This is an introductory adventure, meant to introduce the structure and setting of the adventures in a straightforward manner. So you have the most basic adventure template in this world; there's a village, the village is threatened by the Witch and its Monsters, and the PCs need to protect the village by stopping the threats.
An extended version of the 3 Billy Goat's Gruff, as a village is assailed by monstrous goats of steadily increasing threat and size. The Witch will circle the town, creating new goat monsters, which will then attack the town and its outskirts until they are stopped. So each monster is its own timer that fires repeatedly until it is dealt with, while the Witch is a sort of master-time that spawns new problems until it is stopped.
Mastiano
Population ~200, mostly in spread out farmsteads
Primary industry is goat farming. Surrounding lands are quite poor, but are sufficient for grazing on the poor surrounding lands
Day 0 (before WitchHammers arrive) Witch is at work and has summoned first 2 monsters. An isolated peasant family is killed by the Rime-goat, and the Cattle-sucker has been summoned and slays numerous goats during the night. Increasing alarm and panic as the villagers realize bits of what has happened during the night
Day 1 Sunrise 1 - Rime-goat takes a family farm and makes them into ice zombies (this has already happened since adventure starts at midday) Midday: WitchHammers arrive Dusk 1 - Rime-Goat's zombies will attack town Late Night 1 - attack by Cattle-sucker
Day 2 Sunrise 2 - Rime-goat takes several guards Afternoon 2 - Blizznesss goat attacks and retreats. Continues every few hours. Initial attack will just be going after the town strongbox, other casualties are incidental to that Dusk 2 - Rime-goat's zombies attack again Late Night 2 - attack by Cattle-sucker
Day 3 Sunrise 3 - Rime-goat takes several guards Midday 3 - Reinforcements arrive. 80 or so. Led by Captain Bosca, fussy, rules based, orderly, competent. Afternoon 3 - Hircus Gigantis arrives Late Night 3 - Cattle-sucker hibernates
Day 4 Evening 4 - Grimmony runs back into the forest, you feel the chill go out of the air
6 soldiers left by the garrison, led by Winkley. Can either help in the defense, or get killed themselves killed by goats demonstrate stakes. The rest of the garrison went to get help and will be back in 2-3 days with significant forces.
Samantha - mayor, 30's , heavyset woman. no-nonsense, rule based
Giotti - owner of the goatery, largest business in town - heavy set and emotional merchant, especially after his farm is victimized by the Shadow-Humped Goat Sucker,
Captain Bosca, who returns with 80 soldiers if needed to help the final goat. Otherwise arrives after the PC's victory. Fussy, rules based, orderly, competent.
Ruins of the old Grimmony farm : 2 miles North of town, roof caved in, a wood and stone building where stone wall are still up but he the wood roof has mostly caved in. Abandoned 8 years ago after the Grimmony incident. Other members of the Grimmony family moved on after that unpleasantness.
Tabitha's farm: half a mile west of the Grimmony place, they were the first family killed by the Rime Goat
Town Hall: long rectangular building, big enough to fit everyone, solid stone construction, several firing holes on each wall, heavy wooden doors at both side. Has water and food stores. Has bell at one side
Mayor's office - small stone building, nice roof and construction, a few small rooms inside. Location of town strongbox with its government funds (300GP)
Nearest town: - Bostoc, ~500 people, half day away to the West
Nearest large town - Krannok, ~2000 people, 1.5 days away
For the WitchHammers, it has been a hot, boring, slow summer of traveling between towns. It is midday and PCs are heading South to Mastiano
As the PCs approach a mile or two from town they feel a slight cold breeze, an unseasonal chill in the air
A dying goat lopes up the road towards the PCs, staggering in loops, and dies as it approaches them. Even as they watch its insides dissolve horribly
Hear the tolling of the town bells to the South. It is 4 long tolls, i.e. alarm! attack!
arrive in town, see the gathered people, hear the confusion and upset, watch mayor (Samantha) and leader of the remaining garrison (Winkley) try to calm people down while
The heat comes back into the air as Grimmony has died/fled. The townspeople are either
relieved/mourning depending on how well the WitchHammers did in their defense of the village.
Reinforcing soldiers arrive, start the business of sorting things out
The PCs were monster hunting machines. I thought it would be funny for them to meet the Witch early on while on the road but not realize it; predictably they wanted to interrogate the annoying teen and the PCs had all sorts of movement abilities to let them do so. I had to fudge, extremely, (sorry PCs), in order to just get him away from their first moves, until I could use some conveniently appearing ice zombies to screen his escape.
After that the PCs went on a monster killing rampage, mostly ignoring the townspeople, and using excellent tracking skills to find and kill the Hump-backed goat sucker and then the Rime Goat.
That concluded the first session. I might have finished it out then but I ran out of brain-juice.
For the next session, they used a ranger ability that locates their most favorite prey, which led them to Grimmony as he was trying to summon the Blizzness Goat. He sent the Blizzness Goat off early and only partially completed to try and draw the PCs away, but they had a spell which grounds flying creatures, which they used to keep the Blizzness goat from getting to far away, which allowed them to focus on Grimony and his float goat and keep them from running off. Battle ensued, I had some fun with the float goat altering reality (merged the paladin with his horse to make a centaur), the shadow had some fun attacking other people's shadows, but Grimmony and his snakes were cornered and then fell to a classic combination of heavily armored paladin-tank and back-stabby rogue. After that they circled around and gradually were able to deal with the Blizzness goat.
The townspeople were very happy that not many of them were killed.
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
Basics:
An ice goat that infects people with icy slugs and makes them into ice-zombies
The goat that is starving-thin, with an absurdly emaciated belly. Has white fur covered in frost crystals.
It radiates cold, kills nearby plants, and leaves frozen hoofprints in the ground that remain cold long after it has passed
Combat:
Defense: cold aura. does ice damage to everyone within 5 feet
Attack: cone of cold, 40 feet, 5d6 dmg. usable every 3 turns. save, on critical failure are frozen solid & cannot act until warmed up. The goat's belly will slowly expand as it charges this ability.
Attack: grub-shot - an organic blowgun emerges in place of the goat's tongue, and tries to shoot an ice grub into someone. Ideally the target will be frozen before they are shot/injected
Weaknesses:
Is a glutton for any sort of warm food. Also seeks out campfires and hearths, though its cold aura will quickly extinguish fires and embers
Motivations:
find a loner, make them into an ice zombie, then use them to help take an entire farmstead over
nest or hide inside a slain animal or person or family. Then emerge to launch a surprise attack while its victim animate and attack
use its ice zombies as distractions while it charges up its cone of cold. Use cone of cold on a PC, and then once they are frozen insert an ice grub into their ear to try and make them into a new ice zombie.
once it has massed enough ice zombies, march its victims into town & ruin a festival
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
Basics:
slain people that have been puppeted by a small, icy grub that burrows into their brain. Their flesh is cold and blackened by frostbite, as well as showing any other wounds they took before they died
Combat:
Ability: Slow, ungraceful
Ability: Does not feel pain, immune to psychic and psychology
Motivations:
Appear to be dead, victims, then reanimate and attack
swarm and block enemies. Provide cover while the Ice-Goat freezes and destroys them
Basics:
a finger length, dark blue grub. Freezing cold to the touch.
Motivations:
tries to crawl inside people or corpses to turn them into ice zombies. If its ice-zombie puppet is destroyed, tries to crawl out and hide until it can find a new host to slink into at night 1HP
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 4 | 7 | 5 |
Basics:
A very large, pitch black goat, that carries a large, gelatinous, black jelly like creature on its back.
Uses its proboscis to suck out the fluids from other cattle, and feed the tic-like blob on its back A night stalker, hides during the day
When it has fed or is excited, leaves dollops of black ichor behind it
Combat:
Ability: very difficult to see at night
Attack: long, penetrating proboscis, injects acidic juices into target to melt its flesh and organs. Later on, the resulting melted juice can be slurped out with the same proboscis
Ability: at critical moment (or when badly hurt by a single attack), it's black-jelly-hump will separate from the main body and start to fight.
Attack: The blob tries to engulf, asphyxiate, and melt targets
Attack: the blob spews digested fluids from past victims at targets
Ability: the blob has a completely fluid body, and cannot be held off with pikes, shields, etc.
Ability: when killed, the blob will spray its remaining body mass out in a wave all around it. These juices will hurt natural creatures, but will can be absorbed by the main monster to heal/revive it.
Weaknesses:
strong drink
Motivation:
will show up each night to hunt goats and feed its shadow-hump. Can slurp out of the guts of dozens of cattle in a night, leaving only their empty skins, drained of all meat and internal organs.
eat the unwary and unwise. ambush likely looking prey on the roads at night.
hide in small caves during the daylight, as the jelly-hump on its back digests the ingested nutrients
after feasting & growing tic-fat, hibernate in an enclosed area. At midnight its hump can then burst and send thousands of slithery jellies out in all directions
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 7 | 3 | 5 |
Basics:
gigantic goat of ice crystals and wind, floats over the landscape, with occasional funnels of icy wind reaching to the ground in place of legs
shows up on day 2
Combat:
Ability: immune to ice damage, nearly immune to most damage physical damage. It's dispersed body makes it difficult to do any real damage to the thing
Ability: quite fast when it gets moving. Majestic, but has very long strides
Ability: solidifies and shapes itself when trying to grasp something. Then that part of it can be more easily damaged. Takes 1 turn before a solidified part can start to act (more like a denser concentration of ice crystals and wind). Will also try to steal concentrations of coins using this grasp
Attack: Ice Grasp: when grasped, the heat and life is sucked out of the person, while their clothes and skin are stripped by a concentrated blizzard of ice particles. Eventually the clothes and flesh are stripped away, and this leaves just an abraded skull, which the creature takes back up into its blizzard body
Attack: forms a group of ice spears, and then drops them inaccurately & indiscriminately across an area
Attack: can blow strong winds along the ground, making everyone act to avoid being tumbled and chilled
Weaknesses:
Pepper, spices, fire, loud noise & shock waves. Desirous of shiny coins and gems, regardless of value
Motivations:
go to concentrations of money and metal and steal that
steal peoples skulls with its icy grasp
stride over the landscape majestically, ignoring lesser creatures that cannot hurt it
hide away with its gathered horde in a secret place along with its fetish (a pouch of coins, random bits of pretty rock and hair). When hiding, solidifies into a giant ice sphere. Takes several rounds to unfurl back into cloud form
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 6 | 7 | 1 |
Basics:
a goat, the size of a hippo, made of frozen earth and stones and wrapped in metal chains. A low slung beast with short stumpy legs
this is the final monster if the PCs have not hunted down and destroyed the Witch by then
Combat:
Ability: Fearsomely loud. Can hear it at a distance from its clomping steps, militia soldiers might run from it
Ability: immobilize gaze, single target, the spirit of stone and ice seeps into the target and they become entombed in their own mind
Attack: Withering Breath, large cone, slow, moderate entropy damage. leaves a lingering cloud
Attack: Stomp and crush, single target, high damage
Attack: Trample, attacks everyone along path,
Weaknesses:
senses the world entirely via tremor sense and so can be confused that way
hates the sound of bells (really, it thinks they belong to a even larger creature, and so will retreat in fear)
Motivation:
march inexorably upon a town
crush buildings
wither people and crops
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
Basics:
completely normal looking goat, except it is floating 3 inches above the ground and its eye color/pupils are constantly, rapidly, changing as it starts into a thousand alternate realities. Occasionally emits a modem-like unnatural scream
used to add complications, either have it accompany the Witch or add into another combat to make more interesting
Combat:
Defense: magnetic shield - always advantage on defense against metal weapons as they are pushed away from its body.
Defense: reality melter - change incoming projectile into something weird
Defense: phase - Phase out of this reality, for up to 2 turns. While phased out, is visible in outline, but is untouchable by normal means or magics. Can move through walls and other barriers. Usable once per hour on itself.
Attack: reality melter - The creature can focus its gaze and its will on an object in order to change it. A staff can be remade into a snake that wriggles away, or a gleaming sword into a flock of white doves, or a set of black-spiked armor into a mass of beetles. Mechanically, this attack destroys one piece of non-magic equipment without any save
Attack: Entropic gaze - start breaking down the reality of target, melting its bones away and flesh away. Target becomes weak, bleeds from the eyes and mouth, hears a terrible ringing sound as its connection to the physical plane is ground away
Weakness:
complicated patterns, they get lost in them. Painted mazes, fine print, etc.
Motivation:
to come in at an inconvenient time
make things weird
support allies who need another monster on their side
reduce things to sludge
eat eyeballs, eat other goats
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 7 | 5 | 8 |
Basics:
annoying dumb teenager with bowl haircut. Perfectly black eyes, just solid dark orbs. clothing is withered and torn as though he's been laying in a field for a month. Carries a shepherd's staff
Ice aspected, is cold to the touch, and his internal bits are all black-frozen and rotted.
Backstory:
had sex with a goat, also would not stop having sex with goats
in an outpouring of long built up annoyance and disgust, he was driven out of the village and into a snow storm. He wandered through the storm, into the temperate forest, and became a witch. This happened 8 years ago, now he returns on the warmest day of the summer
Roleplaying:
imagine the most annoying, truculent, dumb, trouble making, absolute waste-of-space space teenager that you know. That's Grimmony! Is surly, insulting, and cunning enough to stay out of arms reach.
Combat:
Ability: adept movement - can run at a speed out of all proportion to his small size. Only slightly slower than a fast horse. Good at hiding in tall grass, and burrowing a wiggling way into loose soil.
Attack: carries a wooden shepherd's crook and is skilled with it. On close examination, the end of the staff though is actually melded into the flesh of his right arm. The crook of the staff and its inside curve conceals hidden fangs, and on striking with the staff the fangs will dig into the target. At this point the entire staff will separate from his arm, and the butt-end of the staff will reveal itself to be a snake's head which rears and strikes with its poisoned fangs, while the fangs on the crook of the staff dig in and grip. At the start of Grimmony's next turn, a fresh crook staff-snake will emerge from Grimmony's arm
Ability: Grimmony's shadow can separate and act independently from him
Ability: if killed, a half-dozen snake-staffs will slither out from his chest cavity. Some will attack furiously, others will slink off and try to hide/escape so that they can find fresh victims later
Weaknesses:
sweet tooth
goats, finds them fascinating
Motivations:
taunt, in rude terms.
be interrupted while creating a new goat monster, such that the monster is only half-formed when the WitchHammers arrive
be chased as he tries to escape back into the forest
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
Ability: does 1 damage each turn as its teeth dig further in. The body of the snake tightly coils around the target and tries to prevent itself from being unseated. Difficult to remove, even more difficult to remove without doing further damage as the teeth are remove from the victim
Attack: fang strike - the snake-head repeatedly strikes, doing 1 damage and inflicting poison
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8 | 3 | 9 |
Ability: Fast movement - moves as fast as a glint of light. Has a knack for being where ever it needs to be. If needed can teleport from shadow to shadow, though it can never roam far from Grimmony
Defense: nearly immune to physical weaponry. Can be damaged by magic, or by focused bright light
Attack: shadow stab - stabs someone else's shadow. A psychic attack
Interrupt: sneakily interfere with someone else's action. Cut an archer's bow string, pinch a casting mage, steal a potion from someone's hand and throw it off into the underbrush