The Shadowvale Campaign (thoughts) part 4

So....the group arrives in Eldermere in search of The Book of the Shadowhorn. Upon arriving outside of the small village, the group notes the fires burning and general chaos. Something has already occurred, but before they can figure out what is going on. I launch them into an encounter...a group of zombies....now their heads are spinning, "what the hell happened here and what have we stumbled onto?"

So around this time, the group dynamic was shifting a bit. Two of the guys who were playing had some life changes that were forcing them to leave the group unfortunately and I was in the process of plugging those wholes since the group would be down to 3 people for a short time. Regardless, we ventured on...

Dispatching of the zombies, I next laid out the second the second phase of the encounter before the group could get their bearings. A dispatch of troops from the largest city in the area, Waterford, had arrived and now surrounded the group. The troops also had no clue of WTF was going on in the village, but seeing as how the PC's were the only living beings in site....they were persons of interest now.

The troops were led by one of the more important NPC's I had planned for the campaign, Calais. Modeled from my character from the MMORPG FFXI, he was a by the book, good-aligned and compassionate NPC that I hoped would be somewhat of a friend to the PC's as needed. 

Calais in all his FFXI glory

For now though, the PC's were surrounded and this group of guards wanted some answers, even though my players had none to give. I really like having these moral and somewhat unwinnable situations presented in my games. The players could run, give up, fight, lie....the players decided to comply and were disarmed and taken to the local tavern for questioning. Now restrained and in the presence of two guards, as the rest of the troops investigated the town, I gave the group a chance to escape...I was being somewhat of bad DM through this planned part of the campaign, I really hate being heavy handed. I prefer to rely on the random tables and players choices, but I wanted to force the players hands a bit here yet still get to the juicy pieces of this part of the encounter.

The players to their credit, took their first opportunity to escape. The guards reacted and to spread more chaos. I had zombies attack the troops outside which in turn set fire to the tavern that the group was held up in.....this encounter was pure gold. The environment itself was a hazard, the group had to think creatively since they were without their gear, and the guards....well they only really cared about getting out of this situation alive.

Each round, I had the fire grow and become more dangerous, until finally the group had no choice but to flee into the cellar to escape the fire. I had planned for this and had the notion to map out an underground passages that ran throughout the village. So into the labyrinth the group went....next session would be their next dungeon crawl and a new player would be joining to create an interesting party dynamic which would fuel the overall narrative of the campaign going forward.