(gentle upbeat music)
- Hello, friends!
I recently posted the first video in my new series,
"Steal This Side Quest," (chimes tinkling)
and you guys seemed to really like it!
In this series, I outline a simple, scalable D&D adventure
that can be dropped into your game
when you need a quick side quest.
Each adventure is tied to one of my original characters,
which will hopefully give you a well-developed and fun NPC
for your players to interact with.
I'll put a link in the description to a Google Doc
with a basic write-up of the adventure,
as well as links to relevant stat blocks and items.
These aren't playtested or anything,
and I'm leaving them very flexible so that you can suit them
to your own party composition and level.
So, just know that you'll probably need
to make a few tweaks for your own table.
In the first episode, Elliwyn the healer needed your help
dealing with the undead tormenting the field hospital.
- It's gotta be starting from the dead.
Can you get to the tent? We can't leave the wounded here.
(air whooshing) - I will link it in the cards
in case you haven't seen it yet.
For this one, we are going to go
with something a little lighter, a little more whimsical,
a little more magical, and it comes from a character
that you guys have seen a few times, but never actually met.
You may know her as the tiny gnome wizard
from the "Roll Up Your Attributes" music video,
and she has also appeared in last year's calendar
and in a sponsorship segment.
But today, you finally learn her name,
Wisteria Skitterquick Appledackle.
She has hired your party
to help her get out of some trouble.
I've written this one for a party
of four, level 5 characters, but I'll talk at the end
about how to scale it down or up to suit your own party.
So why don't I introduce you to Wisteria!
(air whooshing) (gentle mysterious music)
The party is answering a peculiar urgent want ad
when they first meet Wisteria Appledackle,
although they don't know that's who they'll be meeting.
The writer of the ad was extremely secretive,
like she was afraid that someone would identify her from it.
All the adventurers know is that she will meet them
in the back corner of the local apothecary, The Crafty Vial,
by the herbal potion-making stock.
- (gasps) Oh, you came! Thank goodness.
I need help, and it has to be subtle.
You're from out of town, right?
I really emphasized that in the ad.
- She has promised 500 gold pieces up front,
and another 500 once you have completed her task.
Plus, she claims to have a magic item
that she will include with the second payment,
although she was vague in the ad.
If you ask her now, she will be slightly less vague.
- It's really good! And it's one-of-a-kind.
I made it myself, actually.
I'm getting pretty good at enchantment!
Last week, Professor Loramys said
I'm at the top of the class.
Well, he said I'm in the top 10.
For quiz scores. That week.
But really, it's a powerful item! You'll love it.
(coins clinking) Here you go.
Here's the first part of your reward.
I need you to go to Krumbridge Academy, the wizard school.
I'm a student there.
I was doing a little, um, extracurricular research?
And I may have accidentally released a devil
into the halls of the school.
But it's fine!
I haven't heard about any deaths or maulings yet,
so I think there's still time to catch it
before anybody notices.
And then I won't get kicked out of school.
- Wisteria isn't quite sure what kind of devil she summoned.
She was attempting to cast Conjure Minor Elementals,
but things went sideways.
She gives you the key to her dorm room, number 14,
and says that you will find
the remains of the summoning ritual there.
- Okay! No time to waste.
You should go. Now!
I'll meet you in the library if you have any questions
once you're there, but we really shouldn't be seen together.
- It is very easy to find Krumbridge Academy.
It is a proud building of rich red stone
that towers over the western side of the city.
Seeing it, it is obvious
why Wisteria had so much pocket change
to spend on getting herself out of trouble.
This is an expensive school.
The party can get creative
about how to make their way into the halls of the academy.
Visitors, so long as they look appropriate for the context,
are welcome in the public areas.
Teachers, staff, and students are often in the halls,
mostly in between classes, and may be curious
depending on what they see,
although they're unlikely to be suspicious
unless given a reason to be.
The academy is massive. (gentle inspirational music)
There are two buildings, both imposing,
joined by a covered walkway
where students often sit on the benches,
reading or waiting to meet their friends.
In the main building are classrooms, a student cafeteria,
and the offices of the instructors,
including that of the headmistress.
The second building features
a huge library on the bottom floor,
while the second and third floors house student dormitories
and a lavish common area.
In Wisteria's dorm room,
players will indeed find a summoning circle.
An Arcana check of 11 will show
that there are a few mistakes in the runes and the lines.
The chalk is smeared on the side closest to the door,
and a Survival check of 13 will allow players to follow
the vague remains of chalk on the fiend's footsteps
to the common area.
If players can't find the trail,
then when they leave the dormitory,
they will hear a distant chittering sound,
like very small voices,
which will also lead them to the common area.
As they approach, there is a thick, acrid smell in the air,
like something was burned nearby.
Inside are five pixies, but it is immediately clear
that something is off about them.
Their eyes are black pits,
and their fingers are blackened, too-long claws.
They're cackling madly as they tear around the room,
wreaking havoc.
There's an elegant birdcage in the corner,
but the bars have been twisted apart.
This must be where the pixies are usually kept,
as pets or maybe objects of study.
An Arcana check, or maybe Nature, DC 12,
will remind your players
that pixies are usually pretty friendly.
These pixies have been tainted
by the presence of this devil.
Instead of using the stats of a pixie,
you can use the stats of a Cackler
from the "Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica,"
minus the spiked chain.
Or, if you have Kobold Press's "Tome of Beasts II,"
you could use the Corrupted Pixie,
one of my favorite monsters from that book.
If your players can come up with a creative way
to try and restore the pixies to their natural state,
then great! (gentle mysterious music)
If calmed, the pixies will become friendly,
and they can show your party where the fiend went,
although they're too frightened to do much else.
Otherwise, once things have settled down,
your players will find a five-foot-wide,
slightly smoking hole behind a couch,
half-hidden under some extravagant drapes.
The hole is blackened around the edges
and appears to lead directly through the floor
and into the library on the floor below.
It's a 15-foot drop.
Once in the library, the players run into Wisteria.
- Oh, thank goodness you're here!
It's in the library.
I caught sight of it at the end of an aisle.
I hid for what felt like forever before it went away!
Thankfully it's a big library
and pretty empty this time of day, but it gets worse.
- She holds up a dense arcane text
and flips to a marked page to read aloud.
- "Identifiable by its sharp spines, the Barbed Devil
is not only extremely dangerous in hand-to-hand combat,
but also has innate spellcasting abilities
that allow it to hurl flame at its opponents.
However, this is not what makes this fiend
so uniquely deadly.
As a Summoner, the Barbed Devil
can call other fiendish allies to its aid."
Based on where I saw it,
I think it's deep in the records section.
Thankfully, not very many people go there,
but I'm worried that it's looking for a good place
to summon more devils!
Oh, god, I'm gonna get expelled!
- Wisteria will accompany the party
while they follow the devil through the library
in a skill challenge.
If you are new to skill challenges,
I will link to Matt Colville's video about them
in the description.
To win the challenge, players must have three successes.
For each failure, the Barbed Devil
will have summoned one ally
when they reach the final encounter,
with a maximum of three.
There are five challenges, in no particular order,
but once your players have won three or lost three,
skip the rest and take them right to the final encounter.
(air whooshing) Tracking the devil.
Survival or Investigation would be a great way
to find the devil's trail.
Stifling a book fire.
Players turn a corner
to find a shelf partially engulfed in flames.
They must put out the fire without attracting notice.
Diverting a librarian. (gentle inspirational music)
Players run into an oblivious librarian,
say that 10 times fast, an oblivious librarian,
in the records section.
Persuasion or Deception could help get this person
out of harm's way without Wisteria getting in trouble.
Fallen shelf.
The devil has knocked over a bookshelf,
which now blocks the path.
Intelligence could help players find a way around,
or Athletics could right the shelf, among other options.
Bottleneck. Wisteria stops you when you reach a doorway.
- Ooh, this is the only doorway into this section.
That means this would be a great place
to stop students or teachers from following us
and finding out, I mean, putting themselves in danger.
But how can we keep them out without raising suspicion?
- Let players get creative
in how to turn innocents away from this doorway.
- (gasps) There it is! Can you get rid of it?
The book says it can be banished, or you can just kill it
and it'll poof back to the Nine Hells!
Either way, no body, which is perfect.
- This is the final encounter.
It takes place in a dusty room with just one entrance,
lined with boxes of old student attendance records.
We are using the Barbed Devil: Summoner Variant stat block,
which can normally only summon one other Barbed Devil,
but we're switching things up here.
The Devil is in the act of summoning a Dretch,
preparing himself for his siege on the library.
Depending on how the party did at the skill challenge,
he may already have up to three Dretches around him,
in which case he is attempting to summon a fourth.
If the party aced the skill challenge,
this is his first summoning.
Either way, the summoning can be interrupted.
After the fiends are defeated,
Wisteria takes you back up to her dorm
to give you the second half of your reward.
- Ooh, you really saved my skin!
My parents would've lost it if I'd gotten kicked out.
And the headmistress made it very clear last time
that while two summoning mishaps were forgivable,
three would be beyond the pale!
Anyway, here's the other half. (coins clinking)
Oh, and your magic item! You're gonna love this.
- Wisteria holds up a ring, looking proud.
- I call it the Ring of Thundersnap!
Once a day, you can snap your fingers and cast Thunderwave!
Pretty amazing, right?
Maybe I should major in Evocation,
since Conjuration isn't working out so great.
- If players choose to make an Insight check,
a DC of 16 will let them know
that Wisteria isn't telling the whole truth about the ring.
It may not be until one of the adventurers
actually attunes to it and uses it,
that they realize the flaw in Wisteria's design.
Casting Thunderwave using the ring causes the entire hand
to go numb for 10 minutes afterwards,
during which it cannot be used
for things like wielding a weapon,
or casting spells, or really anything.
Looks like she's still got some learning to do.
(air whooshing)
(gentle inspirational music continues)
Let's talk scaling.
This adventure is loosely targeted
at a party of level 5 characters,
so if you wanna lower the difficulty,
you have a few options.
You could reduce the number of pixies in the common area.
You could replace the Barbed Devil
with something of a lower challenge rating, such as an Imp.
Or you could eliminate the summoning mechanic entirely
and just introduce some other consequence
for failing the skill challenge.
If you wanna make this adventure harder,
you can reskin Imps or Quasits for the pixies,
instead of Cacklers.
Or pick a higher level fiend, like the Chain Devil,
or the Hezrou Summoner Variant.
You can also have your devil summon higher level minions,
such as Imps or Quasits,
or even Spined Devils or Hell Hounds.
This quest could be a great way
to get your players in touch with an NPC
that might lead to other quests or plotlines.
For example, their trip to the school
could connect them with a professor
or another student relevant to your plot.
Or maybe during their investigation, they get wind
of some other mystery happening at the academy.
Maybe they stumble across some dirt on the headmistress,
or something going on behind closed doors.
Or, of course, you can just keep it a side quest.
Answer the ad, solve the problem, get paid.
It is completely up to you.
I hope you're enjoying this series.
There will be more "Steal This Side Quest" to come,
and don't forget, there is a link
to a Google Document in the description
with all of this information written out.
Let me know what kind of side quests you wanna see,
and if you run this one, I would love to hear how it goes!
I will see you on Wednesday for another video.