Unmasked
Posted by CorwinSep 11
I’ve been busy lately and missed the past two weeks, but this week’s adventure has 3 full encounters and 5 quick and easy skill challenges, all wound together in a thrilling chase. Each encounter has a full map to cut out and use, and there is full flavor text for every scene, skill challenge, and chase contingency. Enjoy!
Unmasked is a short adventure for five 3rd to 5th-level players, taking place during a masquerade festival in a crowded city. The players will engage in a fast-paced chase through the city’s streets, facing a series of short skill challenges and quick encounters in an attempt to keep up with and apprehend a masked villain.
The city of Illodaunt has always been a strange town, shrouded in mystery. Founded centuries ago by an assortment of exiled magical folk and creatures, the city quickly exploded into a haven for exiled or displaced wizards, sorcerers, and unusual creatures. Nothing is quite what it seems when traveling through Illodaunt, and that’s how its residents like it.
The crooked streets and winding alleys reflect the features of such inhabitants; arcane-powered lamps float above the cobbled roads, buildings twist and turn as they move and change each day, and alleys seem to vanish as fast as new ones appear. Accompanying these oddities is an assortment of illustrious and mysterious merchants known as the bazaar; no magical item is too rare or expensive for them to offer.
But for all its wonders, the city is rarely visited by the curious folk that might most appreciate it. The majority of Illodaunt’s residents were ostracized or discriminated against by non-magical beings, and are quite unfriendly toward such visitors; those stubborn enough to ignore the warnings and enter the city have often been attacked, killed, or disappeared entirely.
However, once a year, Illodaunt opens its gates to the whole world, inviting both magic and non-magic folk into its streets for a week-long celebration known as A Thousand Masks. For one short week, everyone in the city is considered equal; both residents and visitors are given festive masks and together they revel in the streets with drink, dance, and—of course—magic.
During this time, the outsiders are permitted to buy and trade with the bazaar, a privilege that draws in all manner of interested parties. The bazaar, aware of this, saves many of its best items for the festival; its carts line the streets, offering a taste of magic to the eager buyers. One can find nearly anything among their wares, though—more often than not—they will wish they hadn’t.
Download: PDF | PDF (no map)
3 comments
Comment by Jeremy Southard on September 17, 2010 at 12:49 PM
This was an awesome adventure! I ran it last night for a small, 4 PC game. I’ve never run any skill challenges for this group and thought this adventure was a good way to start with 5 of them!
I only made a few minor adjustments:
I added a 2nd wave of 2/20 minions to the 1st encounter. (This was mostly because one of my players started mouthing off about not wasting actual attacks since the first one went down on after one hit. I make it clear through narration when there are minions on the board, “common street thugs, broken clubs, tattered clothing” but meta-gaming talk makes me react with more bad guys!)
For the last encounter, I decided when the switch happens with the illusions jumping around, all marks are lost unless it is on Visil. That was great fun and they didn’t catch on until towards the end.
The provided maps were really nice and professional looking, but the backgrounds were pretty dark when printed out. It was hard to distinguish the gridlines from the background in some places too. Normally I would have just drawn the maps out on the grid paper or used dungeon tiles but decided to print out what came with the adventure.
Overall, the group enjoyed playing through the adventure and it was a nice change to have everything already done for the game session. I will keep your encounters at my fingertips for future games!
Comment by Corwin on September 17, 2010 at 1:06 PM
Thanks for the comment!
Good call about adding the minions. Until now we had just been calling them super-minions, regardless of the hits taken. I like that you call them 2/20 and 3/30 minions, I’m going to steal that! I also have a tendency to toss more bad guys out when the players mouth off about minions, so it’s funny to hear it from someone else.
Thanks for letting me know about the maps, I worry about that sometimes but I don’t think most people print them out (to save on ink). I’ll make sure to keep them brighter from now on, and especially make sure the grid lines are more noticeable.
I also like your idea for having the mark stay on Visil, wish I had put that in the original adventure.
How did the players react to the weirdness of the Perception skill challenges? As in needing to lower the DC to finally “spot” the masked man. Did it feel kind of organic and like they were actually looking for him? I was most worried about how that would come off.
I’m glad you and your players enjoyed it, and hope it convinced you to come back and check out later encounters when you need something! Thanks again.
Comment by Jeremy Southard on September 18, 2010 at 2:21 PM
The players enjoyed gathering the information with the other skills to help them along on their perception checks. It did indeed feel more organic and I had them justify to me why they were using each skill and what they were doing. I got them started using the text you provided, but midway through the first skill challenge they took over. A few times what they came up with lined up perfectly with what you had in the adventure too!
On one of the rolls, the Eladrin Warlord did an athletics check to throw the Halfling Sorcerer into the air as he was kicking and scream, to cause the crowd to move away. It was great too when they would miss a DC and I allowed them to narrate their consequences of getting spotted or missing the jump across a rooftop. All very entertaining!
The one thing I thought of after the fact for more RP and player-happiness purposes would be to instead of taking a -3 to the DC I think I’d give them a token representing a +3 bonus to their roll. They found the trail or examined the debris so they get the bonus. Math-wise and mechanics-wise it makes no difference but shows the players a little more reward for their work. I know as a player I love bonuses and doing the minus to the DC just doesn’t feel the same.
Keep up the good work! I *will* be back again!