The Game Master

Adventure Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the Game Master’s section of the Quickstart Adventure Guide! If you’re here, you’re probably about to run the Sablewood Messengers quickstart adventure for your players. Whether you’ve run numerous TTRPGs in the past or this is your first time taking on the GM role, we’ll lead you through everything you need to know to have a successful first session of Daggerheart. It is recommended you read through this entire guide before beginning. You’ll also want to cut out all the Sablewood Messengers standees at the back of this guide and gather 12 tokens you can utilize to represent Fear during the game.

Character Packet

After they receive their character packet, ensure your players read through the first page. It will give them the background information on their character.

At the end of the Breakdown section, there will be a question for them to answer. Go around the table sharing the responses to each question. Then, ask the players to assign their Connections to other characters in the party. They may choose one, two, or all three. Encourage them to talk about why they’ve given these connections to each other, and build their relationships together. Take notes on anything that might be useful from their conversation to work into the adventure.

Then ask them to cut out their character standee, fold it, and place it next to them. They’ll need it during combat.

The Sablewood

As your players look over the first page of their character packet, take a moment to read through the Sablewood summary below to familiarize yourself with the setting of this adventure.

The Sablewood is a downloadable location designed for level one characters, so when you finish this adventure, you can easily continue the story by exploring additional areas of the forest. For more about the Sablewood, visit www.daggerheart.com/downloads

Summary

The Sablewood is a seemingly-endless forest of dark trees that reach hundreds of feet towards the sky—some say they have been here since the time before the Forgotten Gods. It’s famous for its unique hybrid animals, like the lemur-toads and tiger-elk, as well as its well-worn trade routes populated by traveling merchants.

The hybrid animals in this place range from completely docile to extremely vicious. A cat-squirrel might come feed gently from your hand, while an eeligator would launch itself out of the nearby river to snap you up as an easy meal.

Within the Sablewood there is a small, friendly village known as Hush, the PCs' destination during this adventure. There are no inns within Hush. Any travelers passing through are treated as honored guests and invited to stay in the home of a member of the community.

Many of the people of Hush (and the Sablewood at large) still worship the Forgotten Gods, despite having no names by which to call them. The Whitefire Arcanist is the leader of Hush’s primary religious order and maintains the magic of the wards that protect the village.