I enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends and have been in many campaigns over the years. I once decided I wanted to try my hand at DMing and decided to jump in feet first with a custom campaign. Since it was my first time, I decided that I’d start with a one-shot that I ran for some of my colleagues at the time who had various levels of experience with D&D, from absolute beginners to experienced players. I had interest from the group to make this a weekly occurrence depending on how the one-shot went and since it was my first time DMing, I wanted to make it as fun and exciting as possible.

The Characters:

Given that this was a one shot, I had the luxury of making my own character sheets and classes before the session to fit the narrative and set up the story. This was also beneficial for the new players as they did not need to worry about researching classes beforehand while also being something different for the experienced players in the group.

The story takes place in a remote village so I did not want the characters to be heroes, rather they are normal people going about their days that have their lives turned upside down. To accomplish this, I took existing D&D classes and made small changes to them to fit their role in the village and ended up with the following:

• Fighter – Farmer: He is well versed in using a wide range of farming tools whether it’s for tending to the farm or defending it from wild animals.
• Barbarian – Lumberjack: He has built his strength by spending his days chopping down trees. He’s generally a gentle giant but he’s been known to lose his cool provoked and the ensuing fight does not last long.
• Rogue – Hustler: She spends her days at the tavern entertaining the village drunkards who are quick to part with their gold if they think it’ll buy her time. Little do they know, they never stood a chance and often, it’s not until they wake up the next day that they realise their wallet is substantially lighter than before.
• Cleric – Priest: She acts as the spiritual leader and healer of the village, able to harness a small amount of their God’s power to keep the inhabitants healthy and on the right track.
• Ranger – Hunter: He acts as the main provider of meat, berries and herbs for the village. They are a crack shot with a bow but their equipment is nothing special, just enough to pierce animal flesh rather than armour.

The Story & How I Planned It To Go:

The entire one shot takes place within the village and begins in the tavern where most of the player characters are their for a drink and some merriment. Given the remote nature of the village, the tavern acts as a focal point for the social scene in the village. I gave the players a chance to get familiar with each other’s characters in the tavern by having a drink and a chat in-character which also let new players ease into role-playing.

After a brief intro, the air starts to turn cold and the village is wrapped in a fog with some of it seeping inside. The characters take note of it but a sudden weather change isn’t going to put a stop to the evening. Suddenly, a long shriek rings out and the fun grinds to a halt followed by the sound of creatures, potentially hundreds of them, stampeding through the village, hissing and roaring as they go. The screams of the other villagers are heard before they are cut short as the creatures merciliessly slaughter everyone in sight.

At this point, I’ve sold the danger to the players and ask what they would like to do, expecting them to attempt to hide where I would ask the players to make stealth checks. On a successful check, the players would successfully snuff any candles and hide until the creatures have moved on but I had a small combat encounter planned for any critical failures where a few of the creatures, which turn out to be lesser demons, would smash through the window and attack. It’s important to note that the players are unarmed as they are in the tavern and would need to arm themselves with anything they can find like cutlery, broken bottles, chairs or use their fists. I also had the barman as an NPC who was expected to either die defending his tavern or afterwards when leaving with the players.

Once the demons had moved on, indicated by the near-silence outside, the players exit the tavern and I ask them what they would like to do next. I inform them that their characters know of an escape through a clearing in the forest. While the vast majority of the creatures had moved on, the players can still hear several of them around the village either still feasting on their prey or hunting for survivors so their is still present danger. Players could perform a religion check to identify the origin of the creatures but the check was low as I wanted players to be aware of what the creatures were.

I presented the players with the layout of the map which included the location of equipment specific to each character that the players could use to improve their chances of survival:

• Pitchfork: The farmer left his pitchfork in a stuck into a stack of hay on his farm. Same stats as a spear.
• Logging Axe: The lumbersjack’s axe left lodged into a stump her chopped down earlier that day. The stump is only a few yards into the forest from the village. Same stats as a battleaxe.
• Rapier: The hustler has a jewel-encrusted rapier stored under her bed that she won from a wealthy man who spent the night at the village. It’s a decorative piece but it is certainly higher quality than anything else in the village.
• Staff: The priest has a blessed quarterstaff stored away in the chapel.
• Bow & Arrows: The hunter stored away his trusty bow in his house.

From here, players can decide amongst themselves whether they should try to acquire some or all of this gear or if they should just try to make a break for it. For some characters, being armed isn’t as important like for the Lumberjack who can use improvised weapons or the Priest who has a few basic cantrips to use while others like the Hunter become much deadlier upgrading to their weapon of choice but this is ultimately for players to decide.

For each piece of equipment, I had an encounter planned and I had a few versions of each based on what players currently had to tune the difficulty to keep the experience balanced. Some encounters could be avoided altogether by careful play or good rolls. I wanted the players to feel vulnerable and scared so each encounter was set up almost like a horror movie:

• Pitchfork: Located on the other side of a cornfields which players have to traverse through. The corn is constantly rustling and it’s hard to determine whether it is something moving through it or simply the wind. There are demons in the cornfield but by doing perception checks to pinpoint their locations and stealth checks to hide when one is passing near, the players can completely avoid an encounter.
• Logging Axe: Located in a stump a few yards into the forest. The path to the axe is close to the tavern but the woods are dangerous and players are likely to run into an encounter unless they roll very high. Enemies are hiding around or up trees making it a diffcult encounter to avoid. The hunter is proficient in the Survival skill and can use this to navigate the forest or determine where enemies may be hiding which could make it possible to get the jump on enemies.
• Rapier: Located under the Hustler’s bed in her house. When entering the house, the sound of thrashing can be heard in the back room. If the players fail any rolls or don’t try to sneak, the enemies will hear the players and go quiet. When players enter the room, it’s suspiciously quiet and players can do a perception check to see if anything is in there. A successful check could reveal that there’s breathing coming from under the bed or that there’s something in the rafters, preventing an ambush, otherwise she may reach under the bed and be attacked by the demon under there.
• Staff: Located behind the alter in the chapel where players can enter and find it ransacked. There are a few demons in there that are busy feasting on the corpses of a few people who took shelter in there. Players can attempt to sneak, using the church pews for cover and avoiding shattered glass on the floor.
• Hunter: Located in a cupbord in the Hunter’s lodge. Much like the Hustler’s house, demons can be heard moving around the house. The Hunter has his latest kill is sitting out on a table ready to be butchered and demons are feasting from it. There are also some traps around the house that can also be taken but going for them will result in the player getting caught.

Once the players are happy with what they have collected, they’ll need to try to escape through the village. Demons can be heard through the forest while the road leading out of the village looks clear as the demons entered from that direction and moved on. It is on this road though that players get into another, more difficult fight than what they would have seen prior.

During the fight, more demons are drawn in and right as things start to look bad, the demons stop fighting and begin cowering or running away as a large figure approaches which is revealed to be an extremely powerful demon. I present the players with the option to either run or fight but the outcome will be the same as the demon is a much higher CR and is intended to kill them.

The story ends as the final player lies bleeding out on the floor as the sun rises in the distance, Against the sunrise, they can make out the silhouette of 5 people who approach and ask what took place. With their last breath, they utter the name of of the demon which was mentioned during the fight before succumbing to their wounds as the session ends.

At this point, I revealed that the 5 mysterious characters who found the dying character were the characters the group would play if they would like to commit to a full campaign and that the story would pick up from that point. The players loved this twist and were really excited to start a full campaign so they could avenge the now dead villagers but unfortuantely, COVID hit shortly after this and we sadly never got to run the campaign.

Why such a bleak and punishing ending?

I drew inspiration from some of my favourite RPGs where players are dropped into fights with near-impossible odds during the tutorial and are generally defeated. This is often used to introduce players to a villain who they will later fight while also setting their difference in power level. Going with this mindset, the fact that some of these players were brand new to D&D and the characters from the one shot were disposable, I began to think of this one-shot as a tutorial which would set up the story that the players would follow if they wanted to play a full campaign.

I also wanted the players to become attached in these characters during the one shot as their deaths would feel personal and would fuel their pursuit of the demon in charge of the invasion. These characters were not meant to be the heroes, just ordinary people who were attacked without warning and fought against impossible odds to escape with their lives. The characters that the players would create themselves would be the true heroes of the story.