Putting together an intro Darksun adventure

[Nork]

I'm thinking about putting together an introductory Darksun adventure. I'm thinking of doing essentially a variation on the A Little Knowledge adventure from the first box.

It needs to impress upon the players what the world of Darksun is like.

Critisism and feedback is welcome (and hoped for). This is the general outline that I've got so far:

The players will begin the adventure as slaves being transported across the desert wastes.
(This is to provide an easy reason for the players to be in the same place and work together, and to let the adventure itself be the reason they form into a party). The caravan is running out of water, the players can use some skills to collect the information that the last watering hole the caravan reached was poisoned, and that they have altered their course to try and reach an alternate watering hole. If the players get any successes gathering info, they hear about a map. They are nearly out of water, and the slaves the caravan guards have stopped watering the cheaper labor slaves, and severely cut the water rations for the skilled slaves (like the players).

The caravan will be attacked and captured by a tribe of elven raiders that have a powerful defiler. The players won't fight, they will observe (being shackled will prevent them). The raiders will pillage the caravan, celebrating the victory with little sorrow for their losses (Athas elves live in the moment, dying is just something that happens). As part of the celebration the leader of the elves decides to pretend in jest that he is the sorcerer king Kalak of Tyr. He forces the captives to build a Ziggurat to his glory out of sand, and forces others to fight in gladiatorial combat to the death like they were in the arena in Tyr. The elves think this is hilarious and great fun. (This is the first encounter of the adventure, and the elf leader happens to 'by chance' put the players together as a single gladiatorial team. Any player that refuses to fight is told that that it isn't an option, and if they still refuse, they are shot dead on the spot by the elves and the player may pick a new character, who is another one of the prisoners who is put on the team to replace the dead character. Athas is a harsh mad-max like world and life is cheap. Any character concept that has a role-playing problem with a setting like that needs to be weeded out right away. Paladins never existed in the setting, because a paladin wouldn't last a day in the setting. Not everyone is evil, but everyone will do what they need to do to survive.)

After the players fight and defeat another team, the elf leader rewards them by allowing them loot one of the things the elves didn't want (i.e. haven't looted already and loaded onto their kanks) from the caravan, as they might need them if they are still alive when the elves have become bored with them. (players should look for things like water skins, clothes, food, etc. If it isn't clear to the players they need to be looking for stuff to help them survive, or not sure what they need, step in and explain that their character would know what they need to find). As the elves are continuing their festivities, and are preparing for the next round of matches for their gladiatorial contest, an elven runner sprints in and shouts information. The leader curses, and then shouts an order. The elves instantly drop what they are doing, echo the order, and then as one sprint off into the wastes. The players can then hear the droning of wasps. They can then see giant black wasps approaching, drawn to the carnage of the caravan. The wasps begin to attack, stinging people and carrying them off (a nature check will let a player know that the victims will be paralyzed and taken back to a nest and implanted with eggs, similar to a tarantula hawk wasp). This starts a skill challenge where the players need to grab as many supplies as they can (which they should have an idea of what they want to grab at this point), and then escape into the desert (they can roll to search for supplies or to escape and failures in either count towards failing the overall skill challenge, making them need to balance scavenging vs escaping). Failing the skill challenge results in a wasp stinging and attempting to carry one of the players off. This triggers an easy skill challenge where the players roll to wrest the player from the clutches of the wasp. In the unlikely event that this second skill challenge is failed, the player is carried off to a horrible death, and the player can select a new character as another person fleeing the caravan who helped them try and free the character.

When the players finally get free of the above skill challenge, they are told they were able to escape the 'main body' of the wasp swarm, but a smaller group of wasps have broken off and followed them. The players then fight the wasps. This is the second encounter of the adventure. If a character was almost carried away by a wasp in the pervious skill challenge, that character is slowed for the encounter.

The players then need to figure out where to go at this point. Maybe they looted the map they heard about, or they need to justify knowledge skills that would let them where a place to go is, or they can figure out what the heading of the caravan had been. Regardless of where they head, they will be heading towards a water source (as their characters know they will die otherwise). The players then enter into a set of endurance skill checks, that is made easier or shorter based on how successful they were at gathering supplies. Failures take healing surges. Keep track of the healing surges lost due to this. The goal is to get them low on healing surges.

The players eventually make their way through the wastes to the welcome sight of the greenery and vegetation of an oasis. The characters should be informed that they know oasis are usually dangerous places to linger as water is scarce. The oasis turns out to be eerily quiet. As they approach the oasis they see the corpse of some nasty desert creature of some sort. Inspection doesn't revel any injuries, and appropriate skill checks indicate that it was poisoned. The players can enter into a knowledge skill challenge. They need to figure out that it was the elves that poisoned the water source (they poisoned most of the water sources to weaken caravans passing through the area), and they need to figure out that elves rarely poison water sources with poisons that don't have nearby antidotes, and they need to identify the poison and then find what they need locally to make the antidote.

If they are successful in the skill challenge and prepare some antidote to purify some water, just as they are ready to use it, they are ambushed by other survivors from the caravan that leap out from the underbrush where they have been spying from. This the third encounter of the adventure. The other survivors are not interesting in sharing and want the secret of the antidote for themselves. It would take some really impressive diplomacy or intimidation to keep them from attacking. The players will hopefully be running very low on healing surges from the endurance checks at this point, to make the fight feel desperate. Once the players win, they can drink the water, and recover some healing surges they lost (unless they are doing well on healing surges, at which point they don't recover any).

If the players fail the skill challenge to discover the antidote, then they need to find an alternate water source. A little bit of searching near the oasis lets them discover some nasty looking cacti with some desiccated bodies near them. Plants on Athas can be really nasty. As the players try and approach the Cacti, they attack and try and suck out their blood. This is the alternate third fight of the adventure. When they defeat the cactus monsters, they can get some water out of them.

The players need to figure out where to go from here. If they don't have the map and they fought at the oasis, one of the bodies has the map on them. If they fought the cacti, then the desiccated bodies were survivors from the caravan and one of them has the map on them.

The map indicates the suspected location of a nearby slave tribe village. There really isn't much else they can go to, not without better preparations at least.

When the players reach the slave tribe, they are met by armed members of the tribe. The slave tribe members are cautious, but are not unfriendly towards the players, as they are escaped slaves as well. They are told to behave themselves, and that the tribe will allow them one day of welcome in the village (but not an extended rest), and if they wish to stay longer they must prove themselves of worth to the village. They explain that potential allies are not those who need help to survive. Potential allies are people who are worthy on their own and made powerful by association with others who can survive on their own. If a character has died and hasn't had a chance to be replaced, then that character can be replaced by another survivor that has reached the village.

The players need to enter into an information gathering skill challenge. They need to talk to the various members of the tribe or make observations, to allow them to figure out what they can do to prove themselves to the village. Three possibilities should come out. They only need to do one, and its the fourth encounter of the adventure.

First option. A mated pair of dangerous predatory desert monsters live nearby. They would need to track them down and kill them. An encounter with two elite monsters. The hides and bones provide useful material for making weapons and armor.

Second option. There is a nearby ruin that nobody has come back alive from investigating. The players go, its an ancient defilers ruin and trapped. Overcome the traps and recover a cache of a few metal artifacts and bring them back to the village.

Third option. A gith scouting party has been recently spotted nearby. The village leader is preparing to put together a war band to hunt them down and drive them off the next day. If the players beat them to the punch and kill all the gith it should impress the village.


The end result of the adventure is the party being accepted by the slave tribe and allowed to stay as allies, and either be part of the tribe or to work at gathering supplies until they are ready to set out to travel toward Tyr.

 

[Spatula]

Interesting, but it starts off too set in stone for my tastes. The players start as slaves (cool). Then their caravan gets attacked and they are forced to watch. Then the elves have a party and they are forced to watch. Then they are forced into a gladatorial match or killed. Then they are forced to flee from the wasps. It's a long list of things that happen to the players without any allowance for what the players might do in response.

Players in captivity are wily. They will generally do everything in their power to escape at the first opportunity. Being told to sit still and be quiet until they can make an actual decision... down the road somewhere... maybe, will probably not be very fun for them.

 

[Nork]

I can see the concerns with it being too 'on rails', as railroaded plots can be bad. If you've got some ideas of how to open it up a little, I'd be glad to hear them. That being said, I put the early part of the adventure a bit on rails for a few reasons. First of all, players being introduced to Darksun need to get the "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want" chip knocked off their shoulder. Second of all, it is an intro adventure, it needs to be a bit on rails to let the players see how the world works. The adventure also opens up a bit as it progresses as well.

In Darksun, if you fight the power, the power fights you. If you picked a fight from a position of weakness, you are going to get killed, brutalized, or forced to do something you don't want to do.

The usual player mentality of "I'm a slave -> I don't want to be a slave -> come up with a weak rationalization to RAWR ROLL DICE! -> I should be free because I RAWR ROLLED DICE!" just doesn't fly in Darksun, and they are going to get slapped down. They need to collect up their little victories first, before they can try something big.

Up until the wasp attack, there really are not any good chances to make an escape. However, there are good chances to get small victories like gathering information, or useful supplies.

I suppose including the illusion of choice of allowing them to break free during the attack might work, but frankly, the probability of them doing something idiotic like trying to fight the elves or running off into the desert with no supplies is also pretty high.

 

[Gloomshroud]

I can see the concerns with it being too 'on rails', as railroaded plots can be bad. If you've got some ideas of how to open it up a little, I'd be glad to hear them. That being said, I put the early part of the adventure a bit on rails for a few reasons. First of all, players being introduced to Darksun need to get the "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want" chip knocked off their shoulder. Second of all, it is an intro adventure, it needs to be a bit on rails to let the players see how the world works. The adventure also opens up a bit as it progresses as well.

In Darksun, if you fight the power, the power fights you. If you picked a fight from a position of weakness, you are going to get killed, brutalized, or forced to do something you don't want to do.

The usual player mentality of "I'm a slave -> I don't want to be a slave -> come up with a weak rationalization to RAWR ROLL DICE! -> I should be free because I RAWR ROLLED DICE!" just doesn't fly in Darksun, and they are going to get slapped down. They need to collect up their little victories first, before they can try something big.

Up until the wasp attack, there really are not any good chances to make an escape. However, there are good chances to get small victories like gathering information, or useful supplies.

I suppose including the illusion of choice of allowing them to break free during the attack might work, but frankly, the probability of them doing something idiotic like trying to fight the elves or running off into the desert with no supplies is also pretty high.

Well, these things all fit your idea of Dark Sun, but this is still a game that requires players. Kill them if you want. Where's the fun then?

 

[anest1s]

OOk some observations...

The caravan is running out of water, the players can use some skills to collect the information that the last watering hole the caravan reached was poisoned, and that they have altered their course to try and reach an alternate watering hole.

Just tell them, they either heard it or not...its not like they have many chatting chances...

Any player that refuses to fight is told that that it isn't an option, and if they still refuse, they are shot dead on the spot by the elves and the player may pick a new character, who is another one of the prisoners who is put on the team to replace the dead character.

You can have the other group attack them first, even if a PC is a hero, NPCs aren't.

(players should look for things like water skins, clothes, food, etc. If it isn't clear to the players they need to be looking for stuff to help them survive, or not sure what they need, step in and explain that their character would know what they need to find)

Why would they need them, if they are stuck with the caravan? The players will try to loot weapons, not food.

This starts a skill challenge where the players need to grab as many supplies as they can (which they should have an idea of what they want to grab at this point), and then escape into the desert (they can roll to search for supplies or to escape and failures in either count towards failing the overall skill challenge, making them need to balance scavenging vs escaping).

No one is gonna collect food while they are in danger of becoming food for wasps...

Failing the skill challenge results in a wasp stinging and attempting to carry one of the players off. This triggers an easy skill challenge where the players roll to wrest the player from the clutches of the wasp. In the unlikely event that this second skill challenge is failed, t

No one is going to stop running to help someone who is getting caught-the players wouldn't do that for a NPC and shouldn't do that for a PC either.

If a character was almost carried away by a wasp in the pervious skill challenge, that character is slowed for the encounter.

I would let him behind, to slow the wasps from reaching.

As they approach the oasis they see the corpse of some nasty desert creature of some sort. Inspection doesn't revel any injuries, and appropriate skill checks indicate that it was poisoned.

I bet they cook it and eat it before they think how it died

If they are successful in the skill challenge and prepare some antidote to purify some water, just as they are ready to use it, they are ambushed by other survivors from the caravan that leap out from the underbrush where they have been spying from.

So other survivors reached the same oasis before the PCs? Thats a bit unrealistic...

As the players try and approach the Cacti,

You assume too much

The map indicates the suspected location of a nearby slave tribe village. There really isn't much else they can go to, not without better preparations at least.

Expect them to sell the map later to slavers- especially if they do the PCs those challenge things

Three possibilities should come out. They only need to do one, and its the fourth encounter of the adventure.

Or the players will try to steal food and run

I would advice you, using that adventure before the players roll for characters. That way you don't care much if they die, or bother making other chars. You can have these "commoners" the players will use in the intro, to meet the actual heroes as they leave the dessert. The players then will be asked to make their character sheets, and the commoners will become NPCs. And here you go, you can run the adventure backwards, as the heroes hunt down the slavers, or the elfs or the wasps.!

Also you can tell the players something "You can roll your character later, lets just play" and let them assume they are playing with their actual character if you want to make it have some suspense...

 

[Vanifae]

I would handle this adventure this way to avoid the on rails issue. One is that I would just tell them any relevant information they should know with the opening monologue. If there is a water shortage tell them and make sure they know how desperate things are from the start. Emphasize the harshness of the environment and the brutality of these slavers with other slaves. Maybe even note that they have felt the harsh lash on occasion if for nothing else to maintain the show of dominance over the slaves.

Then hit them with the elf bandit attack, but make it a desperate struggle that soon turns against the slavers and the players are set free and can grab weapons to defend themselves. Make it a fight they can win, even if it is a short term victory; give them a sense of taking their lives in their own hands. Now I am not sure if the old adventure relied on them getting captured a second time but at this point I would deviate and have the elves leave with what slaves they can carry, goods, and plunder. The only standing survivors being the PCs who can take some time to outfit themselves as is normal for 1st level characters except for survival days.

Have them find a map, maybe on a dying slaver who curses his luck to give them a role playing opportunity. Do they kill this slaver or do they spare his life, do they leave him for carrion beasts and just move on? From this point I would run a skill challenge punctuated by combat encounters for failures and the threat of sun sickness, not too much but definitely push them within an inch of their lives before they find the village.

Once at the village they have to prove themselves trustworthy or at least useful again a skill challenge can cover this as well. If they succeed they can resupply and maybe even use the village as a safe point and then decide on their next course of action. They could be given a task one made easier if they succeed the skill challenge to gain the village trust, but a combat encounter nonetheless of some type. This should be a climactic battle, maybe it seems easy at first and then slavers burst on the scene intent on recapturing the heroes. If they let that slaver go from earlier he/she could be leading them in the assault. Athas is a harsh place and people are just as harsh as the landscape.

If victory is had they can return to the village assured of their place amidst their new peers and can begin their true destiny in earnest. Again you can splice in some skill challenges of survival if you so choose. This is how I would do my introduction adventure based on your earlier design.

 

[TheClone]

Having x characters dying in their first adventure on Athas will frustrate them heavily. And with that much possibility o loosing hit points and surges without any extended rest some of them will die. As a surplus of those dying on those spots you have identified. And as said before, it's really some railroady stuff. You shoudl give the players more choices including those to do extended rests. Vanifae's idea sounds really good to me. You could do an appendix which involves getting rid of the whole tribe. If they have followed the characters almost to the slave village, they will most likely know about the village. A great opportunity to capture some people nobody will miss. So the village needs to to get rid of them. And driving of a whole tribe of elves works for a mini campaign.

If you make the fight against the slaver elves hard, maybe they may capture the players. Then you can do that arena fight. Although the Kalak imposer seems rather silly to me. After the fight you can offer them a chance to flee or something. The wasp idea is cool, but risky. It might prevent the escape of the characters or have some of them killed.

Even if you think you need to guide your players, you can also do so with skill checks or giving them the facts everyone knows about Athas. But you shouldn't force them into doing things. That will never work and you do it.

Once thing that will definitely happen is that the players will try to break free during the slayer attack. they might instantly try to flee, but without supplies they won't get far. They may hide until the elves vanish an try to loot the caravan's remains. they may try to steal from the tribe.