Seek the Keep

Seek the Keep

Characters have random encounters with raiders when they enter Greenest, but this one should be their first mission of the episode. It begins when a terrified human family (father, mother, and three young children) dash across their path, hounded by eight kobolds.

Without warning, five humans dash out from between two buildings on your left. A limping man and three young children race across the street into more shadows, and a woman carrying a round shield and a broken spear turns and faces back in the direction from which they came. Eight kobolds stream out of the alley on the family’s heels and fan out around the woman, who looks determined to delay the creatures for as long as possible.

The woman is Linan Swift, and her husband is Cuth. Linan is a commoner but with 8 hit points. Her attack with the spear is +2 to hit for 1d6 piercing damage. Her husband is down to 2 hit points from an earlier fight. The children move at speed 20. They can be carried, but a character carrying a child has disadvantage on attack rolls and cannot wield a two-handed weapon.

Unless characters interfere, the kobolds assume the characters are cultists and ignore them to concentrate on killing the woman first, her family second. Assuming characters intervene and save the family, Linan explains that they must make their way to the keep (at area 1 it’s the only safe place in Greenest. The raiders haven’t set up an effective cordon around the keep, so it’s still possible to move through the front gate—but not for long.

To reach the keep, the characters must make it past three groups of raiders. A group consists of 1d6 kobolds and 1d4 cultists. If the group contains six kobolds, one is a winged kobold (urd).

Characters can fight these enemies, sneak past them, retreat to avoid them entirely, or try something clever such as bluffing. If they fight, run the combat normally. When enemies must make a check to notice sneaking or bluffing, make a check with advantage for the group.

Each time the characters retreat from an enemy group to avoid it, they run into d6 more townsfolk who are trying to reach the keep. For every four additional townsfolk in tow, the group must move past one more enemy group to reach the keep.

At the keep, the characters are the last group through the gate before it is closed and barred. After characters enter the keep, raiders encircle it in increasing numbers.

Rewards. Besides earning experience points (XP) for raiders fought on the way to the keep, characters earn a bonus of 50 XP per nonplayer character (NPC) brought alive into the keep. Divide this bonus equally among the party members.