Monthly Encounter #15: The Hunt for the Giant Turkey (lvls 5-10)
Here at Tribality, we’ve decided to provide our readers with Encounters ready to be added to your table. I’ll be creating new ones monthly for you to have a big collection to look through when you run out of ideas for your game. You can take a look at the index article with all of them by clicking HERE. If people end up liking the encounters we may start releasing them in easy to print PDF format.
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Setting: Agnostic
Location: Town
Lvls: 5-10
Encounter background
The town of Giantville is known for having some variations from your typical animals in colossal sizes. This is a result of being a zone that is imbued with wild magic. It is for this reason that Giantville is known as a tourist zone. Once a year, those farmers that grew the finest and mightiest turkeys free them for mighty groups of adventurers to hunt. That group who gets the more points bringing giant turkeys is recompensated. Once the hunt is done, all participants, as well as the whole town comes together to cook the turkeys, creating this annual celebration.
The Hunt for the Giant Turkey
Adventure Hook
The players can find out about Giantville and its yearly game in the following ways:
- The PCs receive a letter telling them that word has reached Giantville their group is mighty enough to take part in their competition against other groups of adventurers hunting ferocious creatures. By winning, they get 10.000 worth of gold pieces in gold bullions, as well as their tales sang by bards a many through numerous regions. The letter comes with a map to get to Giantville
- A town crier is shouting the news that Giantsville is looking for one last group of hunters to take on magnificent beasts in their competition. Humongous prices and recognition are at stake.
- The king of the region is known to attend the Giantsville competition for his own entertainment. If the party is looking for a talk with the king, then attending the event and winning it for sure can earn you a meeting with him.
- A rival adventurer’s guild sends a letter to the player characters insulting them and considering the adventuring party “just one step above your normal peasant”. The rival guild dares the PCs to compete against them in the Giantsville game. The winner party gets to choose one magic item from the other group and stay with it.
Giantsville
The event takes place in the morning to have the hunted creatures used for the banquet being held the rest of the day. It is no more than a farming village, but they seem to have spent a lot of money in decorating it with giant wooden and cardboard models from the many animals in the town. Among the many activities to find during the event, the following stand out:
- Pet Perla, the giant pig. Perla is Huge in size and has a pink ribbon with red dots on her head. She looks excellently groomed and taken care of, except for her left milky eye that looks like a pearl at first glance.
- Mildred Horseshoe, a female dwarf with a hay hat is the one taking care of Perla
- It costs 2gp to pet Perla
- Feel the speed with Pronto Bronto. Pronto Bronto is the name of the 8.5ft high brown and orange horse. Pronto Bronto has a 1.5 miles circuit for him to run in. The horse is said to reach 55 miles per hour.
- Britney Kayle, a female freckled halfling is the horse’s caretaker
- It costs 5 gp to mount Pronto Bronto
- Hercules, the muscle. Hercules is a giant bull that uses the stat block from the giant elk. The game consists on mounting Hercules and try to stay on its back as long as you can, as the bull tries to send you flying away. Hercules looks like your typical bull except its huge in size and has very predominant muscles.
- Jackson Dodd is Hercules’ caretaker, a green firbolg that always carries an ornamental rake to feed his animals.
- It costs 3gp to try Hercules’ challenge, with a chance of gaining up to 50gp in price.
Important people
Organizer
The organizer of the event is Magda Faine, a noblewoman that looks nothing like the townsfolk. She has a navy blue dress, adorned with multiple jewelry pieces, with a well-kept skin that clearly indicates she has never worked in the farm nor intends to. She carries a pink handkerchief everywhere (that seems extremely valuable to those keen on sight).
Rival parties
If the PCs already have rival adventuring guilds feel free to use them. If not, you can use one of the following two groups of adventurers, if not both. In order to be easier to the DM to manage many NPCs, it is recommended the amount of rival adventuring guilds is kept to two maximum, but if you think you can manage more than that go ahead. More rivals = more chaos, but it can stretch combat a bit too much. Be wary of that.
Jade Fairies
- Kisha Twinklestone (she/her). Kisha is a stout halfling that uses the priest stat block, mostly using spirit guardians, and guiding bolt, casting cure wounds only when necessary. Kisha has advantage on saving throws against poison, and resistance against poison damage.
- Popi Knuckleblades (she/her). is a half-orc barbarian that uses the orc stat block. Popi is known for shouting her name when going in for heavy attacks with her greataxe.
- Valeria Sweetquiver (she/they). is a drow trans rogue constantly hidden under her black hood. Valeria uses the spy stat block and usually follows Popi wherever she goes to deal sneak attacks on their enemies.
Griphon’s feather
- Kraven Redhand (he/him). Kraven is a red headed dwarf with red iron gauntlets. Kraven uses the knight stat block, often insulting those that outrun him due to his speed of 25ft.
- Jeremiah Boltrond (he/him). Jeremiah is a blonde weak looking human teenager. Jeremiah uses the acolyte stat block, constantly hiding from attacks.
- Misha Highgarden (she/her). Misha is a half-elven ranger. She uses the scout stat block, constantly trying to get high ground and attack from the distance.
- Bjorn Ironhammer (he/him). Bjorn is a golden skinned dwarf rogue. Bjorn uses the spy stat block and is known for always being on the move, even when next to his enemies.
Contest Battleground
DOWNLOAD THE HIGH-RESOLUTION MAPS HERE
(Includes ungridded versions for VTTs)
Light. As the event takes place during the morning, the whole area is considered well lit.
Wild Magic. Casting spells requires the spellcaster to roll a d20. On a 20, the caster must roll in the Wild Magic Surge chart (page 104 from PHB)
Giant campfire. The giant 10x10ft campfire burns up with an eternal ever flaming fire created by the raw magic in the zone. Creatures that end their turns 5ft from it take 7 (2d6) fire damage. Finishing the turn on the same space of the campfire makes the creature take 17 (5d6) fire damage.
Trees. Trees are either 10ft or 15ft high, easily climbable with a DC13 Strength (Athletics) check.
Bushes and rocks. Bushes and rocks are 5ft tall and can be used for cover.
Sand and water. Both sand and water are considered difficult terrain to move through.
Little hill. The little hill in the middle of the map is shown in two different colors to better illustrate the height. Going up the hill counts as moving through difficult terrain.
Contest rules
5 giant turkeys and 1 elemental giant turkey are freed at the start of the contestinto the battlefield. All turkeys will constantly attempt to run away from the contestants unless they see no other choice but to fight back. They aren’t tactical and work on their own. At the end of each round 2 giant boars are released to the battlefield as well. Each giant boar dies by getting hit by an attack roll or by failing a saving throw for easier tracking.
- Bringing a dead giant turkey to the chefs: 10 points
- Bringing a dead giant boar to the chefs: 2 points
- Knocking out another contestant: Participant who gave the last hit is disqualified and team loses 30 points (contestants may still damage each other).
- Killing another contestant: Team disqualified and sent to prison.
As the organizers didn’t know one of the giant turkeys became an elemental one due to the wild magic, the moment the elemental giant turkey releases its first elemental breath Magda Faine will shout that the elemental turkey is worth twice the number of points.
After all beasts are dead or 1 minute passes (10 rounds) the contest is over. Points are counted and the winning party is chosen.
Conclusion
The winning party earns 10.000 worth of gold pieces in gold billions. After that, all participants are invited for a free meal (tourists and those who didn’t participate in the contest still need to pay for the food). The meal served are the bests slain in the contest, cooked by famous chefs from all the region. This is also a great moment to roleplay with the other adventuring parties and have some bards approach the party to listen to the stories they have got to tell.
Want more encounters?
If you liked this encounter and would like to see more check out the index I created with all the monthly encounters I’ve created so far, listed by tier lvl and environment:
