Village Raid Procedures

These procedures and tables are for running any number of village raid scenarios in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, from the RAW Greenest to whatever village you may happen to generate.

Introduction

1. As written: tell them that they crest a hill and see to the east that smoke is rising from the town and that a huge winged form passes overhead. Thunderclouds gather and whirl above. Lightning strikes. Does the party leave or engage? 
   1. Leave: commence hexcrawl procedures (product not included—yet)
   2. Engage: commence the raid turn
2. Modified: the PCs are all faction members. Have them pick one, assume one of its ideals and take a bond with their immediate supervisor, should such a thing be applicable. Membership in a faction is secret, but, because of the current situation, they've all been assigned to work together. They already know each other. They are investigating cult activity in the region on behalf of their (now cooperating) factions. Begin scene Greenest Arms (below). 

Greenest Arms

The PCs are in the inn, on the west side of town. Just pick a likely building from the HDQ map of Greenest. Ask them if they're:

1. Eating and drinking
2. In the upstairs rooms, amorously
3. In the upstairs rooms, meditatively
4. On the balcony, reflectively
5. At the stage, listening to the (avant-garde / terrible / heartthrob / intoxicated) bard
6. At the bar, asking for info about cult activity

Once you know who's where, tell them they hear screams, and, when they look out the window (or balcony), they:

• see people running to the keep
• hear screams and see figures moving in the distance
• see distant fires

People in the inn start yelling to get to the keep; there's a raid. They know the drill. Then start the raid turn. 

Raid Turn

1. What are the players doing? Holing up or moving?  If they're holing up, use the holed up procedure below. If they're moving, proceed.
2. Ask how they're moving:
   
   1. off road or in cover: 1/6 encounter chance
   2. in housing block: 2/6 encounter chance
   3. on road: 3/6 encounter chance
   4. around important structures (mill, smith, store, inn): 4/6 encounter chance
   5. around refuge (church, manor, keep): 5/6 encounter chance
3. Generate and describe an encounter (http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/09/cult-besieged-village-generator-hdq.html).
4. Ask if they intervene or keep moving. If they intervene, resolve as normal. Otherwise, proceed.
5. If the dragon is here, check the table where is the dragon?
6. Check for unavoidable encounters using the same procedure as above. They can run, of course. Resolve the encounter as normal and proceed.
7. Movement finishes. 
8. End turn. 

Greenest Arms is two moves away from the Keep. You can make a hexmap of the village if you want for this purpose. Otherwise, assume a move is about 200 feet. 

Each movement turn is 10 minutes. Each holed up turn is an hour. 

If they get to the Authority (in the keep/manor/church), the Authority will likely have missions for the PCs that will grant them no immediate benefit. But they can be heroes if they want. Just use the missions from the module: saving people at important structures, getting prisoners, driving away the dragon if the dragon is present.

NOW FOR SOME PROCEDURES & TABLES

What's the situation? 2d6:

• 2: worst possible (the most important place in town has been breached / slaughter commencing or nearly over)
• 3-5: worse than you expect (the most important place in view is surrounded / aflame, large group of people suffering)
• 6-8: what you expect, given the progess of the siege (chaos, people running around being slain, looting of houses, stacking bodies, wrapping up and loading the treasure, etc.)
• 9-11: better than you expect (a group of militia fighting back, the coast is clear, survivors running to the woods without pursuit)
• 12: best possible (the siege is ring called off early, or the forces are engaged in a tactical retreat—what magic is afoot?)

The people want (when things calm down or place isn't besieged):

1. the children to stop going missing 
2. the lord to stop taking the loveliest youths
3. the crops to stop purpling, crisping, and floating away as ash
4. the dead to stop clawing up
5. the ancestors to stop haunting in their preachy and nagging way
6. the bandits to stop stealing our crops—won't make it the winter this time 
7. the boys and girls alike to stop coming home pregnant from the forest
8. the other sect to abide by the ban on their worship
9. the fields to be rid of the 6-18' long muscular tooth-mawed worms 
10. their prized chocobos to return to their stables; something scares them, and they won't enter the village
11. to stop lying compulsively about everything
12. the river to un-petrify
13. the bronze clouds above to melt and let the sun shrine through again 
14. the body parts to quit floating down from upriver 
15. the trees to stop screaming
16. the heavy special tax nullified—what is the lord building with the money anyway?
17. to have enough food that hibernation isn't necessary after this year's harvest
18. to drown the lord in a bathtub of his own vodka
19. to subdue and despoil their intolerable neighbors
20. the plague to stop 

The Authority wants / from (d6, twice):

1. Money / the people 
2. Respect / peers
3. Compliance / superiors
4. Revenge / enemy
5. Cover / allies
6. Love / family

Why can't this person get what he wants from the other person (2d6):

• 2: Lacks unreasonable virtue

• 3-5: Lacks secondary virtue

• 6-8: Lacks primary virtue

• 9-11: Other person unreasonable

• 12: Misunderstanding 

Holed up

At the start of the turn when the party is holed up somewhere, make a reaction roll:

• 2: worst 
• 3-5: bad
• 6-8: same
• 9-11: improvement
• 12: best

Very context dependent here. If the PCs barely made it in and are holding the doors against an actively opposing force, a bad result means, in addition I whatever opposed do-they-break-through checks you might do in the round, a boarded up window breaks, and a villager gets shot through it. 

If the PCs are holed up somewhere and no one saw them, the worst thing is that they're discovered. Bad would be a group of monsters encamped nearby. Etc. Good would mean maybe some militia passes by you can link up with.

Where is the dragon? (2d6)

• 2: coming right for you
• 3-5: headed your way 
• 6-8: staying where he is
• 9-11: heading away from you
• 12: leaving (for now anyway)

Checking for survivors:

• Players commit to the search for the given amount of time
• GM determines how likely it is or there to be survivors here (x in 6, definitely, or definitely not)
• GM checks, but doesn't reveal if there are survivors
• Random encounters checked for, if any hostiles may still be in the area, and those encounters resolved
• GM determines how likely it is, given then time, method, and area the players are searching, for them to find survivors
• If none are found (whether there are any or not to find), GM asks what they want to do now. Players can repeat the search, modify it, abandon it, what have you. 
• If survivors are found, check the d20 table on the village encounters roll all the dice table to see what kind of group is encounters 
• Use reaction roll to check their mental and physical health
• Resolve encounter as usual 

What's of Concern in This Gothic Village?

^^^ click the image ABOVE to generate with equal weight BY CATEGORY ^^^
vvv click the image BELOW to generate BY FREQUENCY of entry vvv

Content taken from here: http://the-toast.net/2014/09/15/gothic-novel-index/.

[Actual Play] Hoard of the Dragon Queen Session 1

I decided to run Hoard of the Dragon Queen chapter 1 more or less straight.

The changes I made:

1. every PC was already a faction member
2. the factions had already had some sort of Big Talk Meeting and decided to send out some mixed groups to investigate the cult's activities
3. the PCs were in an inn when the cult attacked Greenest
4. I didn't make stealth checks during the village-traversal; I just checked for encounters using a procedure I'll describe in a later post
5. I used my own encounter tables

It was miserable, but I mean that in a good way. I was expecting a TPK nearly every second, but everyone managed to escape without a PC fatality. 

They ended up running into two encounters on the way to the keep. All the way, they were escorting villagers. 

It was pretty dark.

By the time they saved some children and an old man at the gates and made their way through, the beefy PCs were each at 1 hp, and the wizard was at 4, all resources spent.

They watched the gates close and people get slaughtered against them.

It was unpleasant. 

As they took a breather, I introduced the authority figures, who asked (but did not require or expect) them to head out the secret entrance and try to do what good they can in the village. 

The wizard's player #NOPEd out of that and decided to use an alternate PC for this part. Wise choice. 

The castellan's wife is the priestess at the temple; maybe you could go there? The party agrees. Rat swarms in the way are scared off with torches.

They take the river to the back of the temple, intervene to mitigate some war-horrors, and engage the besiegers of the temple, which are far more numerous than they thought. They could have waited or scouted to see the numbers involved but didn't. 

Although they ganked the group in the rear, the B group had 10 kobolds, 3 cultists, and 2 drakes, which, for 3 level 1 PCs, ain't something to sneeze at. 

Despite that, they cut a fighting retreat back to the keep, save a ton of villagers, and are big heroes two game-time hours into their career. 

Maybe they'll live through the night. 

Macro Game for Hoard of the Dragon Queen Sandbox

If you're running a sandbox version of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, you really want there to be a possibility of failure should the players not do well. Accordingly, you want their efforts to translate into success if they play well. Also, we want to ensure that the cult isn't just standing still. If the players waste time, the cult is going to summon Tiamat.

To that end, let's use a victory point system, where VP = XP.

• Start the cult with 90,000 XP and two dragon masks (red and black)
• Each dawn:
• has the cult leader Severin been slain? 
• if yes, have 3/5 half-dragons (white, red, black, blue, green) been slain? 
• if yes, endgame condition the time has not arrived
• else, continue
• else, have all 5 half-dragons been slain?
• if yes, endgame condition the time has not arrived
• else, continue
• subtract from the cult the XP that the PCs have earned during the day
• if this brings the cult's XP to 0 or less, this triggers endgame condition the time has not arrived
• else, proceed down the list
• award the cult XP:
• 100 for the income of miscellaneous hauls
• 10 for each compromised minor city (begin with 30, for 300 XP)
• 100 for each compromised major city (begin with 6, for 600 XP) 
• if this brings the cult to 100,000 XP or more, this triggers endgame condition the hoard is ready, which persists as long as the cult maintains 100,000 XP. 
• else, continue
• does the cult have all five dragon masks? 
• if yes, endgame condition the masks are assembled
• else, continue
• The cult gets XP when:
• a PC dies (XP = the PC's current XP)
• the dawn arrives (as above)
• The cult recovers another dragon mask from a dungeon when:
• 15 days pass
• of course, if PCs recover a dargon mask, the cult attempts to re-recover it from them with assassins and armies and whatever other methods they can bring to bear
• there is no obvious way to destroy a dragon mask
• Endgame conditions:
• time time has not arrived (player victory): the cult ceases its raids and waits for generations to strike again.
• the hoard is ready (cultist victory 1/2): a sufficient hoard has been assembled at the Well of Dragons to placate Tiamat upon her arrival, but the masks must be merged to summon her.
• the masks are assembled (cultist victory 1/2): the masks have merged, but a sufficient hoard must be assembled to placate her upon arrival, or else the summoning is pointless.

All the cities are compromised by the cult: tax money is being sent to support it. More details on this coming up, but a big portion on the sandbox can be done in cities, ferreting out cultists and those compromised by the cult. 

These numbers may be terrible! I don't know! And, since I don't think there's a summary of who has all the dragon masks (I only know about Rezmir having one; maybe there's another mentioned somewhere in there), I'm just assuming they've got 2/5, Rezmir and Severin having one each. 

Fancy 5e Handouts for HDQ

A graphical version of this post. And this post. 

Here's my Hoard of the Dragon Queen DM screen:

Files below for your own use.

Cult Besieged Village Generator [HDQ]

This will let you recreate chapter 1 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen infinitely. 

It also works as a standard village generator. 

This is another roll-all-the-dice thingy. The value of each die means something, and where they land on paper means something.

I've got more posts coming up on how to actually run these scenarios and how to give detail to the inns, stores, manors, keeps, and temples, but this is enough to get you going. 

I'll try to post some examples later. 

d4 the charm of the place is (+temp hp = 1 HD roll when you spend time with the charming thing)

1. entertainment (haunting musical tradition, hot springs, pro wrestling, kids trained in theater from the crib)
2. the food (bizarre but yummy, normal but artisanal, comfort food, haute cuisine)
3. beauty (lovely vistas, gorgeous architecture, adorable fauna, striking flora)
4. culture (mind blowing festivals, disarming hospitality, martial tradition—will spar and drill, crafting—can make anything out of stone and must give you carving that represents your heart)

d6 population / raiders / structures / how many hours the village can hold out before basically everyone is dead or captured except those in the manor or keep

1. 300 people / 20 mercs / mill
2. 600 people / 15 cultists, 25 kobolds / temple, mill
3. 900 people / 20 cultists with 30 mercs, 10 kobolds / smithy, temple, mill
4. 1200 people / 20 cultists with 40 mercs and 10 kobolds, 10 drakes / inn, smithy, temple, mill
5. 1500 people / Dragonborn with 30 cultists, 40 mercs, 10 drakes, and 20 kobolds / manor, inn, smithy, temple, mill
6. 1800 people / Dragonborn with 20 cultists, 30 kobolds, 10 drakes, 60 mercs, and the blue dragon / keep, shop, inn, smithy, temple, mill

d8  how long the raid has lasted, in hours. Can last hours = d6 result, unless there is a manor or keep. In those cases, the village itself lasts a number of hours equal to the d6, after which those outside the manor/keep are all dead, prisoners, or well hidden. After 1 hour the gate closes to manor/keep. 

d10 name and aesthetics

1. Brechen (broken)
2. Witch (magic)
3. Basil (king's)
4. Giga (giant)
5. Bell (war)
6. Smok (dragon)
7. Lich (necropolitical)
8. Numin (holy)
9. Deep (cave)
10. Here (a banned / shunned place)

d10  name and feature

1. bryc (bridge)
2. mere (lake)
3. waithe (ford)
4. cair (fort)
5. fell (hill)
6. barrow
7. wich (big old road)
8. carrek (rock)
9. foss (waterfall)
10. gil (ravine)

d12 resource

1. Rare wine / spirit / ale / food: +temp hp = rolled 1 HD when consumed, or some other fx
2. Library: small ancient library preserved or generations, perhaps on stones or wall carvings, focused on particular area of interest. Make reaction roll, with more positive results indicating that area of interest is closer to that desired by party. After area of specialization is established, make reaction roll after enough time consulting it. Neutral result is what meets your expectations, given the exoticity of the desired info and the specialization of the library. Positive and negative rolls give results better or worse than expected. 
3. Sage: smart guy. Ask him a question, and when you check in after a reasonable amount of time, make reaction roll. Neutral: needs more time. Positive / negative: has info, and it's good / bad. 
4. Shrine: the shrine is magic. Go to it in faith, observing the proper rituals, and make your request. Deity will respond bizarrely with a roughly equivalent service that must be done in exchange: reaction roll for how equivalent, the more positive the easier he quest. 
5. Crafter: as sage, but for anything in the crafter's purview. 
6. Henchmen: as rite of passage / penance / restitution, some will accompany and fight with you for room and board and gear only
7. Oracle. Like Delphi. GM: say something ambiguous and make it come to pass. 
8. Alchemist: as sage but with alchemy.
9. Guides: knows rewarding locations nearby, can ensure you pass stealth checks when approaching enemy camps, prevents you from getting lost user normal circumstances, knows shortcuts or good paths to let you increase your speed by a third from A to B. 
10. Oral tradition: rumors of relevant treasure nearby: magic items, dragon slaying stuff, maybe even dragon masks, maybe answers to riddles (maybe 50/50 chance any riddle you use will be one the party has learned in this way)
11. Collector: will pay way more for certain kinds of loot or info
12. Components: rare or unusual components may be found here, or at least herbs that weigh effectively nothing and can be used as healing kits or 1hp healing potions or what have you. 

d20 the people here 

1. smile broadly and chatter
2. always go masked except inside 
3. are astoundingly stupid
4. are shockingly deformed 
5. are incurably, contagiously ill 
6. are children
7. are old
8. are demihuman 
9. wear live foxes
10. dress in plumage
11. encase themselves in metal rings, "bracelets" around every part
12. seem to take delight in rudeness
13. speak slowly, politely, warmly
14. are warlike, always armed for the teeth
15. prep for doomsday
16. constantly smoke
17. never speak in public, only sing
18. are ascetics
19. are priests 
20. are descended from great hero Parsimon the Nevergiving, must tell you all about 

The Name

You don't have to actually use the name. Its main function is to give you the feel and main feature (located at the d4) of the place. 

So Lichbryc would have a large impressive bridge at the d4, likely festooned most gothily, maybe made out of coffins. The rest of the town is probably built on a necropolis, tombstones poking through the earth and basements leading to catacombs. 

Housing 

After you've done the above, roll a number of d6s equal to the value of the d6. 

Where each falls on the map, draw a crossroads, 1 for each pip on the d6. 

The four quadrants of each crossroad should comprise about 20 houses total. 

Determining elevation:

• start with the d4
• Note whether it is odd or even
• Go to next closest die 
• If its parity (whether it is odd or even) is the same, so is the elevation around it
• Otherwise, the elevation increases if the number is in the high half of the die's range or decreases if in the low half. 
• Mark the elevation changes (e.g., lines with dashes on the declining side)
• The area covered by and the intensity of the change of elevation can be as large or small as you want; you might let the relative sizes of the dice determine the scope of the terrain change

Inspiration Guidance, Leveled XP Rewards

The 5e PHB says that how inspiration is handled is up to the DM. 

So here's how I'm going to handle it. 

AWARDING INSPIRATION

Awarding it yourself is a pain. You have enough stuff to think about. Let the players award it to themselves when they fulfill the conditions. 

Of course, the conditions need to be clear and obvious for this to work (see inspiration actions below). In other words, fulfilling inspiration conditions is something observable in the fiction, just like triggering a trap. As long as the conditions are clear, refereeing this is in principle no different from refereeing whether someone stepped on a pressure plate. 

Put tokens in a bowl or what have you. When a player reaches to take a token, you'll know they're giving themselves inspiration. If you can't imagine why, ask. You can get more clarification and, in the worst case, veto. 

Don't bother arguing and slowing the game down. Deal with misunderstandings afterward, and let them know beforehand that that's how it's gonna be. 

MAXIMUM INSPIRATION

RAW, if you have inspiration, and then you do something that would earn you inspiration again, nothing happens. 

I'm changing that to: if you have inspiration already and you do something that would grant inspiration, instead gain XP. 

How much you award is up to you. I'd say 5 or 10 percent of the XP difference between your current and next level is fine (i.e., subtract the current level's XP threshold from the next level's and multiply by your percent). I think I'll stick with 10%. 

Here's a table. The tiny reward is 1% of XP needed to level; the small reward is 5%; the large reward is 10%. You could hand these out for other things as well, like quest completion. 

Tiny / Small / Large Individual XP Rewards by Level

1. 3/15/30
2. 6/30/60
3. 18/90/180
4. 38/190/380
5. 75/375/750
6. 90/450/900
7. 110/550/1100
8. 140/700/1400
9. 160/800/1600
10. 210/1050/2100
11. 150/750/1500
12. 200/1000/2000
13. 200/1000/2000
14. 250/1250/2500
15. 300/1500/3000
16. 300/1500/3000
17. 400/2000/4000
18. 400/2000/4000
19. 500/2500/5000
20. stack inspiration

INSPIRATION ACTIONS

There are six conditions under which you can earn inspiration. I'll give examples afterward. 

Get inspiration / XP when you:

1. Answer or react to answer of personal question 
2. Judge or react to judgment of  actions or motivations
3. React to suffering, yours or another's
4. Become more intimate with another character
5. Get closer to your personal goal
6. Make a serious vow with full intention to keep it (punish fatuous or long unfulfilled vows with XP freeze or an XP reduction equal to the large award)

SCENE FRAMING

Sometimes a player might want to do something to get inspiration, but he needs the cooperation of NPCs, the environment, or the the other PCs to do so. Like, he might have some

backstory nonsense he's super hyped about. Or maybe she's missing a body part, and there's some story behind that, like Ahab's peg leg. 

Answering or reacting to the answering of a personal question is inspiration action #1, and that's definitely what this would fall under. 

But unless someone asks Ahab about the peg leg, he can't answer, and maybe nobody's thought to ask because they don't know if there's anything interesting behind it.

So, if you permit scene framing, it would be fine for Ahab's player to say, hey guys, does anyone want to ask me about how I got this peg leg? If they do, remember, they would get inspiration too. If none of the players want to, Ahab's player could ask if an NPC who's around might be interested. And then the interaction could play out. 

But, if you don't want that kind of business, just don't encourage or allow it. 

DIRECTION

Don't let things drag. Feel free to say CUT! and move on. 

Think about how good TV does this. Someone gives up personal info or becomes more intimate, someone else reacts, maybe there's a counter reaction, and then some transition occurs ("we've got company!"), or the scene abruptly cuts. 

Do that. 

WEAKNESS

Don't allow it. If someone doesn't know another person and then shares a meal, that's becoming more intimate, sure. Inspiration. But sharing another meal doesn't make them more intimate. That's just weak repetition and water-treading.

If someone tries to claim inspiration for that, let them know it's weak and that something stronger will be required, something that takes us somewhere. They can either reformulate or give you one argument. If that doesn't change your mind, move on without permitting inspiration. 

Like, you can drink to oblivion once to show suffering from alcoholism. Doing it again is just boring. Now we need you to hurt someone or endanger someone, etc. 

PACING

Let's not all take turns asking probing questions about childhood, okay? One inspiration action per scene, thank you, unless you think it's really good. 

WHY

Because I'm a hippie who likes a bit of drama in the elfgames. 

EXAMPLE INSPIRATION ACTIONS

Sharing a blanket with someone for warmth. 

Sharing a meal with someone. 

Fighting with someone. 

Condemning someone's religious views. 

Defending your own views against the condemnation of others. 

Vowing to track down the men who did this and bring them to justice (or wear their skins, whatever floats your boat).

Answer the villager's question about why you'd risk your life for this. 

Vow to never let this happen to him again. 

Scouring all the libraries of the city for info on the burial place of your great great grandfather, last warden of the south. 

Asking how you got that scar. 

Asking what you'll do after all this is over. 

Answering what is best in life. 

Holding the dog's head in your lap as it dies. 

Bringing wine and bread to the grieving widow and sitting quietly with her. 

[Hoard of the Dragon Queen] Cult Encampment Generator

This is a cult encampment generator. It will get you pretty much anything you need to recreate chapter 2 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, plus more, infinitely. 

The cult is supposed to be making mischief all over the Sword Coast; so presumably there's more than just one camp about. This lets you take care of that. Put them in your HDQ sandbox. 

Some of the tables are reusable; some generate the physical layout and are done after one roll. 

The d4 table is why the camp is here. You'll have to expand on 3 of the results with one page dungeons or something. (The cultists try to explore and defend dungeons because they're trying to find / protect dragon masks and any dragon slaying magic items or any draconic lore. ) The d6 roll is highly overloaded; pay special attention to it. The d8 table is to make interesting things happen for whatever particular subgroup of the camp you happen to run into. Like, these 5 guys beside the waterfall are [clatter, clatter]. Google the d10 terms if you're not familiar; they're all standard topographical / geographical jargon that you need to have in your vocabulary anyway. Place the parenthetical terrain features for tactical crunch. The d12 table should be checked anytime you check in on the camp after significant time has passed; it's what everyone's concerned with, as opposed to the more intimidate focus of the d8 table. The d20 check covers the group's approach to the camp; if they send a scouting party ahead, be sure to only check for that group. 

ROLL ALL THE DICE ON PAPER. Their values tell you things, and their positions tell you the layout of the camp.

PREFACE

Kobolds are not comical. They start like chestbursters from Alien except they come out of your forehead like Athena. (Thanks +KielChenier for the idea.)

The cult has a whole ceremony around this. After the acolytes show enough devotion (but not enough intelligence to rise to leadership), they are granted the privilege of being implanted with the holy worm should they desire it or should they mess up too much. Priest places little purple worm in the eye of the acolyte.

Over weeks, the acolyte begins to develop reptilian features and an ever-swelling head. Eventually, in excruciating pain, the scaly, tailed, clawed human's head explodes, and an immature kobold bursts out like this, for some time still part of the host body, lashing out with razor-tipped tentacles.  

These will eventually mature, through ceremony and harsh breeding and conditioning, into halfdragons / dragonborn (which I'm treating as identical in my campaign). 

Wearers of Purple: all groups with cultists are led by a wearer of purple, who is a priest, trained in the rites but not necessarily respected, middle management. 

Blending in: if the PCs are trying to blend in but might arouse suspicion in this particular situation, roll d6 under d6 result below. Failure: they arouse suspicion. 

Die Location Map 

• most central: lair / stronghold / dungeon entrance, else the most dramatic part of the terrain
• next most central: leader's tent (with holy worms if dragonborn present)
• next most central: prisoner tents or stakes
• next most central: supply tent (weapons, food, etc.)
• most remote: direction of rearguard
• next most remote: entrance, with grisly display: five-lobed skull-flowers, impaled bodies, skull-topped palisade, piled charred bodies, surgical horror on pedastal
• next most remote: stables (horses, drakes, kobolds)

Die Value Tables

d4: camp type

1. above a dungeon
2. outside a reptilian lair
3. permanent stronghold
4. temporary camp. 

d6 population 

1. 20 mercs, no prisoners / rearguard: 2 mercs, 200 yards closer to civilization
2. 15 cultists, 25 kobolds, prisoner or two / rearguard: 3 cultists, 400 yards closer to civilization
3. 20 cultists with 30 mercs, 10 kobolds, few prisoners / rearguard: mix of 4, 600 yards closer to civilization
4. 20 cultists with 40 mercs and 10 kobolds, 10 drakes, handful of prisoners, 1 guard tower / rearguard: mix of 6, 800 yards closer to civilization
5. Dragonborn with 30 cultists, 40 mercs, 10 drakes, and 20 kobolds, dozen prisoners, 2 guard towers / rearguard: mix of 8, 1000 yards closer to civilization
6. Dragonborn with 20 cultists, 30 kobolds, 10 drakes, 60 mercs, score of prisoners, 3 guard towers / rearguard: mix of 9, 1200 yards closer to civilization

d8 what this particular group is expressing (1 cultists / 2 mercs / 3 monsters)?

General activity on header line. Specific ones may be selected by group.

1. Wrath (execution or torture)
   1. religious pain-tests on the faithful 
   2. Fight club 
   3. Challenge to the alpha
2. Greed (counting, distributing, fighting over, exchanging valuables)
   1. Melting down coin to wear as cult-themed ornament
   2. Poker
   3. Hoarding or fighting over rotting corpse
3. Sloth (sleeping, lazing about)
   1. Dozing during prayers, will be guilty about it and petrified of its revelation
   2. Reading surprisingly intellectual material 
   3. Piled up in heap like puppies
4. Pride (boasting)
   1. Loud worship of TIAMAT, let her praises fill the air
   2. "Man, but did you see what I did, though? The kid was running, like I dunno fifty yards away…"
   3. Alpha checking into betas, snapping at them, daring a reaction
5. Lust (intercourse or longing)
   1. With kobolds, very holy
   2. Talking about the wearer of purple, graphically going on
   3. It's breedin' time! 
6. Envy (scheming or acting to take or destroy)
   1. Whispering about romantically successful cultist, wants to accuse of the sextacephalian heresy but must have proof for wearer of purple
   2. Strong-jawed one made off with ton of loot, the weaklings scheming to steal it and blame the kobolds
   3. Weak group wants to steal eggs of strong group, raise as own
7. Gluttony (feasting, drinking)
   1. Trippin on that holy grass
   2. Woman drinking big dude under table in Raiders homage drinking contest
   3. Absolutely stuffing selves with carcasses, can hardly move
8. Penance (prepping to or actually running away or taking action against groups)
   1. Loved one to be sacrificed to TIAMAT and eaten by the leader, will try to spring if given chance
   2. Conscience pangs: can't stop looking at the poor emaciated boy with his nose cut off
   3. Beaten and bleeding, straining against chain to escape

2d10 main topographical feature of camp; second d10 is topographical feature of rearguard camp:

1. box canyon (boulders, shrubs, trees, river, caves, paths up the canyon, large flat outcroppings like steps up)
2. ravine (boulders, scree, shrubs, vines, caves, paleolithic rock carvings)
3. glade (trees, tall grass, shrubs, stumps, rubble, forgotten shrines, megaliths)
4. hill / small valley (boulders, tall grass, shrubs, trees, ruins)
5. scarp (rubble, ruins, shrubs)
6. esker (trees, tall grass, shrubs)
7. tor (large rock outcroppings, boulders, scree, 
8. pond / river (possibly with camp on island, boats or rafts or makeshift bridge available to camp)
9. waterfall
10. ruins

d12 what's going on

1. military drills / memorization of the holy incantations
2. military drills / memorization of the holy incantations
3. fight club
4. sermon, people are really into it, amen, mmhmm / mercenary business meeting
5. prayers, unison recitations and readings
6. sacrifices of animals, eaten by the priests / skinning animals for pleasure and consumption
7. festive communal meal
8. torture party
9. implantation of the holy worm
10. chillaxin, people doing their own thing
11. chillaxin, people doing their own thing
12. chillaxin, people doing their own thing

d20 stealth check (use lowest modifier in group, advantage if proper precautions taken, disadvantage if just tromping along)

• Less than 5: obviously baddies, ambush time with whatever traps are around or at least a surprise round with advantage on attacks, runner sent to camp
• Less than 10: runner moves back in case camp needs to be notified, suspiciously hail the party
• Less than 15: sees you but waves you through, probably wants to talk
• 15+: you see them and can recon as you like