A Hairy Situation - Free D&D 5e Adventure

Another week, another adventure! I will readily admit that a lot of my adventures aren't very serious. This is, frankly, by design. I enjoy writing adventures with an element of comedy to them (which is why I love Boggles, Nilbogs and that whole vein of creature). I do, however, also enjoy pushing my players in a moral sense on occasion. This adventure is a great example of that, as I hope you will realise by the time you reach the epilogue. This can be a really interesting beginning to a longer story, or be played as a dark standalone adventure, and I really hope you enjoy running this for your groups.

The Build Up

Whilst the party are first beginning to investigate a new town/village, let one of the rumours they hear be that a family were attacked nearly a month ago, on a full moon, by some unknown creature. No one survived the attack, and all of the bodies were covered in scratch and bite marks. Every couple of days, in game, have the party overhear worries about the same happening again, this month. The party will, of course, assume a lycanthrope of some variety, and this can be easily confirmed by asking any of the locals what they think - a Werewolf is living somewhere in the area.

If the players ask about the state of the moon during the evenings, let them know that it is nearly full, probably only 2 or 3 days left until the next full moon. The day that the full moon is due, have them approached by a relative/friend of the deceased family.

Another fun rumour to plant is that the woods in the north have recently become more hostile, with dangerous creatures/plants becoming more commonplace.

The Quest

The relative will ask the party if they can investigate the area. He/she will ask the party to stand guard in the town, preferably near their house, and keep watch after dark. In exchange for this service, they will offer to pay the party 100 gold (obviously, the party will want to haggle - the NPC will offer to throw in a family relic, a necklace worth 75 gold).

Regardless of whether or not the party accepts the quest, the next part will happen almost exactly the same (except they won’t get paid).

In the Village at Night

If the party agrees to the job, then they will likely be stood guard outside the relative’s house when this next part happens. If they do not, then make sure to ask them whereabouts in the village they are when the sun sets.

After the sun has gone down, and the moon is high in the sky, the party will hear a howl, coming from the opposite side of town. Shortly after hearing the howl, they will hear a scream, seemingly having come from a fully grown human man. If (when) the party investigates the scene, they will find a villager/town guard (your choice) dead on the ground. The body will be covered in bite and scratch marks, and there will be a trail leading away from the settlement, into the woods to the north.

If the party asks around, any villager they talk to will comment on having seen something/someone running away to the north, holding what seemed to be a child. If the party doesn't ask, they won’t know. So hey, either works! Either way, the trail will lead the party to the woods in the north, where the adventure will begin for real.

About my Maps (FAQ)

 So. A lot of people ask questions about my maps. Either in comments, in private messages, or on Reddit. I thought this would be the perfect place to address all of them (along with a few extra details).

How Big are your Maps?

I make all of my maps in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The maps are 8,192 x 6,144 pixels, and designed to be 32x24 'squares' wide. Unless otherwise stated, this will be true for all of the maps released through Osrynn's Oddments. I use this format as it easy to work with, and gives me a uniform size to work with (as well as occasionally pushing me to work within constraints).

How Big are the Squares?

Like with all (most) D&D 5e maps, one square on my maps equates to 5ft. of space. If a map seems too small to fit an area, you can always describe it as being a mid-section of the area being explored. (for example, with my "Cave of Two Paths" map, it is, understandably, not a very long passage to be a route between two towns. When I run that adventure, I describe a long walk through the forest/woods to get to the cave, and a winding cave path before they even reach the point the map begins. After the party leave the mapped area, I describe another passageway out, followed by the changing scenery leading to their next destination)0

What App/Software do you use for making your Maps?

I use the web-based cartography tool, Inkarnate. It is a really good system for map design, and full of helpful features for designing. I personally use the premium option, but you can make high quality maps just as well in their free version (just without a few of their newer/experimental features).

Into The Fey Woods - An Adventure for players leveled 2-4

It's been a while! I'm really sorry that I haven't posted anything for so long, but as I said in my previous post, thing's have been a little mad. Here's my latest adventure, with a little bit of a Fey theme. I've recently started running a new campaign, and am really enjoying where it might be going, so have decided to share some of the adventures i'm using in it with you all. I'm afraid to say that there are no new monsters of stat blocks for this adventure, but I hope you like the map, the adventure, and the other aspects of this week's offering! (This adventure should be hard/deadly for a party of level 2's, average difficulty for level 3's, easy for level 4's, and trivial for anything 5+)

I really hope people like the slightly more 'unique' take to player rewards I've used in this adventure too!

Build Up

If you want to base this adventure in the town/village/area that your party is currently in, make sure to drop a few hints in the sessions leading up to it. Mention the local woods having a close connection to the Feywild, and how it is not often entered by the locals. Mention some of the antics of a few of the residents (the boggles leaving oily puddles and playing jokes on locals, rumours of super-fast creatures that sneak into houses and steal items (the quicklings), etc.), and local myths about dangerous creatures living in the darker areas of the woods. One day, a pixie from the woods will fly up to the party and beg them for their help.

If you want to use this as a way of moving your players to a new area, simply have them run into the Pixie at some point in their travels, and have her ask them for their help.

The Quest

The party are approached by a Pixie, who lives in the Fey-Woods, and needs their help. She, and a number of other fey creatures, live in the woods (a place closely linked to the Feywild). Unfortunately, something has come through from the wilds, and it isn’t friendly. 

She will ask them to help her get rid of the threat, and in turn will promise them a blessing. She will tell the party that she has sealed the interloper in the Pixie glade, deep in the woods, and that the party will need three crystals to unlock the barrier she erected to keep it there. She will hand them one of these crystals, but apologise for losing the other two during her escape from the woods. When the party has all three, they are to place them into a tree stump with three holes in, near the pixie glade.

I'm Back! (Sort of...)

 So! I am aware that I kind of, appeared out of nowhere, uploaded 4 separate adventures/maps, gave you some funny stories, and a few new monsters, only to vanish a month later. Well! There is some good news, I got a new job. It was a little... hectic.. to say the least for the first few weeks, and I barely had enough time to run my own two regular games for that time (let alone writing material for you guys). Well, it's calmed down somewhat, and I now have a good amount of free time between workdays now, and have re-started writing adventures for this blog (and Reddit, of course).

I had to stop writing the adventure for the Goblin themed story halfway through the process, and as such kind of lost where I was with it. A genuine shame, as I really liked where that one was going (the Nilbog is still my favourite monster in D&D 5e to date). I promise that I will pick it back up at some point (maybe in a few weeks or so), but for now, I'm running a short, separate campaign for my Wednesday group (a player can't make it for a few weeks, and the story was really starting to explore his backstory/quest, so we all agreed to start something as a side-campaign), and will be uploading slightly changed versions of the sessions I'm running for them on here on Saturday mornings. After I finish running the campaign, I will probably compile it into a larger PDF, with all of my NPC's, my story-line linking the adventures, and all of my other fun ideas and nuances from running the campaign myself.

If that sounds like something you would be interested in, please keep an eye on this space, as I plan on uploading in onto somewhere like itch.io, as a pay-what-you-want product. Any donations made through Ko-Fi in the next 4 weeks will also recieve a free copy of this PDF (just send me a message with proof of payment, and I'll get it to you when it's out).

It will be a funny, ready to play adventure, designed for a group who don't want to take themselves too seriously. It will be designed to be played over 5 sessions, with one adventure being played per session. Rather than using traditional levelling systems, the party will gain a level at the end of every session, beginning at first level, meaning they can quickly learn their characters, whilst also getting to try something they might not usually play.

Seriously. our usual gunslinger fighter is playing a rogue, the usual (edgy) rogue is playing a bard, the sorcerer is now a minator paladin, and the halfling cleric is (also) playing a tortle paladin (yeah... two paladins...)