Kobolds in the Jungle! - Map Commission
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Turk’Hal is a kobold mage who recently built a lair in a cliff side behind a waterfall. The place is surrounded by jungle; getting to the lair is difficult by itself, but the kobolds are small and have an easier time moving around. Turk’Hal is not alone, his pack all believe he has draconic heritage because of his arcane prowess, thus they follow all his commands. Turk’Hal’s lackeys are attacking travelers, caravans and even nearby settlements to steal their valuables and gold. Turk’Hal is particularly interested in magical items. Since they are often of great quality and his followers can’t detect them, they are instructed to bring back to him anything that looks valuable to him to identify.
The Hook
If your adventuring party is travelling on their own business through the jungle, a great way to start this quest is by ambushing them with kobolds. Fallik is a fat kobold waiting to ambush the party, he reports directly to Turk’Hal. Roll the kobolds’ Stealth check with Advantage because of their camouflage paint and compare it with the party’s Passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to determine whether any or all of the adventurers are surprised or not. 2 Winged Kobold (MM p. 195) and 2d4 Kobold (MM p.195) attack the party.
Use the Kobold stat block for Fallik, with two exceptions, he has double Hit Points and AC 15. Fallik has a strong sense of self preservation, he will be the first to flee if things go south.
If the adventurers are defeated, they are captured and brought to Area 11 for further interrogation from Turk’Hal (unlikely). If the party wins the engagement, they have two options, either they continue travelling or they decide to track any fleeing kobolds back to their lair. If you wish to nudge the party in that direction, you could have a fleeing kobold steal something from a PC, forcing the pursuit. If the party leaves anyway, they reach a small settlement at nightfall. Here’s the last chance to hook the adventurers, a merchant from the previous caravan was ambushed by the same kobolds with worse luck.
They left their belongings and wares for the kobolds to take. This merchant appears to be a wealthy man, he offers the strong looking adventurers a grand reward in gold and spices if they go back to recover his stuff. He even mentions that the kobolds must have a lot of stolen goods for them to take, recover or sell. The merchant only cares for his own boxes of spices.
Tracking the kobolds back to the waterfall is not easy in the jungle. Any character trying to do that must succeed on a DC16 Wisdom (Survival) check. A success allows the party to reach Area 1 unimpeded. Failure let’s them reach Area 1 too but with an additional complication. Possible complications: 1. They might encounter a wild hungry beast. 2. A kobold scout sees them and sends a signal singing like a bird. Any character with a Passive Wisdom (Survival) score of 14 notices that the bird noises are just impressions. 3. The tracker leads the group through difficult ground and 1d4 of them have now one level of exhaustion.
And thank you for sharing the lore behind it!
