Make an Adventure: the Missing Caravan

Anthony · 11-22-2017, 03:48 PM

So, Dr Kromm's post about picking a starting adventure made me ponder what kind of starting adventure I'd do for DF with those characters. Thinking about this...

We'll start with shared interests. Sir Godfrey is an enforcer for a robber baron, aka a bandit with a title and pretensions of respectability. Bash Crashky is an ex-bandit with interest in pretensions of respectability. Brewis Smalls is an ex-pirate (aka aquatic bandit). Well, it looks like the baron is probably our starting quest-giver, though we should make sure to have quests that coincide with pretensions of respectability. The other characters are slightly harder to include. We'll assume that Hulda and Bash know one another, since they're both half-ogres who avoid town, but we still need a 'worthy' cause. As for Tishala... maybe we can come up with something in the plot seed.

Okay, we'll say that there's a caravan gone missing. Bandits or ogres are suspected. The baron is unhappy, because no-one is allowed to rob caravans in his territory without the baron's approval and giving him a cut, so he'd like to have some adventurers go out there, find out who did it or at least a passable approximation, and teach them a lesson in not doing that in the future. This will involve some wilderness travel and might involve some diplomatizing with ogres, so Hulda could be an asset. As for Tishala, we'll say that she was waiting for a shipment that was supposed to be on that caravan, so she's got a personal interest. Make it something fire-related. Perhaps the caravan was carrying artifacts found further inland at, oh, a town that got buried by a volcanic eruption a hundred years ago (is there a dungeon there? We'll let that decision wait until we find out of the players are interested).

Part 1 of the adventure is just trying to find out where the caravan vanished. It was expected to be following a road, so no terribly sophisticated tracking is required just yet. There are no encounters until the PCs find the ruins of a caravan... which is crawling with bandits. The bandits will resist PCs for a bit, but their morale is poor and they will break and run if it looks bad for them. Unfortunately, it turns out that these bandits weren't actually the people who hit the caravan, they're just opportunistic looters. This will be easy to find out if the PCs took captives, possibly less easy if they didn't. If you don't feel like working up bandits, use goblins.

Part 2 later, unless someone else wants to contribute and make this a multi-DM design.

11-22-2017, 03:48 PM	#1
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Make an Adventure: the Missing Caravan So, Dr Kromm's post about picking a starting adventure made me ponder what kind of starting adventure I'd do for DF with those characters. Thinking about this... We'll start with shared interests. Sir Godfrey is an enforcer for a robber baron, aka a bandit with a title and pretensions of respectability. Bash Crashky is an ex-bandit with interest in pretensions of respectability. Brewis Smalls is an ex-pirate (aka aquatic bandit). Well, it looks like the baron is probably our starting quest-giver, though we should make sure to have quests that coincide with pretensions of respectability. The other characters are slightly harder to include. We'll assume that Hulda and Bash know one another, since they're both half-ogres who avoid town, but we still need a 'worthy' cause. As for Tishala... maybe we can come up with something in the plot seed. Okay, we'll say that there's a caravan gone missing. Bandits or ogres are suspected. The baron is unhappy, because no-one is allowed to rob caravans in his territory without the baron's approval and giving him a cut, so he'd like to have some adventurers go out there, find out who did it or at least a passable approximation, and teach them a lesson in not doing that in the future. This will involve some wilderness travel and might involve some diplomatizing with ogres, so Hulda could be an asset. As for Tishala, we'll say that she was waiting for a shipment that was supposed to be on that caravan, so she's got a personal interest. Make it something fire-related. Perhaps the caravan was carrying artifacts found further inland at, oh, a town that got buried by a volcanic eruption a hundred years ago (is there a dungeon there? We'll let that decision wait until we find out of the players are interested). Part 1 of the adventure is just trying to find out where the caravan vanished. It was expected to be following a road, so no terribly sophisticated tracking is required just yet. There are no encounters until the PCs find the ruins of a caravan... which is crawling with bandits. The bandits will resist PCs for a bit, but their morale is poor and they will break and run if it looks bad for them. Unfortunately, it turns out that these bandits weren't actually the people who hit the caravan, they're just opportunistic looters. This will be easy to find out if the PCs took captives, possibly less easy if they didn't. If you don't feel like working up bandits, use goblins. Part 2 later, unless someone else wants to contribute and make this a multi-DM design. __________________ My GURPS site and Blog.