The fifth Encounter Box: 13 big maps for your journey (patreon version)

This is my fifth encounter box, which is all about making the journey of your campaign as exciting as possible. With their size, the differences in height and the possibilities of cover, the maps are designed to experience the most interesting fights on them.

In addition to the maps, I have a few encounter ideas for you below which go beyond the usual "X opponents appear and attack you". It is of course a bigger effort to prepare, but I believe that thanks to stories like this your world can come to life and the journey between the places can become a highlight of your game. 

Credit for the used asset packs goes to Essendi, Synecdoche, Crosshead, Geordi, Krager, Cannyjacks, JChunick, and the Apprentice of Aule. (for the latter two i have acquired the commerciele license).

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Sizes: 

1. Sunset Sea [30x50]

2. Mountain at the sea [40x50]

3. Wounded ground [40x50]

4. Canyon [30x35]

5. Lava pool [30x50]

6. Acid Wasteland [30x40]

7. River Waterfall [30x50]

8. Swamp [30x40]

9. Desert Spring [30x55]

10. Frozen lake [60x60]

11. Graveyard in the wild [30x40]

12. Cenot [40x40]

13. Snowy Gorge [70x30]

5 Encounter ideas:

The rogue

Your heroes are on their journey when suddenly someone steps on the street in front of them. It is a young man. He is dressed in black and his face is almost completely covered by a hood. He wears dark leather armor.

Dark eyes light up as he speaks and addresses one of your heroes. “I've waited so long for this day! Draw your blade and face death!” With these words he throws back his hood, draws two twisted black daggers, makes some impressive movements and takes up a fighting position. The young man's hair is dark, long and falls over one of his eyes.

If you ask him what the hell he wants, the young man answers. “This man killed my parents. Since that day I have been striving for revenge!” He then speaks of an event that happened as a result of a quest that your heroes did earlier in the campaign. Directly or indirectly, one of your heroes is responsible for the death of his parents. As long as he is not convinced of something else, he attacks. It turns ou the has the stats of a lvl 1 rogue and doesn't really know how to use weapons. Can your heroes solve this situation without having to slice open the edgy young man?

(If you want a tougher fight, the young man can turn out to be a talented fighter. Besides, his companions are hiding nearby. A bard who tries to get every one of his opponents to bed, a stupid barbarian who lives his battle frenzy and can't get an understandable word out and a paladin who, at the beginning, somehow tries to end the fight because it's against the law.)

The suicide pact

A strange ritual shows before our heroes. A man in a robe stands on an elevated position. He gives a fiery speech about death and paradise. About a dozen people in beautiful clothes stand in front of him. Obviously aristocrats. They stare at the speaker with great fascination and hang on his lips.

Two people stand at the edge of this ritual, chatting quietly and nibbling a few snacks.

If your characters interrupt the ritual, the nobles' attention will only briefly turn to them. Then they look again at the speaker, who continues to talk about the benefits of death. The two people standing next wave the heroes to them.

There are a gravedigger and a doctoress.

When asked about the ritual, they say quite frankly that the speaker is an assassin. His name is Florian Silvertongue and he travles with the gravedigger through the country and kills dignitaries on behalf of other noble. The approach is always the same. Florian talks to those involved until they kill themselves. Today he chosed the method “paradise after death”.

The gravedigger, in turn, accompanies the assassin and earns his living with the expensive funerals of the dead noblemen. The two also like to invite local doctors so that they can quickly remove good organs and the like of the fresh bodys.

The gravedigger does not seem to be afraid that something will be done about this cause. For one thing, nothing illegal is happening here. Florian does not kill anyone and never directly prompts them to commit suicide. And on the other hand, even when people try to intervene, Florian is able to talk them out with his silver tongue. Besides, these people are just aristocrats...

If your heroes do not intervene, they will witness how the assembled nobles swallow a poison and suffocate together. Then the doctor and the gravedigger go to work. Or will your heroes intervene beforehand?

In the event of a fight, Silberzunge will defend himself with a sword, but all his attacks are in the form of words and do psychic damage. If a hero drops to zero he will try to commit suicide on his next turn.

The pied piper of Hamelin

Your heroes come through the village Hamelin. While they interact with the population there, for example to buy provisions, they find that food prices are very high. When asked, they were told of a plague of rats that had ravaged their village for about a week. Fortunately, a pied piper came by not long ago. He attracted the rats with his magic flute. Then he went into the river, the rats followed him and all drowned. Since then the rat problem has been solved. The pied piper was rewarded like a prince and moved on.

When your heroes leave the village and continue to travel, they see a light in the forest when they set up evening camp. When a curious hero follows this light he comes to a clearing. A campfire is piled, in front of it sits a man cleaning a flute and around him sit thousands of wet rats, warming themselves by the fire.

When your hero shows himself, suddenly thousands of little red eyes are directed at him and the friendly pied piper stands up, puts the flute to his mouth and says. “It's not what it looks like! I am sure that we will come to an agreement. "

The children's crusade

The journey of your heroes is disrupted by a large group of people. About 20 young people in poor clothes follow a youngster. When he meets your heroes, he introduces himself as Niklaus. He urges the heroes to join him in his crusade. Its aim is to destroy a great evil force in your respective campaign. It should be immediately clear that even an army of these young people, who are poorly equipped to do so, would not be able to perform this task. Nonetheless, Niklaus reports that he had a vision in which he and his army, which he will fill with thousands young people from all cities and villages through which he will come, will defeat the enemy with divine help. Then a beautiful life awaits them in the lands now liberated from evil. His companions seem motivated and look forward to their adventure.

Your heroes can try to make it clear with logical arguments that this is a stupid idea and with good arguments convince his follower that it would be their death to go along with Niklaus. Niklaus can also be convinced with very good arguments.

If your heroes just move on, they will hear the reports of the further crusade a few weeks later. Niklaus was able to convince thousands of other young poor people to accompany him. After many died of starvation along the way, their crusade ended in a disastrous battle. Almost all youngsters were killed or enslaved.

If your heroes join the procession, they can convince a few young people in the next village to come along. Soon after that there will be an ambush in which your heroes have a possible chance but the young people are almost all overrun and slaughtered in their inferiority.

Mind reader and Übermensch

While your heroes are on the road, they see a tent by the side of the road. It's purple and stars are painted on it. In front of it is a small line of people. A crying person has just come out of the tent. There is a small sign. It says; "Simplicius. Mind reader and Übermensch.” When asked about this, people report that this Simplicius is a magician. The people who have visited him are happier thanks to his magic and are blessed in their lives. Their plans succeed and great heroes also visit him regularly before they embark on dangerous quests. It is said that the magician creates a magical aura that makes life better. If one of the characters decides to choose to visit the magician, he has to wait a bit and then throw a piece of gold into a wooden box at the entrance of the tent.

Inside the tent, candles illuminate the surroundings, and large pillows lie on the floor. On a table lies a crystal ball and a tarot deck. The magician is currently in an area of the tent that is separated by a curtain and he tells the customer to sit down. Simplicius appears shortly afterwards. Smoke from scorched herbs accompanies his entry. He is wrapped in a robe and carries many magically glowing artifacts. He looks at your hero and sits on the chair behind the table. He tells your hero to lie down on one of the pillows to begin the ritual. Now he speaks some incantations in a foreign language, places taro cards and the crystal ball fills with smoke. Then he asks. "How was your relationship with your mother?"

In the following session, the hero works through his trauma and gains insight into himself.

(You do not have to do the session as a role play, but you can generally speak with your player on how much his charakter will react to the questions and how the attitudes and goals of his character change during this ritual)

With a further developed character, our group can leave the “mind reader and Übermensch” and possibly the character will also have more success in his future endeavors, since his goals have changed. (You could also equip him with an inspiration point)