Rescue on Mt. Oberg
Real life adventures are often a rich source of
inspiration for fictional ones at the gaming table. With that in mind, I present the following
scenarios for your reading pleasure.
My primary idea was to locate the mountain somewhere
along the eastern seaboard of the United States, preferably during the War for Independence. The group of player
characters would be scouts for the Continental Army sent to survey the area for
possible troop movements for an attack on a British held city. The chief cartographer fell from one of the
high cliffs when his muddy boots failed to find purchase on an expanse of
exposed rock. The rest of his group
needs to retrieve his body and maps before they are discovered by Loyalist
forces, alerting them to the rebels’ interest in the area.
In a D&D-style campaign, we would take the same geographic features but we’d have to tweak the history some to prevent a wizard from simply casting Fly, Levitate, or Spider Climb to bypass the challenge presented. Granted, a bird or lizard familiar/animal companion or a druid with the Wild Shape ability would still have an easy go of this adventure. With that in mind…
A couple hundred years ago, a war raged between elves and orcs. The battles that were fought were centered on Mt. Oberg, a rocky tor that rises more than 1,000’ above the surrounding landscape, giving whoever possessed it a strategic advantage over their often hostile neighbors. As the conflict raged, the mountain changed hands several times but was most held by the more skilled elven forces but even so, the numerically superior orcs were wearing down the elves due to simple attrition.
In the final confrontation, elven wizards vied against orc shamans, with both sides unleashing the powerful spells the two races could muster. The conflagration of unleashed energies devastated the surrounding forest and ripped apart the fabric of mystic energy in the immediate region, leaving the mountain in the center of a dead magic zone.
The orcs were defeated but the elves had expended too much of their power and were unable to hold the territory they had won. The mountain soon became a buffer zone between the two races. Humans from a nearby kingdom want to expand their holdings and have been sending scouts into the area to reconnoiter the mountain and the access the disposition of the remaining orc and elven forces. One of these expeditions was crossing the mountain after a heavy rain. The rest of the adventure would play out as described above but with elves or orcs standing in for the British.
In a D&D-style campaign, we would take the same geographic features but we’d have to tweak the history some to prevent a wizard from simply casting Fly, Levitate, or Spider Climb to bypass the challenge presented. Granted, a bird or lizard familiar/animal companion or a druid with the Wild Shape ability would still have an easy go of this adventure. With that in mind…
A couple hundred years ago, a war raged between elves and orcs. The battles that were fought were centered on Mt. Oberg, a rocky tor that rises more than 1,000’ above the surrounding landscape, giving whoever possessed it a strategic advantage over their often hostile neighbors. As the conflict raged, the mountain changed hands several times but was most held by the more skilled elven forces but even so, the numerically superior orcs were wearing down the elves due to simple attrition.
In the final confrontation, elven wizards vied against orc shamans, with both sides unleashing the powerful spells the two races could muster. The conflagration of unleashed energies devastated the surrounding forest and ripped apart the fabric of mystic energy in the immediate region, leaving the mountain in the center of a dead magic zone.
The orcs were defeated but the elves had expended too much of their power and were unable to hold the territory they had won. The mountain soon became a buffer zone between the two races. Humans from a nearby kingdom want to expand their holdings and have been sending scouts into the area to reconnoiter the mountain and the access the disposition of the remaining orc and elven forces. One of these expeditions was crossing the mountain after a heavy rain. The rest of the adventure would play out as described above but with elves or orcs standing in for the British.
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