**Caution this post contains spoilers for The Wild Sheep Chase!**
When I was a child, I had no one to play Dungeons and Dragons with, it being the 80’s and the game not being popular here in the United Kingdom. Now as a father in my 40’s, I have been finally able to play as a dungeon master myself, directing the campaigns of my own children. There is something truly magical in playing DND with kids. Their wide eyes, their laughs, their emotions upon a hero in danger – it really brings the story to life.
Yes – I built my own players!
Our players: the piplins!
After a 6 month break, the D&D returns with the famous “one shot” adventure:
“A Wild Sheep Chase”
When the party’s attempt to grab a rare afternoon of downtime is interrupted by a frantic sheep equipped with a Scroll of Speak to Animals, they’re dragged into a magical grudge match that will test their strength, courage and willingness to endure baa’d puns.
Will our heroes be able to overcome a band of transmuted assassins and an extremely bitter apprentice packing dangerously unstable magic items? There’s only one way to find out…
The module
Download: https://winghornpress.com/adventures/a-wild-sheep-chase/
Can our heroic adventures assist the wizard Finethir Shinebright, who has been polymorphed into a goat against his will by a rebellious student?
The answer is, of course – yes!
We started by rolling two new characters: the wizard “Glittering Diamond” and her ranger companion “Zarmeche” (who speaks very much like a gruff samurai!).
Sophia always plays a wizard; but here Samuel wanted to play a ranger “like mummy”. He has also become very interested in Samurai, so wanted a class close to that. The Ranger is very alike Samurai with its abilities with a bow.
Zarmeche, Human ranger
Glittering Diamond. High Elf wizard
Zarmeche character sheet
Guz, the greatsword wielding half-orc
This short adventure has two main encounters: the first against the evil wizard’s henchmen sent to recapture the escaped goat. The second is to assault his treehouse home to recover the wand of true-polymorph.
My players are exceptionally well-versed in playing 5e now and quickly realised how to prevail against the large half-orc Guz in the first encounter.
Locking the goat safely in their house, the baddies had to defeat the players to get to him. Next, they remained close to the front door, preventing flanking and using the door’s awning for cover.
This led to some hilarious scenes where Guz kept rolling 1s and 2s. I roleplayed him catching his enormous greatsword on the door frame, pillars, etc. Glittering Diamond cast mirror image to assist in surviving at close range.
They then concentrated on the half-orc before trying to convince the other creatures to run. Sophia also used grease to her advantage, reducing the enemy turns and causing the half-orc to curse “oh come on!” as he failed to use his blade again!
I printed a paper speak with animals scroll
In the second encounter, the ranger’s hiding skills got them right up to the main enemy’s front door without alerting the guards and convinced him to let them inside. Once inside, he quickly attacked them after some failed attempts to persuade him further.
Glittering Diamond cast both mirror image and shield, whilst Zarmeche shut the door (keeping out most of the guards). Battle was swift indeed, with Zarmeche rolling a crit using the looted half-orc’s greatsword and knocking serious health off the enemy wizard. He fled and then returned by crashing through the roof, riding a bed polymorphed into a dragon. The players quickly worked out that the spell required concentration and sent the goat running up the dragon’s “front” (pillows) to ram the wizard off the back of the flying insanity. This broke his concentration and the spell dropped.
Now facing the wizard alone, his guards dead or knocked off the platforms, his final “gibbering mouther” form was the greater challenge. Its huge hit points meant a mighty battle across many rounds. Eventually, it was killed by an arrow from Zarmeche, with Glittering Diamond focusing on buffing and debuffing with the grease and bright lights spells.
Having dispatched the monster, they only just made the high DC17 check to transform the wizard back to his original form. Unfortunately, despite his promises, he had no money for them, so they took a note (scroll) that they could use to cast true-polymorph in a future adventure.
Hopefully, we shall see these interesting characters make it into our main game.
The second encounter, better with markers
**Dungeon Master Module Notes**
- I gave Finethir the stats of both a sheep and a goat. This enabled him to “ram” targets during the fights, which was a lot of fun to use.
- I used the excellent work of Mathew Perkins, who suggests that you allow a player to control the goat each round.
- This is a one-shot, so turn up the difficulty. Dying is not the end of the world.
- I always break in the game with some simple roleplay as a warm-up. For us, it was: “how did you two meet?”, “what was the thing you liked about the other?” and “where are you relaxing?”. My brother and sister players spent 5 minutes deciding various character options and locations were “too romantic”, which was funny.
- The DM needs to think on his feet regarding the player’s starting location, as this is the place the first encounter occurs. I suggest that more outlandish suggestions (such as Samuel’s, “in a Tarrasque’s mouth”) are refused.
- In the first encounter, particularly with only two players, you may need a “rescue” option, particularly if the orc crits. I had an NPC in my back pocket to help out if things went really astray.
- Thanks to the speak with animals scroll, the enemy creatures can also be spoken to, so this can be used to roleplay the encounter a little. My players always elect to make the enemy run if they defeat the “main” baddie. Something they learned the hard way in Storm King’s Thunder.
- You can downgrade the encounter to LVL 1. However, LVL1 sucks. I tend to run it as LVL 4 and grant a few more spells in the spellbook (these are prerolled characters). I also relax the rules on how many they can have prepared. My players are 8 and 10 years old, so I am trying to make it fun and not pitiless.
- Depending on their chosen class, the final fight can be brutal. The gibbering mouther has a blinding spell and can force an attack against another player. This can end an encounter very promptly.
- If you have only a few players, who are losing quickly, I would advise the “goat” NPC to transform back into an elf (IE finding the wand, by relaxing the rules slightly on using it) and polymorphing a character into something that can tank the baddie.
