War front

War front
A Czech Army battle tank engulfed in battlefield smoke during the Combined Resolve exercise at Hohenfels, Germany, November 2013 · SPC Wayne Becton, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Two lines of trenches facing each other across a strip of mud, wire and craters. Tanks burn on the ridges, walking machines tall as houses stride through the smoke, and the guns never stop for long. Soldiers live in dugouts, the field hospital is always full, and no man’s land holds what both sides lost there.

Light
Dim
Going
Hard

Hear it

Hazards

  • Shelling. The guns behind both lines fire day and night, by schedule or at random. A shell gives a second’s whistle of warning; a trench or a dugout is the only shelter that counts. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: during a barrage, each round the GM places one impact for each battery firing; each creature within 6 m (20 ft) of it makes a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 4d10 Bludgeoning damage on a failure or half as much on a success. A creature in a trench or dugout has Advantage on the save.
  • Minefield. Both sides have sown mines in the ground between the lines and along the roads, and the maps of where are lost, wrong or the enemy’s. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: spotting a buried mine is a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check, with Disadvantage at a run and Advantage when probing ahead at half speed. A creature that sets one off makes a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 6d6 Piercing damage on a failure or half as much on a success.
  • Crossfire. A gang quarrel, a raid or a battle line: shooting breaks out with little warning, and rounds go through thin walls and parked cars as if they were paper. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: while a firefight goes on nearby, each creature caught in the open makes a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw at the start of each round, taking 2d6 Piercing damage on a failure. A creature behind Half Cover or better is spared.
  • Smog and smoke. Exhaust, factory fumes or the smoke of burning wrecks hang in the still air. On a bad day it stings the eyes and the throat, and the far side of the street is a blur. D&D 5e: Ordinary smog is Lightly Obscured: Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. Thick smoke is Heavily Obscured: a creature trying to see something in it has the Blinded condition. Starfinder 2e: Smoke (GM Core): a circumstance penalty to visual Perception checks, by how thick it is; creatures seen through a lot of it are concealed, and it cuts off all sight at half a mile or less. Archives of Nethys

What may happen

  1. Flares drift down over no man’s land on little parachutes, turning the mud white, then green, then dark again.
  2. Footprints a metre deep cross the road, filled with rainwater and spent cartridges.
  3. A wounded soldier calls from a shell crater in no man’s land; from here nobody can tell which side his uniform belongs to.
  4. In the trench, soldiers trade ration bars for cigarettes and letters at rates everyone knows by heart.
  5. The guns behind the line fall silent all at once, and a sergeant sends everyone into the dugouts.
  6. A recon drone lies in the mud, its camera still turning.
  7. A burned-out tank sits on the ridge, its turret thrown ten metres away; something small has nested in the barrel.
  8. A sniper has the crossroads covered, and two bodies lie where they fell.
  9. The mud swallows boots to the shin, and the duckboards float.
  10. A mech pilot sits beside her stalled machine, waiting for a tow that does not come; she offers a ride to anyone who can get it walking.
  11. For an hour, by an agreement nobody signed, both sides stop firing to collect their dead.
  12. The field hospital is a tent with three surgeons and forty beds, and its generator has just died.
  13. A hand-painted sign on a fence says MINES in two languages, and the fence has been flattened.
  14. A deserter in a stolen coat asks the party the way to anywhere behind the lines.
  15. Somewhere in the fog a walking machine moves; each step arrives a second after the ground shakes.
  16. An open radio channel carries the enemy’s orders in clear, or what sound like them.
  17. A supply truck is stuck axle-deep on the road, and the driver says the shelling starts at dusk.
  18. A mailbag lies split open in a ditch, its letters spilling into the water, the addresses running.
  19. A gas rattle sounds down the trench; masks go on, and one soldier is still searching his pockets for his.
  20. A young officer with fresh orders needs volunteers to check a farmhouse in no man’s land.
  21. In a dugout lit by a single cell, four soldiers play cards on a crate of shells and do not look up when the walls shake.
  22. A fresh crater has opened across the path, and at its bottom lies the hatch of something buried long before this war.
  23. An unexploded shell sticks nose-first out of the trench wall, ticking.
  24. A patrol from the other side crawls past in the dark, a few metres away.
  25. A column of civilians walks the road away from the front, pushing carts; one cart has lost a wheel and blocks the way.

Adventure hooks

  1. A mech lies stranded in no man’s land with its reactor still running, and both sides want it before the other gets there.
  2. Both armies want the same farmhouse, and the family still living in it has nowhere else to go.
  3. A quartermaster is selling the front’s supplies out the back, and a captain wants proof before the next push.
  4. A tank crew swears that last night something walked out of the fog that neither army built.

Who and what is met

Each is an SRD stat block under another name, as game masters reskin them.

Other places among the stars

Orbital station, Derelict ship, Colony outpost, Precursor ruin, Asteroid field, Gas giant orbit, Deep space relay, Terraforming works, Prison hulk, Research lab, Crashed freighter, Nebula, Neon city, Junktown, Spaceport, Alien hive, Living ship, Undersea base, Lava foundry

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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