Campaign Prologue

Session 0 for this campaign consisted of rolling up characters and then giving the players the following background information and encounter.

Seeking adventure, the characters have signed on to escort a merchant caravan across more than 700 miles to Irongate Keep on the southernmost border of the kingdom of Remedios—the edge of the civilized world. Each was paid 50 guilders (gp) to sign on, plus another 150 guilders upon arrival.

During the trip, each character learns two of the following rumors about the area, overheard from the merchants (roll 1d8, no repeats)…

1. The Badlands region was once the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Thera—matriarch of the Solis pantheon, and the goddess of earth, life, and hearth. In the distant past, her temple priests fought a war with an evil cult. The ruins of both the Theran temple and the cult’s former lair are hidden somewhere in the hills below the keep.
2. The keep’s castellan is a former Remediosi knight, a righteous man of law and order.
3. The keep’s doctor pays good money for animal and plant specimens for his studies.
4. The broken hills of the Badlands are rich in gold and silver ore, but there are also many reports of caves and ancient ruins dotting the region, chock-full of treasure and artifacts.
5. There is a fountain in the keep with a statue of the water-goddess, Luvia (daughter of Thera). Supposedly, its waters invigorate any follower of the Solis pantheon. When the moon is dark, the statue is said to whisper secrets to the faithful.
6. There is a secret morgue beneath the castellan’s fortress, where the doctor conducts grotesque experiments on the dead. Some say he is a necromancer.
7. The vizier of the keep is one of the castellan’s closest advisers. He is said to possess a magical eye that sees everything that happens in the keep.
8. Many unsavory characters pass through the keep’s village...especially now that so much ore is coming out of the hills. Be careful what you say and to whom you say it.

It is up to the players as to what rumors they share with the rest of the party (or don't). 

 

Approaching the Border

After more than two months of travel across the grassy plains, a line of dark hills finally appears ahead. As the caravan gets closer, the jagged, broken hills become more dangerous-looking. A hot dry wind begins to sweep across the flat plain, carrying whiffs of acrid smoke and the sickly-sweet scent of death.

The caravan track eventually enters the hills via a wide canyon between two craggy ridgelines. The ground becomes uneven and strewn with boulders. Dry, thorny scrub clings to the hillsides, and rocks and debris occasionally tumble down from the ridges. There is a constant sense that the caravan is being watched from the cliffs, as vultures wheel ominously overhead.
 

Encounter on the Road

Near day’s end, a thin ribbon of smoke is seen rising ahead—other travelers on the track have been ambushed and viciously murdered by bandits. A burned-out covered wagon smolders on the dusty track. A merchant and two guards lie dead on the ground, along with a pair of bandits. Two mules and a pony graze nervously on scrub nearby. A band of ill-seeming stragglers picks over the remains.

The surviving bandits consist of (3) goblin peons and a hobgoblin grunt (the two dead are also goblins). The goblins wear ragged leather armor and wield scimitars and short bows. The hobgoblin wears leather armor and uses a longsword in melee. 

As the party moves forward to attack, the goblins take cover behind the wagon and open fire with bows while the hobgoblin hangs back to engage the main fighter. After a quick (but difficult) fight, the bandits are dead.

After looting the bodies of some loose change and a collection of poor-quality weapons, the party's fighter—Smitty—acquires the hobgoblin's leather armor and longsword. He also finds that the hobgoblin was wearing a bronze badge embossed with a strange sigil. In addition, the creature's forehead is branded with the same mark.

The party recovers a bale of trade goods from the destroyed wagon. The merchants with whom the party travels refuse to take possession of any of the goods, as the containers all bear the trade-marks of a competing merchant house and they don’t want to be accused of stealing. The party is welcome to take the goods, however, if they so wish.

 

Arrival

When the caravan gets back underway, the keep is only a few miles away. They continue following the trail and arrive just as the sun sets. The narrow, rocky track ascends the bluff—a sheer wall of natural stone to the left and a steep cliff to the right. The track widens at the top, before the entrance to the keep, where a drawbridge spans a deep gorge.

All along the keep wall, helmeted soldiers peer down, ready to repel enemies with crossbows and polearms. A guard carrying a polearm and wearing ring mail and a dark blue tunic with the sigil of a gray portcullis greets the party at the drawbridge: 

"State your names and business in Irongate Keep!”