The Broken One
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THE BROKEN ONE The village of Orașnou is buried in winter's snows and facing starvation. An unseen beast has ravaged the livestock culled to pay Lord Strahd's tax and the village is thrown into panic and chaos. Can you find the monster and save the village from starvation, or worse? Part eight of Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts. A two-hour adventure for 5th-10th level characters Sample file Joshua Kelly Adventure Designer Adventure Code: DDAL4-8 Version 1.0 Development and Editing: Claire Hoffman, Travis Woodall Organized Play: Chris Lindsay D&D Adventurers League Wizards Team: Adam Lee, Chris Lindsay, Mike Mearls, Matt Sernett D&D Adventurers League Administrators: Robert Adducci, Bill Benham, Travis Woodall, Claire Hoffman, Greg Marks, Alan Patrick DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms, the dragon ampersand, Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master’s Guide, D&D Adventurers League, all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast in the USA and other countries. All characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast. ©2016 Wizards of the Coast LLC, PO Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, USA. Manufactured by Hasbro SA, Rue Emile-Boéchat 31, 2800 Delémont, CH. Represented by Hasbro Europe, 4 The Square, Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB11 1ET, UK. Preparing the Adventure Introduction Before you show up to Dungeon Master this Welcome to The Broken One, a D&D Expeditions ™ adventure for a group of players, you should do the adventure, part of the official D&D Adventurers following to prepare. League ™ organized play system and the Curse of Make sure to have a copy of the most current Strahd™ storyline season. version of the D&D Basic Rules or the Player’s This adventure consists of one short adventure Handbook. that is designed for three to seven 5th to 10th level characters, and is optimized for five 5th- Read through the adventure, taking notes of level characters. Characters outside this level range anything you’d like to highlight or remind yourself of 5 to 10 cannot participate in this adventure. while running the adventure, such as a way you’d The adventure is set in the village of Orașnou, in like to portray an NPC or a tactic you’d like to use the domain of Barovia. It is designed to be played in in a combat. one two-hour session but can be expanded for a Get familiar with the monster statistics in the four-hour session. Appendix. Gather together any resources you’d like to use to aid you in running this adventure--such as The D&D Adventurers League notecards, a DM screen, miniatures, and This adventure is official for D&D Adventurers battlemaps. League play. The D&D Adventurers League is the If you know the composition of the group official organized play system for DUNGEONS & beforehand, you can make adjustments as noted DRAGONS®. Players can create characters and throughout the adventure. participate in any adventure allowed as a part of the D&D Adventurers League. As they adventure, players track their characters’ experience, treasure, Before Play at the Table and other rewards, and can take those characters Ask the players to provide you with relevant through other adventures that continues their story. character information: If you’re running this adventure as a part of a Character name and level store event or at certain conventions, you’ll need a Character race and class DCI number. This number is your official Wizards of Passive Wisdom (Perception)—the most common the Coast organized play identifier. If you don’t have passive ability check a number, you can obtain one at a store event. CheckSample file Anything notable as specified by the adventure with your organizer for details. (such as backgrounds, traits, flaws, etc.) D&D Adventurers League play is broken up into storyline seasons. When players create characters, Players that have characters outside the adventure’s they attach those characters to a storyline season, level range cannot participate in the adventure which determines what rules they’re allowed to use with those characters. Players with ineligible to create and advance their characters. Players can characters can make a new 1st-level character or use continue to play their characters after the storyline a pregenerated character. Players can play an season has finished, possibly participating in a adventure they previously played or ran as a second or third storyline with those same Dungeon Master, but not with the same character. characters. A character’s level is the only limitation Ensure that each player has an official adventure for adventure play. A player cannot use a character logsheet for his or her character (if not, get one from of a level higher or lower than the level range of a the organizer). The player fills out the adventure D&D Adventurers League adventure. name, session number, date, and your name and DCI For more information on playing, running games number. In addition, the player also fills in the as a Dungeon Master, and organizing games for the starting values for experience, gold, downtime, D&D Adventurers League, please visit the D&D renown, and number of permanent magic items. He Adventurers League home at: or she fill in the other values and write notes at the conclusion of the session. Each player is responsible www.dndadventurersleague.org for maintaining an accurate logsheet. If you have time, you can do a quick scan of a player’s character sheet to ensure that nothing looks Not for resale. Permission granted to print or photocopy this document for personal use only. DDAL04-08 The Broken One 2 out of order. If you see magic items of very high 3-4 characters, APL greater than Average rarities or strange arrays of ability scores, you can 5 characters, APL less than Weak ask players to provide documentation for the 5 characters, APL equivalent Average irregularities. If they cannot, feel free to restrict item 5 characters, APL greater than Strong use or ask them to use a standard ability score array. 6-7 characters, APL less than Average Point players to the D&D Adventurers League Player’s 6-7 characters, APL equivalent Strong Guide for reference. 6-7 characters, APL greater than Very strong If players wish to spend downtime days and it’s the beginning of an adventure or episode, they can Average party strength indicates no recommended declare their activity and spend the days now. adjustments to the adventure. Each sidebar may or Alternatively, they can do so at the end of the may not offer suggestions for certain party adventure or episode. Players should select their strengths. If a particular recommendation is not characters’ spells and other daily options prior to offered for your group, you don’t have to make the start of the adventure, unless the adventure adjustments. specifies otherwise. Feel free to reread the adventure description to help give players hints about what they might face. Running the Adventure As the Dungeon Master of the session, you have the most important role in facilitating the enjoyment of Adjusting the Adventure the game for the players. You help guide the Throughout this adventure, sidebars provide narrative and bring the words on these pages to life. information to assist you in making adjustments for The outcome of a fun game session often creates smaller or larger groups and characters of higher or stories that live well beyond the play at the table. lower levels than the adventure is optimized for. Always follow this golden rule when you DM for a This is typically used exclusively for combat group: encounters. You may adjust the adventure beyond the Make decisions and adjudications that enhance guidelines given in the adventure, or for other the fun of the adventure when possible. reasons. For example, if you’re playing with a group of inexperienced players, you might want to make To reinforce this golden rule, keep in mind the the adventure a little easier; for very experienced following: players, you might want to make it a little harder. Therefore, five categories of party strength haveSample file You are empowered to make adjustments to the been created for you to use as a guide. Use these as a adventure and make decisions about how the guide, and feel free to use a different adjustment group interacts with the world of this adventure. during the adventure if the recommended party Doing so is especially important and applicable strength feels off for the group. outside of combat, but feel free to adjust the This adventure is optimized for a party of five adventure for groups that are having too easy or 5th-level characters. To figure out whether you too hard of a time. need to adjust the adventure, do the following: Don’t make the adventure too easy or too difficult for a group. Never being challenged makes for a Add up the total levels of all the characters. boring game and being overwhelmed makes for a Divide the total by the number of characters. frustrating one. Gauge the experience of the Round fractions of .5 or greater up; round players (not the characters) with the game, try to fractions of less than .5 down. feel out (or ask) what they like in a game, and You’ve now determined the average party level attempt to give each of them the experience (APL) for the adventure.