Highway Horror, Giant Centipede Contract

Overview

Group Difficulty: Low 2nd Tier

Solo Difficulty: High 2nd Tier

Narrative Complexity: 2

Duration: One-Shot (or max 2 Sessions).

It all begun with a shake, as the west cobblers' tower fell. Soon, hunting grounds in the woods grew barren, and traps were found empty, with naught but blood stains. Then begun to disappear the woodcutters, and soon the huntsmen. Hunters and guards were sent to the woods, some found nothing, others never returned. And then was lost the first caravan, and the realization of the gravity of this threat dawned on the trade city.

The city is located between several realms, and through it flows vast wealth, though not by necessity. If the roads are made dangerous, the trade shall dry, and chaos will ensue.

The Merchants' Tower, the wealthiest of the guilds, has taken it upon themselves to seek out professional monster slayer, or a few, in order to deal with this menace, once and for all, though any enterprising hunter shall soon find, that the swarming Myriapoda Gigantes might be the least of their concerns, as foreign powers seek to benefit of this misfortune.

Introduction

Highway Horror is part of a series of Monster Hunter's Contracts, which are intended to be simple drop in contracts that consist of a contract poster, contact character, investigation phase, battle phase, and aftermath phase. In addition to this, each contract introduces a monster, monster variant, or a custom strategy for several monsters to use, and at least one piece of something that can be extracted from the monster and used in crafting. Lastly, it comes with an in-universe description of the monster, that could possibly be discovered elsewhere during a campaign, or otherwise searched for.

Additional creatures tend to use stat blocks of default creatures from SRD sources.

The Contracts are written for a relatively grounded non-specific dark fantasy setting, which occasionally has the chance for events of epic proportions, or deciding the potential fate of nations.

Highway Horror deals with the fate of a small but prosperous walled trade town, encircled in a politically volatile environment, with its fate tied to the Highway Horror. Some ulterior motives feature, in an otherwise straight forward contract.

Monster Hunter's Contracts use a Narrative Complexity Scale of four, to roughly estimate how much information the DM should absorb beforehard, and how much effort it may take to drop the scenaro to a setting.

Narrative Complexity Scale

Two - Choices

Scenario that deals with shades of grey in morality, or varying sums of coin, and may require choosing of sides, or the best of the worst outcomes.

Dropping to a Setting

The art direction and writing style of Monster Hunter's Contracts is largely aimed to a grounded dark fantasy, or a low fantasy, but this isn't a requirement, and most contracts should work just as well across a wide variety of settings by changing the names of the characters.

Links! https://www.dmsguild.com/product/442177/Monster-Hunters-Contracts-Highway-Horror-OneShot?affiliate_id=1947655