This is part of a series of posts on advice for starting a campaign.
Go to Forget the Tavern: Introduction or to Forget the Tavern: Boons, Part 1
Having described the edge case of boons, let’s look at some that better fit the concept. The first is The Weasel’s Favor. The scenario that introduces the boom reads:
The Weasel’s Favor
While guarding the sinkhole entrance to the Cartways, you and the party were confronted by members of the Redcloaks (one of Zobeck’s gangs) demanding you move out of the way so they could enter. As tensions heightened, Goldscale, Zobeck’s famous kobold paladin of Lada, beloved by most Zobeckans, kobold and non-kobold alike, arrived riding his giant weasel steed Shinespark.
With Goldscale’s appearance, the Redcloaks ran off, shouting vague threats of future violence to both the party and to Goldscale. As Goldscale made small talk with the party — if Zobeck has a folk hero, it is Goldscale — Shinespark started nuzzling you. “He likes you,” Goldscale said, right as Shinespark nipped your hand, not breaking the skin. Oddly, the spot briefly glowed with a golden light.
A few minutes later, some unholy, monstrous screech came up from the sinkhole, and Goldscale stopped talking mid-sentence and drew his sword. After a second screech, louder than the first, Goldscale moved to the sinkhole, quickly turned to you and said, “In the greatest darkness, speak his name,” and then he and Shinespark jumped into the hole. You heard sounds of combat, and while you waited, Goldscale didn’t return that night. A few nights later you caught a glimpse of him astride Shinespark leaping across rooftops, so you know they survived.
When you think of Shinespark, the spot where he nipped you briefly glows.
Goldscale is an established kobold paladin of the Midgard setting’s city of Zobeck, which is where the Empire of the Ghouls campaign begins, and Shinebright is Goldscale’s mount. The boon here is fairly clear, though the player may not be exactly sure what might happen when they invoke Shinespark. And, honestly, because the boons scale with level of the characters/tier of play, and because they are intended to be useful when they’re invoked, I couldn’t tell you exactly what would happen. The most obvious response would be to have Shinespark magically appear, but a paladin’s mount ready to fight might not be what that particular greatest darkness might call for. Maybe the player takes it literally and they are in desperate straights and need light. In that case, the little scar from Shinebright’s nip might shine bright enough to fill a vast cavern or shine a holy light that causes radiant damage to undead. Or maybe it’s a ghostly weasel that both illuminates the area and leads the PC to safety. Maybe things are really bad and it’s not just Shinebright but Goldscale too who answers the call.
It’s a one-time thing, so when the player chooses to invoke it, make it memorable.
One more example of a boon:
The Arrow
On your trip to Old Mikhail’s Inn in the Margreve Forest, after setting up camp for the night, you stepped away from your camp where the rest of your companions were and stumbled upon a shadow fey hunting party. Certain you were going to be running for your life, you were surprised when they invited you to join them. Not wanting to risk insulting them, you joined their hunt, helped take down a large boar, and partook in the feast, spending hours eating, drinking, and sharing stories with them. Eventually, worried that your companions would be looking for you, you told your hosts you needed to get back. They laughed, jovially mocked you for your concern, and warmly sent you off. One gave you an old arrow, telling you that you should never fire it from a bow but keep it always.
When you returned to camp and began apologizing for being gone so long, everyone else seemed confused, and you quickly realized they were all still engaged in the same activities they’d been doing when you walked away. And sure enough, it was as if you hadn’t been gone for no more than a minute. Everyone else considers your time with the shadow fey a fanciful story, and you sometimes doubt it yourself. You do, however, have the arrow they gave you.
So, clearly the arrow isn’t meant to be fired, but other than that, I had no idea what it might be or do. When trying to figure out how to navigate the Underdark, the player with the arrow decided it might work like a compass arrow and lead the party on the right path. That sounded reasonable, and since getting to the capital city of the Ghoul Imperium was a goal in the campaign, I decided the arrow would keep working, because it was what the player wanted to happen, so while the arrow didn’t always take then on the safest route, it took them where they needed to go, and the player who choose that boon got their spotlight time.
Other boons included an option for a player character to take a unique Warlock Patron with a custom subclass I cobbled together from the Great Old One warlock patron from the Player’s Handbook and the Elder Influence warlock from Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Mythos for 5e. It included the Yog-Sothothery skill and the Mythos Formula Caster feat and formula casting, both from Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Mythos for 5e, and while the player had to choose either the Great Old One or the Elder Influence pact as their base subclass, they could choose features from the other as they gained levels. In this case, I also let the players see the pact description before choosing boons so the player who chose it really wanted it.
While boons function more as cool spotlight time for each player/player character, they come with stories, some of which other members of the party were present (the situation that lead to the warlock pack), or resulted in things the PC carried and would get commented upon (the arrow, the light from Shinebright), or was a story to tell the party (the stranger — if the party hadn’t heard the story before Rufous’s return, they certainly would want to know who Rufous was after he showed up).