Today is the first full session for the campaign I’m running at work. We’re calling the campaign Offices and Bosses, we’re running 5E, and the setting is Eberron.
[If you want to follow along with the campaign as a story, spoilers ahead]
At this point I’ve run a few zero sessions to help the players get into their character and form a couple bonds. My goal with this first session is to give the campaign a rolling start. I want to drop the players into some action, introducing them to a few NPCs and lines of conflict without them having to worry too much about why their characters would be working together at this point.
This session is going to kick off a 2-3 session adventure, after which I plan to open things up and let the players choose from a range of directions they want to take the campaign. This adventure should provide some context for those directions.
At the end of my champion’s tournament zero session, Krolm and Direcris were traveling to Zilargo with a representative from the Korranberg Chronicles named Davvry Whitstone. The session ended with the group being ambushed in the night, with Krolm and Direcris waking up to Davvry missing.
This session will begin with the other players encountering Krolm and Direcris on the road right after the ambush. Having a connection with the Korranberg Chronicles is hugely valuable, so I’m hoping that the characters will all be motivated to find and retrieve Davvry.
I’m also hoping that structuring the hook this way – with the player characters delivering it – will set a tone of player-driven motivations and role-playing.
The central story of this adventure arc is that a band of goblins are ambushing travelers on their way from Zilargo to Breland. Warlord Striok is unhappy with the peaceful direction that King Haruuc is taking the goblin nation of Darguun. Striok wants to stir up conflict and make Breland or Zilargo invade Darguun, thinking that the raids and acts of aggression are sanctioned by Haruuc himself. When the goblins ambush, they capture travelers to sell as slaves.
The players will find themselves in a small campsite off the main road:
I’ll give the players a chance to introduce themselves, discuss what’s happened, and begin to form a plan. As they look around, the DCs to discern what happened are:
After a bit of discussion and strategizing, a party of goblins will begin to sneak up on the party, making 3 stealth checks:
Using the encounter balancing table from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, I decided that the encounter will have 1 bugbear and 6 goblins to go against the party of 6 LVL2 characters.
After the battle, the party needs to figure out where the goblin camp is. The overall area that they’re in looks like:
It will be much easier if they managed to capture a goblin to interrogate. I’ve come up with a few DCs for potential routes the party might take:
If the party failed to capture a goblin or follow the tracks, they’ll find a tall hill that they can go to for a better vantage point.
If the party ever stops and waits anywhere along the patrol path, they will encounter the patrol.
The patrol consists of 2 bugbears. If the party finds the patrol by following tracks or observing from the high vantage point, they’ll have the chance to set a trap.
Ultimately, the goblin camp is in a cave at the top of a large hill. There is a single entrance with 2 guards standing watch:
There is a lip above the cave entrance that the party could use to sneak up.
My plan is that the goblins will fight for 1 round of combat. If they survive to a second round, they will yell into the cave to alert the rest of the goblins. If the guards detect the party before combat begins, they will immediately run back into the cave.
That’s pretty much all I’ve prepared for this first encounter. My plan is to keep it straightforward and combat focused. I’ve also prepared a few goblin NPC descriptions in case they interact with any of their enemies:
