Hobgoblins Ambush the Caravan!
Mar. 24th, 2026 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerAt my D&D game on Saturday, the players smelling a rat and interrogating the caravan leader wasn't the main event. It was only the precursor, though one through which they shifted the outcomes a bit. The main event came late that day (in game), when hobgoblins ambushed the caravan.
The group was ready for an ambush of some kind. After uncovering the head merchant's treachery they knew an attack was coming, they just didn't know when or where. Their magic wasn't powerful enough to discern that... and they weren't willing to try something amoral like torture to force the merchant to confess details. When the caravan's scouts saw a tree fallen across the road their Spidey Senses didn't just tingle, they shook rattles.
They were sure it was the start of a trap, they just weren't sure who would attack, or from where. ...Well, Herran and Leoghnie, the two riders out front, weren't sure. They boffed their Spot checks. But they knew something was afoot, so they signaled the caravan to halt.
Riding on some of the wagons 100' back, Kiarana and Ryuu-Han aced their Spot checks. Kiarana saw a figure with a bow hiding behind a tree 25' off the side of the road, and Ryuu-Han saw the tips of weapons poking up from behind a low rock formation 20' to the other side, presumably held by ambushers waiting to attack. Kiarana cast Spiritual Weapon and started attacking the covert archer. Ryuu-Han cast Mage Armor to protect himself.
Moments later the ambushers revealed themselves. Hobgoblins stood up from the rocks and emerged from behind trees, throwing javelins and shooting arrows.
I've mentioned before that I like to use visual aids in my game. Experienced players can visualize what it looks like when I say "A row of hobgoblins stand up from behind the rocks"... but not all players are experienced. I can speak a verbal description like,
But that sounds too much like Boxed Text, the bane of pref-fab adventure modules that players somehow always tune out until halfway through when realize it's Boxed Text and thus panic because that means it's important. I've rendered it here in a box so you get the idea. 🤣 But seriously, some players also don't work well converting words into pictures, a thing I know from my studies in educational and communication. So I use both words and the thing that helps many people visualize things better: pictures.
The first picture above is, I think, from one of the editions of D&D by Wizards of the Coast, the publisher. It's maybe 4th Edition? And the second image, the one immediately above, is a fun picture I found online with a bit of searching. I think it's fun because it helps convey OMG there's a bunch of hobgoblins swarming you! I adapted with labels (the high-contrast text I added) and printed them on 3x5 card stock. I keep the cards in a cardholder on the gaming table to indicate who's turn it is in the combat.
After the game I turned to AI to help illustrate some scenes from the attack. Here's an AI visualization in the same vein as when the PCs were interrogating the caravan leader:
I like how the AI remembered that the merchant was tied up in a cartoon-like bundle of rope. I had prompted it with, "Exaggerate how much the merchant is tied up, with a cocoon of rope like in a cartoon". Perhaps I should also have prompted it with "The wagons are pulled by horses, like every freakin' wagon caravan ever", because AI apparently thought the PCs' main character energy had them pulling the wagons by hand. 🤣
Now, the ambush wasn't just hobgoblins attacking from cover. The leaders who organized this ambush knew the caravaners could just take cover and shoot back, leading to something of a stalemate. So they added a few monstrous allies to shake things up.
Remember the worgs that attacked the campsite the night before? Two worgs rushed out here, to attack the horses pulling the wagons. And worse than the worgs, a dire wolf also bounded out from hiding behind the rocks.
Unlike worgs which are only marginally bigger and fiercer than wolves, a dire wolf is several times the mass of an ordinary wolf. It's bigger, stronger, meaner, intelligent, and evil. And with all those traits it bounded out of hiding and killed Herran's horse with a single massive bite.
Herran landed on her feet as the horse crumbled and rushed to save it from dying. A potion would do the trick. But even before she could pour the potion down the poor beast's throat, Leoghnie charged forward. She was not going to put up with this dire wolf nonsense. Too bad for the dire wolf, a huge mass of snapping, snarling muscle, it ran into the fight right next to the PCs' own mass of snapping, snarling muscle.
Leoghnie lit into the wolf with a massive, two-handed swing. She leaned deep over the side of her horse, clamping her legs around the steed's chest as she put both her shoulders into her attack. The horse screamed alarm at being so close to such a large predator, but it was trained for battle. As was Leoghnie. Her powerful attack tore through fur, muscle, and bone. The fearsome dire wolf stumbled, coughing blood. Herran, now back on her own feet after stopping her own horse from dying, stepped forward seconds later and finished it off.
The group was ready for an ambush of some kind. After uncovering the head merchant's treachery they knew an attack was coming, they just didn't know when or where. Their magic wasn't powerful enough to discern that... and they weren't willing to try something amoral like torture to force the merchant to confess details. When the caravan's scouts saw a tree fallen across the road their Spidey Senses didn't just tingle, they shook rattles.
They were sure it was the start of a trap, they just weren't sure who would attack, or from where. ...Well, Herran and Leoghnie, the two riders out front, weren't sure. They boffed their Spot checks. But they knew something was afoot, so they signaled the caravan to halt.
Riding on some of the wagons 100' back, Kiarana and Ryuu-Han aced their Spot checks. Kiarana saw a figure with a bow hiding behind a tree 25' off the side of the road, and Ryuu-Han saw the tips of weapons poking up from behind a low rock formation 20' to the other side, presumably held by ambushers waiting to attack. Kiarana cast Spiritual Weapon and started attacking the covert archer. Ryuu-Han cast Mage Armor to protect himself.
Moments later the ambushers revealed themselves. Hobgoblins stood up from the rocks and emerged from behind trees, throwing javelins and shooting arrows.
I've mentioned before that I like to use visual aids in my game. Experienced players can visualize what it looks like when I say "A row of hobgoblins stand up from behind the rocks"... but not all players are experienced. I can speak a verbal description like,
“From behind the rocks you see burly humanoids, 6 ½ feet tall. They wear various kinds of leather or metal armor and have reddish-orange skin. They have large, pointed ears, tufts of reddish-brown body hair, feral eyes, and flat noses and chins. Some hurl javelins at you while others draw bowstrings back to their chins and shoot arrows.”
But that sounds too much like Boxed Text, the bane of pref-fab adventure modules that players somehow always tune out until halfway through when realize it's Boxed Text and thus panic because that means it's important. I've rendered it here in a box so you get the idea. 🤣 But seriously, some players also don't work well converting words into pictures, a thing I know from my studies in educational and communication. So I use both words and the thing that helps many people visualize things better: pictures.
The first picture above is, I think, from one of the editions of D&D by Wizards of the Coast, the publisher. It's maybe 4th Edition? And the second image, the one immediately above, is a fun picture I found online with a bit of searching. I think it's fun because it helps convey OMG there's a bunch of hobgoblins swarming you! I adapted with labels (the high-contrast text I added) and printed them on 3x5 card stock. I keep the cards in a cardholder on the gaming table to indicate who's turn it is in the combat.
After the game I turned to AI to help illustrate some scenes from the attack. Here's an AI visualization in the same vein as when the PCs were interrogating the caravan leader:
I like how the AI remembered that the merchant was tied up in a cartoon-like bundle of rope. I had prompted it with, "Exaggerate how much the merchant is tied up, with a cocoon of rope like in a cartoon". Perhaps I should also have prompted it with "The wagons are pulled by horses, like every freakin' wagon caravan ever", because AI apparently thought the PCs' main character energy had them pulling the wagons by hand. 🤣
Now, the ambush wasn't just hobgoblins attacking from cover. The leaders who organized this ambush knew the caravaners could just take cover and shoot back, leading to something of a stalemate. So they added a few monstrous allies to shake things up.
Remember the worgs that attacked the campsite the night before? Two worgs rushed out here, to attack the horses pulling the wagons. And worse than the worgs, a dire wolf also bounded out from hiding behind the rocks.
Unlike worgs which are only marginally bigger and fiercer than wolves, a dire wolf is several times the mass of an ordinary wolf. It's bigger, stronger, meaner, intelligent, and evil. And with all those traits it bounded out of hiding and killed Herran's horse with a single massive bite.
Herran landed on her feet as the horse crumbled and rushed to save it from dying. A potion would do the trick. But even before she could pour the potion down the poor beast's throat, Leoghnie charged forward. She was not going to put up with this dire wolf nonsense. Too bad for the dire wolf, a huge mass of snapping, snarling muscle, it ran into the fight right next to the PCs' own mass of snapping, snarling muscle.
Leoghnie lit into the wolf with a massive, two-handed swing. She leaned deep over the side of her horse, clamping her legs around the steed's chest as she put both her shoulders into her attack. The horse screamed alarm at being so close to such a large predator, but it was trained for battle. As was Leoghnie. Her powerful attack tore through fur, muscle, and bone. The fearsome dire wolf stumbled, coughing blood. Herran, now back on her own feet after stopping her own horse from dying, stepped forward seconds later and finished it off.
