Would love to read your ideas for encounters, especially role-play in flavour, for people/things/events met by travellers on the road. Looking to flesh out my campaign, which happens to involve much travel (sound familiar?).
(If such a thread already exists, I humbly apologise and await a link!)
***
Hell, I'll even throw one in to get the ball rolling...
VUNDAR'S BEER WAGON
An erratically driven carriage on the road turns out to belong to Alfred Vundar, brewer extraordinaire. Vundar is a hefty norse-looking figure, who is clean shaven and always has a flagon in one hand. He is always happy to trade with travellers on the road, and particularly keen to speak with anyone who looks like they might have the constitution to enjoy his beverages.
His current stock of inebriating products includes:
All the Way Home
Old Bastard
Kingdom Come
The Great Cataclysm
Each drink is stronger than the last... get yur' saving throws ready...!
Not-necessarily-evil orc horse traders. They can be a combination of barbarians, rangers, experts or rogues (for negotiating skills), and warriors. Maybe led by a mercantile-minded druid? (Ecology and Economics have the same root-word!) Most of their treasure will be on the hoof, but they have some coin for buying (the PCs') horses on the road, and are willing to sell some of their horses for the right price. Feat-wise, they'll probably have a good mix at mounted melee and mounted ranged combat feats. The druid rides her animal companion horse, and maybe has a level in barbarian for lance and armor proficiencies.
Maybe the druid charms the PCs mounts, and the PCs have to get them back some how (buy them back, steal them back, out-charm the orc druid, gamble for them, challenge the leader to single combat, something!).
Thanks SmiloDan I can use that, and other friends for the links I found some I liked on those pages : )
It's fun now and then to have little encounters that prove useful later. For example a supposedly innocent encounter with a pair of peasants whose cart is stuck in the mud--they prove to be useful later on for whatever reason. (character witnesses, Good dragon in disguise, whatever)
|
"You begin to approach a small rabbit in front of a cave..."
"As you travel, you come across a group of ordinary children all whispering quietly to each other. They seem to ignore you."
"You encounter a large merchant caravan. They seem amicable enough and wish to trade with you."
"You encounter a large merchant caravan. The caravan chief asks you for help, as they have recently come under attack and need additional guards."
"You have been ambushed by a well-known slaver ring. Their likely intent is to subdue you and press you into a life of servitude."
"You come upon a river. On the opposite bank you see your selves."
|
|
"In your path you find a {race of your choosing} hurt badly, and wearing the bloodstained robes of an Arch Mage/Arch Druid." (This one can develop in so very many ways.)
"Your wanderings lead you to a large locked chest sitting in the middle of nowhere."
"You find a community so small, it would not even be considered a village by most reasonable people."
"You stumble upon a hidden pond in the wilderness. The wildlife neither flees nor attacks if you merely approach."
|
|
I had an on-the-road encounter with my group following The Champions Games segment of the Age of Worms Campaign.
The party was heading from the Free City to another town a few days travel up the coast. They came across an oxcart with some elderly peasants and children. They warned them not to continue on to the town, as all able-bodied people were being conscripted for military service.
The party thanked them for the information, but decided to continue on.
Later, when they realized just how likely it was that they would be facing either the draft or the gallows, the party turned back.
When they got near the spot of the encounter, they found the abandoned cart, with the peasants clothes and nothing else.
They worried about those peasants for a while, only to later find out that the peasants were actually members of a Thieves' Guild who had disguised themselves as children (the halflings and gnomes) and elderly (everyone else) so that they could get out of town before being pressed into military service.