Cinematic Adventure Hooks

I’ve spent the better part of two years combing through the pages of Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak. It’s become something of an obsession, digging into mundane details that I can turn into inspiration for the blog. It’s how I’ve come to spill ink and brain cells on thought-provoking topics such as:

I’ve been busy for the last month, so I haven’t had as much time to write for the blog as I’d like. But that doesn’t mean I’ve put these modules down. I’ve been keeping a list for future articles. And since the future is now, let’s talk about how I recently used that bell tower behind townmaster hall.

I’m a fan of Matt Colville’s Running the Game series on YouTube, where I was introduced to the concept of “cinematics,” which basically uses a scripted cut scene to help a Dungeon Master frame the their world and raise the stakes for players.

I decided to experiment with a cinematic for the purpose of delivering adventure hooks in my most recent game, in which the characters found themselves summoned by the bell tower to Phandalin’s monthly town hall meeting. The townmaster presides over the meeting where residents hear commentary on town business and have the opportunity to offer comments. Just like any borough or township meeting that might occur here on earth, really.

I’ve written enough blogs, authored enough box set-centric DMsGuild.com supplemental products, and run both LMOP and DOIP enough times that I can pull an adventure in this setting out of thin air with little or no prep time. So, I decided to present four different adventure hooks in the cinematic for players to choose from.

Below is the narrative introduction I used, laden with four possible adventure hooks for the characters to pursue. Before starting the session with this narrative, I made sure to tell the players that it would take about 5 minutes for me to read through, but it would provide some details for the world where the adventure takes place, as well as hooks to four different adventures I have prepared for them. Much to my relief, everyone was amenable to that, so I started the game by reading them the following:

Prologue: The Bell of Phandalin

The last light of day fades behind the Sword Mountains as your path follows the wagon-rutted line of the Miner’s Trail toward the frontier town of Phandalin.

Clouds roll in low and gray. A fine drizzle begins to fall.

Ahead, the town lies quiet in the dusk. Chimneys breath thin trails of woodsmoke that curl lazily into the damp air. Lanternlight glows behind windows. The scent of hearth fires and cooking suppers drifts through the cool evening.

Then a bell begins to toll.

CLANG-CLANG! CLANG-CLANG! CLANG-CLANG!

The sound carries across the settlement from a three-story tower at the back of the Townmaster’s Hall.

Shop shutters slam closed and doors to Phandalin’s homes open along the muddy street one-by-one as townsfolk step out into the evening.

At first they walk toward the sound, then quicken their pace, cloaks pulled tight as they hurry toward the Townmaster’s Hall as the rain begins to fall harder.

You pass the town’s general store, Barthen’s Provisions, just as its proprietor flips the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. The spare, balding merchant gives the street a quick glance before jogging into the rain toward the bell’s toll.

CLANG-CLANG! CLANG-CLANG! CLANG-CLANG!

Following the flow of townsfolk, you soon find yourselves entering the Townmaster’s Hall where a town meeting is ready to begin.

Inside, the room is crowded tonight. Farmers, miners, traders, and laborers pack the benches and walls beneath rows of hanging lanterns. Wet cloaks drip onto the wooden floor while boots shuffle and voices murmur.

At the front of the room stands the clammy, nervous figure of the townmaster, Harbin Wester.

He grips a stack of papers in one trembling hand and a gavel in the other.

Thump-thump-thump! The gavel strikes the podium, barely above the din of the crowd. “Order please,” says the Townmaster. “Order please.” Thump. Thump. THUMP!

After a few moments, the murmur dies down.

“Right then…right then,” he stammers. “Public comment before town business,” Wester says, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief. “If anyone has…ah…matters they wish to address.”

From the crowd rises the broad-shouldered innkeeper, Toblen Stonehill. His smile lights up the room.

“Friends,” he calls. “I’ve good news.”

The room quiets.

“Repairs to the inn are finished. Every beam replaced, every board hammered back in place. Good as it ever was, before that unfortunate Red Breakfast nonsense last month.”

A few people nod knowingly.

“The doors of the Stonehill Inn reopen tonight, soon as this meeting ends. And the first round is on me!”

For a moment there is silence. Then the hall erupts, as if this was the hero the town needed.

Cheers echo off the rafters. Someone whistles. Someone shouts, “About time!”

The memory of the Redbrand Ruffians, and the blaze that nearly destroyed the inn during what townsfolk now refer to as The Red Breakfast, still lingers. But tonight feels like a small victory to celebrate.

As the cheering finally dies down, another figure rises.

He’s a finely dressed man of mixed elvish ancestry, his cloak clasped with a silver pin bearing the crest of no doubt some Waterdhavian or Neverwinter status nobility. His bearing is unmistakably aristocratic.

“I thank you for the opportunity to address you all,” he says smoothly.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Eravein Haund, Captain of the Triboar Trail Charter Company, an enterprise operating under the patronage of The Lords’ Alliance.”

He pauses a moment to clear his throat.

“Our purpose is simple: to make the Triboar Trail, from the High Road to the Long Road, safe and prosperous again.”

“To restore ruined settlements, places such as Conyberry and Thundertree, so caravans, settlers, and trade may return to this frontier.”

Murmurs of approval ripple through the crowd.

“I seek capable adventurers to survey abandoned towns along the Triboar Trail for resettlement, and to patrol the wilds, driving off threats to civilization’s return. The company pays handsomely for these services.”

Several townsfolk nod approvingly. Safer roads mean more caravans. More caravans mean more coin.

“Should any doughty adventurers make their way through town, please, consider telling them of the company’s mission and send them my way. I shall be residing at the Stonehill Inn for at least the remainder of the year, if not longer.”

As Haund yields the floor, a spare, balding merchant pushes to his feet.

It is Elmar Barthen. The shopkeeper clears his throat.

“My clerks, good lads, both of ’em. Ander and Thistle. Hard workers. Honest boys…” His voice falters. “They’ve run off.”

The room quiets with concern.

“Left town late last night with them strange folk that passed through town a few days ago.”

He holds up a folded scrap of parchment.

“They left a note. Seems they’ve taken a fancy to a couple of the young ladies in that group and decided to follow them off to the ruins of Thundertree. The lovesick pups.”

He sighs heavily.

“I told ’em…plain as day, there was something off about that lot. Shifty eyes. Too many cloaks. No good reason to be heading to a dead town like Thundertree – meaning no offense your…lordship,” he says with a nervous glance at Eravein Haund.

Barthen looks around the room.

“I’ll pay anyone willing to go out there and make sure the boys are safe. Maybe talk some sense into them. Convince them to come home.”

He swallows.

“Tell them I’ll even give them a share of my business if they’ll abandon this adventuring nonsense. Again…meaning no offense,” he says to the few attendees wearing armor or a weapon at their belt.

A few chuckles ripple through the crowd.

“It’s just…they aren’t equipped for that sort of life. I should know. I was a soldier in the War of the Silver Marches. They don’t know what it’s like out there.”

The hall hums with sympathetic murmurs.

“If anyone’s willing to undertake this errand,” Barthen finishes, “I’ll make it worth your trouble.”

He sits.

Moments later, a calm voice rises from the back of the hall.

An elegant woman of elvish ancestry steps forward, silver hair catching the lantern light from overhead. Her robes mark her clearly as a wizard.

“I am called Meriele,” she says. “I seek capable companions for an expedition.”

She gestures west, in the direction of the Triboar Trail.

“I search for a ruined castle beneath the southwestern eaves of Neverwinter Wood,” she says, the room stirring with the mention of the queer wood that is home to so many legends.

“I will pay one hundred gold pieces to anyone of stout heart and steely sinew who accompanies me, so long as your hand is steady, and your sword is sharp.”

Raised eyebrows and low whistles move through the room. Someone could live large on such a generous pay day.

As Meriele takes her seat, the door at the entrance to the hall opens. Wind from the storm gusts through the doorway as the rain picks up and the rain drums harder against the roof of the hall.

A flash of lightning silhouettes the figure standing in the doorway followed by a deafening clap of thunder. For a moment, no one recognizes the figure, and then the lightning fades to show the woman framed in the doorway.

Someone whispers her name with a gasp as a hush falls across the hall.

“Mirna...”

Since the night the Redbrands murdered her husband and kidnapped her family, Mirna Dendrar has spoken to no one. She and her children, Nilsa and Nars, have kept to themselves since their rescue from Tresendar Manor by adventurers, several of whom perished with the last members of Redbrand ruffians at The Red Breakfast.

Tonight, she walks slowly down the aisle.

Her hands tremble. But her voice, when it comes, is steady.

“My husband,” she says quietly. “Thel.”

Several townsfolk lower their eyes.

“He is still down there.”

She does not need to explain.

Everyone knows she means the ruined fortress on the hill, Tresendar Manor.

“I want him brought home,” she continues. “So we can…bury him. So we can say goodbye.”

Her voice tightens.

“The thought of him…his body…still lying in that place…” She stops before her anger breaks through.

The room shifts uneasily. Some of the townsfolk stare at the floor. Others glance toward the rain-streaked windows where the dark outline of the ruined manor looms beyond the town.

Stories have spread about the place. Whispers that it is haunted. Cursed. That, strange things lurk beneath the ruins.

No one volunteers their assistance to Mirna. The silence stretches painfully long until, at last, the townmaster clears his throat.

Harbin Wester straightens his papers.

“Ahem. Yes. Well. In light of the…circumstances…”

He glances nervously around the hall.

“I will personally offer a reward – fifty gold pieces, each – to anyone willing to perform this kindness for the Dendrar family. And…” he adds, “Anyone who undertakes this errand shall be entitled to whatever ill-gotten gains those thrice damned ruffians might have plundered during their reign of terror.”

There is no dissent from the townsfolk, who would rather forget the ruffians existed.

The Townmaster shuffles his papers again.

“If anyone is interested in this errand – or any of the other business opportunities presented tonight – please speak with the appropriate party at the conclusion of the meeting.”

The room grows very still.

“And now, if there is no other public comment…” He waits. No one speaks. “…then let us move on to town business.”

The rest of the meeting passes with little fanfare. By the time it concludes, the rain has settled into a steady fall.

One by one, the townsfolk file out into the wet night, most of them making their way toward the warmly lit doors of the Stonehill Inn to celebrate its reopening.

Lanternlight spills into the street. Laughter begins to rise again.

And somewhere beyond the town, in the dark hills and deep forests of the frontier, the true adventures waiting for anyone who seeks them.

If you’d like to support my work, please consider checking out my free/pwyw supplements for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak over on Dungeon Master’s Guild!