135. Creating Places - Dungeons

But today we're gonna talk about something that is not so beautiful.

It is a, an encounter called United We Stand.

I'm gonna read it, and we're all gonna react with what we might do with this encounter starter.

Uh, it goes like this.

"The PCs are spending the night in a castle, or they're in a town outside the castle, when word arrives that an enemy army will arrive by nightfall.

So the lord pulls the whole community inside the castle walls and prepares for a siege.

Uh, intelligence indicates that the attacking army probably isn't strong enough to take the castle before reinforcements from frin- uh, friendly manors around rev- uh, arrive.

The castle will be able to hold out for some time, until everything starts to go wrong."

Mm-hmm.

"Several farmers come in reporting that they found the bodies of messengers who were sent to those, uh, outer manors shot in the back, or with their throats slit, or magically burned to death." This one, by the way, is, uh, a little bit graphic [laughs]

Mm.

Yeah.

And gruesome.

Mm-hmm.

Little bit.

Shot in the back, throat slit, magically burned to death.

Those sorts of things, right? Um, as some of the most, uh, capable irregular forces, your PCs are asked to scope out the castle's escape tunnel to ensure that the enemy isn't using it, right?

Mm.

They need to know they have a way out if they need it.

The PCs go and they discover that the enemy has the tunnel exit under heavy guard, but they haven't entered the tunnel yet.

Uh, that's when the PCs start hearing screams from behind them back in the castle, however far back that is.

Mm.

Uh, as it happens, the lord's brother has decided to throw in his lot with the enemy and has smuggled a magical device into the castle.

It's this artifact which summons savage beasts, right? It's, uh, this pendant, right? He possesses a pendant that keeps the beasts away from himself, uh, and his plan-

Mm