D&D Adventures 2: Aarakocra
The party travels to Tiny Village in the Mountain, only to find everyone murdered. Some had their throats cut with seemingly barely any resistance, while others clearly fought and killed by weapons. There are feathers lying around, as well as avian claw marks on the ground where the fighting happened. A decent investigation check or knowledge on them will point to Aarakocra — which is unusual for the good creatures to slaughter villagers that way.
In the coming weeks, more Aarakocra murders take place. They seem to be picking on tiny villages on the outskirts or small caravans/packs of people traveling from or to them.
A cleric of Helm in the nearby small city starts paying good money and even some artifacts for each aarakocra beak. They reveal that a particular Village is likely to be attacked in a few days and wants to hire the party to help them.
Indeed, Aarakocra attacks the village, slaying one or more unless the party forces villagers inside. If attacked, the avians will retribute. However, if the party does not attack, they will not be attacked.
The truth is that an elemental evil cult has been infiltrating tiny villages and taking over them or setting up new villages in remote locations. Any previous villagers or new settlers are sacrificed to Evil Archomentals. When Aarakocra finds out, they start attacking the cultist villages.
In fact, the “Helmite” that pays for beaks serves the Archomentals and once he’s defeated, they’ll found out it’s not just air: Other elemental evils are also at work and there is a resistance forming with likes of Aarakocra, Merfolk, Azers etc.
Who is really behind this? It could be Yan-C-Bin, Ogrémoch etc, the classic elemental evils or a new brand of them. It could be demonic. It could be evil gods, especially in Fearun.
Depending on their reactions, players might be lead into thinking the attacking Aarakocra are a cult themselves, corrupted ones among the noble kin and maybe even led to believe that the resistance against the elemental evil is an uprising of sorts.
The adventure might focus on material or it could move to other planes, especially the elemental ones, over time.
