The Journey South

It is less than two miles between Hightown and the Leather Road, so unless the characters tarry considerably, they won’t have to worry about encounters north of the road. The goal at this part of the adventure is to reach the castle.

The walking path south to the Leather Road is shaded by massive trees of oak and maple, whose red, yellow, and brown leaves rustle lightly in the breeze. The well-worn path curves around the low hills. The path is patched with grasses and ferns, and wild flowers of yellow and purple lace the edges.

Encounters

When traveling north of the Leather Road, encounters occur about 20% of the time every 24 hours.

Remember that you can determine these encounters by chance, or choose encounters as appropriate to the story, or simply use these charts as a guide to what else lives in the area. Also, these outdoor charts include possible encounters with creatures nearly impossible for first and second level characters to defeat head-on. While poor decisions on the characters’ parts might lead to their deaths, you should not personally place the characters in untenable positions. Let them do that on their own.

Main Table

Civilized Peoples

Masquerade

Most masquerade encounters will be with a creature acting human; deity encounters may be with deities acting as just about any creature or thing, as appropriate. The characters may never know they met a werewolf, dryad, phantasm, or god. Such encounters are unlikely to result in combat, but may set up a later adventure when the characters discover that their acquaintance (perhaps by then a friend) has a secret.

Humanoid Creatures

Encounters with Goblins are 15% likely to include 1 Orc running the show.

Natural Encounters

Animals

Snakes

Copperheads, waterheads, and rattlers are standard poisonous snakes.

Fantastic Creatures

Most animal-like fantastic creatures will hardly notice the characters; those that eat livestock might descend upon the characters’ packmounts if they have any, but unless the characters do something stupid to attract the attention of, say, a gryphon, these fantastic encounters will be marvels to tell about having seen when they return home. Undead encounters will occur in an appropriate location: phantasms or poltergeists in abandoned homes, ghouls in a cemetery.