The fourth Encounter Box: 9 big maps for your journey (free version)

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You can download the maps in a zip file at the end of this post
(except the 8: Volcano landscape. You can find the gridless version here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46728276 )

Patrons will find the maps in high resolution without signature and five more maps in the post below this.
Credit for the used asset packs goes to Essendi, Synecdoche, Crosshead, Geordi, Krager and the Apprentice of Aule.

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This is my fourth 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.

Here are the sizes of the cards:

0: Cliff by the sea [50x60]

1: Delta [40x50]

2: Snow-covered road  [50x30]

3: Wounded ground [40x50]

4: Summer street [60x30]

5: Sunset Mountain [40x40]

6: Bridge over a gorge with magma river [40x50]

7: Path through a mountainous forest area [40x30]

8: Volcano Landscape [60x40]

And here are the promised stories:

Of gods and pigs

Brief description: A talking pig lets himself be worshiped by a cult and now wants to escape when it finds out that they want to free their god from his worldly body

Our group is on a peaceful road when suddenly a procession marches towards our heroes. First of all, people in tattered clothes can be seen whipping their backs with devotion (and of course whips). Then come men and women in robes, who distribute incense in the air and sing in a choir. Then a kind of portable (but still heavy) throne becomes visible, which is carried by eight people. On the throne, which is furnished with large cushions, sits a pig with a stern and raised look. It wears a crown and is hung with all sorts of gold jewelry.

The pig greets our group with a fat, condescending grin and tells them to crawl in the dust in front of him.

The background of this procession: Our pig was always a pig and lived in a nice warm stable near a magical university (insert a strongly magical place in your world here). One day an experiment went wrong in the nearby faculty and our pig was caught by some wild magic. Equipped with sudden intelligence and light magical abilities, life in the stable no longer seems worthy of him.

How does a pig suddenly speaking and endowed with intelligence come to a life worthy of him? Of course he looks for the next smaller sect, introduces himself as their god and lets himself be pampered. Unfortunately, one should also take a closer look at the sect you choose. After a long, luxurious journey through many cities in which new trailers are being collected, our pig slowly understands what this sect is up to.

As their scriptures report they believe that their God is trapped in the lowest possible form. The pig appears to them as a suitable choice of their god (even if they have previously worshiped cockroaches, earthworms and snails). Now their writing reports that they have to gather followers, have to move to a special place and then truly “divine” their God. Freed from his fleshly shell, he shall then return to his kingdom of heaven and usher a new paradise.

Our pig, of course, is not very interested in this "divinity". Unfortunately, he cannot convince them otherwise either (they consider it a test of their God). Nor can he reveal himself as an impostor, as this would also mean his death. Even an escape has failed several times.

Now the pig will somehow try to tell our heroes that he needs help. As payment he will offer them his gold jewelry. How will our heroes solve this tricky situation?

The Cadaver Synod

Brief description: A bishop has the corpse of his predecessor excavated and has a court case organized to ruin the son of the former bishop.

Our heroes are traveling along a river when they suddenly see a very strange scene. Before them clergymen (and clergy soldiers) are busy digging a hole. They then pull a corpse out of the grave. Heavily decayed it can be seen that the person must have been dead for more than a year. This corpse is then placed on a specially brought chair.

In addition to priests and soldiers, a person now steps forward who is reads out an indictment in a loud voice. The person speaking is an archbishop (replace it with the highest possible representative of your local religion). It quickly turns out that the corpse is the blessed remains of his predecessor.

Now a prosecution begins against the corpse. Only one person among those gathered here sees the farce of bringing a corpse to justice. It is the illegitimate son of the accused, but as a family member he is not allowed to take over the defense. When he sees our heroes he will try to get them to defend his father in court.

Here is a possible charge and its background: Today's archbishop, let's call him Stephan, and his predecessor were competitors in the past. After his predecessor died unexpectedly of food poisoning, Stephan made sure that he was given a nameless grave outside the community. The deceased bequeathed the worldly possessions, which were not too few, to a young man with whom he was actually not connected. But now Stephan has found out that this man is the illegitimate child of his predecessor, an offense under canon law.

Unfortunately, nobody can be punished for inheriting, but if the dead predecessor can be proven to have committed a criminal offense, all of his possessions can be confiscated by the church posthumously.

Stephans’s goal is to convict his predecessor of a serious criminal offense, to condemn him posthumously, to take everything he has from his descendants and finally to have the corpse thrown into the river as punishment without burial. His revenge would be complete.

Can our heroes prevent this without starting a fight with Stephen's numerous (and innocent) guards?

Emu War

Brief description: A flock of robust and fast birds threatens to destroy the fields of local farmers and must be driven out or killed in a short time.

The sun is setting soon, one is already looking for a place to camp for the night when suddenly the ground shakes under the feet of our heroes and a large cloud of dust can be seen on the horizon. The trembling of the ground gets stronger and stronger and a herd of strange animals rushes towards our protagonists at great speed. (I would recommend using ratites with long necks and big crazy eyes, but any animal should work which is a bit tough and fast too.)

Behind the herd, farmers, a few soldiers and a war mage ride and try to kill the animals with spears, arrows and magic. But the critters are so robust that they can survive a direct hit or two. They also show resistance to magic attacks.

The hunter stop their horses and appear frustrated. When they see your heroes they will ask for help.

Background: The farmers are former soldiers who had to ask their masters for more soldiers, weapons and even the war mage. Their problem is that their land, which is dusty, dry and bad anyway, is now overrun by this herd of critters. The birds trample the ground and drink up the farmers' irrigation.

Somehow you have to get rid of these birds before they completely ruin the farmers. Preferably before sunset, because at night the birds spread out again and cause irreparable damage. Everyone involved is utterly frustrated about the robustness of the animals.

When your heroes agree to do so, they must find a way to get rid of the birds.

Lure you into a trap? Talk to them magically? Ally with the birds against the farmers? How will your heroes deal with this situation?

Hangover

Brief description: A dwarf joins our heroes' night camp. When they wake up the next morning they are in a different place and had a big party that night.

When our heroes set up camp in the evening a stranger hesitantly steps up to the camp. It's a dwarf. The dwarf is a bit shy but kindly asks to be allowed to join the heroes' night camp. With him he carries a small handcart on which he transports a few boxes and a sleeping roll. If he is allowed to join the heroes, he is very pleased and shyly thanks. He reveals that he is transporting fine liquor bottles in his boxes and he is open to sharing them with the heroes. What follows is pure escalation.

....

Our heroes awaken. They are completely hungover and feel incredibly awful. The place, which is not the same as where the camp is located, is completely devastated and shows traces of a night that is either never mentioned again or told to your grandchildren as a crazy youth story. If they could remember it. But the memories are (still) only in tatters.

The dwarf sits in the middle of the chaos. He looks satisfied and thanks for the beautiful night and the great companions with whom he experienced it. He can't remember the night very well either, but he knows that it was very good.

What follows is the reconstruction of the evening and the attempt to find the camp, which is not far away. As the highlight of the encounter, people can wait at the camp who are very, very angry about what our heroes did during the night.

Examples of things that happened during the night:

- One of the companions wakes up in the morning with a sore chest and a fresh scar just above the heart. During the night the cleric wanted to prove to the dwarf that he can revive the dead. So he stabbed one of the other heroes (with their permission) in the heart and revived him. (Where is my diamond?)

-After the liquor ran out so quickly, one of the companions remembered the nearby abbey, which must have a wine cellar. In the following they sneaked into the cellar of the abbey, where they were, while bathing in wine barrels, discoverd by monks.

-The whole actual mission has been solved: Our heroes should actually hunt down some bandits in a nearby caves. That’s precisely what they did during the night. Getting drunk and hacking through the dungeon in a crazy way. (The bandit leader, tied up, painted and smelling of milk, still hangs from the ceiling in the last room of the dungeon)

-Tattoos for everyone!

-They crashed a nearby wedding / funeral.

-They have "tamed" an incredibly dangerous beast. When a companion wokes up, he realized that the sleeping beast's claws lie on his chest and that he shouldn't wake it up.

Background: The dwarf did not poison our heroes with the liquor, as one would first assume. No, he's cursed. The spirit of a great hero of his people rests in him, who has done great deeds for the dwarven volk. After his death he posses one dwarf in every generation in whose body he rests. When night falls, every person around this dwarf will get charmed and the wildest possible party begins.

Since it is not possible to live with such a person in the vicinity, the respective young dwarf is forced to leave his clan and travel around the world. But since the hero's spirit also has to be honored, every dwarf family that doesn't want to let him stay overnight has to provide him with food and liquor. The possesed dwarf travels through the world and driven by the ghost to party. He looks for strangers to celebrate with him.

After the recent death (liver failure) of the old party dwarf, our dwarf here has not long been possesed with the ghost and has sought his baptism of fire, so to speak. He is happy, thanks our heroes a lot and would like to move on.

(One more note: You might think that these possesed dwarfs don't live long, but most of them actually dont die a unnatural death. Because when it comes to dangerous situations at the parties, the spirit takes over the body and shows how a dwarven hero fights.)

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I wish you a lot of fun with my work :)