The pre-game brief was: "elves are dying, you are one who has answered a call for aid by the local temples trying to do something about it - whether for coin, glory or favours I leave to you. Only steer at this point is
- build someone who can work as part of an adventuring band
- you will be venturing out onto the planes, far from your networks
Build classic adventurers of whatever stripe, going to run 5e, start at level 3. This is going to be more puzzles and exploration than high crunch combat."
** Inspiration
This was inspired by 'Hunting Displacer Beasts' by Dael Kingsmill, which is perfectly on theme for the 'hunter becomes the hunted' aspect of the Beastlands. I watched through the video a couple of times, took some notes for the systems then figured out how to get a nice lead in to the core 'grid hunt' set piece. The stats for the original 'Night Beast' can be found on GM Binder. u/NathanKellen also had a go at this, also adapted it and did a big write up on r/MonarchsFactory.
The set up I went with was that long ago a seelie courtier had a pet tiger with an icon on its collar made of wood from this lost elven world at the heart of this campaign. When the seelie court visited the Beastlands the tiger broke free and ran off into the forests of Brux, the layer of eternal twilight. All traces of this wood are precious so our heroes are sent to track down the remains of this tiger.
Arriving by portal to the ruins of the seelie court on the river bank, the first encounter is with some monkey petitioners who can offer information about the very basic surrounds and suggest that the place to look for a tiger is in the nearby 'valley of the tigers'. Setting off into the forest the parties ran into another local, an half-anteater petitioner, who advises them to only attempt an approach on the tigers layer if the tiger is asleep, or drugged with the sedative brew they have. After dosing some bait with the sedative, the player set watch, get a glimpse of the near-invisible shadow-tiger, then follow it into the valley and we run Dael's search grid mini-game.
7 x 7 grid for the valley of the tigers
The goal was to start at a point the players chose on the left and find the tigers lair, somewhere in the valley. Key elements were:
- 12 hours before the sedative wore off
- stealth checks where rangers and rogues could pass their proficiency bonii to others in need
- an hour to journey between squares and the shadow-tiger gets a perception check every time they move
- tests on entering a cell to detect the tigers tracks in adjacent cells, additional tests (on failure) costing an hour
- some hazards besides the shadow-tiger - I went with some hidden cenotes the party could stumble into
For each run I marked up a different trail through the jungle and lair location. The icon and tiger(s) would be found in the lair. How alert they would be depended on the stealth of the party and how long they took to find the lair.
** What worked well:
- Folding in a late player into the second encounter (the anteater petitioner); worked really well, got the ball rolling and tied in really nicely to the in-world logic (the scout was sent ahead, makes sense)
- Killed random encounter tables; given the tight time everything was scripted along the 'main trail'
- Inject energy with combat and hazards; I dropped in a mid-point combat at the entrance to the valley of the tigers, pretty quick and mainly served for the variety.
- Ruthless time-management, with the helpful anteater petitioner NPC being my main lever to guide the players
- Rolling in the open: letting the players see I was rolling every time they moved (but not knowing it was the shadow-tiger perception check) injected a suitable level of 'this forest is not our friend' atmosphere
- Invoking the Planescape Beastlands rule that you begin to adopt animal traits on arrival; for animalistic PCs like tortles and tabaxi I offered the choice of accepting advantage on reflex saves, disadvantage on intelligence based saves. In both parties the tabaxi chose to embrace their wild side. Others like dwarves, elves and firbolgs all got indications of their nature linked to their highest attribute, manifesting more or less rapidly depending on how chaotic they were. Very low crunch, high fluff, seemed to work well.
- From player feedback: that the petitioners were not obstructions, and they did not actually have to kill them
Dawn Light, done on Hero Forge
** What needed improvement
- When the puzzles go wrong, do you stick with it so the solution feels earned or pull the plug? I chose to power through even as one party got somewhat lost and time was running down. Energy sagged a little but then picked up once they found the lair.
- I forgot to ratchet up the physiological changes after the initial introduction. They should have manifested as stronger changes, especially in the more chaotic party members.
- I should have mauled the party a bit more, the shadow-tiger got action-economied into near irrelevance in the end. I am a big fan of proper planning leading to bloodless victories but I think I need to draw a leaf from Matt Colvilles book on 'a monster lives for three rounds, maybe' and go nova with abilities from the get go. No point in keeping anything in the tank, there is no tomorrow for most of them.
Nar Norsa, done on Hero Forge
Group 1 - In House Testing Team: Ran the theory with a stats generated average group of nameless adventurers led by a Cleric of Kord
Group 2 - Scholars and Seekers returned
Quogon - tortle cleric of twilight
Jan - dwarf ranger
Ivy - eladrin Oath of the Ancient Paladin
Tudur - human cleric
Pruhaly - tabaxi warlock
Group 3 - Trackers
Nar Norsa - firbolg druid
Hale Umbrato - Shadar Kai ranger
Senna Brownlock - halfling fighter
Dawn Light - tabaxi rogue
** Most favoured moments:
- Pruhaly leaning into her wild-side and having a crisis of conscience about attacking another cat
- Dawn Light deciding to solo the beasts lair when she realised she had surprise, and then dashing back out towards the party with the icon in her jerkin and running past them into the forest
- Nar Norsa, Brownlock - the little & large tracking experts studying the crunched up rhino at the entry to the valley
- The in-house testing team getting mangled as they split the party in the final sprint for the lair. The fighter and rogue went down, the wizard just survived long enough for the bard and cleric to catch up
- Very clever angles on tracking the tiger through the valley including a clamber up a tree which identified a series of cenotes the party had been about to blunder right into
- Opening the session with a startled petitioner monkey panicking and throwing their banana at the newly gated in PCs
- The self-induced 'beast in the darkness' effect where the Scholars and Seekers chucked a darkness over the tiger then had a bunch of spells held for when the tiger eventually emerged - including a rear-rank burning hands which lead to minor friendly-fire injury.
- Endless critique of the teleportation support offered by the mage who was gating them in and out.
- Bending a sapling to make a gate-form to anchor the exit portal, before dashing through, releasing the sapling and ensuring no pursuit.
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