A great hunt has been called in the jungles of Chult. The Amnian trading costers of Port Nyranzaru are competing to see which one can bring in the biggest, rarest beasts as trophies, and they?re looking for adventuring companies to do the hunting. Are you and your companions up to the challenge? A Living Forgotten Realms adventure set in Chult for characters levels 1-4.

DM: Russell (Russell the Muscle)

Players:

• Patrin – Dragonborn Fighter, Level 3 (Scott – ssevener)
• Tanche Oughord – Longtooth Shifter Fighter, Level 4 (Brett – khyron)
• Ollivar – Elven Ranger, Level 4 (Perry – pgfrix)
• Sadron – Elven Cleric, Level 4 (Chris – Kristoph)
• Merokh – Dragonborn Warlord, Level 2 (David)

It seemed a simple enough challenge – the trading houses of Amn wanted a great hunt featuring the most savage of magical beasts in the land, and The Brute Squad loves killing savage, magical beasts of all shapes and sizes.  Talk about your win-win situation!

Their expedition would take them deep into the dangerous jungles surrounding the city of Port Nyranzaru in search of the most terrifying, blood-thirsty beast to claim as their trophy.  No doubt such a beast wouldn’t much be interested in just going quietly, thus the competition was to for the most part be a test of the pure physical strength and combat prowess that would be required to slay such a deadly creature.  To aid them in their journey, each adventuring company was graced with the sponsorship of one of the local businesses – in the case of our fearless heroes, they chose to fly the banner of Naelishti’s Naturals, who in turn provided them with a patented salve capable of fending off many of the hazardous insects and plants that they would no doubt encounter in the depths of the jungle.

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Once on their way, admittedly it did take our heroes some time to find their bearings before tracking down anything of worth – giant walls were traversed and with strange, lizardmen they conversed, and ultimately the party learned that nearby was an area frequented by a number of other lizard-like creatures of small, large, and very large varieties. At one point, the group was also confronted by a fellow adventuring company whose tactics seemed just a bit unsportsman-like, however our adventurers chose to take the higher road and opted to continue their search for the contest rather than get into a fight with another team.  When they soon after found out that the supersized creature that they had been tracking was, in fact, a young green dragon, all felt confident that they had made the right choice!

Of course, finding a dragon and actually killing a dragon are two very different things and as any seasoned adventurer will tell you, “a little dragon” is still “a dragon” nonetheless, and this little, green beauty certainly had no intentions of going down without a fight!  Between pushing one of the fighters into the river and flying well out of reach of the second, she gave the party quite the run for their money until the ranger was finally able to weaken her with enough arrows that she made a temporary retreat and allowed the party a chance to regroup.  From there it seemed that her demise was only a matter of time and even though she continued to keep our brave warriors hopping with a vicious tail sweep, in the end it was her head that ended up as their trophy and not the other way around…

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Now no epic story would be complete without a good moral, and the moral that would soon be learned, or rather taught on this hunting day was that “Cheaters never win.” Also appropriate would’ve been “Don’t take things that don’t belong to you…” and even more important still, “Don’t f*$@# with a team that just took down a green dragon and lived to tell about it!” One would think that last one would be particularly important to consider before deciding to ambush somebody to steal their spoils, but either way, after working hard for their kill, The Brute Squad was more than happy to teach that returning party a thing or two about why they had chosen the wrong party to ambush because they weren’t tough enough to slay their own dragon themselves.

Needless to say, the battleground was stained that afternoon both with the blood of a very large green dragon and also that of a particularly arrogant adventuring party who needed a lesson in adventuring etiquette…

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Upon their return back to Port Nyranzaru, the team did their best to polish up their battle trophy of the dragon’s head before turning it into the judges, and some say that it was those little finishing touches that pushed them over the top because when the final tallies were made, it was proudly declared that The Brute Squad was the grand victor of The Great Hunt and there was much rejoicing!  Their sponsor was absolutely thrilled to be associated with the winning party and as a result, The Brute Salve should be available later on this year wherever fine adventuring products are sold.  Even better yet, the group found themselves not having to buy their own drinks for the remainder of their stay in port as the townsfolk swarmed them to hear the courageous tale of their epic hunt.

All in all, not bad for a day’s work, indeed!

(Additional Photos Available Here)
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Living Forgotten Realms is a 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons shared-world campaign played Wednesday nights at Anthem Games, among hundreds of other locations around the world.

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