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 next session is going to be an odd session prep wise for me, hopefully.

So far I’ve only had to prepare the adventure hook that the party have decided to nibble on for the next session. It’s a great way to work. Cuts down on the amount of effort for me. Instead of preparing multiple scenes/locations I just need to prepare the one.

Sadly in the next session I know that the party are going to the Ogre’s Hideout Tavern were they will meet the two new players. From three who knows.

To help me out so I don’t forget what secrets,clues and adventure hooks I have active and ready to seed I summarised them in a mind map below.

A couple of the above hooks came about organically from the last session.

In fact the players unknowingly came up with the Gladiator Arena one. They seemed fixated with the arena, I thought afterwards why not? So they will see a poster next session asking for combatants to take part in a “royal rumble” to celebrate the tribute going off to the Red Rage, with the winners getting some magical items, and gold. It will be a none lethal event, if they hit zero HP they are knocked out and removed from the arena.

The Investigate Guard Tower came out of the role play of the Mintarn Guards, and will see the party being hired to investigate why the guards and workmen sent out to bring the guard tower back into active use have not been heard from. I think the party will suspect Sahuagin, and be expecting them to attack. But I have an idea to use Ankhegs. However that may change to Orcs Attack!

The Traitor’s Graves and dragon lair came from the Dragon magazine detailing the parts of the town Alhaster I’m using for Mintarn. It just happened that within a day or two of reading the description of the Traitor’s Graves I looked at the maps in the Lazy DM Workbook (LDW), and there was a catacombs map that would be ideal for the abandoned dragons lair. I also think that puzzle I found would fit in nicely here.

Naturally the ship caper sprung up from the discussion with the new players and discussing backgrounds, why they were in Mintarn. This will use just the warehouse from the docks map in the LDW.

The Lost Ironstar Mine will use the Dwarven Excavation map from the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure from the Essentials box set. This as I have mentioned previously is where I’d like to try a skill challenge again. I know I wasn’t happy with the first one I ran in the first session. But maybe this will work better. Ever the optimist.

The Zhentarim hook was seeded in session 2 with Valdor. However he needs a boat to pursue it. Which gives him motive to help out on the boat caper. For this I’m going to use the Tower of Storms map from the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure.

The Red Rage Tribute Delivery will see the Sahuagin attack them whilst at sea, and will show the adventurers new info about them. Like their boats are made from wrecks, and that they ride sharks. I also need to find a dragons lair map.

I suspect that the party will go with the boat caper first. Which with the tavern introduction encounter with the new players should be our session. Remember our sessions are approximately two hours in length.

Mintarn is a rich town for adventure ideas. Even now as I type this post I’m thinking “I could have them go into the sewers of Mintarn” or “how do I get them to the Whale Bone islands?” It would certainly make a nice base for the party. For a short period any way. But the nature of this campaign sees them roaming the high seas from island to island.