I had the good fortune to play through Kelly Knox’s Happy Little Clouds adventure (available here on DMs Guild), DMed by Kari Jo “Kage” Freudiman a while back, and enjoyed the beats of that scenario quite a bit. This adventure was inspired by and has a similar beginning to Kelly’s story, but some different beats and PC choices.
DM’s Information
Adventure Background
Esther’s Flowers and Poultry is a farm run by Esther LaPine, a middle-aged harengon, who typically wears a bright blue corset with green pants, both covered by brown overalls when they work outside. The farm specializes in brightly colored flowers of all kinds, as well as chickens and geese of exotic plumage. The farm’s prize possession is Henrietta, a twelve-foot tall Great Rainbow Lakenvelder.
Esther has asked the PCs for help because Henrietta has disappeared. She typically spends the night in the henhouse with her eggs and peepers. Caleb, one of the farmhands, lets them out into a fenced meadow around dawn, then goes on to tend the flower fields. This morning’s work progressed as usual, but while Esther and the farmhands worked in the flower fields on the other side of the henhouse, Henrietta began squawking loudly, then suddenly stopped. By the time the crew got to the meadow, Henrietta was gone. The peepers in the meadow were agitated and scattered around.
What has happened …
Shortly after dawn, once Henrietta and the peepers were alone in the meadow, a manticore who recently moved into the area thought a large egg would be delicious for breakfast and carried off one of the peepers. Henrietta chased the manticore and is currently hiding with the peeper in a crevice near the manticore’s lair.
Adventure Synopsis
After hearing about the missing chicken, the PCs are welcome to investigate the area, and will find the trail left by the manticore and Henrietta, leading into rocky, forested hills beyond the farm. Following the trail, they will encounter disgruntled pixies whose mushroom grove was flattened by the manticore, and possibly the place where the peeper fell into a ravine. The trail eventually leads toward the manticores’ cave where the PCs will have to negotiate with the monsters, drive them off, or kill them in order to rescue Henrietta and the peeper.
Encounters
Starting the Adventure
The PCs may become involved in this adventure in a number of ways:
- Just passing by the farm and seeing one of the farmhands running into the road to search for the missing chicken.
- Caleb, one of the farmhands, arrives at the inn where the PCs are staying, looking to engage a search party.
- “Lost chicken” posters are tacked to several trees along the road on which the PCs are travelling.
- A local family is having a wedding and is concerned that the shipment of flowers for the celebration is delayed. The father of the bride hires the PCs to head out to the farm to pick up the flowers and prevent a wedding disaster while his distraught daughter cries in the background.
Arriving at the Farm and Meeting Esther
The road to the farm winds through some hills, and soon has a low stone wall along the right side. Further back along that side, a number of black and white cows graze on a hillside. Eventually, a stone arch opens in the wall. A neatly painted sign hangs from the top of the arch, proclaiming “LaPine”. As the PCs reach the arch, the sky is blue with a few wispy clouds moving east and a dark line of clouds sits on the western horizon.
A well maintained gravel track leads from the arch into the lush hills. Rounding a bend about 100 yards from the arch, the PCs will see a tidy, house with a sod roof, several more conventional buildings behind it, a cow pasture off to the right, fields of flowers to the left. A forest covers the hills beyond.
Upon arriving at the farm, the PCs will be greeted by Esther LaPine, who is looking quite agitated. While Esther explains that her prized hen, Henrietta, is missing and provides the details outlined in the Adventure Background section above, Caleb will arrive and quietly inform Esther that the rainbow peeper is also missing. Esther’s ears will go flat; the harengon knows that without Henrietta, that one rainbow peeper was their only possible new Rainbow Lakenvelder hen. Losing both Henrietta and the peeper would be a financial disaster for the farm. Esther tells Caleb to gather Chloe and Cort, the other two farm hands, to help search for clues. The flowers they are gathering for a delivery in town are far less important than the missing poultry. Esther will promise the PCs 50 gold pieces each if both Henrietta and the peeper are returned safely.
Investigating the Farm
The buildings on the farm include the sod-roofed cabin, a cow-barn, greenhouse with attached workroom, storage shed, workshop, and chicken coop. The chicken coop is notable because half of it appears pretty standard with a chicken-wire enclosure, while the other half is twenty feet tall, with one large and several smaller nests. A medium-sized door connects the basic coop to the large section, and a large door leads from the oversized coop into a wide meadow surrounded by a wooden rail fence.
With everyone searching the area, have the PCs roll Wisdom (Perception) checks, and check the table below for results:
- <10 One of the farm hands discovers a spot outside the fence, on the forest side, where the ground has been really churned up.
- 10-13 One of the PCs discovers the area with churned up ground.
- 14-17 An iridescent feather is pressed into the dirt by a large feline paw print
- 18-20 In addition to the feather, there is a six-inch piece of colored shell next to a rock.
- >20 In addition to the feather and shell, two large spikes, similar to porcupine quills, are embedded in the fence next to the area.
If one of the farm hands discovers the churned up ground, the PC’s can use an Intelligence (Investigation) check to look for the other items, using the same table above. If the check(s) are less than 14, one of the farmhands discovers the iridescent feather.
A trail marked by broken branches and occasional chicken tracks leads into the forest. Occasionally, the tracks disappear, only to reappear about 30 feet farther on in the same direction. The trail zigzags a bit, but is fairly easy to follow.
The Flattened Mushroom Grove
The trail leads into a clearing with long grasses and vines just beyond the forest edge. The middle of the clearing contains a muddy mash of ground, with a variety of mushrooms; closer inspection reveals that the entire muddy section was a set of concentric rings of mushrooms, most of which have been smashed. Two pieces of the peeper’s shell lay amidst the ruined mushrooms, along with several white feathers, an iridescent feather, and three spikes. As the PCs enter the clearing, six pixies in the area will cast dancing lights to try to lure the PCs away from the clearing. If the PCs persist, the pixies use entangle and sleep to prevent them from doing any more damage. The pixies will cast confusion and polymorph on any belligerent PCs.
If the PCs can convince the pixies that they mean no harm, the pixies will talk with them. The pixies are very upset that their friend, Agaria, has been wounded. A great flying beast carrying an egg was flying over, when a very loud giant chicken bounded into the clearing, flew up, and breathed pretty lights on the beast. The beast dropped the egg onto Agaria, partially crushing them. When the beast and the chicken both tried to get the egg, it stood up and hopped away. Agaria was trampled more as the chicken and the beast started to follow the egg. The pixies cast spells on the beast to try to restrain it, and it eventually flew off, weaving woozily.
The manticore is new to the neighborhood, and the pixies will describe it as a spikey creature with a sharp tail, long claws, and a cruel face. It said mean things to the chicken, like “The egg will make a tasty dessert after I feast on your plumpness, and I will pick its shell from my teeth with your feet.”
Agaria is the name of the sentient mushroom collective trampled by Henrietta and the manticore. If the PCs help Agaria with the use of healing or plant growth spells, the pixies will provide them with two pinches of pixie dust, each of which will enable a creature to fly as per the spell. If Agaria is healed, they will tell the PC’s, through the pixies, that the manticore lairs in a cave to the northwest. Henrietta’s trail leads west. As the PCs leave the area, the sky will begin to darken with heavy clouds.
Henrietta’s Trail
If the PCs follow the clear trail of Henrietta and the peeper toward the west, a successful DC 12 Wisdom (Survival) check will show that Henrietta is now travelling only on the ground, following and sometimes herding the peeper. Nevertheless, the trail zig-zags quite a bit, and at one point a fallen log has been turned over revealing a grub-infested patch of earth containing several large peck-marks. A shell fragment and an iridescent feather lie nearby.
The trail eventually leads to and follows along the bank of a deep ravine with steep, plant-covered sides and a small trickle of water at the bottom. The track leads upstream to the north, until it appears the peeper rolled down the embankment into the ravine. The rocky, scrubby plant-covered banks are not stable, and anyone heading down the side must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw to avoid tumbling down and taking 1d6 bludgeoning damage. Additionally, anyone heading down and not falling must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check to avoid getting covered in the sticky seed pods of the surrounding plants. Those falling down the side are automatically covered in these goo-burrs. Those covered in goo-burrs will make Dexterity checks and saving throws with disadvantage until the goo dries after two hours and the burrs can be picked off.
Another piece of shell is at the bottom of the ravine where the peeper rolled down. The tracks continue upstream to the north. As the PCs start to follow the trail, the deep sound of thunder rolls through the dark clouds above.
The Standoff
If the PCs followed Agaria’s directions and headed northwest, they will avoid the goo-burrs, and will find a very rocky hill with a deep cleft from which a small stream trickles. This is the source of the stream that runs through the ravine that Henrietta and the peeper followed. As the PCs arrive in the area, there is a large crack of lightning and rain begins to pour down from the cloud-darkened sky. Two manticores stand near the cleft, and one says, “And now it is raining. You are so stupid, Croup. You brought dinner to our doorstep, but let it hide?!” The second will reply, “You want to go in and get your face sunburned, Rash? Go right ahead, and let’s see who is stupid then.” Rash responds with “Clot will flush it out from above, and then we can feast.”
The entire area is lightly obscured by the downpour causing disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, and very wet giving the entire area and anyone in it resistance to fire damage. Additionally, the stream trickling from the cleft begins to grow.
Because of the rain and the manticores’ distraction, the PCs will have one round to act before the manticores notice them (unless the PCs are very noisy). The third manticore will arrive on the third round. All three will fly up and attack the PCs with tail spikes. The manticore called Croup only has 15 tail spikes left. After six rounds the peeper (who is hiding in the cleft along with Henrietta) will be washed downstream, followed by Henrietta who will try to rescue the peeper. At this point, if they have not been driven off, one of the manticores will try to grab the peeper and fly with it up to their cave near the top of the hill. If a manticore is brought to 1/3 of its hit points, it will retreat to their cave. If there are only two manticores left and both have below 1/2 of their hit points, they will retreat to their cave. If the PCs follow the manticores into their cave, the creatures will attempt to fly away.
During the fight, the manticores will make nasty comments, such as …
“Oh, look! Appetizers!”
“Throw down your weapons, or I will eat you feet first so I can hear your screams!”
“I will pick your scrawny body from between my teeth with the bones of your friends.”
“You are so large, your blood will make enough sauce to coat the carcasses of the others.”
The Manticore Cave
The manticores have laired in a cave 40 feet further up and to the left in the rocky hillside. The first thirty feet are a relatively easy climb (costing one extra foot of movement for every foot traveled), but climbers must make a contested Dexterity (Stealth) check against the manticores’ perception each round they climb for this part of the ascent, if they are trying to sneak up. The last ten feet are a difficult climb (costing two extra feet of movement for every foot traveled) and requires a successful Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to avoid falling; Dexterity (Stealth) checks for this part are made with disadvantage.
Inside the cave there are three nests made of stolen blankets and bolts of cloth. Bones, feathers, and broken branches litter the floor. Off to one side is the mostly devoured and rotting corpse of a griffon and a shredded and blood-coated suit of leather armor. A magic dagger that can cast shocking grasp on a hit once per day is sheathed next to the body, along with a pouch containing two gems worth 50 gold pieces each.
Concluding the Adventure
Once the manticores are killed or driven off, Henrietta and the peeper will emerge, or climb out of the stream. The peeper’s shell is spotted with goo-burrs and has cracked all the way around the top, revealing the top of its light-colored downy head, capped by a piece of shell. The rain will stop, and a break in the clouds will shine a light on the peeper, who will give itself a shake. The rest of the shell will crackle and fall off, revealing an adorable pale yellow chick. The chick will have no problem being touched or carried by the PCs (it is size small), but Henrietta will require more convincing, with a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check; providing some grubs or other food grants advantage to this check.
Arriving back at the farm, the PCs will be greeted by an ecstatic Esther and farmhands. They are surprised that the chick has hatched and two of the farmhands will quickly rush to check its health. Henrietta will rush to Esther, who will feed the hen some grain and grubs from a bag at their side. Esther will happily pay the PCs the reward, and will add an additional 15 gold pieces each if they bring back the majority of the peeper’s shell, as it has value as well. Any iridescent feathers the PCs have collected are worth 10 gold pieces each. If the PCs return the shell or at least the fragments they found along the way, a package will be delivered to them about a week later. Inside will be a wide, shallow bowl made from pieces of shell, held together and embellished with silver filigree. The outside of the bowl contains the multi-colored pattern of the shell, while the inside has been polished to an opalescent sheen. The bowl is worth 150 gold pieces.
Extending the Adventure
In addition to the dagger and gems found with the leather armor, the PCs might also find a letter sealed with the emblem of local royalty. The armor belonged to a griffon rider delivering a message, the contents of which are left up to the DM.
Agaria extends far through the forest, and becomes aware of some other danger in the area. The pixies search out the PCs for their help, perhaps using Esther as a go-between, or venturing into the PC’s town themselves and finding themselves in a difficult situation there.
RPG Wandering 
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