[Dungeon Fantasy] Adventure - Heart of The Great Forest

[Walrus]

I'm in reprocessing DF Adventure: Mirror of the Fire Demon into antoher adventure named Heart of The Great Forest. The theme is heavily influenced by DF 16 - Wilderness Adventures.

The Mountain has been discovered to be rich in valuable ores. Mining settlements have grown fast. The main city with a lot of foundries was founded at the foot of the Mountain near the Great Forest as a source of charcoal.

And these activities of cutting wood for building, mining and charcoal burning disturbed Nature Keepers: savage forest elves, druids and all sorts of natural and not so natural beasts and closely related monsters. They began to raid woodcutters and especially coalburners and there are rumors that the horde is gathering to destroy The City with its forges and foundries.

There's is an observatory higher on the mountain which can be used to scout the area. All astronomers have been evacuated but they say that they discovered something in the forest which can be seen only through their telescope with crystal lenses alloyed by meteoric iron.

The question is how to attract adventuring party into such city. Of course, Dwarven Guild of Forgery gives huge prize for those who'd stop raids and invasion. But still it seems sort of too local since The City is somewhat dead-ended.

One idea is Brave New World with that city founded as a frontier on a newly discovered contintent. I actually like that idea because it can give a start for huge exploration campaign. Or I can handawive that with usual premise of caravan guard's duty but I'd like more deliberate approach. Any more ideas how to attract our murdering hobos to this?

I don't use particular names deliberately to let those who'd like to use this idea to fill the gaps.

[(E)]

The far off location of the mysterious and rare <item component> for the <pointy thing> of many pluses?

or

"You invested our money where?"

[Refplace]

Well its a Mountain so easy enough to say it guards a pass to lands on the other side of the mountain that used to have an ancient civilization.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Walrus

The Mountain has been discovered to be rich in valuable ores. Mining settlements have grown fast. The main city with a lot of foundries was founded at the foot of the Mountain near the Great Forest as a source of charcoal.

And these activities of cutting wood for building, mining and charcoal burning disturbed Nature Keepers: savage forest elves, druids and all sorts of natural and not so natural beasts and closely related monsters. They began to raid woodcutters and especially coalburners and there are rumors that the horde is gathering to destroy The City with its forges and foundries.

Sounds very Hayao Miyazaki ala Mononoke-hime.

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Sounds very Hayao Miyazaki ala Mononoke-hime.

Yeah, it is one of the inspirational sources.

[Dammann]

When Robin Laws addresses questions like this (how do I get my players to choose the one option they need to in order to get to the fun), he usually advises something like, "Your characters are all deciding to go to The City. Why would they do that?" If there is a right answer, trying to elicit that choice instead of just jumping past it seems like an unnecessary manipulation. Asking for motives or reasons will give you hooks, return agency to the players, and surprise you (always nice).