Need a 'foreshadowing' encounter for 'Scouring'

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I'll be running WotBS 4e, starting with Scouring, in a few weeks. The party has a nice background, that brings them TO Gate Pass just as the city closes it's gates, to kick of the published portion of the adventure.

I need one more specific combat encounter for the party, perhaps one that foreshadows the coming of the Ragesian army. The party is not familiar with recent events (Drakus death, etc) until they get to Gate Pass, so I'd like to give them a tease prior to arriving and give them a bit of an 'a hah' moment.

Because of the way I will be running Gate Pass, they will be a little lite on XP for the later encounters, So I am using a few "pre encounters" to help me level the playing field. This foreshadowing encounter is to be the final one before they enter the city.

So, any ideas? Is this making sense?

[Here's one: perhaps they notice they are being followed, it turns out by Ragesian Army scouts, who set an ambush about a day out from the city. Some clue on the scouts tips them off that they are army scouts. Inquisitors would be nice, but they'd over power this L1 team unless they were very nerfed]

 

[talarei07]

you could always use the black horse, hunting for mages or just harassing people

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Yeah, not sure why I did not think of that. That is the way I'll go.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I started a campaign with a "foreshadowing" encounter, because one of the players missed the first session.

I gave the players some pre-made characters, all of them arcane users, trying to escape crossing the Ragesian mountains towards Dassen.

Then, they are ambused by the inquisitors, essentially doing an enhanced version of the last encounter of "Scouring" all by their lonesome... it was a massacre.

Kinda like a prologue chapter from a Song of Ice and Fire book!

The players were not attached to this one-shot characters and they understood that the purpose was to set the atmosphere of fear and persecution of the campaign.

 

[Rilvar]

Clever, very interesting idea. I may have to steal this I'm starting to plan up for the start of this campaign, right now my idea was to have a sort of pre-adventure, possibly starting at level "0" that mostly focuses on story and background development. It seems WotBS starts off running, which leaves one of my favorite elements of a new campaign: the humble beginnings in a quiet part of the world where the heroes stumble upon the whisper of greater things to come.