Six pregenerated adventurers—level 3, standard array, 5e (2014 rules). Pick one; your DM will hand you a secret faction card separately.
| Character | Class & role | Complexity | One line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dara Stonevein | Dwarf Fighter—armored wall | ★☆☆ simplest | Ex-caravan guard who lost a caravan to these storms. Hits things, protects people, refuses to fall over. |
| Korrin Redsand | Half-orc Barbarian—unstoppable | ★☆☆ simplest | Desert-born camel drover and camp cook. Gentle until the rage comes; nearly unkillable while it lasts. |
| Sel “Inkfinger” | Halfling Rogue—sneak & skills | ★★☆ | A cartographer sent to map a place that punishes mapmakers. Strikes from hiding, opens what’s locked. |
| Brother/Sister Hesk | Human Cleric of Shaundakul—storm-priest & healer | ★★☆ | A road-priest of the god of travelers. Armored, thunder-voiced, keeps everyone standing. |
| Qamar “Sixteen-Strings” | Human Bard—face & support | ★★★ | A caravan storyteller collecting the storm’s rumors. Talks anyone into anything; makes the party better. |
| Vashti of the Nine Wells | Human Druid—desert magic & shapes | ★★★ | A hermit who tends the desert’s forgotten wells. Shapes sand, fire, and silence; becomes the animal the moment needs. |
Party balance note for the table: any four of the six work. Strongest spread keeps at least one of Dara/Korrin (front line) and one of Hesk/Qamar/Vashti (healing).
| Weapon | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Warhammer (with shield) | +5 | 1d8+5 bludgeoning |
| Warhammer (two hands) | +5 | 1d10+3 bludgeoning |
| Handaxe ×2 (thrown 20/60) | +5 | 1d6+3 slashing |
| Saves: Str +5, Con +5 (others = ability mod) |
| Skills: Athletics +5, Intimidation +3, Perception +3, Survival +3 |
| Passive Perception 13 · Darkvision 60 ft |
Chain mail, shield (battered caravan-company crest), warhammer, 2 handaxes, backpack, bedroll, 50 ft rope, waterskin, whetstone, dice set, smith’s tools, 18 gp, and a cracked compass that belonged to your old caravan-master.
You shine when: something needs guarding—a hearth, a door, a dying stranger, a friend at half hit points.
Twenty-two years walking caravans across this desert without losing a single soul under your watch. Eight months ago the unnatural storms took your whole column—camels, cargo, and the four guards you trained. You walked out alone. You don’t talk about it, but you count heads constantly, and you have not taken a contract since. This one, you volunteered for.
Personality: blunt, watchful, dry humor that surprises people. Ideal: nobody gets left behind—nobody. Bond: the cracked compass; you’ll return it to the caravan-master’s family when the route is safe again. Flaw: you’d rather take the hit than watch someone else take it, even when that’s tactically stupid.
Suggested faction pairing: Lords’ Alliance (reopen the route) or Order of the Gauntlet (someone caused those storms).
| Weapon | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Greataxe | +5 | 1d12+3 slashing (+2 more while raging) |
| Javelin ×4 (thrown 30/120) | +5 | 1d6+3 piercing |
| Unarmed / improvised (ladle?) | +5 | 1+3 bludgeoning |
| Saves: Str +5, Con +4 (others = ability mod) |
| Skills: Athletics +5, Survival +3, Perception +3, Animal Handling +3, Intimidation +2 |
| Passive Perception 13 · Darkvision 60 ft |
Greataxe, 4 javelins, explorer’s pack, cook’s ladle and spice pouch (your real treasures), a camel-hair blanket, hunting trap, 10 gp, and a string of clay beads—one for every animal you’ve ever driven safely across the desert.
You shine when: the party needs a wall that walks—and around a cookfire, where you’re a different person entirely.
Born in the deep desert, raised driving camels between wells your grandmother taught you to find by smell. You cook for every caravan you guard—feeding people is how you say what you don’t have words for. The storms have been swallowing the old ways: three wells gone dark, herds scattered, routes dying. Something is wrong with the desert, and the desert is family.
Personality: soft-spoken, slow to anger, and then—not. You feed everyone, and judge people by whether they thank the cook. Ideal: the desert doesn’t belong to anyone; everyone belongs to the desert. Bond: the clay beads—every life delivered safely. You intend to keep adding beads. Flaw: once the rage comes, stopping is genuinely hard; you are ashamed of this.
Suggested faction pairing: Emerald Enclave (the desert’s balance is broken) or Order of the Gauntlet.
| Weapon | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Shortbow (range 80/320) | +5 | 1d6+3 piercing |
| Shortsword | +5 | 1d6+3 piercing |
| Dagger ×2 (thrown 20/60) | +5 | 1d4+3 piercing |
Sneak Attack +2d6 once per turn, when you have advantage or an ally is within 5 ft of your target.
| Saves: Dex +5, Int +3 (others = ability mod) |
| Skills: Stealth +7, Investigation +5, Perception +3, Sleight of Hand +5, Insight +3, Persuasion +2 |
| Tools: thieves’ tools +5, cartographer’s tools +5 |
| Passive Perception 13 |
Studded leather, shortbow + 20 arrows, shortsword, 2 daggers, thieves’ tools, cartographer’s tools, spyglass (guild-issued, dented), oilskin map case, charcoal sticks, 22 gp, and a half-finished map of the deep desert with a mile-wide blank circle in the middle.
You shine when: there’s a lock, a trap, a pocket, a mechanism, or a secret—and this adventure is made of mechanisms and secrets.
The guild’s best young surveyor, sent to chart the storm phenomenon “for the safety of future travelers.” You’ve mapped sewers, cliff roads, and one active volcano. But this place is different: your instruments lie here, your bearings drift, and you’ve started to suspect the blank circle on your map is blank because something wants it blank. You’ve heard desert stories about what happens to people who map hidden things. You’re carrying the map anyway.
Personality: endlessly curious, quietly competitive, narrating distances under your breath. Ideal: a good map saves a hundred lives that never know its maker’s name. Bond: the unfinished map—completing it is the commission of a lifetime. Flaw: you have never once left a secret alone, even when every sign said to.
Suggested faction pairing: Harpers (information wants to be free—carefully) or Lords’ Alliance (a charted route is a safe route).
| Attack | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Warhammer | +4 | 1d8+2 bludgeoning |
| Sacred flame (cantrip, 60 ft) | Dex save DC 13 | 1d8 radiant, ignores cover |
Spell save DC 13 · spell attack +5. Slots: 4 × 1st, 2 × 2nd.
Cantrips: sacred flame (above) · guidance (touch an ally: +1d4 to one skill check) · thaumaturgy (booming voice, wind gusts, trembling ground—free drama).
1st: bless (3 allies add +1d4 to attacks & saves—your best opener) · healing word (bonus action, 60 ft, 1d4+3) · cure wounds (touch, 1d8+3) · guiding bolt (+5, 4d6 radiant, next attack on target has advantage) · fog cloud* · thunderwave* (15-ft blast, Con save, 2d8 + shove 10 ft).
2nd: spiritual weapon (bonus action: floating hammer, +5, 1d8+3, every turn) · lesser restoration (cure poison, disease, blindness, paralysis—remember this one) · gust of wind* · shatter* (10-ft radius, Con save, 3d8 thunder).
*Domain spells—always ready, don’t count against your six prepared.
| Saves: Wis +5, Cha +3 (others = ability mod) |
| Skills: Insight +5, Medicine +5, Religion +3, Persuasion +3 |
| Passive Perception 13 |
You shine when: travelers are in danger—which is your god’s entire portfolio, and the reason you exist.
A road-priest of Shaundakul, the Helping Hand—god of travelers, caravans, and the wind. Your order maintains waystation shrines: you’ve spent ten years digging out wells, marking safe paths, and burying the ones you found too late. The storms have unmade a decade of your work in a season. The wind is your god’s voice, and lately the wind sounds wrong—like something is wearing it.
Personality: unhurried, hospitable—water before words, for every stranger. Ideal: the road belongs to everyone; a shrine that turns someone away is a wall, not a shrine. Bond: every traveler who dies on a path you could have marked is on your ledger. Flaw: you trust anyone who claims to serve travelers—perhaps too readily.
Suggested faction pairing: Order of the Gauntlet (a fiend’s hand in this) or Harpers.
| Attack | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Rapier | +4 | 1d8+2 piercing |
| Dagger (thrown 20/60) | +4 | 1d4+2 piercing |
| Vicious mockery (cantrip, 60 ft) | Wis save DC 13 | 1d4 psychic + disadvantage on their next attack |
Spell save DC 13 · spell attack +5. Slots: 4 × 1st, 2 × 2nd.
Cantrips: vicious mockery (above—insults that wound) · minor illusion (a sound or a small image, anywhere within 30 ft).
1st: healing word (bonus action, 60 ft, 1d4+3) · dissonant whispers (Wis save, 3d6 psychic + target flees, letting allies swing at it) · faerie fire (Dex save: outlined targets are hit with advantage by everyone).
2nd: heat metal (2d8 fire, no save, they drop their weapon or cook in their armor) · hold person (Wis save: paralyzed—melee hits become crits) · invisibility (touch, 1 hour, until they attack/cast).
| Saves: Dex +4, Cha +5 |
| Skills: Persuasion +7, Insight +5, Performance +5, Acrobatics +4, Arcana +2, everything else +1 |
| Passive Perception 12 |
You shine when: there’s someone to persuade, someone to see through, or a story with a missing ending. This adventure has all three.
You’ve sung in every caravanserai on three routes, and you collect unfinished stories the way others collect coins—the ballad with the lost last verse, the joke whose teller died before the punchline. Lately every campfire tells the same unfinished story: a storm with a calm eye, a green place inside it that nobody can find twice. Your sixteen-string oud belonged to your teacher, who vanished on this route two years ago. Verse by verse, you’re going to finish her last song.
Personality: warm, quick, filing away everything people say for later—kindly, mostly. Ideal: a story left unfinished belongs to everyone; that’s not a flaw, it’s an invitation. Bond: the oud, and the vanished teacher whose song lacks its final verse. Flaw: you cannot resist pulling on a loose narrative thread, whatever it unravels.
Suggested faction pairing: Harpers (obviously) or Lords’ Alliance.
| Attack | Hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterstaff (with shillelagh) | +5 | 1d8+3 bludgeoning, counts as magic |
| Produce flame (cantrip, thrown 30 ft) | +5 | 1d8 fire (also a free torch in your palm) |
Spell save DC 13 · spell attack +5. Slots: 4 × 1st, 2 × 2nd.
Cantrips: shillelagh (bonus action: your staff fights with your Wisdom—the +5/1d8+3 line) · produce flame (above) · mold earth (sculpt, shift, and shape loose earth and sand—in a desert adventure, be creative). (DM: swap mold earth for guidance if not using Elemental Evil cantrips.)
Circle spells—always ready: blur (attacks against you have disadvantage) · silence (20-ft sphere of absolute quiet: no sound, no spells with spoken words. Keep this one loaded. Trust me.)
1st: cure wounds (touch, 1d8+3) · healing word (bonus action, 60 ft, 1d4+3) · entangle (20-ft square of grasping growth, restrains) · faerie fire (outlined targets get hit with advantage).
2nd: spike growth (20-ft radius of hidden thorns, 2d4 per 5 ft moved—a storm of scorpions hates this) · flaming sphere (bonus action each turn: ram a rolling ball of fire, 2d6).
| Saves: Int +3, Wis +5 |
| Skills: Perception +5, Survival +5, Medicine +5, Religion +3 |
| Passive Perception 15—highest in the party; you notice things first |
You shine when: the desert itself is the puzzle—tracks, weather, wells, and things that grow where nothing should.
For eleven years you have walked a lonely circuit of nine forgotten wells, keeping them clear for travelers who will never learn your name. The desert talks to those who listen that long: this year it has been shouting. Three of your wells now stand inside the storm-belt. The oldest well—the one your predecessor called “the well that listens back”—has begun repeating words no one said into it. You went to the factions because for the first time in eleven years, you don’t understand your desert. That frightens you more than any storm.
Personality: still, patient, precise on the rare occasions you speak; uncomfortable indoors. Ideal: water belongs to the thirsty—the moment it has an owner, it has a price, and prices kill. Bond: the nine wells; they are your congregation. Flaw: you trust the desert’s judgment over people’s—including, sometimes, your friends’.
Suggested faction pairing: Emerald Enclave (natural fit).
The Unfinished Oasis is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC. Stat blocks adapt content from the System Reference Document 5.1 (CC-BY-4.0, Wizards of the Coast).