Thursday Quick Adventure Idea - Illusion Army

The illusion or phantom army is a quick adventure idea or inspiration that I've been working on that I wanted to share with you.

The party of noble adventurers comes upon a very frightened town known as Diphule. This town exists along some sort of road or path, possibly in a mountain pass. All of the towns and villages further down the pass have been sacked by an extremely large army. Armies this size are unheard of in this area. No one knows what nation or city this army belongs to, but it is lead by a man named Lance Fanta. Luckily the towns fled to the mountains (or hills, forest, water) when the massive army threatened to attack, so nobody was injured. However, many of their valuables were stolen, and their houses burned.

The army has now come to Diphule, and the town is split on what they should do. The majority want to run, but the mayor is a proud young man, having just taken over for his late father at the beginning of the year, and he wants to stand his ground. They wonder what the adventurers think, and if there is anything they can do to help them. The army appears to be thousands of men large.

The reality of the situation is that Lance Fanta is a powerful mage when it comes to illusions. He isn't very good at other spells, but he is fantastic at realistic and numerous illusions. The army is simply an illusion or phantom. He will try everything to intimidate the town and steal their artifacts when they leave. He is horrible and fighting, and will always rather run or trick an assailant.

Lance Fanta's motivation is that he is the youngest son of a family of evil mages. All of his family have plundered and killed many adventurers and farms. They have told him to go do the same, not to come back until he has a large pile of treasure. Lance doesn't really want to hurt anyone, and in his heart of hearts just wants to be an entertainer with his illusions. His dream is to entertain kings and kingdoms with his self-written dramas and comedies, acted by (and special effects) illusions. But he is afraid his family will hurt him if he doesn't do what they say, which they probably will.