Segira Adventure Part 4: The Other Option

Alright, now it's time to finally finish up Act 1.

I previously posted with my start of a map for Yesov, which is the site of the big battle in Act 2, but players can visit it in Act 1 if they side with Petrović and go into Yesov to sabotage stuff.

In Yesov, the Free Reds have bitten off more than they can chew. They are in possession of a military base (previously I'd described this as a prison, but it doesn't make sense to put it in city limits and it doesn't build the strategic relevance of Yesov), though most of the hardware had been moved out before they could take custody of it. Pre-war, the city had a population of about one thousand in the "old city", and much more in the new city. Compare this to the Free Reds, who number relatively few (about eight hundred loyal fighters overall, spread across the city, though there are maybe a couple hundred more who have mercenary motives but will stand with the Free Reds).

The goal of the players, and Herceg, is to strike at them, and this is a pretty easy task.

Yesov's overall population is around eighty thousand, but the map's going to feature about 10% of the "city" in its breakdown (i.e. it will feature as much stuff as fits in the space provided, and we'll hand-wave the rest. This means that the Free Reds have a force just under a percentage of the size of the population, and a lot of ground to cover.

A garrison of roughly two-hundred Free Reds hang out at the military base. This isn't really enough to fully staff it, but the Free Reds aren't into maintenance and do "fine" with a skeleton crew at the base, since they're mostly just living on what they can scrounge or bully out of the locals.

The rest roam the city. Many are locals, and therefore live in their own homes from before the war, joining up and going about their new day jobs as they see fit. Discipline is low, and many of these may not even risk coming to a fight, though they'd be a danger to infiltrators or the like.

Obvious strategic goals include the military base, the bridges (the north one isn't on this version of the map), and a radio station on the east side of town. In addition, a police station is being used as an impromptu detainment center for those who oppose the Free Reds. While few of them are actually ready to pick up a weapon and fight, their freedom would be a morale coup and a potential source of better information.

The leader of the Free Reds, Dragić, has his headquarters in the medieval castle. This is a difficult place to assail, made somewhat easier by the forests to the north providing concealment to those who can pass to the old town unnoticed and make it to the treeline undetected.

Trivia: I got my names crossed. In the Dramatis Personae, Petrović was originally the leader of the Free Reds, but I wound up getting confused and now I've gotten confused. I didn't like the name Petrović for a total villain anyway, so Dragić is the new name for the bad guy, especially because of its morphological resemblance to the word "dragon", and the fact that he's camped out in a castle. Symbolism!

People who do a good job of figuring out what's going on may be able to learn of the old secret entrance to the castle, intended to permit egress. This gives a potential Act 1 win condition to the PCs, who can infiltrate and take out the Free Red leadership from within, greatly weakening the opposition and making Act 2 easy.

Alternatively, they can go full traitor and ally themselves with the Free Reds, which is a non-standard ending and requires GM improv because I'm not writing that in.

Act 3, of course, still requires the decision between Herceg and Petrović.

I haven't made much progress because I just haven't been as productive as I should be, but I've finally started moving toward the "final" map setup in terms of color scheme, though the buildings still need work. I also added layers, because it turns out that not having layers is a fairly major bad idea.

This is not finished. There are some obvious errors and things need to be fleshed out, but it's a good "start", and you can see my blockout for the medieval village houses. The final version of this map will also be cropped, especially on the north and south.

Part 5 of this series will update with a finished (or more-finished map), and the actual finished (or near-finished) text of the actual adventure.