Kobold Love: Dungeon Diplomacy! Part 1

Ready to dive into the adventure?

As posted in the adventure plan, Scene 1 is about the PCs getting a prophecy and facing opposition against ultra conservative elements of the dungeon before venturing forth on the surface world.

When the adventure will be published in its final form, there will be a few paragraph that link the introduction of the adventure with the scenes.  That’s the part where the DM is instructed to paraphrase some parts of the Adventure’s background to PCs and explain the setup.

For the purpose of this post, we assume that players know the adventure’s background and are handed out the Prophecy, which goes like this:

The Prophecy (1st draft)

From the darkest solitude rose the Outcasts//Shunned by all, through cycles of starvation and death they thrived//Of the Voice they became the shield and through bravery, achieved acceptance.

Heralds of a new age for the Underworld they be//As champions of blades and silver tongue, in the eyes of  hostile peers they must arise.

Once peace of purpose met, the world of light they shall enter//To where false Hope dares pierce the night, in the home of Fallen Heroes, fate awaits.

Where walls collide waits the Surface Scourge// It, the Champions must stop, its cycle of death broken, its spirit laid to rest.

Only then will peace for dark hearths be found.

(The spelling of Hearths is intentional)

Prophecy Q&A

Once the prophecy has been read. Players are free to discuss it and ask questions to the old Kobold Oracle.  She should answer questions truthfully, if a bit roughly, about the most likely interpretations (skill rolls are unnecessary).

Here are some likely questions:

Who are the outcasts/new champions?

Must I really spell it out? Look in that reflecting pool for a minute. Try not to fall in it and drown.

And who’s the Voice?

(Oracle slaps PC behind the head) That would be me.

What’s this about hostile peers?

Some of our neighbors are violently opposed to the idea of letting some lowly, ugly kobolds such as you go Outside and stir up more trouble.  Silly gits, they’d rather die trying to repel invaders than taking the fight to them.

What kind of opposition are we talking about here?

Orcs, gnolls and other factions of the upper levels have threatened to seek out and exterminate all goblins and kobolds from the caves unless you face them and prove the worthiness of your cause.  Knowing what passes as diplomacy here, that usually means you fighting them.

What if we run away?

(Oracle grabs questioner by ear) I’d much rather live thank you very much you ingrate!  You will have to face up to the prophecy or we will all die, you included.

(Feel free to have PCs who run away say that this would conclude the adventure but they would now be wandering monsters in a random table somewhere)

If we have to face the other factions, do we have allies?

The Kobold and Goblins are on our side, and their support will likely prevent factions-wide conflicts.  But no one will want to face the more powerful champions likely to seek you out… Unless they are convinced of your worth.

What about this thing about false Hope and Fallen Heroes?

There’s a human city called Hope’s Point two days away from here. Chances are, the Fallen Hero is a reference to a place over there and the ’stranger’ should be near it.

This Prophecy is either pure gibberish or a thinly disguised reason to get rid of us!

You are wise beyond your years young ‘un… Maybe you can be seer after the adventurers come back and kill me!

Feel free to improvise around those themes.  Just do not reveal anything about the identity of the Stranger, regardless of the finale you chose (Father, Creator, Avatar of Kobold god…) his identity is a key final plot twist.

Setting up the stage

During the discussions in the Oracle’s Cave, scores of Kobolds and Goblins enter the cave excitedly and run off in the numerous hidden foxholes and small-sized serpentine caves crisscrossing the main cave. If questioned, the terrified humanoids will mention that the faction champions are coming this way to see the oracle and her ‘puny guards’.

If pressed for information (Intimidate/Diplomacy skill roll) the following will be revealed:

DC 13:  The Orcs sent an Eye of Gruumsh with a band of Orc warriors

DC 15: The above and The Ogres sent one of their feared Wyrmling hunters.

DC 17: The above and The Vampire Lords sent a heavily armoured Wight!

DC 19: The above and the Gnoll faction sent in one of their Rangers.

DC 21: All the above and “The Gnoll Ranger is none other than the legendary Gnoll Chieftain named Grak Mankiller!”

The Oracle absolutely refuses to leave for safety unless PCs pledge to remain and face the coming champions, she will retreat from the battle areas and faction champions won’t try to harm her.

Preparing for the opposition

Being part-kobolds, PCs who ask to set up defenses are given a special Encounter Power that abstractly represents the various traps set all over the cave that can be used against the coming hostile forces:

Kobold Trap

Using the ancestral knowledge of kobold trapsmiths, you trigger a fiendish trap on your unwary foe (Player should describe effect)

Encounter, Standard Action

Chose one of:

• Damage, Single target
  
  • Variable damage source (Chose one of: Untyped, Acid, Fire)
  • Range 10
  • Target: One creature
  • Dex or Int +4 vs Ref
  • Hit: 3d8+4 of chosen damage type

• Damage, Multiple Target
  • Variable damage source (Chose one of: Untyped, Acid, Fire)
  • Area Burst (3) within 10 squares
  • Dex or Int +4 vs Ref
  • Hit: 1d10+4 of chosen damage type

• Restraining, Single Target
  • Variable damage source (Chose one of: Untyped, Cold, Poison)
  • Target: One creature
  • Dex or Int +4 vs AC
  • Hit: 2d8+4 of chosen damage type and Secondary Attack on same target vs Fort.
    • Secondary attack Hit: Target Immobilized (Save Ends)

Designer Note: I thought this would be a clever and easy mechanic to allow players to have a taste of koboldy trapmaking without bogging down the game table with designing actual traps and risking Planning  paralysis. (The expanded features of the adventure could offer the option of placing actual traps).  Plus, this should make storytelling players happy to invent crazy-wild trap description.

The Battlemap

Being no artist, I would be tempted to use one of the commercially available maps that depict a cave.  The following from Wizards of the Coast are perfect:

• Mushroom Cave (Hellspike Prison)
• Drow Outpost (Dragon magazine)
• Underground Grotto (Gargantuan Black Dragon)
• Dwarven Outpost (4e D&D mini Starter Set)
• Flooded Ruins (4e D&D starter set)

My personal choice is the Mushroom Cave and that’s the one I would use in playtest.

Should you draw your own, I suggest that you do the following:

• Make the battle area LARGE!  Between 15X20 to 20X30 squares.
• Add Plenty of Cover and Difficult terrain
• Add terrain features like climbable ledges (DC around 17) and such

Up next, The actual monsters and the embedded Skill challenge to whip the onlooking cowardly Kobolds and Goblins into helping the PCs in the fight against overwhelming enemies.

Credits: Steven Helt (Sparked idea of Trap Powers from Ascension of the Drow), Wizards of the Coast (Image)

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Kobold Love: Intro, Background and Summary, Part 1

I’m the type of person who needs to understand a process before tackling it head on.

That’s why this post is more about context and theory than actually writing Kobold Love’s first part.

Bear with me, it will be worth it.

First Impressions are capital

When a DM opens up a D&D adventure booklet, the Introduction, Adventure Background and Summary are the first things that will be read.

While layout, art and gorgeous maps will entice a DM to read the adventure, that first section will, IMHO, make or break the adventure more than any other section.

If you fail to hook the reader within the first paragraph, your adventure will be put away and may never be picked up again.

This section is also the one that sets the tone for the whole adventure, it puts the adventure within the context of a story and gives the DM a rapid overview of what’s going to happen in it.

This makes writing this section a very crucial task that must be tackled with care and blow the reader’s mind away by laying down what the adventure truly is about in the shortest number of words (yeah that’s going to be a challenge for me).

The evolution of the adventure’s introduction

I’m a DM that buys and peruses a lot of published adventures. Ever since the era of the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game, I’ve purchased numerous modules, and copies of Dungeon magazines.

Throughout the years I’ve seen a shift in the way the first part of an adventure was written. In Gary Gygax’s D&D era, published adventures had a few paragraphs of background in the likes of ‘The local Duke requires you to investigate this cave or he’ll jail you all” followed by a short context (A wizard is entombed here and no adventurer ever one came out alive) and sometimes a list of rumours.

Sometime during the evolution of the Dungeon magazine format, the 1st section was divided into the 4 parts that are now common practice in the industry which more or less follow these conventions :

The adventure’s Elevator Pitch, followed with the nuts and bolts of the adventure like what level it was designed for and for how many characters. If the Adventure was published in Dungeon Magazine, it also mentioned if the adventure was setting neutral or specific (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realm, Ebneron, etc). This is usually one or two paragraphs.

The Adventure Background: The backstory of the adventure. It covers the emplacement of the action, the main protagonists, the villain, his plan and the events that lead to the quest/events that will drive the adventure. This takes a few paragraphs and usually fits in a few hundred words, depending on how ‘fluffy’ the adventure is.

The Adventure Summary: One or two paragraph description of what the players will go through during the adventure.

Adventure Hooks: Some adventures provide Hooks, a series of short quests (usually 3 or more) and or motivations to get the PCs involved in the adventure. In D&D 4e, such hooks are often major and minor quests with appropriate XP rewards.

Fluffy vs Old School introductions

From my point of view there currently is 2 schools of thoughts on adventure background design. One, espoused by Paizo Publishing and Dungeon Magazine was to have detailed, rich back stories that involve several organizations and emplacements. Adventure path adventures like Paizo’s Pathfinder and Wizards of the Coast Scales of War are good examples of this.

The other, represented by Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics and Master Dungeon series is much lighter on context and backstory. They provide a quest and/or a villain, a few hooks and that’s often it.

Each type responds to different play styles and needs.

Where are you going with this lecture Phil?

It’s quite simple, I have to chose what ’school’ of adventure Kobold Love’s intro will espouse.

KL-1(like good old time modules) will be written to stand on it’s own as a one shot, one evening adventure (if the DM does not expand it). Furthermore, as all 3rd party D&D 4e adventures, it will be need to be easy to adapt to all settings (including the Point of Lights non-setting) as well as all home brewed world.

Furthermore, it’s a limited scope adventure as I need to keep it rather short so I don’t spend 6 months on it.

So I’m going to write it closer to the old school way. It will feature limited fluff with lot’s of narrative hooks and grey zones to let imaginative DMs some leeway. At the same time, I’ll write enough to let a DM use it as a pick up game and still immerse player in the (half) kobolds’ experience.

Up next, Phil actually writes the adventure’s intro.

Credit: Wolfgang Baur’s Kobold Quarterly you should subscribe! (Image art by Darren Calvert)

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