Chapter One: Enter Bandit Camp

Structure

Exposition

You remember the train. A long brass colored, steam powered machine packed with people. Some of you were squished, forced to stand with your cheap, copper ticket. Some of you were lucky enough to get a chair, though uncomfortable with your gold ticket. There were less people in that section. And perhaps, some of you got the privlage of having a private room with plenty of space with your platinum ticket. You remember the jolting of the cars as it hurried along the track to the capitol Silaron. You remember having a reason to go there, for good or ill.
But of all this is a memory, and you are all trying to comprehend the situation that now lays before you.
It's cold. The cages are made of metal, and in the night in this small wooded area, the metal is cold and you're all shivering. You see tents and a campfire, and people sitting around and talking in a language most of you might not know. (Thieve's Cant). They seem to be cheerful. You look around more and find more cages, each cramed with two people in it. It's uncomfortable. You've just now realized you're not alone in your cage.
And it begins to come back to you. You remember the train stopping, and you remember gun shots. And you remember people running for their lives, and you remember not being fast enough, hitting the ground, everything going dark, and waking up here.
And you all just wonder why? Why you.

Conflict

The Letter

Mad Skyla has heard that there's been mysterious letters being exchanged to a certain pesron and barkeepers around The Ander Vale. She killed a Bartender in Hastings (Named Elydia Barrow, a Fire Genasi) attempting to gain information about this mysterious person but to no avail. She then decided to hunt the letters, finding the person on the train to Silaron. She sent a team with her second to grab this person, and to not report to her until they had the letter and the person with it.
They found the letter in one of the player's things, but no player remembers it being there because none of them know about this corrispondance.
When no one says that they know, one of the cages is doused in cold water. Constitution Check of DC 15 or gain one level of exhaustion. One Eye Rohan will state that he would speak to them in the morning, with much more unpleasent tactics.

Components

Goals

One Eye Rohan's/Cecilia/Bandit's goal: To deliver the person with the letter to Mad Skyla. The problem is that the bandits who looted everything off their bodies didn't keep track of what begloned to who, so someone had to admit they had the letter, or Mad Skyla would. No player is aware of what this letter is.
Player/Prisoner Goal: To escape

Backdrops

Threats

x3 Swashbucklers (PG 217 of Volo's Guide)
x1 Rohan, a Master Thief (PG 216 of Volo's Guide)
x1 Cecilia, a diviner (PG 213 of Volo's Guide)*


*Cecilia can be convinced to help them escape.

Encounters

Rohan goes to sleep at nightfall after the conversation with the caged people.
Cecilia will talk to the party after Rohan goes to sleep. She'll tell them honestly that they better confess and can be convinced (Persuasion DC15-20) that none of them know about the letter. If they sucessfully convince her, than she will help them escape indirectly, not telling them that she will.

Escape

• There are three bandits that rotate watch every four hours while the other two sleep.

• Rohan sleeps in the big tent and Cecilia in the tent next to that.

• Too much noise will result in the active bandit to make a persception check.

• The cage doors creak when they're opened. Opening it a little will trigger the noise, and the bandit will come over to investigate. NOT to check if the door's unlocked, but why're they're making so much noise. It doesn't occur to these idiots that the door may be unlocked.

• The cage DC is 12 to unlock through any means (lockpick, brute force, etc)

• There are dumstick bones from when you were all fed and metal trays

• You do not see your bags anywhere. [They are in Rohan's Tent]

• Rohan will attack the party if he's woken up. If Cecilia is not swayed by the party, she will transport them all into a maze in which they all have to escape. This maze lasts for 10 minutes, and the party will sorrounded by the three bandits, Rohan and Cecelia. From this point on, Cecelia will not use anything above second level.

• If Cecelia is won over, she will send the bandits and Rohan into the maze, and tell the players to run, assuring them that she'll be fine. She warns them to be careful, and to avoid Mad Skyla and her.

When the players escape, they will need to make a Survival Check of DC 13 to find the railroad tracks. (Failure = more time to find the tracks).

Plot type

Introduction Quest

Related Locations

• Abandoned Shrine to The First Ones