Post by Head Moderator on Jan 8, 2015 21:36:34 GMT -5
Once afternoon, you (and/or your companions) witness a female warrior in bent and broken full plate armor limp into the town then collapse in the street. Her name is Saita Oroda, and she is trying to become a paladin of Tyril. Either when revived right then by the PCs, or later, she can relate this story.
"When I was younger, I betrayed my family out of hatred, and I sold them into slavery to some trolls that live in Kierl Heights. Now that I have seen the Light of Tyril and become a paladin, I must atone for my past misdeeds and undo as many of them as possible. So say the priests of Tyril. I tracked the trolls that have my family, and only my younger brother has been killed in all these years. The rest still work for the trolls. I tried to free them, but the trolls are too much for me to defeat on my own. Unless Tyril sends aid to me, I shall fail and never achieve the blessed state that I seek."
Ideas for Motivation
Saita is sincere in her desire and reasons. She really wants to be a paladin of Tyril, poor girl.
Saita is trying to steal a valuable treasure from the trolls, not rescue her family. She wants the treasure either as an offering to the priest of Tyril or for its power.
Saita is a shapechanged doppelganger or fiend trying to lure the PCs to their deaths at the troll camp. Perhaps she is a minion of a recurring villain in your campaign or backstory.
Ideas for Complications
The trolls work for a black dragon, and their camp is actually the dragon's lair.
There are actually very few trolls. The whole troll camp is on top of an entrance to the Underdark, and the trolls are slaves of a group of mind flayers. The trolls did buy people, who have been taken underground for dining or slavery.
The trolls have a well-fortified camp, and they are planning a war against the nearby.
The troll camp is deserted when the PCs arrive, and it looks like it has not been inhabited in a long time. Careful searching reveals the trolls left recently and moved deeper into the Kierl Heights, and, as the PCs follow, they find troll corpses littering the trail. Something really nasty is picking off the trolls and the human slaves.