DDAL 4-1 Suits of the Mists

All right Game Fans, Season 4 of Adventurer’s League (The Curse of Strahd Story Arc) kicks off with DDAL 4-1, Aptly titled Suits of the Mists.  Like the 1st module for prior seasons, this adventure is actually composed of five mini adventures.  Each one is designed to be played through in about an hour and a half, and gives brand new players their first interactions with Dungeons and Dragons in bite sized, discrete pieces.  Set in the darkened land of Barovia, the characters are slowly introduced to the horrors of the Demiplane of Dread and get a look at what’s waiting for them in the rest of the season.  “Welcome to Barovia”

Like most of the  introductory adventures, DDAL 4-1 is designed for 1st thru 2nd  level characters, with an average party size of 5 suggested.  For Adventurer’s League play, the level range is a hard ceiling, and characters of 5th level or higher are not playable in this adventure.  This specific adventure is built to be run as five separate mini adventures, each of which is designed to take around an hour and a half at the longest.  Remember to bring your D & D Survival Kit with you when you show up to game.

Note 1: This is a 5 part adventure, so you can pace yourself accordingly.  

Note 2:  The first four parts of the adventure can be played in any order.

Part 1:  Stars

Chasing a thief into the hills, the characters encounter a host of interesting flora and fauna along the way.  Finding trouble and mischief along the way, the characters are going to have to work quickly to recover the stolen property and the thief who took it.  Upon recovery of both, the characters can return to the Inn and begin a different quest.

Part 2: Coins

The second adventure in this exchange features a business deal of unknown character.  The adventurers stumble across a transaction in/near the swamp, and have a couple of options of what they can do.  Something eventually interrupts the business deal, and the characters have some choices to make.  However they choose to act, they can make some extra coins if they’re willing to make some compromises, or they can stand by their principles and see what rewards that brings.  

Part 3:  Swords

The next mini adventure in this section starts out as a recovery mission to find a missing person, but quickly develops into a rescue.  There are monstrous humanoids about, and the characters are the only ones who can save the lost person from a grisly fate.  Potentially, even a new ally can be made along the way for the perceptive, but the monsters are moving quickly.  The characters will have to move quickly to stop them.

Part 4: Glyphs

This mini adventure takes the characters on a direct interaction with a character that they may need to make the acquaintance of again later in the season.  Jeny Greenteeth is a powerful, if erratic spellcaster that is one of the few sources of healing and more powerful cures in Season 4.  She has recently come into possession of an important (to someone) npc that she’ll trade the characters for an item.  The characters have a few options for how to handle this situation, so see how it develops.

Part 5: Mists

The last of these mini adventures pulls together bits and pieces of the stories from the other four, and has to be played last.  Once the characters have finished the other four bits, they can start this one. The characters are present when an occult ritual crosses the planar boundaries in weird, unexpected ways.  Monsters appear and the characters will have to work quickly to save themselves and the other patrons of the Inn from the monsters.  Once this task has been accomplished, the Season can truly being.  

Aftermath:

So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.    If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers.

·         Experience Points:  Each one of these mini adventures is worth a minimum of 75 experience points and a maximum of 100 experience points.  If you’ve played all five of them together you’ll have between 375 experience points and 500 experience points.  This will get you to level 2 at some point, and your Dungeon Master is likely to give you a break to level up after you finish the mini adventure you earn your levelling up experience points.  .  

·         Gold Pieces:  This one’s a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.

·         Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 5 downtime days for playing through each mini adventure.  If you play through each of these, you should end up with 25 Downtime Days.  

·         Renown:  If your character completes all five mini adventures and they are a member of a faction, they gain a point of renown.  

    Story Award:  Everyone who completes all five parts of this adventure gains the Demiplane of Dread story award.  There is a way to pick up another story award along the way, but that depends on what the characters end up doing.  

So now that you’ve completed Suits of the Mists, check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

DDAL 4-2 The Beast

Season 4 of the Adventurer’s League continues the Curse of Strahd story arc and picks up with The Beast.  Something terrible is moving through the Quivering Forest, displacing the inhabitants of that darkened wood.  The stories of this beast are disturbing the Vistani, and something must be done to deal with this creature.

DDAL 4-2 is designed for 1st thru 4th  level characters, with an average party size of 5 suggested.  For Adventurer’s League play, the level range is a hard ceiling, and characters of 5th level or higher are not playable in this adventure.  This adventure is built in 3 parts, though part 2 is a little complicated.  It should take about 2 hours start to finish.  Remember to bring your D & D Survival Kit with you when you show up to game.

Note 1: This is a 3 part adventure so you can pace yourself accordingly.  

Part 1: Orasnou

The adventure starts with the characters finding their way to the town Orasnou, There are several leads to follow in town, and if the characters want to spend more time exploring, they can find out a lot of information about what’s going on.  Additionally, the weather is starting to turn bad, and the characters will have to make preparations to deal with that.  

Part 2:  Over the River and Through the Woods

There are three primary beats to this part of the adventure.  First there is a random encounter along the way, and then the characters make an ugly discovery, followed by another random encounter.  There are a lot of potential encounters in this Part that can make things a lot more interesting, so you’ll have to play most of this encounter by ear.

Part 3: Wolf Den

The trail of clues and tracks have led the characters deeper into the Quivering Forest and now they have tracked the beast to it’s lair.  I doubt they are fully prepared for what to do once they’ve trapped the beast, and it’s not going to go down without a fight.  This is a very serious combat encounter for a lower level party, so be ready, this monster might just get it’s teeth into you.  Once the characters have handled the beast and proven they’ve dealt with it, they can return to Orasnou to end the adventure.

Aftermath:

So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.    If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers.

·         Experience Points:  Completing this adventure will net your character between 225 and 300 experience points.  If you’re playing this after DDAL 4-1, you’ll have between 600 and 800 experience points.  Either way, you’ve got a 2nd level character and could be closing in on level 3 fast..  

·         Gold Pieces:  This ones’ a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.

·         Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 5 downtime days for playing through this adventure.  You should end up with 30 downtime days if you played DDAL 4-1 before this adventure.

·         Renown:  Each character is going to get one point of renown.

So now that you’ve completed The Beast, check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

And those are the first two adventures in Season 4.  We’ll be back next week to take a gander at the next two adventures on the lower level track.  For those playing along at home, that’s The Executioner (DDAL 4-3) and The Marionette (DDAL 4-4).  Game on, Game Fans.