I gave the the Shadowdark adventure generators a turn to create a session for my Friday night open game. Whenever folk ask about adventure generators it is one that comes up alongside Worlds Without Number and Knave 2e. The Shadowdark one is quite terrain tied with a lot of it being in the 'quest' and 'location' elements backed up by terrain-specific encounter tables.
Throwing some dice at the various tables we get:
Inciting event - runaway wagon
Quest - Spy on the ritual of the Royal Knights
Location - Necropolis of the Enchanted Depths
Opposition - Steel Drakes - known for defeating dragons
Location - Grassland, ruied town
Encounters (grasslands 1) - Beserker hunters that invite you to join them
Encounters (grasslands 2) - Wild boars
Encounters (ruins) - Ogre scrawling grafitti
Encounters (tomb) - wandering merchant trapped in coffin
I also used the settlement generation tools to come up with the destination settlement of Darkwater - those were very good giving me four districts, a handful of landmarks across all of them and enough texture to make the place interesting. Shadowdark being Shadowdark it also has dungeon generation tables but I did not delve that deep for this one-shot session.
I recast all this as
1. Old acquaintance turns up looking for aid - lesser nobles more dragons for the glory of hunting them and have invited him to a great ritual - he needs some sneaky souls to back him up and figure out if this is harmless or needs to be stopped
2. Travel down the coast, aboard known ship Miss Fit to Forza (conservation of NPCs, locations)
3. Hike across the plains to a tiny village - maybe encounter hunters, game, local hag from previous adventure
4. Reach ruined town - scout lay of land, opposition
5. Uncover Steel Drakes plan - crack open dwarven vault of monsters in stasis - figure out approach to stop them
6. Venture below to vault - tomb encounter, recycle dwarven vault content from Southern Reaches campaign
7. Exit strategy and fall out management - potential envounter with local foes from previous adventure
Actual session play - retagged here to match the elements above.
1. A familiar face, Alermo the Dragonslayer, arrives at the Golden Cockerel to seek the aid of our heroes. They have word that a brotherhood of would-be monster hunters - the Steel Drakes - find the world to civilised and seek to conduct a ritual to unleash monsters so that they might find glory in slaying them as in times of old. Alermo figures this is likely a dreadful idea but is no subtle magician and begs aid from the party to help stop this.
Marshalling their resources the party consult a local sage, finding that there are many, many possible monster summoning rituals varying from leaving out treasure, to Orbs of Dragon Command through to releasing monsters from sealed away vals. Realising the partial copy of the Great Red Book they 'rescued' on a previous adventure might hold the answer, they set to trying to locate the old dwarven vaults in the current day. To speed their travel to where Alermo had been invited for the ritual they once more call upon the Miss Fit and also enlist them to help interpret the maps.
2. Venturing down the coast to Forza aboard the Miss Fit, our heroes arrive into Forza and decide to overnight at the Circular Spine before venturing on to Darkwater, the village where the ritual is to be held. When Hyde shoots the brawler in the fighting pit, a mass melee kicks off which turns into the visitors from the Golden Cockerel taking on the two dozen other patrons. Giant hermit crabs are dual wielded, ceilings collapsed, barrels used to steam-roll patrons and multiple party members downed before they with through to victory.
3. The next day, venturing out along the road to Darkwater, they come to a shrunken town in the ruins of an old dwarven necropolis, a gaping rift leading down to the depths.
4. Sneaking expertly around down they realise that what life remains here thrives on fishing relics out of the dwarven ruins below. They send Alermo on with instructions to play along with the Steel Drakes.
5. Eavesdropping on the Steel Drakes camp of second sons, cadet-branch nobles and other noble no-accounts they hear of a scheme to open a dwarven vault below and release the monsters within.
6. Creeping into the ruins ahead of the Steel Drakes grand ritual the alchemists within the party marvel at the dwarven wisdom and capabilities etched on the great bronze walls. They find still functioning alchemical workshops, arcano-technical storage where extinct plants still grow and a great vault full of monsters imprisoned in crystal pillars filled with honey. Hatching a plan, the party cook up an explosive agent using the dwarves own ingredients and equipment, set it to detonate in the vault of crystal-encased monsters and rig the doors to be unopenable for the inside - and then wait.
When the Steel Drakes finally venture down to enact their ritual the party is waiting, warning Alermo to wait behind before trapping the rest of the Steel Drakes in the vault they long sought with a fizzing-fused explosive that shortly detonates, shatters many of the crystal prisons and grants them the monster slaying chance they sought. Once the screams died down the party tripped the ancient purge system to eliminate the monsters. This was only partially effective they found on peering back inside the vault, but decided to seal the doors and leave.
7. With Alermo to vouch for the plot, supported by the excavation notes and plans from the Steel Drakes, the parties send word to the powers-that-be of their service to the realm and request their just reward.
All in all there was a big block of time spent researching and prepping for departure, then they got into a huge brawl in the Circular Spine that took a bunch of time but was pretty entertaining. Four of five and a half hours were spent on the first two bits - the brawl spun out way longer than expected. Points three to the end all got done in the last 90 mins. The rolled up encounters got less airtime than I might have expected and I dialled back the active opposition to the heroes getting in place to enact their plan in the old dwarven vault to save time to match. It all played out pretty well - the quest, location and settlement generators were very helpful.
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