Looking for module to run

[Aedyn]

Hello all,

Hoping some people can offer some assistance with locating something suitable for my group's needs.

I am not going to have time to finish my module for our first gaming session, so I want something I can run to get things started and tide me over until I finish writing/constructing my module.

Here are the ideal points:

- Suitable for first level PCs to start on; group size is five PCs (Paladin, Barbarian, Wizard, Rogue, Bard)
- Good, solid story (the players prefer story to hack and slash, but do enjoy plot-appropriate combat)
- Fairly short preferred, but not mandatory
- Prebuilt FG module I can purchase complete with maps
- Forgotten Realms based, ideally in the Sword Coast
- NOT Lost Mines of Phandelver (some players have played this before)

All suggestions gratefully received since I'm in a time crunch.

[LordEntrails]

I'll put forth my own module, Balance Disturbed. It meets most of your requests (first level, FG module) though it is not set in the Sword Coast. It is story driven, but their are several major battles/conflicts in it plus several non-combat encounters that are role-playing and skill based. Its flavor start off with the party trying to survive and fleeing with a message, but end with the party trying to turn the tables and taking the fight to the enemy.

I would also suggest you check out AdventureAWeek. They have many different modules, I think you can get the first one free even, and many of them have FG modules.

[Zacchaeus]

There's good list of short adventures in this post. I haven't checked if they are all suitable for 1st level characters or not.

[JohnD]

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store...p?id=NLFG5EGOS

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store...GFG5ETIHMA5E02

I have the second one and it isn't bad because you can put it almost anywhere you want - could even be on their way to what you envisioned as the normal starting point for your game.

[Aedyn]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the timely assistance.

[LordEntrails]

Let us know what you end up running and what you think of it. Reviews and opinions of people are something of an interest of mine Virtual Scribe Reviews

[Aedyn]

Let us know what you end up running and what you think of it. Reviews and opinions of people are something of an interest of mine Virtual Scribe Reviews

As requested, here is what I ended up doing...

None of the players had done Sunless Citadel, so I initially decided to go with that. But I quite liked the sound of the Fiddler's Lament too, and finding myself unable to choose between the two, I decided "why not just do both?".

So I did.

Our first session ended up being rescheduled to to a work conflict on the part of the one of the players, which gave me time to Frankenstein the two modules and add some parts of my own!

I started with pre-session games to get each character/duo into position for the first session. I rather hate dumping everyone in together and letting them work out why they got there, so I prefer to run individualised first sessions to provide a story reason for them running into the other PCs and having a reason to work together.

In this case, the human barbarian and the lightfoot rogue were a duo (knew each other already from their story background), the human paladin and the half elf bard knew each other already, and the mage (sorry, will never call them wizards...old school affection! ) was a loner. The campaign opened in and around Watedeep.

The Barbarian-Rogue duo came across a dead, plague ridden corpse (a priest of Mielikki) lying on the ground en route to Waterdeep, a journey they undertook due to the Rashemi Barbarian being on his Dajemma. A rambling note the dead man wrote immediately before he died from the blight tied into the Sunless Citadel storyline, with the Blight stemming and originating from the tree that grows the two apples. The note left instructions to burn the corpse along with rambling directions hinting at the origin of the plague to the north, and vague allusions to "stopping him" (unnamed) with deadly repercussions for the whole region if "he" is not dealt with. Shortly after this, two figures approached the funeral pyre they'd build...

...who were the paladin and bard duo, sent by the Temple of Selune (the Paladin's deity) to locate a missing person (the dead man) with urgency. The dead man had been expected by the Selunites with further information about the possible emergence of deadly blight to the north, having been investigating it and discovering its deadly nature: apparently uncurable by magical or mundane things alike, and invariably fatal within three weeks. Desperate, the Selunite and Mielikkian churches scrambled to find any sort of cure.

One of the long-shot rumours they planned to investigate was finding a fruit that was said to flower once a year on the Summer Solstice (ties into Sunless Citadel) with the capability of curing all ailments. Coupled with this, the paladin's family is infected with the blight, as is most of the Selunite church, giving him personal stake in chasing down a cure. They set out to the south east of Waterdeep to try and find the missing man while the paladin's mentor searched to the north east; the duo eventually see the smoke rising from a fire, which turns out to be the funeral pyre lit by the Rogue and the Barbarian.

In the third storyline, the mage was journeying to Waterdeep after a catastrophic accident trapped his instructor and all of the other apprentices in the ethereal plane. An incoherent man bursts out of the brush at the side of the road, half crazed and ranting, and grabs at the mage before being offered water. After draining the water canteen, the man runs off back into the forest and the mage is unable to track him for long. This man is the dead man found by the rogue and the barbarian, and the same man the paladin and bard were sent to find. He's also infected the mage with the Blight, although unknown to the mage at the time. Journeying on, the mage encounters the paladin's mentor, searching the north for the dead priest. After a discussion in which the mage reveals he has encountered the man in a disturbed state of mine, the mentor lifes the mage onto his mount and speeds off to the south to find his protege. This lead everyone into the first session.

From there, the paladin's mentor laid out the background of the issue and requested help in searching for the rumoured apple set to bloom on the Summer Solstice, suggesting the PCs look int one area while he and his daughter try another. He also makes clear the deadly nature of the blight to the mage and the paladin given their personal stakes in finding a cure, laying everything he knows out on the table. The PCs agree to try and find the cure, knowing they have little time to lose with the encroachment of the Summer Solstice looming.

Riding to the north on mounts provided by the Temple of Selune, the PCs camp for the night when a strange tiefling approaches and asks to share the fire. After he introduces himself as a storyteller, the PCs ask for a story and he duly obliges, telling them the background of the elf maiden in "Fiddler's Lament" as it is "a favourite" of this. Playing up the creepy factor, after finishing his tale he removes his boots to reveal cloven hooves of his own. Shortly afterwards, he departs the campsite to continue his journey, leaving the PCs to contemplate his visit and debate whether or not his story was real or imagined.

As the journey to the north continue, the group entered the town of Red Larch and encountered a festival celebrating the impending Summer Solstice in full swing, fiddles and flutes and other musicians everywhere. We played a soundtrack over watch2gether (www.watch2gether.com) and I included fiddle music to desensitize them to the presence of the instrument before they run into the Fidder's Lament plotline further to the north.

All in all, it's going well so far, although truth be told I haven't got far into the modules as written yet. Quite interestingly, we're 2 sessions in (not including the pre-sessions) and have had no combat and barely a die roll outside of various perception/investigation rolls for securing campsites. In fact, the roll of most import was the bard doing a performance check for a dance in Red Larch. It has been almost solid roleplay thus far, although the players don't seem to mind that at all.

The future of the campaign:

- Players will continue to the north and play out Fiddler's Lament (one way or another) in Westerbridge, en-route to the more northern areas.

- From there, they'll segway into Sunless Citadel to find the cure and potentially discover the elf maiden's tormentor. Then it's a race against time to get back before the Selunite clergy die and/or the Blight spreads.

Hopefully the mage doesn't forget to take the cure himself...

I'll provide more detailed feedback on the two modules once I've seen them both play out. Even though they're modified a bit, I should get a good sense of how they both feel.