of the keep's female servants. It is now completely empty.

10 Rooftop.
The Rooftop of the keep is surrounded by a waist high parapet, except for the eastern section which was destroyed by a miscast spell during the defense of the keep. The edges of the damaged area are slick and smooth, looking as if they were melted.

4 Watch tower
The Northwestern watch tower is the only watch tower that did not suffer extensive damage during the ogre assault. The watch towers are built from roughhewn wooden beams, and can suffer a total of 125 hp before collapsing. The watch tower provides a -2 penalty against missile fire directed at the defender. The tower is currently manned by a single ogre lookout, who is armed with 6 rocks which he throws for 2-8 damage, and a double handed sword. The ogre also possesses an alarm horn, which he will sound if the party is spotted.

5 Watch towers
The Northeastern and, Southwestern watch towers were severely damaged in the ogre assault upon the keep. They are unsafe to climb.

6 Watch tower
The Southeastern watch tower is severely damaged. The corpse of the two defenders killed in the tower during the ogre attack remain in the tower, as it is too unstable for the ogres to investigate. One of the corpses is that of the captain of the keep's war band. The captain was making his rounds when the keep was attacked, and was killed by a well aimed stone thrown by one of the ogres. The captains sword +1 remains on his corpse. Any character climbing the tower has a 50% chance of causing it to collapse, causing the character 4-24 hp damage.

7 Stables
The stables are currently being used by the ogres to store the nonperishable foods stolen from the surrounding farms. There are four barrels of flour, three smoked sides of ham, four sacks of lentils, and eight sacks of potatoes.
The tack from the keeps horses is still in the stables, and would fetch up to 300 gp on the open market. the horses were killed and eaten by the ogres.

8 Smithy
The smithy has been kept in relatively decent repair by the ogres. While it was damaged during their attack, one of the ogres is a decent smith, and had repaired and tidied the smithy, using it to maintain and repair their equipment. The smithy contains everything a smith might wish for, and this equipment would fetch 250 gp if it were sold.