the murder nerds

It turns out having a kid or two massively inhibits your ability to update your blog. Who knew?

Anyway, here’s the story of my new mini campaign: Salt in the Wound.

Level 1: The Salzinwuun Redemption

Six people are taken prisoner, and transported across the world to the island city of Salzinwuun. They are:

• Graham (Mike): half-Elf fighter from the Sword Coast. When not hitting things, enjoys a good book, especially those containing forbidden knowledge.

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  Mother Scruff (Rob): tabaxi rogue from somewhere unspecified, but foreign-sounding. Desperate to get home to her kittens, also overly-fond of shiny objects.

• Overkill (Luke): minotaur pugilist. Never speaks of his background, prefers punching things. Also enjoys goring things with his horns.
• Throbbing Gristle (Gabe): goblin barbarian sorcerer. Is convinced he is a great warrior, tends to vomit poison or summon spirits when he enters his ‘battle trance’. Most likely sold to slavers by his own tribe.
• Leveel (Matt): lizardfolk cleric of Semaunya. Lizard of few words, but capable of bringing someone back from the very brink of death. Or turning them into a nice hat.
• Eddard ‘Captain Monty’ Montgomery (NPC): human sailor/pirate. Excellent sailor, terrible pirate. Not the first time he’s been in a prison.

The characters were sold to a Mr Norton, and put to work in his compound. The work was hard, punishment was swift, and the guards – led by Captain Hadley – were brutal. It seemed their lives would end in this prison, until one day the city was shaken by…something. But something that caused chaos, and allowed them to escape.

Spoilers: that something was the Tarassque tail getting loose and trashing the place. Obviously I’ve spoiled the surprise by my previous posts, but hopefully for the players it was a cool moment.

Level 2: Freedom is the Only Way

The party was free, but not really. With their slave collars still on (and seemingly no physical way of removing them), it was only a matter of time before they were re-captured and sold to the next bastard.

Luckily Monty knew a guy, and this guy just needed a few favours doing…

The intention with these 2 adventures was twofold: get the character the level 3 fairly quickly (because level 2 is awful), and give them a brief introduction to the city and the island.

In Town: Find the Goblin King

While the goblin in the city were citizens, and followed the laws the same as most other people, they always had their own figurehead – the goblin king. But it seems that he had gone missing a few days ago, throwing the city’s goblins into chaos. …well, more chaos than usual.

The party investigated his disappearance, which took them all across town, and into contact (and conflict) with some of the city’s other characters, including the Bugbear Chief and Hobgoblin Lord.

Eventually the group found the king: betrayed by his closest advisor, he was being held in a house in the northern part of town, guarded by Bugbears. Violence and justice was dispensed, and the king was saved.

This was my adaptation of M T Black’s King of Cats (yes, I’ve done it before). I didn’t want talking cats, rats and dogs in my city, so I just changed the characters to be goblinoids. It worked pretty well!

Out of Town: We’re Going on a Bear Manticore Hunt

This adventure was far simpler than the city-based one: escort a noble to the far side of the island and slay a ferocious beast for his collection. The journey would take several days, and involved:

• A nest of vipers in the long grass of the southern island
• Crossing the deep, murky ‘Red River’
• An ambush by Bullywugs while the party were stuck in the mud on the river bank
• Avoiding a wounded ankylosaurus in the deep, dark jungle
• Getting caught in a ferocious storm near the coast
• Tiptoeing into a cave, home of the terrible beast

Yes, I made the d&d version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

And then a fight with the manticore. Which had the potential of going really badly – the rogue and sorcerer sneaked in, while the others waited outside. But it all worked out in the end – it’s amazing how much damage 5 level 2 characters can dish out once they put their minds to it.

Level 3-4: Jobs Board

The party had now (illegally) earned their freedom, and Monty had good news for them: he’d won a ship in a game of cards! Unfortunately, it was a bit of fixer-upper, and they’d need a few thousand gold before it was seaworthy. So it was time to get out there, and find paying work.

Luckily this city had a jobs board, where mercenaries adventurers could find a whole variety of work suited to their particular skillset…

I’ll pick up the plot next time, as our adventurers set out to earn and find enough gold to fix their ship and get off this forsaken island.