Looking for a war-themed low-level adventure or ideas

I am looking for an adventure for low-level characters in which the players experience a few days of a war. I could invent one on my own, but if anybody knows of an adventure already published in publications like Dungeon or EN5sider, I'd gladly get some ideas from that.

The purpose is for a new D&D 5E campaign using the EN Publishing ZEITGEIST Adventure Path. As the 5th edition version starts at level 3, and a few years after a war, I was thinking of playing an introductory adventure in which the players are a company of soldiers on the Island at the Axis of the World, fighting a losing war against the Danorans. That would introduce the players to the world, and establish a background of how they ended up becoming constables for the Royal Homeland Constabulary. It would also make the return to that island more poignant.

Right now I can only think of a few skirmishes, maybe involving the strange reality shift effects on the island, maybe trying to flee from the island. But what I don't have is a good plot. So I was thinking that maybe somebody already wrote an adventure in which the players are a company of soldiers, and I could borrow some plotlines. Any ideas?

Have you looked at EN Publishing's first Adventure Path 'War of the Burning Sky'?

In the first adventure you start in the middle of a war, trying to get out of a city under attack. It shouldn't be difficult to adapt.

Jhaelen said:

Have you looked at EN Publishing's first Adventure Path 'War of the Burning Sky'?

In the first adventure you start in the middle of a war, trying to get out of a city under attack. It shouldn't be difficult to adapt.

Click to expand...

Thank you! That is pretty much what I was looking for, and I even had the pdf in a forgotten corner of my hard drive.

What do you mean by 'get caught in a war'? Do the PCs discover two armies in their back yard facing off against each other? Are they supposed to pick a fight with soldiers? Are some soldiers going to pick a fight with them? Are the village oxen being forced-sold so the soldiers can eat them for dinner tonight?
IRL, for many people, they knew there was a war on because somebody else's soldiers marched by on their way to someplace else (such as besieging the local baron's castle or occupying an important town).

I imagine the players being a squad of raw recruits fighting for one side in a war, the side that will eventually lose that war (Risur). As the war is over an archipelago, the end of that adventure would consist of the players fleeing the advancing enemy troops towards the beach where they can be evacuated. But that isn't enough plot material to get from level 1 to level 3. So maybe they are first sent out as scouts to recover something, like some artifact in an abandoned temple, or enemy battle plans through infiltration of an enemy camp. I am looking for some ideas to flesh this out.

In the plot of the first adventure of the Zeitgeist Adventure Path the players will then return to that island, which is probably more interesting than going to an island that means nothing to them.