Chapter 2: The Road to War

[back to Kings of Tyranny]

This chapter details the various challenges that the refugees from Grovecleft experience on their way to Palask. The first section of this chapter contains a variety of random encounters that you can use as you deem appropriate. The next three sections contain particular challenges that your heroes will have to overcome on the journey.

First, a social conundrum due to lack of food and shelter will challenge your heroes’ survival instincts and leadership skills. Second, the heroes will arrive at another poorly defended small town that oversees a ferry across a major river. The heroes must first convince the commoners to flee the Brazodiran army, and then must help evacuate everyone across the river before the army slaughters them. The heroes level up after doing so successfully.

Finally, with the river between them and the Brazodirans, the heroes have a bit of a respite. Traveling on the large, well-marked roads towards Gilgalon’s capital is relatively safe, and you can montage a couple weeks’ journey. As they reach the heartland of Gilgalon, however, larger towns begin to take notice. The heroes will have to convince local lords not to give the refugees a difficult time as they press deeper into populated country. Hungry evacuees might pilfer food from local farms, complicating the heroes’ efforts to keep peace.

Once the heroes overcome each of these three major challenges, the heroes and all of their surviving refugees arrive outside Palask, the capital of Gilgalon. At this point, proceed to Chapter 3.

Tracking Refugee Population Be sure to keep track of how many followers your heroes have in their protection. At the beginning of this chapter, the number is 95. Over the course of the journey, the number may shrink or grow based on decisions that they make. Managing a larger group of people will result in the heroes gaining more fame and being taken more seriously once they reach Palask.

Random Encounters

As your heroes progress through the events of this chapter - particularly after they cross the river but before they reach the heartland of Gilgalon - feel free to use any of these random encounters to spice up the journey. They are weighted on bell curves, with the more extreme rolls being more difficult than those closer to the middle. Feel free to roll on the tables, to select specific encounters, or to make up your own as you see fit.

If you want to play out the trials of a single intense day, roll two survival encounters, two social encounters, and two combat encounters. Or, play out the trials of two difficult days by rolling three encounters each, split into four encounters on day one and five encounters on day two.

Combat

2d6	Encounter
2	Pair of Hostile Dinosaurs
3	Pack of Creatures
4-5	Solitary Creature
6-8	False Alarm!
9-10	Brazodiran Scouts
11	Brazodiran Shock Troops
12	Solitary Dinosaur

Social

2d6	Encounter
2	The Tyrant King
3	Bandit Camp
4-5	Family Argument
6-8	Crisis Averted!
9-10	It’s Too Much
11	We Should Strike Back!
12	Who Are You to Lead?

Survival

2d6	Encounter
2	Heat Wave
3	Cliffs
4-5	Clearing the Way
6-8	That was Easy!
9-10	Lost the Trail
11	Food Shortage
12	Deadly

Combat Encounters

If you rolled or selected from the combat table, consult the matching subheading to set up the combat encounter.

Pair of Hostile Dinosaurs

Two Parasaurolophuses feel threatened by the caravan and attack it. They will flee once either one of them is Bloodied.

Pack of Creatures

A pack of hungry animals attack the traveling party. The heroes must intervene and protect their wards.

There is one Wolf per hero, plus one Dire Wolf. Feel free to reskin these wolves as Cynognathuses or Velociraptors to immerse the heroes more in the prehsitoric setting.

Solitary Creature

A single creature accosts the traveling party. The heroes must step in and intervene. The specific creature depends on how many players the party has:

Players	Creature
3	Castoroides or Gallimimus
4	Parasaurolophus or Pteranodon
5	Velociraptor
6	Dilophosaurus

False Alarm!

Someone thought they heard an approaching carnivorous beast. It must have been farther away than it sounded.

Brazodiran Scouts

A Brazodiran scouting party catches up to the heroes. They have to fight off the scouts. Once more than half of the Brazodirans are killed, the rest will flee. If left alive, they may cause problems later.

Players	Brazodirans
3	Two Thugs riding one Gallimimus
4	Two Bandits riding one Gallimimus
5	Two Thugs riding two Gallimimuses
6	Four Thugs riding two Gallimimuses

Brazodiran Shock Troops

The heroes lead their party upon an exploring contingent of Brazodiran foot soldiers. They will have to fight off the soldiers. The soldiers will tactically retreat when over half of their forces are killed, but will continue to make ranged attacks against the party until they are out of range, whereupon they will complete their retreat. If left alive, they may cause problems later.

Players	Brazodirans
3	Two Bandits and four Thugs
4	Three Bandits and four Thugs
5	Four Bandits and six Thugs
6	Five Bandits and six Thugs

Solitary Dinosaur

A single dinosaur accosts the traveling party. The heroes must step in and intervene. The specific creature depends on how many players the party has:

Players	Creature
3-4	Dilophosaurus
5-6	Allosaurus

Social Encounters

The following social encounters can (and generally should!) be resolved without resorting to combat. Heroes should think creatively about using their influence skills or abilities to diffuse these situations. If they fail, then combat may break out anyway in some cases.

The Tyrant King

Read Aloud: A massive, trumpeting roar echoes across your ranks. The trees rustle as birds take to the air.

The heroes can infer that a tyrannosaurus rex is nearby. Their followers are incredibly fearful, and the heroes can make checks to determine the wisest course of action.

A DC 10 INT check allows a hero to recall that tyrannosaurus rexes have a difficult time discerning prey if it stands still. Steeling your resolve and remaining immobile might cause the tyrannosaurus to move along in search of other victims.

A DC 13 AWR check allows a hero to discern that tyrannosauruses are also used to other creatures fearing them and not opposing them. A display of fearless force might be enough to chase the dinosaur away.

Allow the heroes to make AWR, INT, CHA, and/or LUCK checks, adding any relevant skills. Each hero may make two checks. These checks represent the heroes’ capacity to encourage their followers and give everyone a cohesive plan, whether that is to intimidate the tyrannosaurus or remain perfectly still in hopes that it moves on.

Take the average of the heroes’ rolls.

Read Aloud: Minutes pass, and you hear thudding that causes the gravel on the ground to bounce. A tyrannosaurus rex, its gray-green scales glistening in the sunlight, crashes through the foliage and bellows again.

The Tyrannosaurus makes a STR/Menacing roll when it arrives. If it rolls higher than the heroes’ average roll, then the collective will of the refugees does not hold, and some of the heroes’ followers flee. If this happens, subtract the heroes’ roll from the Tyrannosaurus’s, then add +1d6 as other commoners are horrified and begin to flee as well. That is the number of NPCs that are devoured by the Tyrannosaurus before it has eaten its fill and moves on.

Bandit Camp

A group of bandits try to bully the heroes into paying a fee to pass through a region. There are a number of Bandits equal to the number of heroes +2.

Heroes can make INT or CHA checks to persuade the bandits that this is foolish. If three heroes roll higher than the bandits’ WILL, then the bandits back off.

If any of the heroes crit or roll 20 or higher on their checks, then the bandits will become nonviolent and will join the party of refugees if they are given the chance. If the heroes allow this, then two such bandits will become NPC allies that fight on the heroes’ side whenever asked.

Family Argument

Two families in the refugee group get into a heated dispute. The nature of the dispute is relatively petty, but short tempers are exacerbated by difficult conditions on the road. Feel free to make up your own dispute or to roll on the table below.