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View Full Version : DM Help First time running an urban adventure - advice wanted.



Capt Spanner
2018-03-04, 08:23 PM
To avoid spoilers, I won't say what campaign, and will keep everything as generic as I can without omitting vital detail.


I'm running a campaign from a book, because it's my first time really taking on DMing. In the book the party reach a town, which is almost immediately ruined by a demon being summoned, and the party are forced to flee again.

However, the party has been on the road for some time, and I think a change of pace would be good for the group, lest they get bored. Also, half the players in the group have never played D&D (or, indeed, any other tabletop RPG) and I'd quite like for their first ever visit to civilisation to be a bit more substantial than what the book suggests. I'd like them to be able to spend 2-5 sessions in town. However, my main experience DMing has always been wilderness exploration or hostile territory. I've never really planned my own plot like this before for a game, so I want to double check that I've done something sensible.

The party's situation

For the book adventure to follow, the town needs to be destroyed by a demon at the end. As long as that happens I can continue the campaign. (Just a note on this apparent railroading: I told them at session 0 that it was a book campaign, and that as such there would be some element of railroading in circumstances like this.)

The town has an Old Religion, and a recently founded New Religion. The leader of the New Religion is the daughter of the leader of the Old Religion, and the New Religion has been gaining a lot of followers, since it has coincided with a marked increase in her magical abilities.

As it happens, this is partially because the walls between the Abyss and the world are being weakened. The leaders of the New Religion aren't aware of it, but they are planning on summoning their new god to meet them in person, not realising that their new god is a demon in disguise.

The summoning ritual has three elements to it: a chant, an ancient amulet of the New God (actually an amulet of the Demon being summoned), and sentient blood being spilled.

The party have to try to prevent this happening. However, the demon will come through anyway as - due to the weakened walls of reality - it doesn't need the full ritual anymore. Just a few drops of sentient blood spilled in the right place will do it. The leaders are willing to spill their own blood, and even if they try to stop the ritual happening, they'll have to resort to violence, which will result in spilled blood. (For extra irony, this means the party will be the ones who actually release the demon, OMG. But it was going to happen either way, so *Shrug*.)

For added fun, there's a curse of madness coming on as well, but the race who inhabit this town already had a reputation for being touched by madness.

Plans - introduction

The party take a boat across the lake to meet the leader of the Old Religion. (The previous session ended with them arriving on this boat.)

As they cross the lake they see dead fish and animals being thrown into the lake as sacrifices to the New God (actually a demon, but they don't know that yet.) A DC15 perception check (D&D 5th Ed) will allow them to spot that there is actually something in the lake pulling the sacrifices under. (This is foreshadowing, and not a plot point.)

Once arrived, they are given hospitality by the leader of the Old Religion, who tells them about the religious schism in town, and that his daughter is the leader of the new schism. They are also aware of people disappearing from the streets, and know that a sacrifice of sentient creatures is planned with some potentially catastrophic outcome if the sacrifice is successful.

So he suggests a plan to the party: rather than risk their own citizens, would the party volunteer to be disarmed, bound, delivered to the New Religion temple as a peace offering, then sacrificed, and then after they've been sacrificed, return to tell him what they found out about the New God from observing the ritual. (He doesn't seem to notice two fundamental flaws with this plan.)

Hopefully the party won't go along with this plan, and will suggest a better one: that they investigate independently instead. (Or something similar.) The Old Religion leader comments that someone defected recently from the New Religion. They have him in their temple under their protection, but he hasn't said anything useful. The party are free to talk to him.

Location - the defector

He doesn't trust them. However, they can gain his trust and he will reward them with information.

He wants:

- Something belonging to the New Religion's leader. (Although he only refers to her by name. It will be up to the party to connect the name with her new position. If they were paying attention to the Old Religion leader it won't be hard, although if not they will have plenty of opportunities later. Apart from anything, if they just ask someone...) This will have to be stolen from her house. As a reward he tells the party the New God's true name, and thus reveals its demonic nature.

- Solve a riddle. It's a seafaring place, so the riddle is "Wash it and it isn't clean. Don't wash it to keep it clean. What am I?" As a reward for this, he will tell them how to identify the New God's amulet (or physically identify it for them if hey already have it).

- A scarlet fish. There is no reward for this, as it doesn't exist. It is, in fact, a red herring. (If the party do come up with something for this, I'll give them something off the trinket table, or maybe a low level magic item as a reward. But they are not expected to solve this.)

Location - the streets

No pre-made list of businesses, but a reasonable array of shops for a small town. They'll be able to find smiths, armourers , apothecaries, and the like. There is a bit of a contrast between Old and New god areas, with palpable tensions near the borders. There are several people who have gone insane around. In New God areas they may see these people being forcibly taken to the temple of the New God.

Location - town gates

The guards won't let them leave. However, the guards are happy enough to talk to the party. Key pieces of information are that there are a lot more prisoners coming in through the gates these days (sacrifice fodder, it will turn out) and a lot of unmarked barrels. The party can follow the unmarked barrels to find something being put in the plumbing. It's just wine, however. The New Religion leaders believe it will help them, but it's really a bit of a red herring. There's no poison, or madness inducing stuff there.

Location - shrine of the New Religion

The main areas are public access, so getting there won't be a problem. They will be able to find details of a major event planned, inviting follows of the new God to demonstrate their devotion together. It will have the date, time and location of the planned ritual on it. It will also have the New God's symbol on it, which will allow them to connect it to the amulet of the New God later (if they haven't already found out how to identify it from the defector.)

Location - New Religion leader's home

They must use some kind of subterfuge to get in, although once inside (without setting off an alarm) they can explore freely. Getting in with violence will be very difficult, and the party have shown good judgement on when to use stealth and when to fight in the past. If they do fight their way in, they'll have a very limited time to explore, before a difficult fight shows up to drive them out, and besiege them if they win that fight.

Inside they can find:

- Some trinkets tying the New Religion leader to the villain of the whole campaign

- The chant used in the ritual, and description of how to perform the ritual. (Although, anyone with enough knowledge about it will see that the ritual is gibberish, and shouldn't actually work. This ritual is to a real summoning ritual what pig Latin is to real Latin. This is meant to tie in with the "weakened walls of reality" motif. Hopefully the party will still try to stop the ritual because of all the innocent blood which would be spilled there.)

- Mention of an amulet of the New God.

- Lots of amulets, one of which is the amulet of the New God. However, it's a richly decorated room, and there are lots of amulets about the place. They won't be able to identify which is the right one (or even be sure they got them all) unless they've either seen the poster at the shrine, or solved the defectors riddle.

- Anything from this room can be given to the defector to reveal that the New God is actually a demon.

Where next?

I hope from all the above the players can put together a coherent idea of what's happening: there's a ritual to summon god, who's actually a demon. However, the ritual won't actually work, but lots of innocent blood will be spilled anyway. If the party choose to do nothing, the ritual will go ahead anyway, and the demon will be summoned so I'm not sure about that.

However, I kind of feel I want to wait and see how the players choose to approach the next step before planning too much of what happens. This material should, I feel, keep them going for 1 session, maybe two. (It depends how much time they want to spend in town, and how thorough they are. I might throw in a side-quest or two if they seem to want side quests.)

Ultimately I anticipate they they're going to try free the prisoners to be used in the ritual. That's okay, since there are plenty of acolytes of the New Religion who will willingly sacrifice themselves. I also anticipate they they will try to disrupt the ritual, which will result in a fight, which will result in blood spilled, and the demon being summoned.

If they steal the amulet, I'm not 100% sure how the New Religion will respond. If the party hand it over to someone in the Old Religion (especially the defector) then having someone defect to the New Religion would be thematic. Conversely, the New Religion could try to counter-steal it (they will suspect that someone of the Old Religion has it). If the party try to hold on to it, it's going to be cursed, so that won't be a great idea. Ultimately, the New Religion will probably just go ahead without the amulet (or with a cheap fake) and hope for the best.

So, following that wall of text - any comments or thoughts on how I'm handling this? I'm concerned it's quite combat light, although D&D parties are pretty good at finding fights when they want them, so that may not be much of an issue.

Geddy2112
2018-03-05, 09:26 AM
It looks like you have your ducks in a row. I would possibly play on the fact the new religion does not know which amulet is true, and has all of them as a safeguard. They will probably try any and all combinations(unless the AP says they specifically know which is correct).

If you want, add in a random street combat anywhere where spilled blood won't cause the demon to appear. Maybe some thugs size up the adventuring party as an easy mark. You could add in some signs of the apocalypse like a plague of animals. A swarm of locusts or wasps or frogs or something to attack the party and town. This also won't count as sentient blood, so the party can hack away with glee.

JeenLeen
2018-03-06, 01:24 PM
It seems well thought-out, but the biggest "warning" I can think of is players latching onto a red herring to the detriment of the true mission or doing something foolish because they think that's what you want.

For the former, trying to find the scarlet fish, or being insistent that the wine in the unmarked barrels is contaminated somehow. They may legitimately believe that their methods of detection failed, not that the wine is just wine.

For the latter, trying to save the people in the New God region of town who are forcibly moved, trying to fight their way out of the town by fighting the guards (though this seems less likely), or -- to me the biggest -- going along with the Old Religion leader's plan of being sacrificed. The players might think there is more to the plan being left out, or just not think it through. For that, I recommend noting OOC that something seems off IC about the leader's reasoning, or giving some indication that although the dude is offering this plan, that plan is not the quest you as DM are offering.

I think many players, especially new players, might accept quests as a given, without thinking it through. While players perhaps should really consider the pros and cons, it's hard to fault them as such can be a normal buy-in for the game.
If you want to have the players really think things through, I recommend at least reminding/informing them before game starts that not every thing going on in town is important. Let them know there are some red herrings and that some ideas offered might not be sound. Remind them that the town's prominent race is known to be slightly mad.

(So that your players get the pun on 'red herring' and 'scarlet fish', I actually recommend literally saying "red herring" so it's in their mind. Will hopefully get a laugh.)


Lastly, it seems somewhat contrived that the defector wants some sort of proof before telling that the New God is actually a demon. Shouldn't he want others to know? If he is afraid of retribution, perhaps afraid that the PCs or the Old God clergy are spies for the New God... well, if the New God folk know he knows, then wouldn't they have already killed him?
Or is he just insanely paranoid or has a fixation on trading for information?
It's a small thing, but it seems inconsistent. Still, might make enough sense to the cliche of how stories go that it doesn't raise any questions.


EDIT: one additional thought, a side thought to your main question, is what are the legal ramifications of violence or theft? If they flee to the Old God side of town, are they safe? Will they be arrested if they attack New God folk? It could be good, especially if the party is used to a 'kill those who are bad' mentality, to remind them of city laws and consequences. I can see many players thinking it reasonable that they can attack or even kill evil cultists or corrupt(ed) guards.