As the party walks through the plains in between towns, they hear an unnatural screaming. Cresting a hill they find a line of strange mounts with a frazzled female Tiefling at the front. The screaming appears to be coming from the mounts, sheep of various shapes, sizes and arrangements.
Ovi Saries looks up to see the party, “oh, it’s you!” she exclaims, excited to see the party if they helped her in a previous adventure. “My Sheep Gladiator has run off and now the rest of them won’t stop bleating. I’d hand them off to Gary, but they don’t seem to respond to him these days.” The party looks at Ovi’s Sheep Wrangler, Gary, a withered human man, who yells “hyahhhh” and waves his arms at the sheep, causing them to bleat more, one faints.
“He wandered off that direction. I thought he was grazing, but when I turned around again he was gone.” She begins to weep, the sheep bleat, and Gary yells “hyahhhhh” again. “Please find him, he goes by Waddleby.”
She points in the general vicinity and offers the party some mounts. If they accept, they can move more quickly, but their mounts will bleat the entire way.
Who Are Ewe
The party can easily track Waddleby’s movement due to the indents left by the chariot he was pulling. The tracks lead up to the edge of a cliff and seem to disappear. Looking down, the party does not see Waddleby, but they do see the chariot smashed to bits from a fall. As they are looking over the edge, two Helmed Horrors swoop down upon them, causing the mounts to buck and throw them off (if riding).
Fighting with their longswords, the Helmed Horrors swirl around the party and if still alive will leap over the edge of the cliff after three rounds, flying down the cliff and disappearing inside.
Upon further inspection, there appears to be a cave halfway down the face of the cliff. The party will have to climb down the dangerous terrain (or fly if they’re able), to reach the opening.
Nearing the mouth of the cave, they will hear a deep bass bleat, and with further inspection can determine it is Waddleby somewhere within the cave.
Don’t Be A Sheepskate
DM Note: You can fill the cave with spiders, troglodytes, giant centipedes, and/or giant bats, depending on the difficulty of retrieval you are looking for.
As the party continues through the cave, they’ll see posters and schematics on the wall for a sort of wagon contraption. It appears to attach to one or two Auroch, depending on the design. Books are strewn about the cave, each on topics like Marketing, Realm Economics, Animal Husbandry, and Mount Olympus: Reaching for Peek Performance in Mount Sales.
Following the bass bleats of Waddleby, the party will come to a larger room (20 x 30) with Waddleby in the center, a contraption from one of the drawings attached to his back. At the back of the room are pens with Aurochs staring at the party. At a draft table to the left is a gigantic Minotaur, hunched over and drawing with various drawing implements. He appears to be mumbling to himself.
Unless the party is invisible, moving toward Waddelby to collect him will cause the Aurochs to stir in their pens and begin making quite a bit of noise. Hearing this the minotaur turns and sees the party. Rubbing his eyes in frustration, he will huffily ask “ah, come to steal my schematics have you?”
If the party reveals they are working with/for Ovi or that they need to retrieve the sheep, the minotaur will growl and say, “she can’t have him back, not until I figure out how it works. I will split him open to observe the machinery.” He grabs a giant axe hanging on the wall nearby and let the party know they’ve got one more chance to leave.
“You dare enter Volka’s Wagon Shop and expect to leave alive? You’ve seen too much!” Volka is fairly dumb and can likely be talked out of the ensuing battle if the party can make it worth his time.
If the party opts for a battle, Volka will charge in initially, but on the 2nd, 5th, and 8th (if it gets that far) rounds, will spend his action on opening an Auroch pen, each with two Auroch inside that join him in the fray to protect their master. For each pair he’ll yell out, “on Touran, on Jetta, on Eos,” and so on.
On his 3rd turn he will cry out in a foreign language, summoning several Giant Fire Beetles, each emanating a different bright neon color.
With HP low, or all Auroch and Beetles killed, Volka will attempt to stop the fight. “Please, all I ever wanted to do was make mounts so my hooved brethren had a place in this world. You can have the sheep back if you promise me a spot on Ovi’s team.” He looks at his own hooves, pausing to see the party’s response. If they offer to take him to Ovi, he will reward them with all of his Wagon Schematics.
If denied, he will fly into a rage and gain advantage on any final rolls before the party finishes him off.
On the draft table, sit the Wagon Schematics, along with some less artsy drawings of Volka riding in a wagon pulled by Auroch. All of them are laughing.
The drawers of the draft table contain more doodles, some scraps of metal, basic tools and one drawer reveals Volka’s Wagon Polo.
This polo gives the wearer some abilities similar to a minotaur:
- +10ft speed
- New Action: Gore. Magic horns protrude from the wearer’s chest, allowing them to gore their foes. This is a melee attack with 5ft reach, that does 2d8 piercing damage.
- INT -1
Returning to Ovi, as the party nears, Gary will yell “hyahhhhhhhhh” in excitement and the bleating of the sheep turn into delighted baa’s of approval. Waddleby is welcomed back into the flock and they all turn to Ovi, ready to continue their convoy.
Ovi thanks the party for their assistance, and offers them any one of her mounts as a reward. If they explain about who took Waddleby, Ovi will note that mount competition has gotten tougher and tougher across the Realm. She offers the party the opportunity to join on as her security detail if they so choose, though it won’t pay well. Plenty of other adventures you could branch off into if you decide to hang out with her for a bit!
