Project - Cairn Hills - The Bandits Retreat - Part 2
1).
This room lost its original roof (a heavy stone slab) centuries ago and the bandits replaced it with beams of rough board covered with tarps then dirt. The walls rise 8 feet to the north and west and 10 feet to the east and south, but the western wall props up the roof an extra 2 feet with stone blocks and wooden planking. A lookout post is kept in the upper left and lower left corners of the room where a bandit can stand on a sturdy table and peer out through a gap in the boards. From the outside these gaps are obscured by weeds and stones with dirt heaped againt the planks to make it less noticeable that there is a chamber under the dirt of the plateau. The jobs is reasonably well done but any searching of this area will reveal this and all other plank covered chambers of the tomb complex.
The center twenty feet of the north wall and part of the roof can be opened to allow the entrance of animals and wagons. Room 1). acts as a stable for the bandits horses and draft animals. It normally has at least one wagon that the use for hauling supplies or loot if they have been successful in a raid or ambush of a caravan.
The room will contain at least 4 bandits whether the bulk of the raiders are out or not. The number of mounts varies between 4 horses and 2 draft animals at minimum to over 24 horses when the brigands have returned.
The guards will usually have one person watching during the day but they no longer bother keeping a watch at night.
Project - Cairn Hills - The Bandits Retreat - Part 1
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tombs, barrows, vaults and graves litter the Cairn Hills. The Bandits Retreat is one such that has long ago been looted and desecrated. Now it is home to Osgar's Band, a group of dangerous and succesful brigands.
The old tomb complex sits on a small hill surrounded by low valleys and dozens of other rolling hilltops.
Sections of the old tomb Rooms 1-9 have been opened to the elements. Once they were filled with debris but in centuries past tomb robbers dug away the fallen earth and rock and scraped down to the tiles in search of gold and loot.
Osgar and his men have covered these chambers and passages with wooden roofs and tarps then dirt and light rock shoveled atop them. The work was poorly done by captives and slaves and heavy weights from horse or wagons runs the risk of collapsing them. The chambers are only ten feet high so injury has a greater chance for those below or any horses that might fall in.
There is a reasonable chance that anyone seeing the covered chambers or walking across the crude roofs will notice the flatness and uniformity of this area as oppossed to the surrounding hilltop.
The original entrance to the Tomb complex is a chamber further east on the map than Room 9 and is through a doorway crafted to look like a natural rock. All of the Rooms in areas 1-9 have trapdoor entrances and ladders except for Room 1 which has a hidden sloping entrance at the north wall and a double wide trap door to allow horse or mounts or cattle to be led inside.
The Brigands keep a guard post hidden under tarps near the original entrance and can see all of the surrounding hilltop and anyone approaching. In the past they kept guard post on nearby hilltops and patrols day and night but since they have never been troubled in this out of the way location they have grown lax and rarely bother with any extra guards or patrols.
