A Free Dragon AGE Campaign
Now, if you're okay with a little challenge, and willing to get creative, there are a few options out there for taking freely available adventure material and stretching it out into a short sample campaign. Nothing as long as a full length adventure path style campaign, but definitely something longer than a quickstart adventure, and certainly tons of fun.
One such opportunity exists with the free content that Green Ronin Publishing has produced for their Dragon AGE (DAGE) RPG. Learn more about the Dragon Age RPG here.
Through the Green Ronin Store (Note: I receive nothing from Green Ronin, I'm just a fan) we can get three separate adventures and tie them together in a unique and interesting mini-campaign.
Warning from here on out, their will be spoilers! This article is meant for Game Masters who are interested in running this sample campaign. Players have to wait outside.
Still here? Then let's go.
The Adventures
The three Adventures we will be linking together are An Arl’s Ransom, found in the Dragon Age Quickstart Guide, Duty Unto Death, and the Dalish Curse. To successfully run this mini-campaign you should read and familiarize yourself with each adventure. (Note: All links are affiliate links.)
The first adventure, An Arl’s Ransom, tasks the Party with rendezvousing and escorting the caravan containing the Arl’s children and safeguarding them home. Increased threats from darkspawn activity in the area have made this a necessity, but the Arl doesn't have the time or manpower to do it himself. Along the way, the Arl’s steward reveals her true motives and tries to recruit the PC’s to help in a ransom plot involving the children.
The second free adventure we can use is the Dalish Curse. In this adventure, the party discovers an injured Dalish elf on the outskirts of the town of Vintiver. She has been attacked by darkspawn set loose by a demon. A demon who was freed by an enraged and vengeful Dalish elf. An elf seeking recompense from the humans who humiliated him at the Harvest Festival. The Harvest Festival held each yeah in, where else, Vintiver. The PC’s must track down this demon, save the remaining Dalish clan and protect the town before too much more blood is shed.
The third adventure is Duty Unto Death. Another free adventure on the Green Ronin website, this adventure was originally written for Wil Wheaton’s show Tabletop on the Geek & Sundry network. In the adventure, the PC’s as Grey Warden initiates, must rendezvous with a squad of Orlesian Wardens in the town of Greenthorn. Unbeknownst to both the party and the Orlesian Wardens a terrible battle occured in Greenthorn during Ferelden’s Rebellion. During that event a spirit from the Fade named Duty observed the valiant last stand of the Rebel Queen's defenders and pulled the watch tower in Greenthorn into the Fade. Upon the return of Orlesians to Greenthorn some 30 years later, Duty returns the tower and captures the Orlesians demanding vengeance for Ferelden's long lost defenders. The party of Grey Warden initiates must convince Duty it has gravely misunderstood the situation in Ferelden today.
Essentials
Before we start framing out the campaign, we also need to make sure we have everything else we need to actually play Dragon Age, namely some rules and characters.
Fortunately, the Quickstart guide has us covered. Not only it does it contain a basic rules primer, including such things as combat options and equipment, skills and stunts, and a short setting guide, it also includes five pre-generated characters. The characters are a must since the Quickstart rules don't include character generation.
Five 1st level characters are available in the quickstart guide; one Mage, two warriors, and two rogues. Each character also has a different background which is where much of the character customization of Dragon AGE lies. Again, these rules are in the Character Creation section of the Core Rules, so we don't have access to them here, but that's fine.
It's worth noting here that Duty Unto Death also includes four pre-generated characters. These characters are all Level 3 characters however. My recommendation is that these characters are best left alone until a Player Character potentially dies. Replacements can be pulled from these other four characters. Alternatively, if you want to give your players an easier time through the first two adventures, than these characters are good starting options for an even more relaxed mini-campaign.
One last issue we will want to address is that of leveling. For a short mini-campaign with pre-generated characters an argument can certainly be made that leveling isn’t necessary, but it is always fun for players and adds excitement. Without having the core rules though there’s no clear indication of what to change when leveling. Below are my suggestions for quick and easy leveling, and note these are similar, albeit not exactly, what the core rules for leveling are. They are enough for this campaign at least:
- Increase HP by 6
- Increase one ability by 1
- Gain one focus
In this mini-campaign we will give the players two opportunities to level, after completing the first and second adventures respectively. The appropriate time will be indicated below.
Connective Tissue
Each adventure is its own self contained a story, so we need to find some method for making them feel more like chapters in a connected story, instead of just different, disconnected episodes.
Duty Unto Death gives us a great frame work here: the Player Characters are Grey Warden initiates. We'll go a step further and use more of the setup, they are traveling across Ferelden with Duncan. Now the PC’s have a way of knowing each other and even a Patron.
Duncan casts a long shadow though, so we don't want him to hang around too long.
To do this, we make the party and their Patron’s initial goal the Arling of Stenhold. They are to meet the Orlesian Wardens here and all travel with Arl Neruda to Ostagar under King Cailan’s orders. Prior to reaching Stenhold however, Duncan receives his message and must leave the party. You can still use the first part of Part 1 - Encounter 1: Duncan from Duty Unto Death just change the section The Mission as follows:
- Duncan must leave the party to deal with an urgent issue at Ostagar.
- The PC’s are to assist Neruda with anything he needs to prepare for traveling to Ostagar.
- The PC’s are also to await the arrival of the Orlesian Wardens and travel to Ostagar with them once they've arrived, even if Neruda's forces have already departed.
AN ARL’S RANSOM
At this point, you can run An Arl’s Ransom as written, the only change being the NPC’s know the PC’s are Grey Warden initiates. Neruda will still be rude and aloof, Alenka will still be treacherous and conniving, the Arlessa will still plead for the children's safety.
Once the PC’s reconnect with the children and Ser Bridget, they can learn that the children's route from Denerim to Stenhold has taken them through Greenthorn and Vintiver (we have to move the location of Greenthorn for this to work, but that's ok).
The PC’s can learn the children met the delegation of Orlesian Wardens in Greenthorn before continuing on. They stopped for the harvest festival in Vintiver before heading home (and left before the trouble with Harralan and Coalan). The PC’s can choose to escort the children home, go along with Alenka’s plot, or continue on to Vintiver and ultimately Greenthorn.
If they don't ensure the children's safety somehow, Alenka or even darkspawn will capture them. If they escort the children home, the Arl and his army have left for Ostagar and no word from Duncan has been received. Impress upon the party that now that they know the whereabouts of the Orlesian Wardens they should go meet them rather than wait.
If they decide to wait for the Warden's at Stenhold you can play out a few days of downtime. Very little is happening around Stenhold now and it gets very boring. Eventually they overstay their welcome and are strongly urged to leave. A friendly NPC may suggest they travel to Greenthorn and see what became of their compatriots, as they should have arrived at Stenhold by now.
Before the party sets out to find the missing Warden’s, make sure they level up based on the rules we setup above.
DUTY UNDO DEATH
Once the PC’s leave for Greenthorn, you can throw in some random encounters to spice things up if you wish. Perhaps the PC’s must fight more darkspawn, or encounter soldiers and a local bann marching towards Ostagar. They may encounter a young chantry member on her way back to Lothering, or a dwarven merchant and his son.
At any rate, with the geography we have now defined, the PC’s must pass through Vintiver first. The find the town simmering, but not in dire straights yet. The altercation with Harralan and Coalan has now occurred and the Dalish have vacated the area. Harralan has not yet discovered the Link of Rage, though we will cover how that can relate to Duty Unto Death soon.
In Vintiver they can reest and resupply, but not much else is happening in town, as the sour feelings caused by the altercation with the Dalish has cast a pall over the town. Any attempt by the PC’s to locate the Dalish at this time is met with failure (and maybe a combat encounter with some blight wolves - AAR Pg. 23).
Once in Greenthorn, the rest of this adventure can playout pretty much as written, with just a few changes.
- Change the timing - Duty doesn't immediately pull the tower back in from the Fade when Aldrich LaPointe and his men show up. This way the Neruda children are able to meet him briefly. Also, they will make no mention of a tower to the PC’s when talking about Greenthorn.
- Callie — Due to the timing change, the Neruda children will have also had the opportunity to meet Callie. The children may have told the Party about her and mentioning them to her is a great way for her to trust the PC's especially if they talk about how they saved the Neruda kids.
- Skeletons — In the tower, Encounter 2: Barracks says to use Skeletons from the DA Set 1: Game Masters Guide. Since we are trying to run this campaign using only free resources, we likely don't have that. Instead use the Devouring Corpse statblock (DUD, Pg. 4), remove its Drain Life power and use the weapon attack for the skeletons as described in the Encounter 2 text.
- Demons — The other main structural change we need to make for the sake of the campaign is that one of the demons that escaped from the Fade when Duty returned the tower to Greenthorn was formally a servant of the demon bound in the Link of Rage. It has fled Greenthorn to try and free its master, and we will have the party encounter it in the final leg of the mini-campaign.
- Duty - Duty can basically be ran as written, again with some slight changes. He can be fought as written, and if defeated Aldric is freed. In this scenario events still unfold in Vintiver based on the freed demonic servant and must be dealt with. The other option for dealing with Duty is that if he is talked down (and this should be easier than as written in the book, basically just good RP, no check required) he will issue a quest in return for releasing Aldric into the PC’s custody: slay all the demons that came through from the Fade.
- Duty's Quest - Duty is aware of all of the demons that came through with him, he can feel them. By the time the PC’s get to him at the top of the Tower, the Party will have fought through many of them, as did Callie. He knows only one remains and that it left town heading south, into the Brecillian Forest. He will task the them to hunt down and slay the final demon.
If they accept Duty Unto Death is mostly complete, we may have in final scene at the end of the campaign. Next up, a return to Vintiver and the Dalish Curse.
Before the Party sets out on their hunt for the missing demon, make sure to level them up one more time. This will make them a bit over-leveled for the adventure as intended, if you feel like things are too easy when running the Dalish Curse, feel free to increase monster HP, attack damage, or number of combatants. You can also reduce stunt costs for certain monsters to make them more effective.
THE DALISH CURSE
The party should now be on their new quest, hunting down the last renegade demon headed for Vintiver. With this setup we can basically run the Dalish Curse as written.
Upon their return to Vintiver, the PC’s will discover the massacre at the Fuldor Farm and find Eshara. Returning to Vintiver the adventure can play out as written, with the exception that the party may be a known quantity to people in the town like Coalan and Tarl Dale, if they had any interactions with them on their previous visit.
Heading out into the Brecillian Forest to search for the Dalish will be their best lead to find the wayward demon, indeed as it seems the creature may have something to do with what’s been going on. The Revenger attack only typifies this thought.
Eventually they will arrive at the keep. Once again we have a combat encounter saying to use the skeleton stat block from the Set 1 Gamemaster’s Guide. Since our assumption for this game is that we do not have access to that book, we can just use the Devouring Corpse statblock (DUD Pg. 4) and remove the Drain Life power. You can feel free to equip them as noted on DUD Pg. 6 if so desired.
In the final room of the keep, where the Dalish prisoners are being kept and where the Link of Rage was once contained, is our wayward demon. The demon who travelled all this way from Greenthorn tempting Harralan the entire time, all in order to free its ancient master.
We have no specific statblock for the demon, but we definitely don’t want to use the Mythallen statblock yet, Mythallen is the main villain of this adventure and potentially the mini-campaign, and we still want to have the climactic confrontation in Vintiver at the end.
Instead he can use the Devouring Corpse stat block but pump up the stats a little bit. Some options for this include:
- Increasing HP by 20
- Increasing Defense by 2
- Increasing Armor by 2
- Increasing damage by 1d6
- Reducing the required SP for Drain Life by 1.
It is recommended to not apply more than three of these options, unless your party has proven themselves to be pretty adept at combat.
Once the demon is defeated, the Party have satisfied Duty’s objective and can return to it as soon as they have dealt with Mythallen. If they should ignore the problems in Vintiver, you can have Mythallen hunt the party down. Perhaps after their return to Greenthorn and the tower Mythallen can confront them at the base of the tower as the exit or even on the top floor. Whether Duty is present to participate in the fight would be up to the timing of when Mythallen attacks, a decision best left to the GM.
Assuming the party are the heroic type, or perhaps heeding the pleas of the Dalish and fearing for the safety of Vintiver they should now head back to town to stop Mythallen. Along they way they are expected to have an encounter with a Giant Spider. Again the adventure references the core rule sets for a statblock.
We don’t have a great analog for the spider so a few options are available for us:
- Ignore the encounter entirely - It’s just really to show the corrupting influence of the demons/darkspawn and maybe use up some player resources. Not a big deal to skip it outright.
- Use bloodcrows/blight wolves/blight owls - If the goal is show the corrupting influence of darkspawn on nature, we have three creature types that do this well that we have already encountered in our mini-campaign bringing any of them back again just drives home that theme.
- Use Revengers - The corrupted Dalish have been used once already during their ambush encounter and will play a large role in the final confrontation. A few (2-3) may have been left behind as a bit of a rearguard. Using revengers provides a clue as to what the PC’s can expect in Vintiver proper.
After arriving at Vintiver the PC’s can have their epic showdown with Mythallen and hopefully save the village from being burned to the ground. With strategy and some luck, they should be able to pull it out.
CONCLUSION
With the Dalish Curse completed we can now wrap up the mini-campaign. The quest to hunt down the demon’s set loose by Duty’s return from the Fade is now completed. Upon returning to the tower in Greenthorn the party can confront Duty a second time. In my opinion Duty could now be seen as an optional end boss. If the party is angry at him, or demands justice from him for the pain he has caused he can be engaged in battle if they so wish. Otherwise, we will release Aldric as promised.
Depending how the roleplaying goes at this time he could simply return to the Fade or could show them the vision at the end of Duty Unto Death. If it were me running this mini-campaign and the vision was going to be shown, I would ignore the description in the text and instead show the Players the cut scene from EA’s Dragon Age: Origins, near the beginning of the game when King Cailan’s army as well as Duncan, engage the darkspawn horde, and are ultimately crushed.
It’s a heavy note to end a campaign on, but sets up incredible hooks if your would-be band of Grey Warden Initiates decides they wish to continue adventuring in Ferelden.
Summary
What I hope this article has show is that with just a little rework, we can take some freely available content and hack it together into a fun, cogent, and compelling narrative arc. By leveraging what we have to the best of our abilities, we really can squeeze a lot from the free content Green Ronin has provided.
If you go through with this idea and wish to keep playing Dragon AGE (a decision I fully endorse) you can learn more about the rest of the games product line here.
-The RPG Study
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