DnD Scenario:

THE HOOK

Adventurer Background:

Lvl 1 adventurers, desperate, willing to take almost any job. They are in Overbridge, a major city of
the small but wealthy Trosk, looking for work. Unfortunately for them, it is a guild dominated city, and
not being members, they will find it difficult to get legitimate adventuring work. But they see a notice
advertising contract work for inexperienced, free-lance fortune-hunters:

Pinkerton’s will be interviewing applicants for an exciting contract opportunity at the

Sell-sword’s Saloon and Brawlery. We are hiring fortune-hunters with the equivalent
of Level 1 Adventurer’s experience who are eager to expand their skills in new and
unfamiliar environments. The ideal applicant will be:

• a highly adaptable team-player, patient, willing to take risks, eager to meet challenges,
and to quickly assimilate new concepts;
• a results-driven achiever with exemplary planning and organizational skills, along with a
high degree of detail orientation who can use foresight, strategy, and preparation to
accomplish goals;
• a self-starter requiring minimal supervision, comfortable with change and uncertainty;
• proactive and action-oriented;
• culturally sensitive and able to build trust and rapport with a diverse workforce and a
wide range of NPCs;
• motivated by a strong work-ethic to achieve excellence in the fulfillment of a contract

True neutral alignment preferred. Adventurers’ Guild members need not apply. Tieflings
and applicants with monstrous lineage welcome. Fluency in Sylvian a plus.

Successful applicants will be given x gold in order to purchase equipment and other
requirements upon signing of the contract. Details absolutely confidential. Compensation
negotiable. Payment given upon completion.

Reading between the lines, this job is clearly not Adventurers’ Guild approved. It is also
probably semi-legal at best, although one does not necessarily follow the other.

THE INTERVIEW AT THE BRAWLERY

Upon entering Sell-sword’s Saloon and Brawlery there is a fight between a winged kobold
(Urd) and a bullywug inside of a small ring with a referee and a commentator (both human). The
Brawlery patrons seem uninterested.
 NPCs:
Urd: Handsome George
CR: 1/4
Description: looks a bit like a scaly hound gave birth to some kind of iridescent lizard, he is
mottled with bright blues, purples, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds and is wearing a short
sequined loincloth and red leather bracers. Has wings.

Bullywug: The Bellicose Bandit

CR: 1/4
Description: Glistening black skin with some yellow striations, wearing brown leather pants and a
black eye mask. Has tongue attack.

PCs may want to speak to a bookie to bet on the fight, chat with patrons, speak with the bar tender or
servers, look for the Pinkerton’s table, or simply look around. The bartender will hand the PCs a stub
with a number that the Pinkerton’s man calls out when it is their turn.

At the interview table, PCs will confront two well dressed men, one a half-elf, the other a half-orc man.

NPCs:
Half-elf: Alphonse Pinkerton, Jr.
Level 5 Sorcerer
CR: 1 1/4
Description: The half-elf is neat and trim, in dark neutral colours of high quality fabric. Short
auburn hair, slim build, pointed ears. Son of Alphonse Pinkerton, Sr.; regional manager of
Pinkerton’s Overbridge branch. Jr. is an entitled thug at heart, although he puts on genteel airs. He
is also ruthless, intelligent, and always eager to get his hands dirty.

Half-orc: Vince McOrc

Level 3 Barbarian
CR: 3/4
Description: Wearing a black silk shirt with black floral embroidery, his fangs are gold tipped, he
has a diamond stud on one nose, gold chains around his neck, and chunky rings on his nine
fingers. Vince was a warrior before he founded the Troskan Brawling Federation, building his
company from almost nothing to a nation-wide entertainment phenomenon. Violent and almost
ostentatiously tacky, Vince has the pride and insecurity of the nouveau riche multiplied by a
slightly masochistic chip on his shoulder stemming from the bigotry he experienced as a half-orc.
He still brawls professionally, and is currently playing the heel.

Interview questions:
AP: Did you bring a CV? Tell us about yourself. What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? Do you
have any previous experience as a freelance fortune-seeker? How would previous bosses or party mates
describe you? What kind of adventuring – erm, fortune-seeking – environment do you prefer? Do you
have any extra-planar experience? How did you meet the challenges of your last contract? Have you
ever had a contract that required you to perform extensive investigation? Exploration?

*Note: also ask class specific questions.

Vince can react or interject here and there.

AP: We will finish the interviewing process by this evening and will get back to you by morning if your
application has been successful. Where can you be reached? If we make you an offer, you will have to
sign a binding confidentiality agreement before we can explain the job details to you. Are you
comfortable with that?

*Notes: How well PCs did during interview affects pay negotiations later.

PCs can have free time or simply end and get the good news.

THE JOB

First players must sign a blood contract of complete nondisclosure.

Get Vince McOrc’s Face back!

Zuriel the Valiant, a sword wraith under contract with Vince and slated to face him for the title of
Brawling Champion of the World has returned to Shadowfell and refused to answer any attempt to
conjure him back into the Prime Material Plain. Zuriel claimed he needed to visit the site of his last
living battle in the ruins of Orcus Keep on the border between Shadowfell and the Fey Wilds. The PCs
must find Zuriel and bring him back, willing or not, to Vince to fulfill the terms of his contract.
Unfortunately passages from the PMP and the other plains have recently become very difficult to tear
open – a situation that may or may not be related to the failure of the conjuring of Zuriel. PCs will
therefore have to smuggle themselves through the Familiar Gate, the only stable gate to the other
realms, disguised as harmless denizens of the Fey Wilds (Pinkerton’s has procured some charms to
assist this). Vince has a Poe Bottle that can contain a weakened Zuriel if necessarily. It still seems
possible to open a passage from the Fey Wilds back into the PMP, so PCs will have to broker their own
passage back.

They can dispel their disguises at will, but will not be able to put them back on. Once animorphed,
Vince lets the PCs smell Zuriel’s sword. Alphonse casts a modified version of “enhance ability” on
each of them permanently improving their ability to sniff out Zuriel – for as long as they remain in their
animal form (note, this is only true for those animals with keen smell). For as long as they remain in
their animal form, they should have some chance of tracking Zuriel by scent. If they have to revert to
their original forms, they will have to find some other way.

Alphonse, Jr. also gives them one locket which he instructs them to open where no one can see once
they are in the Fey Wilds. He tells them that they will always know precisely where they are in relation
to the spot in which they opened the locket. They might be able to come back through the Familiar
Gate, if they cannot find any other way. This is not guaranteed, given that they have not been able to
summon Zuriel through it. The locket goes underneath the animal disguise, meaning that the PC
wearing it must dispel the disguise in order to open it.

Note: Prepare stat blocks for CR 1/4 fey creatures...

Next, we haggle over signing fee and final payment, the offer and they negotiating positions depend on
how well the interviews went.

Before departing, PCs have time to prepare – gather info, buy extra equipment, etc.

Through the Gate and into the Fey Wild yonder!

Party rolls deception with advantage once through the gate.

Assuming they make it through no problem, they enter the Fey Wilds in the city that corresponds to
Overbridge. At the exit station the opens into the city there is a market, but PCs have no Fey money.

When they choose to open the locket, two things fall out. The first is a small stone the size of a ball
bearing that they immediately feel a mild tugging towards. The second is a person, who gets up, dusts
themselves off, thanks them for the safe delivery, and goes on his way.

In the event that the party screws up, they are taken to a holding cell. Eventually the locket opens of its
own accord and the person inside of it tells them that he is breaking out and they are free to come with
if they don’t slow things down.

Jottings:

Zuriel is a member of the BAFCCS and is joining the strike, but he wants his sword back (he is a sword
wraith) and also wants glorious battle. Might be convinced to scab, but resents Vince for using his
sword as collateral.

Zuriel was made conjurable by Orcus, a now dead demon prince. Orcus still exists as a vestige and the
PCs can come to communicate with him. Orcus does not support the strike and is enraged at Zuriel.
PC’s might conract with Orcus.

Mother Wati is organizing a recruitment drive and has been going from place to place giving speeches
in support of the strike.

Breaches of the wall have been increasing in frequency.

PCs can aid the BAFCCS or Pinkerton’s or do their own thing...

A mission to the first layer of the 9 hells to rescue someone and a book of spells?
PCs might contract with a prince of hell?
PCs might be rescued by a Celestial on the strike and Contract with her
 Negotiations might be interrupted by The Raven Queen who warns the PCs not to
contract with a shirker and oath breaker, and instead offers to contract with them herself.

SO: Characters will have the option of contracting with Orcus (vestige), a Sally-el (celestial), a Bel
(Duchess of the first Hell), the Raven Queen (Goddess), or none, of course.