brian 333
2023-04-23, 05:01 PM
Among the most enjoyable games, for me, are the ones many players skip past. In the yearning to wade through hordes of enemies, steal the crown jewels, and wield ultimate arcane power, the simple level one adventure seems little more than tiresome.
But I have heard many arguments about how broken D&D is above certain levels, and how mage-centric the game becomes. Once I read a well researched dissertation discribing how 3.5 ed. was optimized around level 6. My own experience informs me that low level play encourages a wide variety of character classes and rewards teamwork between them. It appears to me that the real fun in D&D is there, right from the start.
The greatest challenge is that there is no chance of a raise. Tactics and cooperation are not optional, and every character gets a moment to shine. On the other hand, permanent death is not very debilitating. A new character can be created and inserted into the game with very little loss to the party.
So, with that in mind, I present:
Rasita's Temple
The village of Tischen was once a military fort, consisting of a five-sided mud wall surrounded by a moat from which the mud was excavated. As the frontier spread North and East, its purpose as a base for a cavalry company became less necessary and it was abandoned. Some of the company retired here, and camp followers who had grown comfortable remained. Since then Tischen has grown into a hamlet of about 80 adult residents who serve nearby farms in a more or less five mile radius consisting of another two hundred-fifty folk, predominantly human and halfling.
The village has an inn with large tables and small beer, with only a few private rooms to rent. There is a smithy which serves the needs of the local farms, and what was once a barn for the cavalry company is now a warehouse operated by a gnome trader who also serves as dry-goods merchant. Otherwise, there are about thirty houses, primarily modest affairs, within the walls and another dozen nearby outside.
The road enters where there was once a gate, and there are several trails that cross the now mostly dry moat. On one side of the gate a portion of the moat is maintained as a watering hole for livestock, while the rest of the moat only fills when it rains.
About a mile from the Hamlet, atop a hill covered in young pines, a burned wooden temple is slowly being consumed by vines and decay. Cart paths link the many nearby fields, some of which have fieldstone walls enclosing crops. Barns, farmsteads, and woodlots can be seen between the surrounding fields.
Whether the PCs were sent from a nearby town or just happen to be passing through, it quickly becomes apparent that the locals do their best to avoid speaking to them. (For this adventure it is not recommended for PCs to be from the hamlet.
As the PCs enter the town they notice that the townsfolk avoid eye contact, and any attempt to speak with them causes them to run away. The dry goods merchant will discuss his merchandise, but will pretend nothing is amiss in town and avoid speaking about it. The innkeeper will feed that PCs, but claim he has no room for them. He speaks of an old caravan camp on the West Road out of town and suggests they need to be there by night to make a comfortable camp.
If anyone can be gotten to speak of the ruined church north of town they will insist it has been abandoned. If anyone in the party suggests they might go there the locals insist that they shouldn't. At first they try to claim their ancestors' rest would be disturbed, then they claim the place is evil and haunted. Last they claim disturbing the dead is sinful, and the dead would take revenge on the villagers once the PCs have gone.
After a few hours of wandering around trying to get someone to speak to them, the PCs are met by a pair of Half-Orc Warriors, Thad and Bonk. Thad does all the talking while Bonk stands beside or behind him playing with a club. They should be described as smelly barbarians, but they are warrior-class NPCs. The pair will try to bully the PCs into leaving.
The townsfolk will appear to take the side of the bullies, yet fear them at the same time. The most obvious choices the PCs can make here is to fight, flee, or negotiate.
If they flee, the townsfolk will appear relieved. Before allowing them to fight the nearby townsfolk will do their best to talk them out of it. Apparently they fear more trouble will come from fighting than from the bullies.
If they choose to negotiate, Thad will agree to take only one of the party to see 'the boss' while Bonk stays behind with the villagers and the rest of the party.
If they fight and party-members are killed, the adventure must restart from where the PCs can, getting new recruits and such if necessary. If they fight and one or both of the thugs are killed, the villagers will be in a panic about what Rasita will do, and they will blame the PCs for the bloodbath they anticipate. Someone in the town is certain to suggest turning the PCs over to this Rasita in the hopes she will spare them.
Rasita is a level 5 cleric of a deity of undeath. If she gets a PC alone she will attempt to Hold Person while her minions attack. If she gets her hands on any corpse she will use her Animate Dead spell on it.
A frontal attack on her ruined temple will allow her to use all eight of her zombies at once. These former villagers are the former sheriff, the former mayor, four unfortunate recently deceased villagers, and Squire Brown and his aged mother. (Additional zombies may be available if the PCs provided corpses and time.)
If the PCs have time, and a few moments alone, Liza Brown will show up. A niece of the squire, she is small, plain, and either a budding rogue or ranger. She tells the PCs about Rasita, and how she appeared at the temple about six months ago. Not long after, several recent graves in the village graveyard were disturbed. The squire's aged mother was overcome with grief when Rasita paraded the dead through the town one night as a threat. When Rasita raised her corpse, the squire went berserk and was killed by Rasita and the zombies.
Since then Rasita has been demanding tribute. When the Mayor refused, the zombies attacked in the night. When the sheriff went to arrest her he also vanished only to start making unexpected midnight patrols.
While Rasita rarely leaves her temple in the basement of the burned church, her henchmen Thad and Bonk roam the area taking what they want. There are also at least half a dozen villagers who secretly attend Rasita's services. She is well informed of what goes on in the village.
Liza knows of a hidden tunnel into the temple, explored on a dare when she was very young. She tried to go in to spy on Rasita, but was chased out by a skeleton.
Along the length of the tunnel there are as many as one hundred skeletons, spread out along its half-mile length. It comes into the basement under the stairs which lead up into the ruins behind the old altar.
(Rasita is aware of the secret tunnel, and it was she who dug up the old graves in the churchyard to animate the skeletons which she placed as guards in the tunnel. Her minions are not aware of it.)
Rasita is a coward and a bully. She will threaten and intimidate, but run if it looks like she might lose. Separated from her minions, she will be far less bold, but will seek the means to reassert her dominance at the first opportunity. Because of this characterization, Rasita will very likely survive the adventure; running away to fight another day is her backup plan.
Her primary plan is to use Tischen as a base to found and grow her temple to her god of undeath. She has a vague idea of intimidating the village into cooperating, but she really has not thought it through. Nearby towns will be curious, farmers will flee, telling the story wherever they end up, and random military and police patrols may drop by.
There are half-a-dozen informants in the village who seek to gain Rasita's favor. They believe they are sneaky, but it should not be too difficult to figure out who they are by their smug attitudes. There are also a dozen villagers who would act against Rasita, but fear for the lives of their families and neighbors.
The players should try to figure out a workable plan to deal with Rasita, but if they are struggling, have Liza suggest a stealth-approach of hit and run.
If the players are in need of healing, have Crazy Cooter, the veterinarian, offer some horse salve. It restores 1hp/hr up to 1d8 per application, with no more than one application in a 24 hour period offering any benefit. He has twelve doses.
Rasita has only Animate Dead as her 3rd level spell, with Hold Person taking up a second level slot. All of her 1st level slots are Cute Light Wounds. She spontaneously casts Inflict spells and bolsters undead with her turning ability. She has Undeath and Fear as her domains.
Rasita should be encountered again when the party reaches level 3, but that is another adventure!
But I have heard many arguments about how broken D&D is above certain levels, and how mage-centric the game becomes. Once I read a well researched dissertation discribing how 3.5 ed. was optimized around level 6. My own experience informs me that low level play encourages a wide variety of character classes and rewards teamwork between them. It appears to me that the real fun in D&D is there, right from the start.
The greatest challenge is that there is no chance of a raise. Tactics and cooperation are not optional, and every character gets a moment to shine. On the other hand, permanent death is not very debilitating. A new character can be created and inserted into the game with very little loss to the party.
So, with that in mind, I present:
Rasita's Temple
The village of Tischen was once a military fort, consisting of a five-sided mud wall surrounded by a moat from which the mud was excavated. As the frontier spread North and East, its purpose as a base for a cavalry company became less necessary and it was abandoned. Some of the company retired here, and camp followers who had grown comfortable remained. Since then Tischen has grown into a hamlet of about 80 adult residents who serve nearby farms in a more or less five mile radius consisting of another two hundred-fifty folk, predominantly human and halfling.
The village has an inn with large tables and small beer, with only a few private rooms to rent. There is a smithy which serves the needs of the local farms, and what was once a barn for the cavalry company is now a warehouse operated by a gnome trader who also serves as dry-goods merchant. Otherwise, there are about thirty houses, primarily modest affairs, within the walls and another dozen nearby outside.
The road enters where there was once a gate, and there are several trails that cross the now mostly dry moat. On one side of the gate a portion of the moat is maintained as a watering hole for livestock, while the rest of the moat only fills when it rains.
About a mile from the Hamlet, atop a hill covered in young pines, a burned wooden temple is slowly being consumed by vines and decay. Cart paths link the many nearby fields, some of which have fieldstone walls enclosing crops. Barns, farmsteads, and woodlots can be seen between the surrounding fields.
Whether the PCs were sent from a nearby town or just happen to be passing through, it quickly becomes apparent that the locals do their best to avoid speaking to them. (For this adventure it is not recommended for PCs to be from the hamlet.
As the PCs enter the town they notice that the townsfolk avoid eye contact, and any attempt to speak with them causes them to run away. The dry goods merchant will discuss his merchandise, but will pretend nothing is amiss in town and avoid speaking about it. The innkeeper will feed that PCs, but claim he has no room for them. He speaks of an old caravan camp on the West Road out of town and suggests they need to be there by night to make a comfortable camp.
If anyone can be gotten to speak of the ruined church north of town they will insist it has been abandoned. If anyone in the party suggests they might go there the locals insist that they shouldn't. At first they try to claim their ancestors' rest would be disturbed, then they claim the place is evil and haunted. Last they claim disturbing the dead is sinful, and the dead would take revenge on the villagers once the PCs have gone.
After a few hours of wandering around trying to get someone to speak to them, the PCs are met by a pair of Half-Orc Warriors, Thad and Bonk. Thad does all the talking while Bonk stands beside or behind him playing with a club. They should be described as smelly barbarians, but they are warrior-class NPCs. The pair will try to bully the PCs into leaving.
The townsfolk will appear to take the side of the bullies, yet fear them at the same time. The most obvious choices the PCs can make here is to fight, flee, or negotiate.
If they flee, the townsfolk will appear relieved. Before allowing them to fight the nearby townsfolk will do their best to talk them out of it. Apparently they fear more trouble will come from fighting than from the bullies.
If they choose to negotiate, Thad will agree to take only one of the party to see 'the boss' while Bonk stays behind with the villagers and the rest of the party.
If they fight and party-members are killed, the adventure must restart from where the PCs can, getting new recruits and such if necessary. If they fight and one or both of the thugs are killed, the villagers will be in a panic about what Rasita will do, and they will blame the PCs for the bloodbath they anticipate. Someone in the town is certain to suggest turning the PCs over to this Rasita in the hopes she will spare them.
Rasita is a level 5 cleric of a deity of undeath. If she gets a PC alone she will attempt to Hold Person while her minions attack. If she gets her hands on any corpse she will use her Animate Dead spell on it.
A frontal attack on her ruined temple will allow her to use all eight of her zombies at once. These former villagers are the former sheriff, the former mayor, four unfortunate recently deceased villagers, and Squire Brown and his aged mother. (Additional zombies may be available if the PCs provided corpses and time.)
If the PCs have time, and a few moments alone, Liza Brown will show up. A niece of the squire, she is small, plain, and either a budding rogue or ranger. She tells the PCs about Rasita, and how she appeared at the temple about six months ago. Not long after, several recent graves in the village graveyard were disturbed. The squire's aged mother was overcome with grief when Rasita paraded the dead through the town one night as a threat. When Rasita raised her corpse, the squire went berserk and was killed by Rasita and the zombies.
Since then Rasita has been demanding tribute. When the Mayor refused, the zombies attacked in the night. When the sheriff went to arrest her he also vanished only to start making unexpected midnight patrols.
While Rasita rarely leaves her temple in the basement of the burned church, her henchmen Thad and Bonk roam the area taking what they want. There are also at least half a dozen villagers who secretly attend Rasita's services. She is well informed of what goes on in the village.
Liza knows of a hidden tunnel into the temple, explored on a dare when she was very young. She tried to go in to spy on Rasita, but was chased out by a skeleton.
Along the length of the tunnel there are as many as one hundred skeletons, spread out along its half-mile length. It comes into the basement under the stairs which lead up into the ruins behind the old altar.
(Rasita is aware of the secret tunnel, and it was she who dug up the old graves in the churchyard to animate the skeletons which she placed as guards in the tunnel. Her minions are not aware of it.)
Rasita is a coward and a bully. She will threaten and intimidate, but run if it looks like she might lose. Separated from her minions, she will be far less bold, but will seek the means to reassert her dominance at the first opportunity. Because of this characterization, Rasita will very likely survive the adventure; running away to fight another day is her backup plan.
Her primary plan is to use Tischen as a base to found and grow her temple to her god of undeath. She has a vague idea of intimidating the village into cooperating, but she really has not thought it through. Nearby towns will be curious, farmers will flee, telling the story wherever they end up, and random military and police patrols may drop by.
There are half-a-dozen informants in the village who seek to gain Rasita's favor. They believe they are sneaky, but it should not be too difficult to figure out who they are by their smug attitudes. There are also a dozen villagers who would act against Rasita, but fear for the lives of their families and neighbors.
The players should try to figure out a workable plan to deal with Rasita, but if they are struggling, have Liza suggest a stealth-approach of hit and run.
If the players are in need of healing, have Crazy Cooter, the veterinarian, offer some horse salve. It restores 1hp/hr up to 1d8 per application, with no more than one application in a 24 hour period offering any benefit. He has twelve doses.
Rasita has only Animate Dead as her 3rd level spell, with Hold Person taking up a second level slot. All of her 1st level slots are Cute Light Wounds. She spontaneously casts Inflict spells and bolsters undead with her turning ability. She has Undeath and Fear as her domains.
Rasita should be encountered again when the party reaches level 3, but that is another adventure!