Encampment Encounters: The Escapee

Tags: Dungeon/Caves or Nearby, Child, Monstrous Humanoids or Bandits

Setup: The PCs are near a dungeon or cave complex (or inside it) and the PCs make camp.  In the middle of the night, a young girl approaches, sobbing.

Strategy:

• A PC on watch can easily spot the girl approaching.  The girl may or may not spot the PCs depending on what precautions they took.  She is just trying to find her way back to her village, but lost.
• Her speech is hard to follow because she sobs and sometimes speaks quickly from excitement.
• If approached in a friendly way, the girl whimpers that she was captured by creatures (goblins, orcs, whatever is appropriate to your setting) and tied up.  She was able to slip out of the ropes and sneak away unnoticed.
• A patrol is sure to be tracking the girl.  It arrives soon after the PCs hear her story! They may even surprise the group if they were engrossed by the girl’s story.
• The PCs will have to decide what to do with the girl.  She’s too young to join their quest.  But will returning her take them away from it for too long?

Follow-up Ideas:

• Another patrol pursues the girl and PCs.
• Was anyone in the girl’s village left alive? If it was destroyed, how else can they help her?