About a month ago, I started a series for “The Knoll of the Dead.” Then I went on vacation. I didn’t bring my notes to Alaska with me, so I started a new series about The Astral Web instead.
Now that I’m back, I have a quandry. Do I interupt the Astral Web series to return to the interupted Knoll series? Or do I leave the Knoll series interupted for months until the Astral Web series is complete?
I decided to split the difference. I’m going to “interleave” the two series. Last week was Astral Web, this week will be Knoll of the Dead, then next week will be Astral Web, etc.
The series so far
Part 1 was a play report of the players who went through the knoll.
Part 2 was the map of the Knoll.
Adventure Overview
This was designed as a one-shot introductory adventure. As such the back story is intentionally simplistic and lame. This isn’t Shakespeare.
The “hook” is that the characters can’t get food from their local pub because the barkeep hasn’t received his shipment of “land fish.”1 He offers the players a small reward to return with the shipment.
This leads to Bomo’s[^bomo] Land Fish Ranch. There they meet the halfling Bomo and learn that his stock of Land Fish is being eaten by foxes. The foxes are really undead animals. The characters will have their first encounter here, and follow or track one of the foxes back to its lair.
Here the players should eventually encounter Edrick, a level 3 necromantic druid hermit. Edrick has been sending his undead woodland creations out to fetch food for him. Edrick is quite mad, however, and the amount of food being returned is far more than he’ll ever need.
Like I said, this isn’t Shakespeare.
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Land fish are just chickens. The trick is to never call them anything other than "Land Fish." When the players ask what they look like, describe them like you would describe a chicken to someone that’s never seen a bird before, but use the word “scales” instead of “feathers” and “fins” instead of “wings.” If the players don’t get it, they’ll think its something weird and novel; if they do, they’ll chuckle at the joke.↩
I like it!
ReplyDeleteEven if a simple story, it's enough to engage with, but doesn't get in the way of enjoying the actually gameplay and learning the ropes, as it were. :)
Thanks! That was the plan!
ReplyDelete