Overview

For my last campaign I ran a series of connected encounters for my players. none of these are long enough to fill out an entire session on their own just a series of shorter stories building up to a bigger story. These encounters work well for a Gothic Horror setting but also work well in the average fantasy setting. It starts at being a good fit for level 3-4 characters

I wanted to post it here for critique and also for others to use if they  want to. feel free to use these encounters in your own campaigns. (and take any liberties with the story you want)

This post is about the initial introductory encounter and the first full length encounter I will be posting
the subsequent encounters will be in their own threads. (If anyone is interested.)

The Adventure

Part 1: A Meeting On The Road

This encounter works for characters of any level.

Your party are travelling on a long road, perhaps alone or maybe as part of a larger group. As they are travelling they come across a fine carriage travelling in the same direction as them. A character who passes a DC14 Religion check will know that this carriage is marked by symbols of a Religious order (I used The Knights Of The Unending Geass but call them whatever you want). When the Party pulls alongside the carriage the driver (A Human Fighter called Alexas) calls out in greeting and asks where the party is headed, wherever the party is going the carriage is going to the same place, or at least most of the way. Alexas offers to travel together
if the party declines then I guess the encounter is over. If the party agrees then they spend the rest of the day travelling. Alexas is happy to talk about himself and why he is out here. At nightfall a Priestess (A Tabaxi Cleric who gave up her name when she joined the church {This is just some flavour I added feel free to scrap it and give her a name}) steps out of the carriage to join the party for dinner. She is also happy to talk about her mission.

Part 2: A Mission to complete

Through talking with either Alexas or the priestess (my players ended up naming her Cranium so I'll be using
that name from here on) the party discovers the pair are on a mission to consecrate a holy shrine that they
believe has been corrupted by their enemy, the elder god Shabutegt (or whatever insane name you choose). If the party
offers to help than Cranium gracefully Accepts.

Part 3: The part with the fighting

This part of the adventure is calibrated for a four player party of 4th level. You may wish to change the last part to say that the mission is to take place a few days/weeks after arriving in *Destination* in order to give your players time to prepare

A little before the players original destination Alexas diverts them off the main road, and onto a track that leads into a wooded hilly area. Shortly the track becomes unsuitable for the carriage and the party +Alexas +Cranium are forced to proceed on foot. They come to a hill over which they can hear the sounds of a man begging for his life. If Players pass a DC10 Stealth check they can moved to the top of the hill and look down the other side unnoticed. Below them are 6 Cultists dragging a man to kneel before a Mind Hybrid who is seated upon an altar it is clear that this is a ritual sacrifice. Players can choose to run in now to save the man or they can wait till the sacrifice is over and hope for a more opportune moment. Cranium will support either decision but will express sadness over letting the man die. If players allow the man to be killed the Cultists will break apart. Shortly after 2 will head into a nearby cabin, 2 will start dragging the body towards the forest and thus the players, and the last 2 will approach and talk to the Mind Hybrid. Upon defeating the Mind Hybrid most of the Cultists will flee.

Part 3.5 Wait I LOST?

The number of cultists is supposed to make this a hard fight (with a possibility of losing) for players that choose not to use stealth (so if you have a particularly large or higher level party maybe increase the number of enemies maybe add a full Mind Flayer)

If the party loses this fight they wake up chained up in a wooden structure without Cranium (She is chained to the altar) but with Alexas. In a little while one of the Characters is going to be dragged away at random to feed the Mind Hybrid (if your players find a way to escape before them let them escape well done them{make sure they rescue Cranium too}). One of the players has been chosen and is dragged to the mind Hybrid and fed to it. (If your players dont like minigames then just make it a DC16 Intelligence Saving throw to overpower the MindHybrid and kill it causing the cultists to flee{a failure on this should mean a dead Character}). The player rolls an Intelligence saving throw whatever they get becomes their hitpoints until they escape (or just take their flat intelligence score). The player finds them self standing in a room that is familiar to them, there are many people in the room some are real people consumed by the Mind Hybrid some are projections of it. The player can find out who is what by talking to them (the projections should have a tell {make it obvious} like not using contractions or misusing words). After taking to the player the person will offer the player something (a trinket, a drink, their own eyeball) if the player accepts and it is a projection then they take 1d4 damage
if they take it and it is a real person the mindhybrid takes 1d4 damage (for this I gave it 16 hp). To make it obvious how the game works have the first person approach the player and explain how they are trapped there and give a brief overview of the rules (this person can give the player something but they can also be a projection if you want to mess with the player). The first attempt should be enough but if the player hits 0 hp before the hybrid then they die and the next player is dragged out to play the game. Upon victory the hybrids head pops and the player is freed the remaining cultists flee in fear and the party is victorious.

Part 4: Victory!

Upon Victory Cranium will begin an hour long ritual to cleanse the altar. If the players choose to search around during this time they may find objects similar to those found on the gothic trinkets table. After cleansing the alter Cranium tells the party that this is merely a single victory in a long war and requests future aid from the party she promises to contact them if they are needed. She also provides them with a gift (I gave my party members a 24 hour long Bless and 5 temporary hit points each but you may wish to offer something else).

Post Script

And that's it I don't know if anyone wants the rest of the encounters so I'll wait till I receive a request for them before I post any. Please let me know what you think of it and any things you would want done differently in the future and again feel free to use this in your own campaign (Just make sure you tell me how it went :)).

Also do tooltips not work for homebrew or am I doing it wrong?