Day 10 – Favourite Adventure You’ve Run

This one is aimed at the DM, so if you’re a player and are doing your own challenge, change it to ‘Favourite Adventure You’ve Played’ – thinking about it, that question would work for both sides.

Anyhoo. My favourite pony adventure.

There’s two.

The adventure I enjoyed running them most was a rescue that went terribly wrong. A merchant caravan had been attacked by hobgoblins while en-route to a city in Manaheim (and old campaign setting of mine) when the players came across the burning wreckage of the wagons. The horses were taken or had bolted, a few corpses lay scattered across the road and two survivors came out of hiding at the approach of the adventurers.

They told a tale of the wagons’ contents and some survivors being taken off towards the forest clad hills to the west. One of the prisoners was the daughter of a merchant lord (a wealthy merchant lord). So, heroes that they are (with dreams of big rewards) they set off in pursuit.

Holed up in a cave system in the hills beneath a ruined watchtower, the gobbos were having fun with their prisoners when the players arrived.

I had laid the dungeon out so that there were a few paths the players could choose when they entered, but with a few clues to suggest where the bad guys might be (faint glow of firelight coming from down a long corridor etc). So naturally they went completely in the other direction. This led them into the deeper and tougher part of the dungeon. The bit with the cruel boss taking things out (so to speak) on the merchant’s daughter. It could’ve been ok, but all the other Hobgoblins were still alive and poured into the room to assist when the players attacked. Needless to say, the players didn’t get much of a reward.

I could’ve changed things around and made it so that the Hobgoblin captain was alone or unable to call for aid. But it wouldn’t have been logical and it was actually quite satisfying to shoiw the plkayers that their actions don’t always result in fabulous cash prizes.

The second adventure I’m thinking of was just the players trying to track down the gang behind some strong-arm tactic in the town of Icthus (in my Rift World setting). They had penetrated the gang’s lair, defeated all of the traps and sentries and burst into the room to confront the gang leader and his cronies. They got the shock of their lives when it turned out to be a vampire spawn! Thankfully for them, they quickly overwhelmed the henchmen and were about go for the vampire when she decided it was prudent to flee down into the cellars and through the sewers.

That sequence of events just kinda ‘happened’ – it wasn’t part of the plot at all. But it created a ‘nemesis’ (Quote: “You know what nemesis means?”) for the players and they have been half-expecting her to return (and indeed she will, mwuhahaha!)

Back to the list
Prev: Dav 9
Next: Day 11