Mastodon Dungeon Masters, lend me your brains.
My party will travel from the Grandfather tree to their airship parked outside The High (like, SO high) Forest.
They've had a long battle to get into the forest, a long struggle to find what they needed--and I would like them to have a fun, enjoyable, battle-free travel back.
Suggestions for fun, interesting non-fighting NPCs/Places/Things?
Hitch a ride with a traveling circus.
Whenever my party needs to relax, I drop a circus on them. A non-haunted one.
[Suspicious eye narrow] Strange that you had to specify non-haunted...
(But that is an interesting idea!)
One fun thing about a circus is that, as you'd expect, they'll be expected to earn their keep whole traveling and circuses have activities that are perfect for a character of any class and alignment.
Barbarians make great "strong men". Rogues can run the sketchy carnival games (and use their trickery to rig the games in favour of the carnival, of course). There's always a magic show for classes that have spells, and bards come in real handy if the ringleader is out with the flu.
And, as I alluded to, you can always make it a #haunted circus if you want a bit of extra spice.
Although, what _can't_ you make haunted if you really put your mind to it?
My only hitch is that I have presented The High Forest as an old, very crowded, rich, and lush place of vegetation and massive roots (This forest is old...Old as Balls.meme.jpg.) Settlements are small wood elf towns, places inhabited by centaurs, korreds, mystical natureness and such--and places where the fae wild crosses. Wou--wait. A Faewild circus??? Maybe???
Or something circus-adjacent like a band of traveling actors or performers of some sort.
Personally I'll just drop a circus anywhere in any setting. I mean, in real life I'm always surprised when a circus just shows up. I basically live in the real life shire and a circus came through recently.
Nobody expects a circus, nobody knows how they travel, and nobody knows how they decide where to set up camp. No matter where you are in the world, there's a chance that a circus will turn up.
Is there a local ritual that they would be invited to join in with? Something very low-stakes. Maybe they could learn a new game played by the local children?
Food competitions! Do they try to compete? Are they guest judges?
Are they in time to watch the squirrel-chariot races? Or some other form of sport?
Is there a seasonal festival underway? Can they buy souvenirs, etc?
I hadn't realized it touches on the faewild!
So yeah, you can now be invited to a feast, held by one of the minor houses in the court. They're trying to gain reputation, so they're gonna absolutely *spoil* your players.
Maybe a music festival featuring the greatest Satyr band this side of the continent? Are there food stands for people watching? Maybe other bands?
How about helping out at Balthazar's home for misplaced Boggles? You get to adopt a boggle for a day, carry out some chores at the home with the boggle's *help*, then at the end if the day you get a gift/reward and the friendship of a boggle or two, that might assist with a small favour later in the campaign.
Maybe now's the perfect time to introduce them to a more peaceful offshoot of the Grung? Their body-poison is still in use, but medically so. It's hard to not relax during a grung massage!
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