Summary

The player characters take part in a project that is reestablishing owlbears in areas where they have been previously wiped out. Their job is to move a pair of large, ferocious owlbears, and their two eggs, from the Wild Wood to the town of Steep Valley. An earlier version of this adventure was produced as a part of Unfamiliar Heroes.

 

 

Game Options

Secrets

In this adventure there are multiple opportunities to involve secrets that the player characters are hiding—most notably by having the thieves attempt to blackmail them. If you want to take full advantage of these opportunities, have the players work out secrets for their characters in advance.

 

Weather Mechanic

This optional mechanic is designed to make the environment feel more real to the players.

Spring weather in this region is highly variable. Any time the characters are in a situation where they will be affected by the weather, such as the day they are collecting the Owlbears from the den site, roll a six-sided die to determine what the weather is.

• 1: A clear, gently warm, sunny day with cold night time temperatures.
• 2: A cool (but not cold), gray, cloudy day with similar nighttime temperatures.
• 3: A sudden cold snap that causes a clear, cold day and a frosty night.
• 3: A mildly cool, windy day with alternating rain and sun. The night is similar. Visibility is limited during the periods of rain.
• 4: A cold day and night with a constant drizzle that limits visibility.
• 5: A cool day with steady rain and periodic gusts of wind. The night is similar. The rain limits visibility, especially when the wind picks up.

Any time that visibility is limited, there is a one-die penalty to vision-based Awareness Skill rolls. In addition, some vision-based tasks that wouldn’t normally require a dice roll, do require one when visibility is limited.

 

 

Stage 0: Character Creation

If characters are being made specifically for this adventure, use the Magic Goes Awry character creation system with this additional guidance:

• All characters are students at the Adventurers Academy who have just completed their core training and are about to start their first internship.
• This game has room for less physically active characters to participate as long as they have a way to travel.
• There will be diverse action sequences in this adventure, but there shouldn’t be any killing, so a character focused on using lethal weapons won’t be an ideal fit.
• If character creation is its own session, there are fast, mini-adventures that can be used as part of a character creation to give players a feeling for the game system.
• Additional background question for each character: How did your character become a student in the Adventurers Academy?
• Group background question: Your group is about to start their first internship together. How did your group come together? For example, did you choose this group, or did the Academy place you together? How well do you know each other?

 

 

Stage 1: The Internship Briefing

As this adventure starts, the group arrives at a morning meeting with Kyra Piper so that they can receive this internship assignment.

Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure.

• In progress…

Read the details of this stage here.

 

 

Stage 2: Preparing at the Academy

The player characters make their travel plans, decide how they are going to transport the owlbears, and prepare anything they will need. This is also an opportunity for the players to explore the Adventurers Academy.

Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure.

• In progress…

Read the details of this stage here.

 

 

Stage 3: The Journey to Island Town

This stage of the adventure is all about making the journey feel real and introducing the thieves as a threat. The group plans the nitty-gritty details of their trip and has their first encounter with the thieves. Then they undertake their journey and have their second encounter with the thieves in the city of Fork. Fork is the biggest city near Island Town and all routes pass through it.

Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure.

• In progress…

Read the details of this stage here.

 

 

Stage 4: Meeting with Silvia

The player characters enter Island Town, meet with Keeper Silvia Aguilar, and have an opportunity to rest and prepare. The two main goals of this stage of the adventure are to make the setting feel real and to give the player characters information about the thieves.

Supplemental Information: These optional maps of Island Town are provided to assist in role-playing.

• Labeled Map of Island Town
• Unlabeled Map of Island Town

Read the details of this stage here.

 

 

Stage 5: Entering the Wild Wood

The group enters the Wild Wood and encounters some of its dangers at Briar Creek (will-o’-wisps, razor briar, and vampire vine) on the way to the owlbear den site. If the player characters have agreed to collect plants for Bristle, this is where they will get them.

Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure. The map and tokens are optional, but the creature and plant descriptions are necessary.

• Briar Creek Encounter Map (36 by 29 squares)
• Will-o’-Wisp Tokens: Red, Green, Blue
• Will-o’-Wisp Creature Description
• Razor Briar Plant Description
• Vampire Vine Plant Description

Reading the Briar Creek Map

• Briar Creek: The blue, stony line running vertically down the center of the map is Briar Creek.
• Elevation Lines: The curving gray-brown, stony lines indicate elevation. The darker side indicates higher elevation and the paler side indicates lower elevation.
• The Briar Creek Ravine: The dark brown area directly around Briar Creek where the elevation lines are close together marks a small ravine. This entire area has Vampire Vines in it.
• Standing Trees: All standing trees are shown top down and partially transparent. Their branches are shown as bushy, pale-green ovals centered around brown and black spiral trunks.
• Downed Trees: The moss covered logs of many downed tress are scattered throughout both maps. In this map there is one living downed tree that bridges the creek. Some of its roots are in the ground and some are in the air.
• Razor Briar: This dangerous plant is marked by dark red (almost black) looping squiggles.
• Willow Thickets: The pale-green, bushy areas in the creek are willow thickets. Because they have many small trunks, rather than one large trunk, no trunks are shown for the willow thickets.

Using the Map on a Virtual Tabletop: The above map and tokens are designed to be used on virtual tabletops, like roll20. If you choose to do this, keep in mind that action scene rounds are anywhere between thirty and ninety seconds, depending on what the characters are doing. As a general rule, each round a character can move a number of squares equal to three times their body number.

• Body #3: They can move up to 9 squares.
• Body #4: They can move up to 12 squares.
• Body #5: They can move up to 15 squares.

Read the details of this stage of the adventure here.

 

 

Stage 6: The Owlbear Den

The group arrives at the owlbear den to discover that the family of owlbears they are to transport is in the middle of a conflict with another pair of owlbears. The player characters need to resolve this conflict before they can prepare the owlbears for transport.

Supplemental Information: The following information is useful for running this stage of the adventure.

• Owlbear Den Encounter Map
• Owlbear Token
• Owlbear Creature Description
• Audio of Owlbear Fight with Warning Calls

Reading the Owlbear Den Encounter Map: The elevation lines, standing trees, and downed trees marked on this map the same way they were marked on the Briar Creek map for Stage 4.

• Thickets: Particularly dense thickets of bushes are marked by pale-green, shaggy, squiggles that don’t have trunks in the middle.
• The Den Site: The owlbear den site is marked by a partially obscured dip in the highest (smallest) elevation ring. The largest clump of bushes is obscuring the opening.

Owlbears: The player characters are here to collect a specific pair of owlbears, along with their two eggs. We will be calling them the defending owlbears in this section.

• Appearance: Owlbears look like large bears with owl heads. Most of their body is covered in fur. They have brown feathers on their heads, in a crest that runs along their spine, and band of feathers that goes around their bellies and hips, much like a feathery tutu. They have massive hooked beaks and large paws with powerful claws.
• Behavior: Owlbear behavior is a combination of bird and bear behavior. Like owls, they pair bond, lay eggs, and raise nestlings together. Like bears, they react aggressively when someone gets between them and food, when startled, or when protecting their young. When upset, owlbears stand up on their hind legs, puff up all their feathers, and screech threateningly. Owlbears can attack with both claws and beaks.
• Attacks: When an owlbear attacks a player character, the player must roll their character’s physical defense. Failures (zero successes) will result in an injury.
• Magic Resistance: Anytime magic would directly affect an owlbear, roll a six-sided die. If the result is a 4, 5, or 6, the magic has no effect on them. This happens regardless of whether the magic is harmful or beneficial

Read the details of this stage of the adventure here.

 

 

Stage 7: Traveling with the Owlbears

In progress…

 

 

Stage 8: Confrontation with the Egg Thieves

In progress…

 

 

Stage 9: Owlbear Reintroduction and Wrap Up

In progress…