Session I, Part I

For my own homebrewed adventures, I try to avoid railroading by presenting the players with several possible story hooks and letting them decide what they want to do.  It's a very freestyle, improv way to Dungeon Master and, consequently, my preparation usually consists of fleshing out only certain key NPCs, places and plot points that the PCs are likely to encounter.  The rest is developed on the fly.

First off, the party arrives fresh off the boat in Fantasy Vietnam:

Some jokes are made about how the PCs spent the entire cruise drunk.  After some discussion, they decide to use Vĩnh Long as their home base.

The first order of business is getting an Adventurer's License, which will allow them to open carry weapons and armor.  Arriving at the Adventurers' Guild, they meet the Marquis de Picard, a courtly and aristocratic figure who is quite depressed to be surrounded by and leading a bunch of brigands.  The Adventurer's Application Form is 15 pages long and essentially says over and over "Adventuring is dangerous!?!  Are you sure you want to do this?!?"

After the PCs get their Adventurer's Licenses, the Marquis provides an info dump about the situation on the ground in Fantasy Vietnam, including the increasing presence of the Việt Cộng, secret cultists dedicated to a return to the "Old Ways".

Yes, I know that Việt Cộng is a contraction of Việt Nam Cộng-sản ("Vietnamese communist"), but cultists commune with stuff, amirite?

The biggest problem presented by the Việt Cộng is that anyone can be a cultist, and the Marquis tells of adventurers who are lured to their doom by undercover VC.  The Marquis also gives the PCs several possible adventure hooks, and they select the one that doesn't require leaving the city or relying on the locals: A highly successful expat businessman is looking for some discreet adventurers to solve a problem of a highly personal nature.

His name is Médecin Diabolique: