Introduction
Guido's Fort.
The end of the traders' road.
Perched on the bank of the mighty River Shrill, this isolated settlement is the last stop on the caravan routes. The mile-wide river is all that separates the fort from from the shadowy bulk known only as "the Hill", rumoured to shelter bands of vicious monsters ... and a hidden treasure.
Guido's treasure. display more
Several groups of brave and hardy adventurers have crossed the river to explore the Hill's summits and face the monsters in search of the treasure that Guido returned for ... but never returned with. None have ever been heard from again.
Now another group of eager adventurers has met in the inn at Guido's Fort. Here they discuss their own daring plans, and prepare for their own excursion to the dangerous mountain.
The history of Guido's Fort
Guido was the sole survivor of an adventuring party drawn to the Hill many years ago. His companions perished, but he carried away enough wealth to purchase a noble title and deed to the frontier lands bordering the Hill. Claiming that a far larger treasure still remained, he returned with farmers and soldiers to found the settlement that now bears his name, then set off across the river to retrieve the rest of the hoard.
Guido never returned with the treasure, but against the odds the small settlement survived. A last outpost of civilisation on a monster-infested frontier it exists through the sheer determination of it's inhabitants, most descended directly from the original settlers.
"The Hill"
The fog-shrouded crests and densely wooded slopes of the Hill rise up 400 feet, looming over the settlement. On clear days rocky cliffs can be seen jutting from it's bulky mass, but the view is usually obscured by gouts of steam that seem to rise from outlets on the hill itself.
The awesome waters of the Shrill prevent what monsters live on the Hill from threatening the undergarrisoned fort, but occasionally strange calls and screams can be heard, echoing across the river. An unknown number of adventurers have met their fate trying to conquer the Hill and find the treasure but there are always more...
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Updates
The party has explored the Hill, cleared some hobgoblins out of an old ruin, stumbled into some deeper tunnels, defeated a dragon, found Guido's treasure, discovered a hobgoblin army poised to cross the river and interfered enough to get the hobgoblins really aggravated with them.
The session previous to this update ended with a technical TPK leaving all the characters on death's door and an assault force of hobgoblins about to overrun the village of Guido's Fort.
The Characters
Jacob is a skilled half-elf ranger who has spent many years exploring
the wilderness and learing more of the world. He prefers to travel
alone, but his travels with the party has taught him the value of
working together. Jacob has a great loathing for orcs, as they
destroyed his village and killed his parents when he was young. His faithful companion is a war dog named Celeron.
Quarion is a half-elven rogue. Raised by the elves he has been thoroughly indoctrinated by the belief in the superiority of elves over other races, a belief that his timeof travelling has done little to dispel. Quarion left the forests in an attempt to see more of the world and learn things that the elves consider him too young to learn yet. So far he is enjoying the chance ot see the world, find interesting things and kill anything that tries to kill him first.
A somewhat mysterious person, Khainen was raised by a hedge
wizard of sorts out of sight of civilisation. During his teenage
years, he was sent off to a wizards training school, where, in a
roundabout way, he met his current travelling companions. He is a
horribly scarred individual, the result of an unfortunate childhood
event, and it seems his personality has developed along the same
lines. Nonetheless, he is a very dependable sort, and is slowly
developing the mystical abilities to back that up, both in the areas
of protection and healing, and wanton vengeful destruction. Khainen is about to leave the campaign.
Oswin Aldredson, master of the weak willed and seeker of finance.
With long term ambitions to understand and master dreams, this scion
of a great banking family seeks out great heaping piles of loot,
understanding all to well the perils of compound interest. With short term envy of non-specialist wizards' access to evokations, he seeks
out flammable things.
But not the loot. You don't burn loot, it stops being loot then. Maybe
hot jewelery you melt down into bullion.
Ferninand is a young and fairly naive human whose family are refugees from a far and now monster-overrun land. He has been raised by his uncle in a Bardic tradition, entertaining and inspiring his companions with tales of the glory of his homeland.
The Campaign
"Guido's Treasure" began a D&D 3.5 campaign for 3-6 players.
- Characters began the campaign at second level, and are currently sixth.
- Experience points are awarded using the 50% Challenge/50% Story variant.
- Fate points(pdf) are in play.
Timeslot: Sunday evening (6:30-10:30pm).
Location: Players house
More information: email marsden@mailpuppy.com
Links
Wizards
of the Coast
The hypertext d20 SRD
HeroForge character record keeper (an Excel spreadsheet of immense worth)
Other local campaigns (Christchurch, New Zealand):
Local RPG store.
Local RPG club.
My other RPG links page.
Font
I designed this page using the "Tempus sans ITC" font, if you are seeing it in Arial or something else download the font for free here.
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Disclaimers
Images scanned from a variety of D&D materials that I own, the rights are probably held byWizards of the Coast. Used without permission.