SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

This was going to be all about Mintarn. It’s what I promised in the previous post.

But things change.

Since then a player has decided to leave the group. Not the one that had expressed doubts and misgivings about roleplaying in general and D&D. I have mixed feelings about this. With the dominant feeling being disappointment I think. Naturally he has been removed from the Facebook Messenger group we have for discussing and organising things to do with the campaign. However I want to leave things open incase they have a change of heart. So unlike the game I left where by reports I had afterwards they humiliated my character before killing him off. I’m going to send the character off on a personal quest. That way if they want to rejoin we can sit down and work out what happened while they were away, and add them back to the group.

I’ve also had a very productive session with Jeff about creating his character for the campaign. He’s going to be playing a ships captain (human ranger) who lost his ship when the crew mutinied against him. So he is now in Mintarn plotting to steal a boat from Angrath. And is currently trying to recruit a crew to help him with this caper.

I think this hook will tempt Jonathan’s character because he is looking for a boat to help him with the adventure hook I seeded with him last session. I also have a hook that will be used with Trixie the gnome that ties in with this.

If they are successful then this opens up the world/ocean considerably. Mind you they will only be getting a keelboat. It’s not massive, something they can operate, and I don’t think over powering (famous last words).

Depending on the choices Jeff’s son makes for his character I might be able to reintroduce the lost dwarf mine hook. Which would be cool.

But that stuff is session 4 planning and beyond! What about session 3?

Well session 3 is all about travelling from Queen’s Cove to Mintarn. The party will be escorting the towns contribution to the tribute that gets paid to the Red Rage of Mintarn.

The party have already accepted the job. Which is good. So at the start of the next session they will join the wagon and a couple of NPC’s to start the 3 to 4 day journey to Mintarn along the coastal road.

I’m going to have the town’s mayor give the party basic adventure’s kits as part payment. The party lost a all that sort of stuff in the shipwreck. So this is a good way to give that back to them I think.

While they are getting ready to set off I’m going to have them get a warning that Sahuagin attacks along the coastal road have been more frequent lately.

And yes at some point along that journey between the two towns the party will be attacked by Sahuagin.

I want this Sahuagin attack to be a hit and run, gorilla warfare type attack. So they will not be fighting to the death. So the plan here is to use a countdown (as detailed in the WOIN system). I’ll probably use 4d6 and a fast result of 4-6 to remove a die from the pool. At the start of each combat round I’ll roll the dice pool. According to the article I link to the average number of rolls is 4. My current leaning is towards 1 Sahuagin per player plus 1. But I can adjust that on the day.

Which reminds me I need to share some advice with the new players when they join. Such as “Anytime you are out numbered the odds are stacked against you.” Sage advice from Matthew Colville to his players.

Back to the encounter. Considering the campaign setting. Sahuagin make perfect sense to be the creatures used. The party were bound to run into them at some point. And they will naturally run into them again, no doubt on several occasions, above and below water. Attacking travellers on a coastal road makes perfect sense for them. They can surprise attack from the sea and escape to the sea and disappear just as quickly.

And slowly the party are getting introduced to the ecology and races of this aquatic island hopping campaign. And yes they will be meeting sea elves (sooner than later), and other races that live under water.

Whilst skimming through the Monster Manual I came across the Slaad (which apparently if I remember correctly a Matt Colville favourite). They look pretty cool. And I like the idea of using them at some point. The fact some of them can shape change is cool, and sparked the idea of having like a Marvel Secret Invasion storyline at some point. Have some of the shape changing Slaad replace key npc characters in an attempt to start or war or something. I even like the idea of one replacing a member of the party!

Another cool thing about the Slaad is how they use hosts to reproduce. When a blue or red Slaad attack they can infect (blue) or lay an egg (red) their target. I like the red Slaad ability because that opens up an alienesq like encounter. When the egg hatches in its host it bursts out of the host as a Slaad tadpole, looking for another host to feed off and eventually grow into a full blown Slaad. But the blue Slaad infection also opens up some interesting story options. Once infected the victim starts to transform into a Slaad. I see this being heavily influenced by the likes of The Fly or Species.

But they are ideas for the future.

Back to session 3. Once the Sahuagin attack has happened, it’s onwards to the capital Mintarn.

At Mintarn depending on the outcome of the attack, the party maybe invited to deliver the tribute to the Red Rage. But it’s the usual town session at this point. And it will end with the party at a dodgy inn/tavern full of the shadier inhabitants of Mintarn ready to meet the new characters in session 4.

I suppose I better end the post there. I’ve outlined the basic structure of the session and it’s encounters. Maybe next time I will talk about Mintarn as promised in the previous session prep post!