A Walk in the Park
Welcome again to Masters and Minions, where I strive to give you interesting NPCs and encounters that can be placed easily into your game. Since this week is Go Outside Week, I thought I would come up with an activity to get your players active instead of a regular encounter. For those of you that just want an encounter, you can find a short one at the bottom of this article.
For this activity, your PCs would be on a preverbal treasure hunt searching through a forest for supplies, regents needed for a mystical hermit or local apothecary. Your players would be searching the trails of a local park for these “treasures.” It works best if these treasures are hidden shortly before your players are going to search for them, to insure that they aren’t found by other people or the park’s local animals. You could even modify a map of the park and turn it into a treasure map. These treasures could be almost anything; my favorite choice would be snacks kept in durable plastic bags, or better yet a watertight container. Each real item should have an in-game item tied to it so you know what your PCs have or haven’t collected for the hermit or apothecary.
I f a regular ordinary scavenger hunt through a local park doesn’t sound “adventurous” or has enough D&D flavor then you could spice things up by placing “obstacles” in your player’s path. Now I’m not saying that you should booby trap your local park, because that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, what I am saying is that you leave notes. The notes could say things like “You are routed by a mob of gnolls and must go back the way you came” or “You encounter and defeated a group of orcs and require rest, take a 5 minute break.” If this note idea makes it sound to much like a living board game then maybe you could arm your players with Nerf or squirt guns and then have little cutout orcs for them to have to fight along these paths and if they knock all of them over in so many shots then they can pass otherwise they have to find another way. You shouldn’t block every possible path to a treasure, but if a treasure has multiple paths to it you should block at least half of all the paths to it. You could even get in on this action and patrol the trails “hunting” your players down if they manage to hit you five or so times they vanquish whatever obstacle you are representing but if you manage to hit each of them at least one time they have to begin their scavenger hunt from the beginning or something like that.
Before hiding the treasures or placing notes and other obstacles, you should make sure it’s allowed in your local park – the last thing we want is to accidently cause a bomb scare or otherwise get people in trouble.
Here is a map of a local park I’ve modified in order to mark where treasures could be potentially hidden and where obstacles could be placed. The treasures are marked with orange Xs and the obstacles are marked with brown dots. The places I have chosen have several traits which improve their chances of being found. Most of the hiding places on my map are near landmarks or changes in the trail. The particular hiding places that I favored were near bridges or at the ends of trails, but you should use hiding places that work best for your area.
Invasion of Tiny Terrors
The town of Tallen’s Vale has become overrun by all sorts of fiendish vermin and it’s up to your PCs to cleanse the town of this filth.
The town is infested with at least 20 regular dire rats, 16 advanced fiendish dire rats, and 12 fiendish rat swarms. The majority of the regular dire rats can be found in the various basements of the town, while the fiendish rats can be found wandering the town’s streets, attacking those fool hardy enough to leave their homes.
Disease (Ex)
Filth fever: Bite—injury; save Fort DC 13; onset 1d3 days; frequency 1/day; effect 1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Disease (Ex)
Filth fever: Swarm—injury; save Fort DC 12; onset 1d3 days; frequency 1/day; effect 1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution-based.