Skip to main content

The River Queen: A System-Agnostic Encounter with a Stylish Troll Under the Bridge

In this article, you’ll find a random encounter idea and an adventure location designed for easy integration into your game. This entry is system-agnostic, so you’ll need to adapt the stats and loot according to the system you’re using at your table.

Near an old bridge lie the shattered remains of a small barge. Among the broken planks and scattered debris, shreds of valuable fabrics and silks can still be seen; however, it’s clear that most of the goods have already been taken. Disturbing this wreck awakens the wrath of the merchant who perished with his cargo—now an enraged poltergeist hurling shards of wood and debris at any intruders (treat as one or more animated objects, or as a haunt in Pathfinder).

The thief responsible for these stolen goods is a cunning aquatic troll, a scrag known to the locals as the River Queen, who has made the bridge her lair. She wields an improvised tower shield—a massive wooden door covered in damp hides and reinforced with large, garish blue metal plates—making her highly resistant to fire. For offense, she brandishes a brutal, primitive club tipped with a sharp piece of flint bound to the end of a heavy cudgel.

The River Queen, art by Miguel Regodon

Her dripping outfit is both a display of vanity and a testament to her skill as a seamstress. She wears a ragged dress stitched together from scraps of silk, fur, and exotic fabrics, skillfully crafted with surprising finesse for one of her kind. The scrag demands gold from travelers wishing to cross the bridge, whether on foot or by boat, but she has a notable weakness: flattery and flirtation. If travelers flatter her or promise to bring her new exotic fabrics in the future to expand her wardrobe, she may allow them to pass without paying.

If the characters choose to confront the troll and manage to corner her, the creature might beg for mercy and offer them a deal: spare her life in exchange for a piece of her treasure, hidden in her underwater lair accessible only from the depths beneath the bridge. This offer, however, is not as simple as it seems—the adventurers would have to dive into the grotto themselves to claim the treasure (otherwise, she will barricade herself in her lair and refuse to return to fulfill the deal). Those who accept the bargain will need excellent lungs or a means to breathe underwater, facing the additional risk that the troll may regenerate and plot her revenge while they explore the grotto. However, the scrag does not lie: in the grotto, amid rusty chests, lie not only the stolen bundles of exotic silks and furs but also other valuable items she has collected over years of raiding and extortion.

If the characters kill the River Queen, the vengeful spirit of the merchant who lost his life and cargo will finally find peace, and the sinister curse affecting the remains of the barge will disappear along with him.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Favourites of the Comunity

Chardaukan Hexcrawl: Adapting Fever Swamp

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, illustrating each step with Chardauka, one of the continents of my world. Throughout these articles, I will cover both adventure content creation to populate the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to lif e. Portada de Fever Swamp, por Andrew Walter «The air is moist. The moisture mixes with your sweat—the heat is relentless. The drone of insects gives you headaches, and the fever from the infected wounds has left you delirious. Your raft is damaged, and there are spirits in the trees.You’ve only been here for three days.» Fever Swamp is an adventure written by Luke Gearing for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and published in 2017. Gearing is also the author of the renowned Wolves upon the Coast . The module in question, which you can purchase here , is a small sandbox hexcrawl set in a swamp. Its content is evocative and original, with descriptions that i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chardaukan Hexcrawl: an Introduction

In this series of articles, I will guide you through the process of designing a sandbox hexcrawl, using Chardauka, one of the continents in my world, as a case study. Throughout these articles, we’ll tackle both adventure content creation to fill the hexes and the worldbuilding elements that bring the setting to life.   As I mentioned in another article, the first step in designing your hexcrawl is to have a hex map. If you’re looking for tips on how to create one, you can check out my advice in the article Drawing a Hexmap . Once we have the initial draft of our hex map, the next step is to decide on your players’ base of operations. For my Chardaukan hexcrawl, I’ve chosen the city of Garampur for this purpose. This decision aligns with my interest in deepening the lore of its culture and its strategic location near the center of the hex map, granting players greater freedom to decide which region to explore. I chose a scale of 1 hex = 12 miles, imagining that traveling on foot ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scale and Size of Your Sandbox

When designing a sandbox (or any project, really), one of the first key decisions is defining its size and scale: how large will it be, and how much detail will it contain? This point can range from a single city with its surroundings, a frontier barony, a chain of islands, to two kingdoms on the brink of war. Having a clear idea of the conceptual size allows us to organize our work, and one of the most useful tools for this is the hexagonal map (hereafter referred to as a hexmap), which helps us size the game world according to the number of hexes and their scale (conceptually defined, as I will explain later). The size and scale of a sandbox are deliberate decisions that determine its nature and are generally inversely proportional. A good example of a small but highly detailed sandbox is Evils of Illmire , which consists of only 19 hexes detailing the surroundings of a village. In this case, each hex features its own dungeon and presents a high level of interconnection, allowing...
2 comments
Read more