Rise of the Domain Lords, part I: Worms!
One way realms survive in the hostile world of Prime is foreknowledge: any decent kingdom has a cleric casting Divination once a week to see if there are any realm-threatening dangers on the horizon (predictions further out than that tend to not be useful, as other people might counter-predict and thus change their intentions, invalidating the original prediction). The Cleric has taken up this duty for the party's combined kingdoms, and soon gets a hit. The shake-up of power has not gone unnoticed, and now powers are moving to take advantage of the disorder.
The party only knows that the danger comes from the west in nine days. The party sets out, still walking, as no horse can match the 20 hours a day that they can jog. Once on the western border of Edersarr they plunge into the wilderness, only to meet a flight of harpies coming their way.
The harpies are traveling slowly, which is suspicious since their flight is normally much faster than walking, and low to the ground as well. The Ranger unlimbers his bow and proceeds to initiate a long-range archery duel that he almost loses to the harpy archer.
As the rest of the harpies ineffectually dive-bomb the party, the true threat emerges from under the ground. A purple worm, being lured by harpy song, presumably to be turned loose in the capital to smash the state and eat the high ranks, leaving a helpless population for the harpies to pick off.
This is a stupidly powerful monster, yet the Barbarian stands toe to toe with it for two whole rounds until finally lands a bite and swallows him whole. The monster then turns to dive deep under the earth, where it can digest the Barbarian in peace. This is an existential threat - even if the Barbarian kills the worm from the inside out, he'll still be hundreds of feet underground with no escape. The party won't even be able to find his body to raise him again!
But the party rises to the challenge. In the six seconds it takes for the worm to submerge, they reach deep into their bags of damage dice and slay the beast.
The remaining harpies flee, but leave a tracking detail on the party in the distance. The party in turn uses those harpies as a locator, assuming that as long as the birds retreat, they must be getting closer to their lair.
The harpies use this to lure the party into a pair of gorgons, which almost ends the story. For unclear reasons the party is dilatory about responding to the threat (perhaps because the Wizard is absent and they miss his wise counsel), allowing each gorgon to make a charge. Suddenly saves are failing all over the place and in moments the Bard, Druid, Ranger, and Cleric are all turned to stone. The Barbarian manages to finish off the last gorgon, and just as he is trying to figure out what to do, another threat appears.
A Naga had been invisibly watching the battle, prepared to clean up after the mess. While the Barbarian was fighting, it used a magic item to re-flesh the Cleric and promptly charmed him to her side. Now there is a tense stand-off, but the Cleric, acting in his capacity as the Naga's new best friend, convinces her that the Barbarian is not to be underestimated. When the chips are down, he tends to come through with the slicing and dicing. She decides to negotiate: in exchange for each person's best magic item, she will restore the rest of the party and let them all go.
The DM is very happy with this clever path to a reduction in power, until the Bard bluffs his way into surrendering a trivial item and the Druid simply ransoms all the rest back for tael.
The next trap is less of a danger than a public service: another random portal to the elemental plane of air. The three huge elementals guarding it are hardly a challenge now, and soon they are dead and the portal safely closed off.
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