#road encounter

[dailyadventureprompts]

Encounter: Tossup on the Tollroad

Artsource

Setup: The party are travelling either by themselves or as guards for some caravan, making their way along an old road widely known to have fallen into disrepair thanks to the local lord's mismanagement.

What a surprise then when the party approach an old fortified toll house and discover it garrisoned with troops in the lord's livery, who are now expecting them to pay exorbitant fees for the privilege of crossing into the lord's domain.

The toll collectors are beligerant and one or two even appear drunk. Not paying their toll ads days, maybe weeks to the party's journey, and crossing overland will not only be slow going, but dangerous, as monsters have been known to be creeping back into the region from the wilderness (again, due to the lord's mismanagement).

Challenges & Complications:

Plenty of folks call tollgates "highway robbery" but in this instance it's far more literal. The garrison are infact a group of bandits who have laid their hands on some of his soldier's uniforms, or fashioned crude imitations. The ones interacting with the party have mostly legitimate looking outfits, but those standing back have increasingly flimsy disguises which a perceptive character might notice.

The bandits demand to inspect packs and cargo for "contraband" as a means of seeing whether the party is worth robbing beyond paying their hiked up crossing fee. If one of them finds something good, they make a quick signal to the ones on the battlements which tells them to drop the portcullis after the travellers are through, cutting off their escape before launching their attack.

More than a couple merchants have fallen victim to the ruse already, and the party may notice the their wagons and pack animals tucked away, some of the former showing signs of struggle. The contents of these wagons are sitting inside the fortress waiting to be fenced, meaning a party that defeats the bandits may have stumbled into a small fortune of trade goods, as well as mementos, messages in need of delivery. My advice is to cram this treasure-drop full of quest hooks.

Selling the goods may get the party accused of banditry themselves, turning a potential payday into a brush with the law.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Ally: Embry & Asher of the Royal Commission

artsource

It's a lonely life being a cartographer in service to the crown, but Embry Mharkos wouldn't trade it for anything. Tasked with sketching out the region's peaks, river systems, and outlying settlements, he'll gladly join the party for a chance to see the sights. In addition to picking up the bill for provisions and pointing them towards points of gossip,  Embry will take over the logistics of running the party’s camp and use his geographical knowledge to help plan routes through the wilds.

Before you ask, yes, the dog has guild accreditation. What are you going to do about it? In reality, Embry used to travel with a man named Ashar, a senior surveyor and rather unplesant drunk who fudged his findings and took a rather predictable fall off a cliff after failing to secure his belaying line. Embry was just going to report his death to the commission field office when a random stray began following him through town. Thinking about all the provisions TWO paychecks could provide, he claimed to be taking over paperwork for his old partner and started forging Ashar's already illegible signature. He doesn't really think of it as lying, Asher's been with him far longer than the old man was, and he makes for a much better conversation.

Adventure Hooks:

Knowing the party for the dungeon delving thrillseekers they are, one of the first places the cartographer is going to point them towards one of the most impressive local delves: The skeleton of an ancient dragon half impaled on the peaks of a nearby mountain.

There's an isolated settlement of orcs Embry has wanted to make contact with for a while, since they've had decades to map the territory's outermost wilderness. Sadly last time he got close he made a rather bad impression on one of their hunting parties, who thought his scouting the precursor to some kind of attack on their territory. Perhaps the party can help him smooth things out, maybe by making some kind of gift to the village elders?

One night Asher starts barking and making a general racket, going as far as to drag one of the party out of their tent by the sleeping bag before running off into the darkness. The source of his distress? The distant cries of a fellow traveller bound to the trunk of a tree, left to die of exposure by a cult operating out of a nearby village. Asher was nearly sacrificed by the cult when he was a pup, and has gained a sixth sense when it comes to detecting their influence.

After the party have gotten to know him a bit (or gotten nosey with the coded letters he's always writing in addition to his usual map sketches), he'll reveal to them that he's been on a secret mission the entire time they've known him: In addition to his duties as a surveyor, Embry is an agent of the local marquess, who's convinced her husband is involved in some kind of scheme and sent him along with a few others to investigate. More than a few of the rumours he's had them check out were pretenses to this spycraft,

[dailyadventureprompts]

My party just hit level 3 and have acquired the deed and portfolio for the accounts of the deceased lord of that manor. They’re heading for a large city to cash it in. I’m drawing a blank on what to throw at them along the way. Help? There’s a classic evil wizard marauding around the countryside/borderlands building up an army of mutants but I’m not sure what to do with all this. Anything you have would be useful 🩷

Alright, I imagine your classic mutant wizard is going to be an antagonist later on, but we want to build up to that reveal so here's three random encounters while you build out the city:

The party run into a caravan that's going the same way as them. Like all folk of the road they're happy to gossip and (along with 3-4 other random plothooks/details/worldbuilding bullshit) they mention seeing strange, misshapen creatures creeping around their camp on a previous night. Not only is this a cool ghost story that'll have your party on edge/expecting an attack, it lets you foreshadow the wizard's eventual appearance.

Something that relates to WHY the wizard is building a mutant army. A monument to a past tragedy, a shrine to a god with a story that inspired them, evidence of the ruling power they want to overthrow. Have an unrelated regional monster hanging out around it so the encounter pulls double duty as both challenge and world building.

A little scene Detail the environment surrounding the city, tell us about the local region, the climate, the economy, the people. You can also have this pull double duty by telling us what's *wrong* in the city, because something is always wrong before the adventurers do something about it. Critically, this should have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WIZARD, because you need something for the party to be doing right now while you're still building up the antagonist.