Setup
The party have found the temple and chased out the two white dragons from it.
Activities
Shrinking the Temple
Fight off the two young white dragons.
Bjorn will start a ritual by placing some gems around the temple. After 10 minutes of meditating, a radiant light expands from his hands, going from gem to gem, surrounding the temple, before it shrinks into a tiny shape. Bjorn puts it in a glass bottle and closes it. As soon as the glass is opened, the temple will expand quickly and revert to its original form. Be very careful.
The players should now go back to Arcastle.
Othiria Spies
Spies of Orithia have been waiting for the party to find out things about the temple and following them. One night when the group sleeps, they will steal the bottle from whoever is carrying it.
Ask the players for the order of guard, and decide when the spies attack. Casting silence on whoever is in charge? Casting entangle? Just very sneaky?
They wake up without the bottle (if they even pay attention). Follows up a classic case of chase. Nature check to find tracks. Roll determines how long they need to find tracks. They eventually find fresh horse tracks leading towards a river or a sea, whatever is closest.
This leads the players through a small and very quite village. They see a hanging man just out of the village, as a warning of some kind. The man was killed the same day.
Longclaw
Thieves in Longclaw have taken advantage of the guards being called to the capital, and have taken over. They charge a hefty sum to anyone walking by. Their leader, a human named Barick, if suspecting the players of being worth of ransom, will charge his men to capture them (10 humans surrounding the party’s carriage, not a great challenge). As soon as 3 or 4 of his men die, he calls the attack off: “Okay, how about you just pay us 200 gold and we let you pass?”.
As this point, the village bell rings. A man has escaped from the prison set up by the villagers, and is running away. The remaining villagers all start chasing him “Don’t let him escape!”.
He is one of the spies of Othiria, the second one hanging in front of the village. They went to the village to try and get a boat of some sorts to avoid the roads. He and his friend were caught by the villages and imprisoned for having no items of value on them. The other guy was killed since he said he hat no family, so they guessed they wouldn’t get a ransome. This tells the 2nd spy that this is way out of hand. These villagers seems bloodlust. He will give back his stuff to the party in exchange for being let go, no charges. He just lost his brother, and just wants to bring him home for a proper funeral...
He has hidden his things in a cave nearby. When they arrive there, his horse is dead, as if one half was eaten off by something giant… And out of the cave come out 2 Hill Giants (CR5, 5’400xp). The guy’s loot is in the cave.
The Caravans
If required from a time standpoint, have the players meet 20 caravans of people in not great condition going direction north, presumably running away from the orcs ravaging the countryside. A women with a baby in her arms says “all hope is lost” as she has lost her father and elder son to an orc attack on her village. RP stuff.
Arcastle
After much work, the party can finally see Arcastle in the distance. They will arrive in the castle, go and see the king.
Richard is waiting for the party at the gates. He heard of their arrival from an outpost. He spent the last 2 weeks fighting off orc attacks, clearing out the area and protecting the villages nearby. Most people have left the villages for the guarded cities, which is a big problem for food production. 90% of people of the kingdom work in villages and in agriculture.
100 knights from Rivandol have also arrived, sent by the Pyre family.
Set up the setback for the next Arc, or side quest.
Next Session
- Run to Othiria, find out why they wanted the temple
- Find a solution for the “wedding”
- For wolf: Mission from Bjorn to learn more about Sorcerers. Contacts Hilde and says “If you happen to go to Othiria, please check X in Y”
- Hilde wants to find a Map of Othiria before leaving