Getting Into D&D 5e Adventures

I wrote up an introduction for the player’s first game.  I wanted to give them a reason why they characters were coming together and why they were traveling to Phandalin.  Also, I wanted to tie this back to the first adventure they played and their characters from Dragon’s of Stormwreck Isle (DOSI).  I thought this would be fun for my son and his friend to think about their last campaign before starting this one.  I mentioned this in the last post, but there is a Human Fighter (A knight with his 3 retainers), a Halfling Druid, and a Gnome Warlock as the PCs for this campaign.

Below is what I basically read to them.  A few things to know if you want to read my introduction is that the only surviving enemy from DOSI was one of the winged Kobolds, Mek, that served the blue wyrmling Sparkrender.  My thought was that Mek feld to the mainland and came across a young White Dragon being driven from it’s territory.  Mek is now scouting ahead for his new master, Cryovain, for food shelter and new territory, now settling in the Icespire Peak region of the Sword Mountains.

You’ve been traveling many days and nights from your homeland. On a sunny fall day you come across fork in the road. As you contemplate the direction you should go, you feel a brisk and chilly wind begin to push you toward the left. You decide that fate has chosen the way to go. After a few more hours of walking you find yourself in a small village built in the shadow of a school of magic.

Walking to a nearby tavern you sit, thinking about what life has in store and begin to wait out the day. You begin speaking with fellow travelers and discover that a few are like you. These travelers would make wonderful companions. As the sun begins to set you all gather at a small table near the fireplace.

Now it’s time for everyone to share about themselves, what do you look like, why have you decided to become an adventurer and what do you hope to accomplish? Anything else?

After getting to know one another the tavern keeper approaches your small group. “I hear that you all are seeking adventure. After a good nights rest you should travel to school of magic. There is a group of adventurers there that might be able to send you on the path you seek.”

You all head to your rooms for a good nights rest. Some of you can’t sleep due to the excitement of adventures to come and other fall fast asleep, knowing that tomorrow will bring what the gods decide.

You awake as the sun begins shining into your room through the clouded glass of your window. You ready yourself to meet your new companions downstairs, and once gathered you head to the school of magic. As you approach, you see all manner of people walking with urgency around the campus. All of them seem to ignore you as if busy in thought and only thinking of their destination.

What do you do?(After asking around a student points them to a small building)

You approach a small stone building with stained glass windows. They glitter in the morning light and you can see them casting colorful random shapes on the floor inside the building through an open door. As you get closer, you notice a large pile of worked wood laying against the building. Parts of this wood pile looke like a large bow (Let them choose a proficiency check to see if they can determine that this is the ballista the group found on DOSI). As you enter the building you hear a group talking and laughing. They look like seasoned warriors and seem to be talking about a recent adventure. The group turns toward you. You see a human wizard clutching a book, a small halfling with a hand sliding toward a dagger at his side, a dwarf dressed in holy vestments gripping an ornate mace, a large man made of meta resting a hand on a gleaming ax, and a slim human sitting next to a long bow propped against the wall next to him. What do you do? Segway into the tale and mission.

The adventurers regale you with the most unbelievable story. One fraught with danger while on a quest to end the Famine of the Black Drakes, a frenzied breeding of these foul creatures across the countryside. They tell you of shipwrecks and strange creatures, friends, and monsters they came across on an island known as StormWreck Isle. You listen closely to their exploits.

Have each player recount an event from the game

After defeating the evil blue wyrmling, Sparkrender, they returned to the mainland. They share that they’ve recently come home from stopping the drakes with the help of a wise and powerful Bronze dragon, called Runara. During their travels with Runara, they began hearing rumors of a small red winged creature traveling through the countryside followed by rumors of a White Dragon killing and devouring many in it’s path as it moved south from a region far to the north. A region called Icewind Dale and a mountain range known as the Spine of the World. Runara shared that White dragons prefer violence and destruction to magic and cunning. She was concerned that a more dangerous creature had driven the dragon from it’s territory in the north in search of new hunting grounds.

One of the heroes leans forward and says to your group. “If you seek adventure, you should all travel South and seek out this vile creature. The horror and death it has brought to new lands need to be stopped.”

What do you do?

Share how they’ve been called to help nearby and can’t help. Perhaps they’ll be meet again in the future…. After agreeing to help,

You begin traveling south along the Sword Coast, taking the High Road past Neverwinter. You hear rumors a red winged creature followed by accounts of white dragon attacks, leading to the Triboar Trail…end

There was a little bit of roleplay as they traveled south.  I had them come across merchants with wagons of goods as they neared the Triboar Trail.  They asked a merchant if they could escort them to their next stop.  I had the merchant pay them each 2 SP and they made it to Phandalin.  After exploring the town and renting beds for the night, the party looked over the job the board.  They decided to take on the Umbrage Hill Quest.  This was absolutely perfect because I didn’t need to railroad them into going to that location!  My original plan was to have the Townmaster encourage them to swing by Umbrage Hill on the way to one of the other quests if they chose those.  I then had them all leave the room while I set up the board for the Umbrage Hill encounters (setup pictures attached)