Sand Raiders is a short adventure for 1st-level characters, ideal for introducing the world of Athas to your players. The heroes are gathered at the small trading town of Altaruk in the Tablelands. You can begin the session by asking the players to introduce their characters and explain how they came to Altaruk.
Read:
Soon after you arrive, a fierce sandstorm blows over the town. The following day, a ragged House Wavir caravan crawls through the town gates, reporting that one of its wagons has gone missing with valuable cargo aboard. The head of the Wavir trade post in Altaruk, a Balican dwarf named Rhotan Vor, offers a reward of 100 gp to the group that finds the lost wagon and retrieves its cargo of grain, wine, and wood. You and your companions form into a search party. A few miles outside town, you stumble across a portion of the wagon’s tracks not buried by the previous day’s storm.
In this adventure, the characters first encounter a band of silt runners lying in wait for anyone looking for the wagon. Later, when the characters arrive at the wreckage of the wagon, they meet a pack of fierce kruthiks. Furrows in the sand lead from the wrecked wagon to a ruined watchtower. There, the adventurers discover the silt runners hoarding the cargo in the cellars below.