Three rookie adventurers – Erias the Halfling, Herja the Dwarf and Leonidas the Tiefling – came to The Snake and Pony in the City of Shard looking for work to begin their adventuring career. All three knew that solo adventurers often wind up as dead adventurers and so over pints they decided to work as an unlikely team. Erias did not offer up much about his past, but he talked about how he had traveled far from home and enjoyed the nomadic life as many Halflings do, and demonstrated his strange powers, a “gift from the stars” he said. Herja was also reticent about her past, though a mournful look may have passed over her otherwise stoic visage as she said she didn’t want to talk about it. She said she wasn’t much of a talker anyway, more of a fighter, so her warhammer and imposing scale armor did most of the talking for her. Leonidas talked a little more of his past, how he took vows as a cleric of the Platinum Dragon Bahamut, and how he wanted to spread more good in the world by leaving his monastery behind.
Before the newly formed group could go out searching for adventure, adventure found them in the unlikely guise of a wiry elderly human woman and a soft-around-the-middle half-elf. They came from the village of Clearwyn looking to hire a team of adventurers to help clear their village of terribly mutated rats, after their first solo hire had gotten his hand bitten off by the ferocious vermin. Though the party failed to convince the skeptical Asta of their prowess, the more pragmatic Eogan told them to meet the two of them at dawn to set out for Clearwyn, promising them 60 gold for the job and to talk up their prowess to other potential clients. Having no other prospects at the moment, the party agreed to take the job.
Arriving in Clearwyn, the party found a village on the brink of terror. The old man who watched the granery, Old Culwich, had died from wounds he received when the rats first invaded the town. The local shaman, who had received little formal training, asked for Leonidas’ assistance in performing proper funeral rites. Leonidas taught the shaman the burial rituals of the clerics of Bahamut and earned the thankfulness of the village for doing so. Young Culwich, the son of the deceased, asked the party if they could look for a simple tin medallion that his father always wore after being given it by his long-dead wife. The party agreed that they would look for it when they went to the grainery to clear out the rats. The party also met the adventurer that came before them, a Dwarf named Gosta of Clan Stonehammer. Gosta gave the party some healing potions that he thought they might need more than him, given that he planned on ending his adventuring career now that he only had one hand.
The party traveled to the town granery, and were soon set upon by a horde of rats, who were far larger than any rats in The Brandywine Plains ought to have been. The party fought with the gnashing vermin and managed to kill them all – the rats showed no fear and fought to the death. The party did not find Culwich’s medallion, but otherwise returned to Clearwyn in victory. But Asta would not make things so easy. Eogan had followed the battle at a distance and noticed a goblin watching the battle. He followed the goblin to a cave outside of town, and then returned to Clearwyn to report what he had seen. Asta refused to pay the adventurers unless they helped with the goblin problem. The party chafed, but Asta said that protecting her village was the most important thing in the world to her and that she would do anything – even extort the party – to defend it. Eogan smoothed things over by pointing out that goblins often carry with them gold stashes and other treasure from their raids, and that the party had sole claim to those items. Seeing the desperate plight of the village, the party agreed to rout the goblins from the cave.
The party snuck up on the goblins and saw that a goblin shaman – seemingly the leader of this warband – was using strange magicks to mutute normal local rats into the ferocious vermin seen at the mill. The goblins were using the rats to try and empty out the village so that they could raid it for valuables without any resistance. The party sprung into action and ambushed the goblins, defeating most of them except for a lone archer who ran when the outcome of the battle became evident. The party not only found a few healing potions and 100 gold, but they also found Culwich’s medallion among the many necklaces of the shaman. Erias also took a necklace made from the skulls of small animals worn by the shaman as a trophy of their victory.
Returning to the village as heroes, the party was feasted into the night by the grateful villagers. Gosta, impressed that these rookies had succeeded when he had failed, gave his Thunder Hammer to Herja with Moradin’s blessing. The party got their promised gold from Asta and celebrated the first of what they hoped would be many victories in their adventures.