By Anvil N Ink Publishing · 8 min read
Anvil N Ink published this title, so the breakdown below is upfront about both its strengths and its weaknesses.
The Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving DnD one-shot for 2-3 players at levels 2-3 that runs in a single 2-3 hour session with zero prep. One hero is cursed into a turkey, the curse passes around the party, and the goal is to carry the bird onto an ogre chef’s silver platter and gobble three times. It suits comedy tables, families and two-player groups.
Holiday games tend to go one of two ways: a Christmas horror story or a harvest festival with a monster in the corn. We wanted a November game that is pure slapstick, where the danger is real but the tone never turns dark. If your group already ran our harvest feast horror-comedy, The Wishbone Hunt, this is its sillier cousin, and it slots straight into the seasonal lineup in our full list of DnD one-shots.
How the story unfolds
The heroes have not eaten in three days. At midday the fattest, roundest, most beautiful turkey any of them has ever seen waddles into camp. The first hero to make a move on it takes a curse and becomes a turkey, and the bird pops back into Snib, a goblin scullion who is very, very sorry. Snib blurts out the truth before he runs: his master, the ogre chef Grosbec, needed a turkey for the Harvest Banquet and cursed the nearest thing, which was Snib.
The rules of the curse drive the whole game. It can be passed, but only to someone who has shared your fire. The only cure is to sit on Grosbec’s silver platter at the high table and gobble three times. And if the curse is still on anyone when the last course is served at sunset on Harvest Day, it sets for good.
Act One: The Hungry Woods
The party chases Snib out of the Hartshorn Woods and straight into Pottle’s Croft, where a starving farmer and her farmhands decide the party’s turkey is dinner. The heroes find a wheelbarrow, which becomes the most important piece of gear in the book once the turkey is too plump to walk, and fend off a wolf pack under the great oak at Hollow Oak Camp.
Act Two: The Road to Wattlebury
Word spreads. Orc hunters and Hrugga Spit-Bearer wait in the reeds at Sage Ford, and Grosbec’s wanted posters go up (a charcoal sketch at first, fancier every act). The act peaks in a brawl at the Drumstick Inn, where the bounty-hunting brothers Dace and Morrow Pluck try to collect the purse a day early, before the heroes learn that the only road to Grosbec Hall runs along the Turkey Trot.
Act Three: The Turkey Trot
The Turkey Trot is the Vale’s annual hunting race, and its finish line is the chef’s own hedge gate. The party runs it with the bird: halfling trappers and Mother Thistlewick in the pumpkin patch, the Mill Race, Brokk Gravelbeard and Fizzwick’s Rocket Cart firing nets, and the chef’s hounds at the Hedge Gate, where Snib comes back to push the wheelbarrow.
Act Four: Den of the Beast
Inside Grosbec Hall the party sneaks through the scullery past Mags Dunnet, fights the sous-chef Pellmore Vane in the kitchens, frees the larder captives (earlier victims of the chef, still cursed into farm animals), and climbs the Grand Stair to the Banquet Hall. The finale is a boss fight in three phases against Grosbec in front of sixty guests and a restaurant critic. Killing the chef is not the goal: the turkey wins by taking the Gobble Thrice action three times on the platter.
On the third gobble the curse goes home to the chef who cast it. Grosbec becomes the turkey, and the heroes decide his fate: pardon him, hand him to Snib, or let the banquet go ahead. The aftermath seats the starving heroes at the high table for their first meal in three days.
What makes this Thanksgiving DnD one-shot different
The curse moves around the table
Every hero takes a turn as the turkey. The bird grows plumper each scene it stays on one hero, from a nimble bird to something the size of a hay cart, so passing the curse is a constant tactical choice rather than a single twist.
The turkey is a real combatant
With two players, half the party is a turkey at any moment. The book builds every fight around that: the turkey has a solid attack, a fear effect and an aura that pulls enemies off its friend. The Tender rule means the turkey hero can never die.
The Gobble Rule
The cursed player may only speak in gobbles. Every handoff becomes an argument conducted half in words and half in gobbles, and the book offers a softer version for players who would rather not stay quiet.
What’s included
- A 121-page adventure in four acts and twenty scenes, with read-aloud text
- Ten fights, three of them quick skirmishes, ending in a three-phase boss fight
- Fourteen creatures and NPCs with full stat blocks, from kitchen hounds and kobold cooks to Fizzwick’s Rocket Cart and Chef Grosbec
- Four ready-made level 3 heroes: Wendell Pike, Saffron Quickfoot, Brunhild Ovenstone and Pemberton Lark
- The Turkey Card, a handout for whoever is cursed
- An area map of the Vale of Wattle and eight battle maps with keyed areas
- Six opening hooks, eight What If answers and six closing hooks
- Scaling notes for 2 to 4 players, rest points and a pacing table per act
Want just the battle maps?
The Turkey Trot battle map pack is $2.99 on Payhip. It holds the area map plus eight battle maps (Pottle’s Croft, Hollow Oak Camp, Sage Ford, the Drumstick Inn, Pumpkin Hollow, the Hedge Gate, Grosbec Hall’s kitchens and larder, and the Grand Stair and Banquet Hall) in colour and black and white, GM versions with keys and clean player versions, gridded and gridless, plus universal VTT files with walls, doors and lights. Owners of the book get the pack free: the code is printed inside the book, and the Payhip edition includes it.
We built every one of these maps in Ink Hammer, our in-house map-making program.
Who is this for?
The book is tuned for two players at level 2 as its worst case, with pregens at level 3, and scales to three or four by adding enemies rather than changing statistics. It is an easy run for a new GM: the three facts the players need (the cure, the place and the deadline) are repeated at least three times, and failed checks cost time, hit points or dignity, never the story.
- Thanksgiving game night with friends or family
- Couples and two-player tables, where the curse mechanic shines
- Groups who want a light palate cleanser between campaign arcs
- Younger or newer players: the peril is cartoonish and there is no gore
How long does it take to run?
Twenty scenes in two to three hours works out to about seven minutes a scene, so pace matters. The book budgets 30-40 minutes each for Acts One to Three and 40-50 minutes for Act Four, and names a safe cut for each act: run Scene 4 as one check, narrate Scene 8 and skip the inn brawl, run the Mill Race as one check, and narrate the scullery. Our guide to the 2-hour DnD adventure covers the same trimming techniques in general.
Strengths and weaknesses
The strengths are the central mechanic and the tone. A curse that moves between heroes gives every player a turn in the spotlight, the plumpness track builds escalating comedy without any extra bookkeeping, and the running jokes (Snib’s guilt, the wheelbarrow, the ever-fancier wanted posters) pay off in the finale. The finale itself is strong: a win condition that is not “reduce the boss to zero” lets weaker parties succeed through teamwork.
The weaknesses are real. Twenty scenes is a lot for one session, and a slow table will need the cuts above or will overrun. The book is longer than our usual one-shots at 121 pages, so there is more to read before the first session. The Gobble Rule asks one player to stay mostly silent, which does not suit every group (the book offers a softer version). Some players dislike jokes about their own characters being cooked; the stockpot can be kept off screen. And this is comedy from start to finish: groups who want a tense or serious game should look elsewhere.
How it compares
| Title | Level | Players | Tone |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Turkey Trot | 2-3 | 2-3 | Food-fight slapstick, Thanksgiving chase |
| The Wishbone Hunt | 2-3 | 2-3 | Harvest feast horror-comedy |
| War of the Whey | 2-3 | 2-3 | Comedic alien invasion |
A taste of the writing
The scullery of Grosbec Hall is a steamy cave of copper tubs and dirty plates, with a smell of onions so strong it has its own weather. Snib leads you in behind a cart of dish crates, whispering “act natural” in the voice of someone who has never once acted natural. At the far end, under a sign reading NO GUESTS, NO GOSSIP, NO GOBLINS, a dwarf with forearms like hams looks up from a sink full of gravy boats. “Snib,” she says flatly. “You’re supposed to be dinner.”
Where to buy
The Turkey Trot is available as a paperback on Amazon ($12.99), as a Kindle ebook ($4.99), and as a PDF and EPUB on Payhip ($4.99), which also includes the interior art and the full battle map pack. Planning the rest of the season? See our Christmas DnD one-shots.
Key takeaways
- The Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving DnD one-shot for 2-3 players at levels 2-3, run in one 2-3 hour session
- One hero is cursed into a turkey, and the curse passes around the party all game
- The turkey fights, grows plumper each scene and can never die
- The finale is won by gobbling three times on the platter, not by killing the boss
- Includes ten fights, fourteen stat blocks, four pregens and nine maps
- Twenty scenes is a full session: use the per-act cuts if your table runs long
Frequently asked questions
Can The Turkey Trot be run with two players?
Yes. It is tuned for two players at level 2 as its worst case, and the curse mechanic works best at that size because half the party is always the turkey.
Do I need to run it at Thanksgiving?
No. The book is set at a harvest banquet in a fantasy vale, so it works any time of year, but it fits a November game night best.
Is it suitable for younger players?
The peril is cartoonish, there is no gore and no sexual content, and every turkey in the book is a cursed person who gets turned back. Check the content notes in the introduction for your own table.
Can a hero die?
The turkey hero cannot, thanks to the Tender rule. Human heroes face real fights, and the What If appendix covers what to do if one falls.
About Anvil N Ink Publishing
Anvil N Ink Publishing makes ready-to-run adventures for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, built for small groups and busy GMs. New to short games? Start with our guide on how to run a one-shot.
Pass the curse, push the wheelbarrow and gobble three times: The Turkey Trot is the Thanksgiving DnD one-shot for tables that want to laugh.
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