The Road Through the Titans
Session 0 Encounter: The Road Through the Titans
Introductory Adventure — Levels 1–2
For 2–4 players. Estimated play time: 2–3 hours. This is designed as the first session of a Ruins of Symbaroum campaign — the moment the party forms, the world establishes its tone, and the characters cross from the dead past into the dangerous future.
Overview
The player characters are among the last wave of refugees and fortune-seekers crossing the Titan Mountains from blighted Alberetor into Ambria. They meet at a traveling encampment on the southern slopes, survive the crossing together, and arrive at the northern foothills with Thistle Hold on the horizon. By the end of this session, the party is bonded, equipped with their first quest hook, and standing at the edge of a new world.
This is not a dungeon crawl. This is a character-building session disguised as a journey. Every encounter is designed to reveal who the characters are through what they choose to do.
Act 1: The Encampment at Farro's Rest
Setup
Farro's Rest is a semi-permanent encampment on the southern approach to the Titans — the last safe stopping point before the mountain crossing. It's a sprawl of tents, wagons, campfires, and exhausted travelers huddled in the shadow of the mountains. Maybe fifty people at any given time, with groups arriving and departing daily. A few enterprising traders sell overpriced supplies. A Twilight Friar named Brother Iovar offers blessings (and quiet interrogations) to everyone passing through.
The party members are here for their own reasons. Each character should have an answer to: *"Why are you crossing the Titans?"*
Read Aloud: Arrival at Camp
The road south of the mountains is a graveyard of ambition. Abandoned wagons, their axles snapped on rock. Discarded furniture — a dresser, a child's chair, a portrait frame face-down in the mud. The remains of people who packed everything they had and discovered the mountains don't care about your possessions.
Farro's Rest isn't much to look at. A wide, flat shelf of rock and packed earth where the road widens before the ascent begins. Two dozen tents, most of them patched. A few wagons with their wheels locked. Campfires sending smoke into a gray sky. The smell of boiling grain and unwashed bodies.
People are sorting themselves into groups for the crossing. You need a group. Nobody crosses the Titans alone.
Key NPCs at Farro's Rest
Farro — An old Ambrian woman who runs the camp. Not officially — she just never left. She crossed the Titans twenty years ago with Korinthia's first wave, turned around at the northern side, came back, and has been here since. She charges nothing, asks nothing, and knows every inch of the southern approach. She has a wagon full of supplies she distributes to anyone who looks like they won't survive the crossing without them. She is the kindest person the party will meet for a long time.
• *Roleplaying Farro:* Tired, warm, no nonsense. She speaks in short sentences and watches people's hands, not their faces. She's seen thousands of refugees and can read desperation at fifty paces.
• *What she knows:* The main pass takes 3 days. Weather is unpredictable. Bandits occasionally work the northern descent. The Gray Knights have been seen south of the mountains recently — closer than they should be.
Brother Iovar — A Twilight Friar (Black Cloak). Mid-thirties, gaunt, with sharp eyes behind round spectacles. He has Witchsight — the ability to perceive corruption and supernatural phenomena. He blesses travelers and subtly scans them for corruption. His manner is gentle, but his questions have edges.
• *Roleplaying Iovar:* Soft-spoken, scholarly, and utterly focused. He touches his spectacles when he's nervous. He offers blessings freely but watches the party carefully — especially anyone who looks like they might be a magic user.
• *What he knows:* The Church has increased its presence on the mountain road. Something is stirring in Alberetor — more refugees than usual, and they carry stories of the Gray Knights mobilizing. He won't share more unless the party earns his trust.
• *Hidden agenda:* Iovar is specifically watching for changelings — people with emerging elven features who might not know what they are. If any PC is a changeling, Iovar notices and says nothing. He files a mental note. This plants a seed for later sessions.
Doran and Elif — A married couple with a young daughter (Mela, age 6). Doran is a blacksmith. Elif is pregnant. They're crossing to start over in Ambria. Their wagon has a broken wheel and they can't afford a replacement. They are exactly what they appear to be: decent people in a terrible situation.
• They ask the party for help fixing the wheel (DC 10 Strength check, or a creative solution). If helped, they join the crossing group and become recurring NPCs in Thistle Hold — Doran eventually opens a smithy and gives the party discounts.
• If not helped, they fall behind and the party encounters their abandoned wagon on Day 2 of the crossing. Mela's doll is sitting on the driver's seat. The family is gone. (This is not punitive — it's consequential. The world keeps moving whether the party helps or not.)
The Grouping
Farro organizes crossing groups of 8–12 people. The party is grouped together along with Doran's family (if helped) and two other travelers:
Kala — A young barbarian woman heading north to find her clan (Clan Odaiova). She was captured as a child during an Ambrian raid and raised in Alberetor. She speaks Ambrian with no accent and barbarian with a child's vocabulary. She's fierce, proud, and terrified that her clan won't accept her.
Old Garrik — A former Queen's soldier, sixty years old, one arm. He says he's going to Thistle Hold to die somewhere interesting. He's funny and dark and drinks too much. He carries a short sword he can't really use anymore and a sealed letter addressed to someone in Thistle Hold.
Act 2: The Crossing (3 Days)
Day 1: The Southern Ascent
The road climbs steeply from Farro's Rest into the Titans. The air thins. The temperature drops. The landscape shifts from scrubby forest to bare rock and scree.
Read Aloud: The Ascent
The mountain swallows the road. Within an hour of leaving camp, the world narrows to a strip of packed earth between walls of gray stone. The air gets thinner with every hundred feet of elevation. Your breath comes harder. The wind picks up — not steady, but in gusts that push you sideways and then stop, as if the mountain is testing your balance.
Behind you, the southern lowlands spread out like a faded painting — brown fields, gray villages, a haze on the horizon that might be smoke or might be corruption. Alberetor. What's left of it. Nobody looks back for long.
Encounter: The Narrow Ledge
Three hours into the climb, the road narrows to a ledge — six feet wide, cliff face on one side, a two-hundred-foot drop on the other. A section of the ledge has partially collapsed, leaving a four-foot gap.
• Jumping across: DC 10 Strength (Athletics) — easy for adventurers, terrifying for civilians.
• Doran's family (if present) cannot jump. Elif is pregnant. Mela is six.
• Solutions the party can improvise: Rope bridge, carry Mela, widen the gap with tools, find an alternate route (DC 14 Wisdom [Survival], adds 2 hours).
• If no one helps the civilians: Farro ties a rope to herself and helps them across personally. She gives the party a look. Just a look. It's enough.
This encounter isn't about difficulty. It's about establishing whether this party helps people or walks past them.
Day 2: The Pass
The highest point of the crossing. Snow on the ground. Wind strong enough to stagger.
Read Aloud: The Summit
The pass is a saddle between two peaks, barely wide enough for two wagons abreast. Snow covers the ground in a thin crust that crunches under every step. The wind is a living thing up here — it screams through gaps in the rock and pushes against your chest like it's trying to send you home.
At the center of the pass stands a cairn of stacked stones, taller than a man. Travelers have left tokens on it — scraps of cloth, coins, a child's shoe, a soldier's insignia. Old Garrik adds his Queen's Army badge without a word.
To the south: Alberetor. Haze and ruin.
To the north: Ambria. Green and unknown.
This is the moment. You are crossing over.
Encounter: The Storm
That night, a mountain storm hits. The group shelters in a shallow cave that fits everyone but barely. Temperature drops below freezing.
• Each character must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or gain one level of Exhaustion.
• Characters who share blankets/bedrolls or huddle with others have advantage on the save. Characters who give away their cold-weather supplies to help civilians (Mela, Elif) make the save with disadvantage but earn the loyalty of the family permanently.
• Kala doesn't have adequate gear. She's from Alberetor's lowlands and didn't expect mountain cold. If no one offers her a blanket or shares warmth, she endures silently — but remembers who offered and who didn't. If someone helps her, she becomes the party's most loyal ally in the north.
Old Garrik tells a story during the storm if anyone is awake. He fought at the Battle of Korekosha in Year -3, one of the last battles of the Great War. He saw what the Dark Lords' corruption did to soldiers — friends turning into things mid-battle, screaming as their bones twisted. He tells it without drama, without emotion, like he's read it so many times the words have gone flat.
"The worst part wasn't the monsters. You can fight a monster. The worst part was when Halvar — my tent-mate, seven years — started scratching at his own face during second watch. Just scratching. And then peeling. And then he stood up and he wasn't Halvar anymore."
He takes a drink.
"That's what corruption does. It doesn't kill you. It replaces you."
This is the party's first exposure to what corruption means in human terms. It's not a mechanic yet. It's a warning from someone who's lived it.
Day 3: The Northern Descent
The descent is faster and warmer. The air thickens. Green appears — first in patches, then everywhere. The contrast with the dead south is striking.
Read Aloud: First Sight of Ambria
The northern slope is another world. Green — actual, living green — spreads below you in rolling waves of forest and farmland. Rivers catch the light. In the distance, a smudge of smoke marks a settlement. The air smells different. Alive. Wet earth and growing things.
After the gray exhaustion of Alberetor and the brutal mountain crossing, it looks like a promise. Kala stands at the overlook for a long time, saying nothing. This is the land her clan lives in. Somewhere in the forest to the north. She's never seen it.
Old Garrik spits over the ledge. "Don't let the green fool you," he says. "This place has its own teeth."
Encounter: The Deserters
Two hours into the descent, the group rounds a bend and finds the road blocked. Three figures in mismatched armor — rusted breastplates, battered helmets — stand in the road. Two more are visible on the ridge above. They are deserters from the Queen's Army, 7th Division. They fled their post three months ago and have been robbing crossing groups ever since.
Their leader is Sergeant Morga — a woman in her forties, hard-faced, with the Queen's sun tattoo on her neck. She's not cruel, but she's desperate. She demands: all coin, any weapons of value, and any food. She promises no one gets hurt.
The Situation:
• 5 deserters total. Use Bandit stat block (CR 1/8) for 4 of them. Morga uses Veteran stat block (CR 3) — she's significantly tougher than the rest.
• They have a height advantage (2 on the ridge with crossbows).
• The crossing group includes civilians who will panic if fighting starts.
Options:
1. Fight: Winnable but costly. Morga is a real soldier. The crossbow shooters have cover. If Mela or Elif are injured in the crossfire, Doran will never forgive the party.
2. Pay the toll: Morga takes 50% of the group's coin and lets them pass. Humiliating but bloodless. Old Garrik offers his short sword without being asked — it's the most valuable thing he owns.
3. Negotiate (DC 14 Charisma [Persuasion]): Morga is a soldier, not a bandit. She deserted because her unit was ordered to burn a barbarian village — women and children included — and she refused. If the party appeals to her honor rather than threatening her, she'll accept a smaller payment (25% of coin) and share information: the road to Thistle Hold is clear, but a band of barbarian raiders from Clan Jezora has been hitting travelers on the northern stretch. She warns the party to avoid the forest road and stick to the plains.
4. Intimidate (DC 16 Charisma [Intimidation]): Morga backs down only if the party demonstrates they're genuinely dangerous. This requires more than words — a spell, a drawn weapon with obvious skill, or a clear numerical advantage. Even then, she's bitter about it and the party has made an enemy who knows the mountain road.
5. Old Garrik's play: If the party is struggling, Garrik steps forward and calls Morga by name. They served together. Morga goes pale. Garrik talks to her quietly for two minutes. They embrace. Morga waves the group through without taking anything. Garrik gives her the sealed letter. "Get that to Thistle Hold," he says. "Give it to Lasifor Nightpitch. Tell him I'm dead." Garrik stays behind with the deserters. He was never going to Thistle Hold to die somewhere interesting. He was going to die somewhere useful.
• If the party lets Garrik stay: He waves them off. Kala cries, which surprises her. The letter is now in Morga's hands and will arrive in Thistle Hold within a week — it contains intelligence about Gray Knight movements south of the Titans. Mayor Nightpitch will pay 50 thaler for it.
• If the party insists Garrik come with them: He shakes his head. "I've been walking toward this since Korekosha. Let an old man finish his road." He stays. He's made his choice.
Act 3: Arrival
Read Aloud: Thistle Hold on the Horizon
You come down out of the mountains on the afternoon of the third day. The plains stretch north — grassland and scattered copses of birch, crisscrossed by muddy roads. An hour's walk brings you to a crossroads with an actual signpost: Yndaros to the southwest, Templewall to the west, Thistle Hold to the north.
You take the north road. By evening, you see it — a wooden palisade rising from the plains at the very edge of a forest so dark and dense it looks like a wall of shadow. Smoke rises from within the palisade. You can hear it: the hum of a thousand people living on the edge of something they don't fully understand.
Thistle Hold. The last town before the forest. The gateway to Davokar.
The gate guards wave you through after a cursory inspection. Inside: narrow streets of packed earth, wooden buildings two and three stories tall, the smell of cooking meat and spilled ale and horse manure. Fortune-hunters in leather armor shoulder past refugees in threadbare cloaks. A barker outside a tavern — The Salons of Symbaroum — shouts about tonight's entertainment. A Templar in gleaming plate watches the crowd from a street corner, hand resting on his mace.
You've arrived. You have no money, no plan, and no idea what comes next.
Welcome to the edge of the world.
Loose Ends and Hooks
Doran and Elif (if they made it): They thank the party and head to the refugee quarter. Doran says he'll set up a smithy as soon as he can afford tools. He owes the party a debt.
Kala: She's staying in Thistle Hold long enough to find a guide to Clan Odaiova's territory in the forest. She asks if the party will come with her. (Future quest hook.)
Old Garrik's letter (if the party kept it or if Morga delivers it): Mayor Nightpitch receives intelligence about Gray Knight movements. This positions the party as people who've done Nightpitch a favor — a valuable commodity in a town run by a former adventurer.
Brother Iovar: He arrives in Thistle Hold a day after the party. He finds them and offers to buy them a meal at The Court and the Harp. Over dinner, he asks casually about their plans. He's evaluating them. If he likes what he sees, he offers them a small job: deliver a sealed letter to the Sun Temple. The letter is routine Church business — but the errand puts the party on the Church's radar as reliable people. This is how faction relationships begin.
The first night in Thistle Hold: The party needs a place to sleep. Options range from the floor of The Barracks (1 shilling per person, communal sleeping, snoring, and the occasional fistfight) to The Court and the Harp (1 thaler per person, actual beds and musicians). The Dump is free but exactly what it sounds like.
Rewards
• Experience: Enough to reach level 2 (if starting at 1) or a significant chunk toward level 3.
• Contacts established:
• Farro (mountain road matriarch — supplies and information for future crossings)
• Doran the blacksmith (discounts, loyalty, an honest friend in a dishonest town)
• Kala of Clan Odaiova (barbarian contact, future quest hook into Davokar)
• Brother Iovar (Church contact — useful and dangerous in equal measure)
• Old Garrik's legacy (Nightpitch favor, if the letter reaches him)
• Faction awareness: The party has been observed by the Church (Iovar) and encountered the consequences of the Crown's military policy (Morga's deserters). They haven't met the Iron Pact, Ordo Magica, or the barbarian clans yet — but those introductions are coming.
GM Notes
• This session has no dungeon, no monsters, and almost no combat. That's intentional. The crossing is about establishing the world, the characters, and the stakes. By the time the party reaches Thistle Hold, they should care about the people they traveled with and understand that this setting is darker and more morally complex than standard D&D.
• Old Garrik is designed to be lost. His story is the most powerful narrative beat in the session — a soldier who walked across a mountain range to give a final gift to strangers. Let the party try to save him. Let them fail. Or let them succeed and find a different use for him in Thistle Hold. Either way, he should feel real.
• The deserter encounter is the moral core of the session. There is no "right" answer. Fighting is valid. Paying is valid. Talking is valid. What matters is what the party's choice reveals about them. Morga is not evil — she's a good soldier in an impossible situation. How the party treats her tells you what kind of campaign this will be.
• Kala is the bridge to the barbarian world. She's the party's most natural entry point to the clans, the witches, and eventually Karvosti. Don't waste her on a single session — she's a recurring character who grows alongside the party.
• Don't rush the Read Aloud passages. This session lives or dies on atmosphere. The description of first seeing Ambria from the northern slope, the moment at the cairn on the summit, the first sight of Thistle Hold — these are the scenes players will remember. Give them room.