I can’t speak for other players or Game Masters but I get a lot of my inspiration from music. The simple act of listening to the radio in my car or a playlist on my phone can lead to outbursts of “I have to write that down!”
Songs inspire character concepts, backstories, encounters and scenes I want to lay out for my players, or images leading to character sketches and other artwork. This encounter was inspired by such a scenario.
In this encounter, the albatross is a metaphor. Since Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of The Ancient Mariner, the concept of wearing an albatross around your neck has come to mean being saddled with a burden or a debt to be repaid.
It could mean being wrongfully vilified, perhaps even willingly so, just to serve a greater good. It could mean bearing an immense responsibility or taking on a curse to save another from it.
In this case, the metaphorical albatross creates a burden, and in a situation not normally expressed in a tabletop game, but which occurs frequently in video games — the escort mission. Testing the resolve of the party and their willingness to share a burden creates tension, the intent behind this encounter.
Encounter Type: Combat and social
Map: Forest map
Lighting: None (flat battle map.)
System: 5E
Length: One shot
Installation Type: Addon
License: Roll20 End User License Agreement
(Personal Use Only, Do Not Distribute)