# Homelands



## Grandpa (Jan 26, 2002)

I wanted to try writing a story hour for my upcoming campaign. The campaign is only half-prepared but my buddies had me run a quick encounter for them in it last night. I'm just storing my (poorly written) notes on this pseudo-adventure on the boards while I get things ready for the real thing...


*Homelands* 
I'll keep this brief as I can and edit later: the hook of the campaign _world_ is that the gods live on the same plane as the player races, and the other planes have not been formed. The earth is heavily influenced by their power, and it is largely a wild, unpredictable place. The player races have developed in the cracks of these events, where there are less god-level activities occurring.

The hook of the _campaign_ is that the gods have been disappearing in the past few centuries (I'm still figuring out the timeline), leaving their followers in the dark. Though clerics have their prayers answered, a veil prevents any true communication with their deities. No one (not even other gods) understands the nature of these events.

The player races now have room to begin exploring the world leftover by the gods. They can expect to see amazing cities, beasts, forests, mountains, etc., etc. I'm going for the mix of high fantasy in a very touchable, real world.

The players are beginning near a gorge at the foot of Ura Mos, the largest mountain in this world of gods. Ura Mos is surrounded by Imiel, a large forest. The gorge is named Mos Gorge and skirts the town of Memmet where the players will begin. Memmet is a very small hunting village that has been around for several generations. It is built upon some ruins on the edge of the gorge, and has a strange statue in its center that some say protect the town from the eyes of evil.

About 2-hours NW of Memmet is a stronghold named Bridgekeep. Bridgekeep is in the process of being built to protect the only Bridge that crosses Mos Gorge. The leader there, Broven, has expressed interest in the PCs to join his forces, but expects them to "prove themselves" first.

I haven't DM'd more than a single module before and I'm nervous about beginning my job as a DM again, but my players don't give a damn.  They came over to "mess around" with D&D after our normal gaming night fell through, and the pushed me into a mini-encounter in my incomplete campaign setting. I'm still recovering from my nervousness at this very moment.

I don't even know the player's names yet, so I'll make them up:
Strider (Elf Ranger): An elf with a mysterious background. He has lived in Memmet for awhile, but not many know about him.
Tuck (Human Druid): Think Friar Tuck, but as a druid. He's chubby, and his entangle spell is mean!
Ziyi (Human Monk(?)): This character wasn't even fleshed out when we began, so we just make up stats when we needed them.
Lucy (Halfling Rogue): Very predictable rogue stats that likes to "get XP." Heheh.

Disclaimer: The players just wanted to fight, so we skipped the usual planning that usually occurs before a campaign or adventure begins. We didn't bother to go through the hows and whys of their involvement with each other, and everything was made up on the fly.


*"First Encounter"* 
Recently, some cattle have been stolen, and everyone but Lucy the halfling wants to investigate. Lucy has an incredible focus on money alone, and only agrees to join the others when they convince her that they could all be put on Broven's payroll at Bridgekeep if they can show everyone that they solved the missing cattle problem alone.

The party travels to the property of farmer Kroma and easily found the scene of the crime. Kroma's fence was smashed to smithereens, and the corpse of the cow was dragged from its pen out into the woods. As they studied the scene a loud noise cried out from the nearby farmhouse.

"Who's out there?" yelled farmer Kroma. "Show yourselves!"

The party knew that if they were caught investigating, they could be punished by the elders in town for investigating alone! They scrambled behind some nearby trees and attempted to hide, but Tuck couldn't get his girth completely behind the tree. After a minute of silence, an arrow whistled by the druid and farmer Kroma began to ran back to the house shouting, "You cannot hide from me!"

The ranger quickly began to follow the tracks, and the others followed suit. Soon, they heard a bell ringing from the farm, and the sound of dogs barking and heading their way.

Strider and Ziyi ran, following the tracks into the forest, with Tuck and Lucy in tow. They moved along for a bit, but the dogs were closing on them quickly, so Tuck and Lucy stopped to intercept them. Lucy, not knowing what to expect, hid in the shadows of the trees, but Tuck felt comfortable stepping out to confront the dogs.

The dogs lightened up as they saw the druid. They were familiar with Tuck, and barked happily when he held his hands out to them. The first dog, Grip, sniffed the ranger while the second, Buford, ran ahead.

After Tuck and Lucy rejoined Strider and Ziyi with the dogs, they all travelled together into the woods. Strider was able to discern a point where the cattle was no longer dragged, but actually carried further into the woods by a huge set of footprints. Whatever they were after was definitely big, and definitely strong. Buford stayed ahead of the party by about 50' as the party travelled further. To help aid the search, Tuck sent his animal friend, an owl, off into the forest to see what it could see.

A few minutes later the owl cried out, and the the trail (and Buford) led them to its location--after travelling downward for awhile, they came to the edge of a 20' cliff. Buford immediately began barking, which rattled the party (who had tried to keep quiet until now).

Assuming that their cover was blown, the party drew their weapons. Lucy the rogue began to creep up to the edge of the cliff to see what Buford was barking at, and heard some movement coming from the edge of the cliff. Near the ledge, Lucy could see a giant campfire below with some cow bones left around a large stick. At the edge, Lucy saw the source of the sounds--an ogre.

The huge beast began climbing up the ridge with little difficulty while Tuck began whispering the first magic of an Entangle spell. The rest of the party was caught somewhat unprepared when two giant hands came over the edge of the ridge, followed by a big, ugly ogre head.

Tuck fired off an entangle spell, and the roots of the nearby trees began to writhe, immediately entangling Buford and encroaching upon the ogre, who seemed un-phased by their presence. The ogre finished moving up the edge of the cliff and revealed himself. He had a large, toothy grin that looked happy to see snacks appear on his doorstep. He then took two steps forward through the writhing plants and crushed Buford with his club. With a yelp and crack of bones, the dog fell.

"Doggy," grunted the ogre between by a few deep chuckles.

Tuck gasped in horror as the rest of the party reacted. Ziyi missed the ogre with a javelin, but Lucy and Strider struck the ogre in the chest with their bows. The ogre reeled in pain and Tuck began twirling his sling.

The ogre turned just in time to be hit again with a well-placed rock to the head. Angered, it began to move, but the writhing roots of the forest trees had managed to grip the ogre's legs. It strained against its bonds, and the sound of roots cracking made the party nervous, but they held onto the ogre tightly.

As the ogre struggled with its bonds, Ziyi, Lucy and Strider attacked again, but the struggling ogre proved too difficult a target. But just as the ogre got a good grip on the roots and turned to face the party again, Tuck followed with another good hit, this time to the mouth of the ogre.

The ogre lost a tooth as its head whipped to the side, but and the giant suddenly looked desperate. It gripped the roots and pulled with all its might. The roots snapped, and the ogre struggled back through the roots to the cliff and dropped over its edge.

The party members maneuvered around the writhing mass of plants while shouting at the druid to remove them. They were able to move to the edge of the cliff, but not get a good enough view to hit the ogre who was on the ground, hurt, but still moving.

The druid finally dispelled the entangle spell, and the plants shrivelled back into the ground. He ran up to the edge of the cliff directly above where the ogre fell, but could not ready an attack before the troll got up and walked straight into the mountainside. The party had never gotten a good enough view of the cliff to know that its burrow was right below them.

The party began to leap off the cliff and close to the troll, but were cautious, not knowing what it would do next. The staggered ogre only had one thing on its mind... escape. It covered its burrow with a large rock and shouted, "go away." The only opening left was a small hole in the corner of the rock.

The party gathered around the rock and taunted the beast. The ogre, sounding absolutely miserable made some scraping noises then shouted, "I sorry! I no eat cows! I go away!" The druid attempted to sense motive, and with a good roll, realized that the ogre was sincere--it didn't think crushing the "doggy" was such a hot idea anymore. The ogre then dropped a torch in the small hole opening to keep any of the party members from crawling in. 

The druid wanted to negotiate at this point and asked that the ogre promise to leave. The ogre told the party it would leave, but the party wanted more. Without evidence that they had defeated the ogre, the party would not be able to confirm that their little encounter took place. Tuck tried to ask for the belongings of the ogre, but only ended up confusing the trapped giant.

Just then, a lightbulb went off in Ziyi's head, and she started pulling grass out of the ground and throwing it on the torch. Lucy and Strider followed suit, and soon smoke began leaking into the ogre's burrow.

Tuck suddenly remembered Buford, who was dying, and let his friends take care of the ogre while he helped the farmer's dog. The ogre began coughing loudly in his den, and punted the torch out of the hole, which the players promptly picked up to continue their smoke-out. The ogre, afraid to face the adventurers, tried rolling gold out of the crack behind the stone but, after minutes of choking, couldn't hack it any longer.

The stone in front of the burrow began to move, and the adventurers jumped into position and readied their weapons. They ogre got the rock out of the way, lept out, and promptly fell flat on its face, unconscious.

Tuck got Buford revived while the party members raided the ogre. They found some stone cups filled with acid, some gold, and a strange, pitch-black doll with red eyes in the ogre den.

Soon, farmer Kroma arrived at the scene with a few more dogs and Tuck revealed all that had happened. Kroma told the party to return to town, and told them that he would take care of the unconscious giant...

...and that's about it. I'm falling asleep. I'll have to proof-read it tomorrow.


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