SOLO D&D 5E 2014: Adventures in the Western Isles

[AK_Ambrian]

This is my first attempt at running a solo D&D game. I will be using the D&D 5E 2014 rules (with a few tweaks here and there).

I've been interested in running a solo game for a while but couldn't quite get my head around how it would work being both the player and the game master at the same time! But instead of continuing to put it off I'm just going to give it a go and see what happens!

To generate the characters, locations and quests I am going to use the random tables in the 2014 5E D&D books. I will post which books and pages I used as a record for myself and also so others can see which tools were used just in case they want to try doing something similar.


The adventures will be set in the Forgotten Realms but on some islands far out in the waters of the Trackless Sea. I will call these islands The Western Isles. Because I'll be generating the terrain, dungeons, settlements and kingdoms as I go, I can't set it in an already established part of Faerun because it will clash with the existing geography, borders, politics, factions etc. And I don't want to have to create my own pantheon of gods and background lore for all the races so that's why I'm setting it in the Forgotten Realms instead of creating an entire homebrew setting from scratch.

The three starting player characters are Damian, Ella and Sark. Names were chosen from tables in Xanathar's Guide To Everything pages 175-192.

Three seems like a good number to start with since it's not too many to manage but just enough to survive some battles against larger groups of opponents.

I've chosen a wizard, a cleric and a fighter because these are the classes I'm most familiar with and therefore the easiest to run without having to look up class feature rules all the time.

To start with, I've given each character a flaw to help me role play them. So they might not always do the most sensible thing in certain situations! Hopefully this will make the adventures more interesting! All of these flaws are rolled or chosen from the tables in the 'Backgrounds' section of the 2014 PHB, pages 125-141.

I may add more personality traits, ideals and bonds from the 2014 PHB later on but for now these flaws give me just enough to get started.

Damian is a human mage (wizard). Flaw: "I'd risk much to uncover a lost bit of knowledge".

Ella is a half-elf priestess (cleric) of Vandria, an Elven goddess of justice and vigilance. Flaw: "I am suspicious of strangers and expect the worse from them".

Sark is a half-orc warrior (fighter). Flaw: "Gold seems like a lot of money to me and I'll do just about anything for more of it".

Names and details about deities in these adventures will be from the online Forgotten Realms wiki, the 2014 PHB's Appendix B (pages 294-286) and also the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide.

Damian mostly uses magic to defend himself. But he is also armed with a dagger.

Ella wears chain mail and carries a scimitar and short bow.

Sark dresses in armor made of animal hides and wields a morning star and shield.

For starting ability scores for our heroes I'll use the standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8 arranged in any order (as listed in the 2014 PHB, page 13).

Then I'll add the ability score increases for each character's race (from the Races section of the 2014 PHB, pages 17-43).


The settlement the characters begin in is called Berenhold. Name also from Xanathar's name tables with 'hold' added on the end. Maybe it was first established by someone named Beren?

To give myself a good starting point to get right into some adventures, I'll say that Berenhold is on the edge of the realm, close to many stretches of lawless and untamed wilderness.

I'm going to start my player characters at level two to give them more of a fighting chance. I'll explain this in the story by saying that because of Berenhold's isolated location, all able-bodied citizens have to take part in regular training with the settlement's militia. So even though our heroes haven't been on any real adventures yet, they have taken part in plenty of mock-fights and battle drills as well as militia patrols in the immediate surroundings of the town.

Okay, ready to begin our first adventure!

 

[AK_Ambrian]

I roll a d12 to determine which season our adventure begins in (1 is early spring, 2 is mid-spring, 3 is late spring etc).

I roll a 7 which means it is early autumn.

I roll a d20 to determine the weather (low is bad, high is good).

I roll a 1 so I'll say this means it's raining heavily and also very windy.

It's a bit of a cliche but let's begin with our main characters Damian, Ella and Sark sitting in Berenhold's tavern, staying out of the bad weather.

The tavern is called The Silver Stag (name obtained by rolling a few times on the Tavern Name Generator, 2014 DMG page 113).

To see what our first adventure will be, I roll a d20 and consult the tables in the section called 'Identify the Party's Goals' on pages 73-74 of the 2014 DMG. I roll a 15.

There are two tables on page 73, one called Dungeon Goals and the other called Wilderness Goals. Consulting both, I feel that the Wilderness Goals result seems more appropriate for our current situation. It says "Discover the fate of a group of missing explorers".

A member of the Berenhold's militia enters the tavern. Seeing our party seated by the fire, he marches quickly over. "You lot are supposed to be on patrol duty today, am I right?". The party nods. "We're just waiting for this storm to clear up before we head out" says Ella.

"Well, yesterday's patrol didn't arrive back last night" says the militiaman. "So we need you to get out there and find out what's happened to them".

The party sighs and begrudgingly get to their feet. "Any idea where they were last seen?" asks Damian.

I roll a d8 to determine which direction the missing patrol was last seen. A 1 will mean north, a 3 will mean east etc. I roll an 8 which means northwest.

"Head north-west and see if you can pick up their trail" says the militia man. "But stop by the guard house first and pick up some rain cloaks to keep the worst of this damn weather off you".

After gathering their rain gear, the party heads to a gate in the town's wall. I roll a d4 to determine how high the walls are (guessing from 5-20 feet) and roll a 2, which means the walls are ten feet high. I'll say the walls are made of stone.

To figure out what kind of terrain lies to the northwest of Berenhold. I roll a d6. 1-2 will mean grassland, 3-4 will mean forest, 5-6 will mean hills. I roll a 4, which means there is a forest to the northwest.

After checking that they have all their weapons and equipment, the party clutch their rain cloaks tight around themselves and set out along a muddy path toward the dark trees.

To see what the party will encounter in the forest, I consult the random encounter tables in Xanathar's Guide To Everything, pages 92-112. I roll a d100 twice on the Forest Encounters for Levels 1-4 table on page 97 and the following results:
70: 1 will-o'-wisp.
59: 1d4 bugbears or 2d4 hobgoblins.

To be continued...