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.