I’m running the adventure I wrote for kids for my sister and her two kids (6 and 12), and my wife.
My niece (6) is playing a tabaxi fighter with a greatsword and a fluffy dress, modeled initially after Princess Peach. She’s a Princess of a small kingdom whose king and queen have been missing since she was a small kitten. Her name is Lizzie.
My nephew (12) is playing an elf barbarian with a greataxe. He’s from a warm/temperate coastal forest that turns to brackish swamp as it goes west. His name is Moglu.
My sister is playing a custom “Tree Grung” fighter with a sword and shield, loosely modeled after Glenn from Chrono Trigger. She may switch to a different class as she gets a feel for the game, the important thing being that she is a knight. She’s from the western coastal swamp adjacent to the elf’s home forest. We named him Sir Fernando.
My wife is playing a water genasi from the same swampland, who is a (eventually spirits) bard. Swamp witch vibes, with a very Stevie Nicks aesthetic. She is called Ondine.
The adventure starts in a cantina looking out over the coastal cliffs on the southeastern coast, in the port city of Firenz, in the province of La Sombra, which is the southernmost province of the Skjaldbakr Archipelago, often called The Turtle. The Turtle rests at a great crosswinds, where ships from across the known world come and rest on their journeys.
As such the islands of the Turtle, and especially its main island, and most especially its three great port cities, are awash with the folk of every part of the world, both visiting and living permanently.
So too, Maria’s Cantina, when it’s busy. At the start of our story the place is quite busy, so much so that four travelers find themselves at a table together, having never met one another, eating their spiced porridge with tropical fruit and drinking a local breakfast drink made of coffee, chocolate, spices, and nut milk. (I always describe the food and drink in a place in my games, as well as the local flora and fauna and topography)
They are offered a job, which involves swearing an oath of silence on the particulars of the job, especially should they choose not to continue employment. Their new employer leads them to the Mercado in the center of town, and I describe to them the revelry of the Festival of The Nine Moons which happens once a few decades, which is a mix of pre-christian wintertime holiday traditions and day of the dead traditions, with masks and painted faces and costumes, honoring of the dead, going round to the houses of the wealthy singing songs and being treated as honored guests if the wealthy host doesn't want trouble, and other stuff. Also, a lot of "bastards" are conceived during the festival as normal boundaries of class and culture are undone while everyone is masked.
In the Mercado, Diego (the employer) begins to explain the job, describing a vault under the city, as well as describing the political situation in La Sombra, and the Turtle as a whole, the two rival empires that have laid claim to parts of the archipelago and their very different natures, and how precarious the independence of La Sombra really is.
The job is to recover a legendary weapon known as The Silver Spear from a vault at the center of a great labyrinth. To do so, they need to aquire three keys, one of which is already in Diego's possession. As he shows them the key, a long silver feather, it is suddenly snatched from his hand by the beak of a enormous black swan! The mercado is awash in white geese that seem to be following the giant swan, and stealing whatever they can get their beaks on, taunting shoppers and sellers alike, chasing passersby, and generally sowing chaos. Initiative!
I've run this several times before, so this time I added a bit with the Black Swan where she is revealed to be an archfey. The swan and geese have always been polymorphed quicklings playing a prank, but this time they are lead by a powerful and ancient power. Ondine had thrown quite a few insults and taunts in the fight, and was also the first to realise what they were actually dealing with, which meant she was quite worried about how her insults would be taken. The Swan Queen ran on the air up to her face, her black hair making a shadowy cowl around their heads, removed her black wooden mask, whispered something for Ondine's ears alone, and kissed her, laughing and running to the top of a nearby wall in a blur. Then the quicklings revealed that they bore gifts for those who took the prank with grace, after fighting back, which meant the PCs and assorted unnamed NPCs. Each was given a golden apple that "when eaten will fill your belly, heal your hurts, and lift your spirits", with a silver acorn where a stem should be, that "when crushed in your hand will emit true daylight as a First Dawn. Lastly, they received a riddle that seems to hold clues to their mission. We ended there, and I announced that they gained a level.
Everyone had a great time. My neice was hilarious and figured things out very quickly. Her brother had watched a lot of dnd content before, so he had anidea of what to expect, as did my sister.
Each of them had really funny moments of characterization and responded "seriously" to the notion of being these characters in this world. Hopefully the next session won't be too far away!
