Major Story Beats

1. Shore. Misthaven mist → black-sand crossover shore. Sinbad waiting, bruised, grinning, holding the Noon-Diamond. Bargain: help him cross the valley, the diamond is theirs.
2. Enc. 1 — The One-Eyed Toll (quick RP). Valley Cyclops tolls the valley mouth. Gift / riddle / story / flash. Combat legal, discouraged, and a time sink.
3. Enc. 2 — The Valley Fork (branch). Rim Path (Proteus + Layla, both recruitable) or Gorge Floor (scorpions + serpents, no recruitment). Converge at cliff base → Short Rest.
4. Enc. 3 — Three phases. P1 nest (Roc grounded; free the crew) → P2 flight + vultures + the egg decision + descent → P3 trireme pursuit → Diamond finale + reveal.
5. Epilogue. She remembers sky and departs. Sinbad finds the poachers' trail — someone has her real egg (sequel hook / Roc-mount seed). Crew reunited; diamond becomes the reward.

Opening — Sinbad's Shame & Theory

Sinbad does not ask for help easily — he tried the valley twice. Insight DC 13: the bruises and missing crew read "he barely escaped both times." He frames it as "my crew needs extraction." Insight DC 15: he keeps circling back to the egg. His theory, if pressed:

"It should have hatched two seasons ago. It's a dud. She'll sit that nest until the stars burn out unless someone gets it away from her."

His real plan is as much about removing the egg as rescuing the crew. A PC who calls him on either front (Persuasion DC 14 after reading him) gets the honest version and earns Advantage on one Persuasion check with Sinbad later. Optional Misthaven intro: the Mist-Broker — "Two seas are arguing over one sky. The sailor already knows the mountain's name."

Enc. 1 — The One-Eyed Toll (~20 min · RP)

A Valley Cyclops blocks the 10-ft choke at the valley mouth — same breed Sinbad fled on another voyage. Not malicious; a toll-keeper with an empty stomach. He recognizes Sinbad by smell: "Smells like a man who ran from my cousin." Sinbad: "I've paid this toll before. Badly."

Terrain: valley mouth 50×40 · three boulders (half cover; he can hurl one per Rock action) · cliff walls climb DC 15.

Paths (pick any — one check max)

If they fight anyway: telegraph cost before initiative — he is 138 HP of wasted daylight, and the Roc's shadow crosses the valley mouth. Sinbad: "We can spend an hour killing the doorman, or we can tip him." He fights to drive off, never to kill; after 2 rounds he retreats into his cave mouth and hurls rocks. No reinforcements — the price is table time and the toll reward.

Toll reward (any peaceful path): road-marker (+1 Navigation up the cliff, Enc. 3) + his warning: "Mind the little ones on the floor. Mind the old man on the rim. Mind the bird everywhere." Peaceful passage → Short Rest available. No Long Rest this session — say so.

Enc. 2 — The Valley Fork (~45 min · branch)

The Valley of Diamonds splits around a spine of rock. Sinbad lays out the choice from a boulder top — he has survived neither route cleanly. Both end at the cliff base below the nest; allow a Short Rest there regardless of route.

Branch A — Rim Path

• The Old Man drops mid-rim onto a PC's shoulders. Riding Burden: target restrained, speed halved, 7 (2d6) psychic at start of its turns; Proteus has half cover. He Wild Shapes ≥1× before the ride ends.
• End the ride: Athletics contest DC 15 (group help) · wine + Performance DC 14 (sleep) · diamond flash (auto-releases once). Sinbad auto-Helps the first attempt.
• Recruit Proteus: ride ends without damaging him → immediate Persuasion/Insight DC 14 (Sinbad Help). Joins Enc. 3, Wild Shapes again. "I have been mistaken for a burden before. I was always a gift."
• Free Layla (Ath DC 12) at the abandoned poacher camp — cold firepit, cut ropes, a stake. She joins Enc. 3 with Help. Her only intel: "They spent two nights up there and left heavier than they came." She does NOT know about the decoy — the line should read as loot-hauling until Enc. 3 recontextualizes it.
• Ledge hazard ×2: Acrobatics/Athletics DC 12 or slide 15 ft to the floor — 2d6, prone among the diamonds, one serpent stirs.

Branch B — Gorge Floor

• Opposition (two waves): scorpions erupt at mid-crossing; serpents wake when anyone Dashes or falls prone. Easy 1+1 · Medium 2+2 · Hard 3+4.
• Stealth crossing: group Stealth/Survival DC 14 (all contribute). Mixed success (half fail): scorpions only. Full failure: both waves.
• Glitter Lure: diamond drifts are difficult terrain; Dash across → Dex DC 12 or prone (noise wakes anything hidden).
• Optional Hard: +1–2 Ghuls scavenging among the gems — they attack whoever is at lowest HP (Grave Hunger).
• No recruitment. Proteus stays on his rim; Layla stays staked. The party climbs alone.

Balancing / Suggestions

As written ★ — 6×L10. Enc. 1 is an RP scene (Cyclops CR 6 is the fallback, not the plan). Enc. 2 Hard on either branch (serpents CR 3 / 60 HP; scorpions CR 3 / 52 HP — for pressure, serpents to 85 HP + Ghuls). Enc. 3 Deadly: Roc CR 11, 198 HP, LR 2/day, one pool across three phases, plus 1–3 vultures and three arenas. XP thresholds 6×L10: Hard ≈ 10,800 · Deadly ≈ 16,800.

Easier (APL 8–9). Gorge 1+1; 1 vulture; Roc HP −20%; skill DCs −1; descent = one check per PC.

Harder (APL 11–12). Gorge 3+4; 3–4 vultures; Roc +1 flyby per 2 rounds in P3; DCs +1; she holes the hull early (bail actions).

Clock discipline. Enc. 3 is half the session — protect it. If Enc. 1 runs past 25 min or Enc. 2 past 50, compress: skip to the fork, or start Enc. 3 at the cliff base. If the table is racing, add the optional Ghuls or a fourth vulture rather than slowing the Roc.

Reveal discipline. Layla and Sinbad cannot identify the egg — they sell the mystery, not the answer. If a player guesses "it's fake" early, smile and give nothing; guessing is not knowing.

Phase 1 — The Nest (rounds 1–3)

• As written: Roc grounded, between the party and the egg — Beak / Talons / Snatch / Nest Quake. She defends; she does not hunt.
• FREE THE CREW: four crewmates penned behind the pillars — Ath DC 12 vs the woven-branch pen, or 10 HP of cutting. Freed crew scramble down the ladder and ready the trireme. No crew freed = no ship in P3 — Sinbad prioritizes it if the players don't.
• Snatch rescue: Roc Snatches a PC (grappled, lifted 30 ft) → Sinbad's next action throws a rope (Ath +5); on a hit, snatched PC tries Ath DC 15 / Acro DC 13 to grab and arrest the lift. Layla Shoves/Helps from below if adjacent.
• Transition (end rd 2–3, DM's feel): she launches with a downblast — Str DC 13 or prone. Go to Phase 2.

Phase 2 — Wings, Vultures, the Egg

• Flyby cadence: airborne 80–120 ft; one pass every 2 rounds — Beak + Talons on one target (or Snatch), then out of reach. Between passes: long range only.
• Vultures drop the moment she lifts off: Easy 1 / Med 2 / Hard 3. They guard the egg (Egg Wardens: disadv. on checks vs the egg within 5 ft of one).
• The egg decision once vultures are handled or bypassed — see table below, then descend.

The Egg Decision

The Descent (skill challenge — run it fast and loud)

• Each PC: two checks — Survival / Athletics / Acrobatics DC 13, or a justified alternative (rope-work with Sinbad = adv.; Guidance stacks; feather fall auto-passes).
• Modifiers: Enc. 1 road-marker +1 · egg carrier at disadv.
• Each failure: 7 (2d6) bludgeoning slide. Two failures: also starts P3 prone on the beach as the trireme loads.
• Her shadow strobes over the scree between free rounds — narrate, don't roll her attacks here unless the party dawdles.

Phase 3 — Wrath over the Wake (rounds 1–6)

• Set sail: crew has the trireme moving as the party boards; Sinbad takes the helm. She comes in low over the water.
• Targeting: egg aboard → the carrier and anything between her and it. No egg → whoever hurt her worst.
• Overboard: Talons hit → Str DC 17 or swept into the water. Reboard: Athletics DC 13 + a thrown rope (Sinbad/Layla/crew). Recruited Proteus: shark form shoves swimmers back to the hull.
• Ship damage: Siege Beak ×2 vs objects. Mast AC 14 / HP 50 — downed mast halves escape speed, deck becomes difficult terrain. Hull AC 15 / HP 80 — at 0 the ship founders (don't let it reach 0 unless the party truly ignores her).
• The Perch (1 per 2 rounds): lands mast-top or bow-post → Wing Gale: deck Str DC 15 or pushed 10 ft + prone; at a rail, second Str DC 13 or overboard; objects fly. Perched 1 round — best melee window via rigging.
• If she entered P3 above 75% HP: +1 pass per 2 rounds — make the clock felt.

Finale Trigger — the Diamond Solution

• Trigger: Roc drops to 0 HP (crashes onto the bow — broken-winged, alive, staged) or the party survives rounds 5–6 of pursuit.
• The light comes right; the diamond hums. Flash auto-succeeds.
• If the reveal hasn't landed: she seizes the egg in one talon — it cracks against her grip into carved stone. Run the reveal script now (p. 4).
• Read the handout aloud. She looses the shards into the sea, takes one long look at the people who showed her the truth, and turns for open sky.
• Refusing mercy: executing the downed Roc is allowed — pyrrhic; Sinbad goes quiet. Either way he finds the poachers' trail afterward (p. 4 epilogue).

Phase Timeline (default table feel)

DC Quick Reference

The Reveal — run it loud

Before it lands, the egg is only ever: pale, half the size of a wagon wheel, cold to the touch, strangely still, too heavy. No hum, no warmth, no heartbeat — but a real egg two seasons overdue could feel that way too. Let dread do the work.

Destroyed on the ledge: It doesn't crack like a shell. It shatters like a statue — wedges of chalk-white stone spinning across the nest, and where the yolk should be there is only a hollow, chiseled smooth. Someone made this.

Rolled down the mountain: It bursts on the valley floor forty feet below — and the pieces are wrong. They glitter like the cliffs, not like life. From up here you can see the hollow core, pale as a skull.

Investigation DC 18 (mid-fight): Under the wind-polish your fingers find them — tool marks. Chisel-lines, laid patiently, by hands.

P3 finale (talon crack): She seizes the egg at last — and it gives. Not the wet crunch of a shell. The dry snap of stone. She hangs there over the wake, shards raining from her talon, and the scream that comes out of her is a different scream.

Immediately after, in order: Layla (if present) goes pale: "That's cliff-stone. Someone carved this." Sinbad, one beat later, quiet: "…Then where is her egg?" Then the Roc — her cry changes pitch, and every player at the table should understand: she was never a monster guarding a child. She was a prisoner guarding a lie.

Lines — one when the cue hits

Egg Logistics

• Object: AC 12 / HP 20 · half the size of a wagon wheel · ~200 lb of carved stone (another quiet tell — a real roc egg would be lighter).
• Carrying: two hands or Str 13+; carrier at disadv. on descent checks; on the ship the egg can be lashed down (action) — then she attacks the lashing point instead of the carrier.
• On deck: if the party offers the egg back / throws it overboard before the finale, she dives for it, cracks it in her talons mid-catch — reveal fires — and returns angrier for one round before the finale window opens.
• After the reveal: the shards matter. A PC holding a shard when the diamond flashes gives her a focus — she looks at the shard, then at them. Let that PC narrate one sentence of the goodbye.

Epilogue — Mercy Path (preferred)

She clears the horizon in three wingbeats. The sea goes quiet the way a room does when a bell stops. Sinbad brings the trireme back to the islet for the night; the crew builds a fire on the black sand; Layla (if freed) cooks something involving too much saffron. In the nest debris Sinbad finds the poachers' leavings — chisels, rope-burns, a mooring-groove on the far beach. "Someone sailed away with a roc's egg, friends." He means to chase it. If the campaign continues, that chase is a session — and a hatched roc remembers who freed its mother.

Epilogue — Kill Path (pyrrhic)

The Roc dies on the bow of a ship she could have splintered, and every sailor aboard knows it. No treasure in her nest but the decoy shards and the poachers' trail. Sinbad pays what he promised and honors the bargain — quietly. The Noon-Diamond still passes to the party, but its inscription reads differently now; let a player read the handout aloud one more time and sit in it. The poacher hook fires either way: someone out there has a real egg, and now no mother is coming for it — unless the party goes instead.

Aftermath & Rewards

• Serendib Noon-Diamond (reward): earned by flashing noon-mercy at the Roc and reuniting Sinbad's crew without slaughtering the mountain-bird. 1/SR flash (Dex DC 13 blind 1 turn); 1/LR vs Huge+ flying beast/monstrosity (Con DC 15: also no grapple / nest-quake-style actions 1 turn).
• Proteus (if recruited): pledges to answer one future call on any Enc. 3 success — campaign-finale currency.
• Sinbad: parts as a standing ally; his poacher-hunt is an open invitation. "Seven voyages, they say. They miscount."
• Crew count for the win condition: all four crewmates freed and aboard = full success; casualties sour the banquet but don't void the reward.
• Persistence: no gods die; Serendib and the Aegean both keep their horizons.

Table Reminders

• Never say "false egg" out loud before the reveal — not in recaps, not in rules answers, not on the map label.
• Phase 2 passes are every 2 rounds — put a die on the table as the pass counter.
• P3 ends at the end of round 6 at the latest. If she still flies and the party still floats, the finale window opens anyway — the session ends on mercy, not attrition.
• The descent is connective tissue: two checks per PC, narrate fast, no full map.
• If the crew never got freed in P1, the trireme launches late: run P3 rounds 1–2 on the beach shallows (same tactics, knee-deep water) while the crew scrambles.