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3. Building your adventure

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Now that we have some familiarity with the overall interface, we are going to head to the Journal pane and get started with our first step: Creating an outline.

Making an outline

This outline will be a place that we can include our thoughts and goals without needing to be overly formal. To do this within the game, we will need to create a handout. To do this, perform the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the Journal pane.
  2. Click "+ Handout" in the top of the Journal pane
  3. You can now start editing within the pop-up window to create your handout.

creating a handout.png

To edit our handout, we will go ahead and name it "Outline" in the "Name" field. From here, scroll down until you locate the "Description & Notes" field. In it you can put your own outline, or the one from the video included down below:

  • Creating a small dungeon
  • Designing for 3rd level characters
  • Our theme will be cults and undead – necromancers
  • It will be set in a crypt
  • Timeframe is around 3-4 hours
  • Make sure to give players some cool items during the adventure to fuel excitement
    • 5 encounters with 1 optional
    • 3 combat encounters: Easy, Medium, Boss
    • 1 puzzle encounter: A riddle
    • 1 trap encounter: A non-lethal trap
    • 1 secret encounter: optional

Note: If you are using bullet points in the handout, if you would like to indent or outdent, you will need to use different keyboard shortcuts than you may be used to.

To Indent (move right): Ctrl + ]

To Outdent (move left): Ctrl + [

This outline is primarily for our own reference later on if we need it. As you make your own adventures, it helps to just jot down your thoughts and wants for the session generally as it helps guide what work you should do to prepare.

We won't be sharing this with the players, so we do not need to edit permissions here.

If you'd like to learn more about handouts, please see our article here: Journal | Handouts

Plot overview

Now that we have our goals/outline written out, let's work on our next handout which will relate to the narrative. Lets make a new handout, but this one we will name "Plot"

handout example plot.png

You can see from above, I've done some additional styling (not shown in the video) which you can also do via the interface to make your adventure look any way you like! Here is the full text if you'd like to copy it into your plot handout as well:

Hook
Players were sent by the adventurers guild to help the local cleric at a small village called “Calmsdale” investigate a number of grave robbings. The group had just arrived in town and turned in for the night at the local tavern where they learned some key details that hint cultists may be at play.

Key Details
These are key details that the players should be "given" with the assumption that they did some detective work at the tavern while staying there.

  • Undead have been spotted in the area.
  • There is a well-known old crypt near the edge of the woods which is believed to be haunted due to strange noises
  • The grave robbings started about 1 month ago

Start
Players begin by exiting a tavern and making their way to the crypt where they spot the first indication of necromancy – Cultists!

Bad Guy Goals
These cultists were bid by their lich leader Ril’Zoc to destroy this town in order to harvest souls for the lich to extend its life. This is a fairly low ranked group of cultists who are on their first mission and are driven to succeed – even if it costs them their life!

Extra context
The cultists believe that even in death, they will still serve their leader as undead, risen again to immortality.

Flow
The party will happen across the crypt which is conspicuously unguarded. Making their way inside they encounter a number of cultists and undead as well as a trap and riddle. The party finds information implicating that the cultists have been responsible for the grave robbings as they try to build up an undead army to take over the town.

In the final fight against the cultist leader, they learn of a figure behind the scenes they may need to deal with as well as of a mysterious artifact that the cultist leader was performing a ritual upon.

This leaves multiple avenues for the players to decide if they would like to continue this adventure or simply return with the information to the adventurers guild so another group can handle it “off screen.”

Now, this is a pretty broad adventure overview of the way the adventure plays out. We'll hash out some additional details a bit later.

Next Article - 4. Making your map

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