Ravenous Role Playing

Sorry for missing the adventure hook. I had it in my head, and just flat ran out of time yesterday to get it done. Here’s the hook without any more delays!

A strange man walks into town tasting just a bit of all of the local foods before leaving the remaining morsels behind. With each bite he will moan in pleasure and exult, “Tasty!”

After a day of this harmless strangeness, several beggars begin to follow suit. After several more days more and more citizens are impacted by this strange affliction.

It turns out that anyone who eats the discards of the strange man picks up his curse (or is it a gift?) How do the players plan on putting a stop to this before the entire town’s food stores are wasted one bite at a time?

This one is a pure fantasy adventure hook. I may start throwing in some more sci-fi ones in the future to balance things out.

A young treant slowly shuffles into town and stops at the edge of the buildings. It stands there and waits for someone to approach. If no one approaches, then a group of curious children sneak off in the middle of the night to talk to the treant. Regardless of who approaches, the treant informs the people that visit him of a new portal that opened up in his forest and small demons are leaking through the portal and infecting the forest. The treant has come to the town to implore a group of adventurers to cleanse the forest of the demons and find a way to close the portal.

All of the local, private gardens in the area have turned up dead and rotten. The plants died overnight, but anyone with a decent herbalism (or related) skill can tell that the plants have been dead for at least a week. After a second night passes, the plants rot into nothing more than black stubs. On the third night, the trees in the area begin to wilt. This is when the players are called in out of fear of a horrible necromantic attack on the area’s plantlife. If the PCs are in an area where nature is revered, they may even be called in after the first night of strangeness.

This is a hook for a modern or future sci-fi game.

The Internet has gone missing! No matter how characters connect to the Internet (dial-up, wifi, DSL, cable modem, ISDN, radio packet, satellite, etc.) they just can’t find anything on the Internet (or Ultranet or Crystal Wind* or whatever you call it in your world). They can connect and everything appears to be functioning, but there is simply no data out there. After talking with other people (in person, no less, since their online connections are down,) the group discovers it is just they that are having issues. Everyone else in the world hasn’t noticed a thing.

Who has sabotaged the PCs? For that matter, the PCs with neural implants (or some other form of cybernetics) how was it accomplished without their noticing?

* It’s my little homage to Daniel Keys Moran here. He calls the global network The Crystal Wind in his series of books.

Everyone in the local region (can be a village, town, duchy or even a kingdom!) with tiefling blood has suddenly started to glow in the dark. There have been no other side effects (for ill or boon) other than the glowing. Of course, a tiefling thief attempting to lurk in the darkness will consider this an ill effect. Rumors abound that it is due to the experimentation of a nearby wizard’s cabal and that more dire experiences are soon to follow. What is the cabal’s intent? Is it even the cause of the wizards or are they the easy target to blame? It’s time for the PCs to gear up, head out and discover the true cause of the glowing tieflings.

Strange trees with strange fruit have popped up everywhere in town over the past several days. At first, they were just small shoots jutting through the cobblestones and open markets of the area, but in just a few days they have grown to full-sized trees complete with fruit. Anyone brave enough (or stupid enough) to eat the fruits appear to fall into a coma within a few hours of eating the tasty red morsels, but seem to suffer no ill effects other than the inability to wake up. Where did the trees come from? What is going on with the fruits? How will the PCs get the innocents out of their comas? Answers lie in whatever devious minds of the GMs that wish to pick this up and run with it.

People have been vanishing from the slums of the city. This is nothing new and the constabulary of the city don’t much care. However, some of the vanished people were well-to-do folks that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The few witnesses to the kidnappings have reported elves riding large dragonflies picking up several people and flying them into the nearby desert. Now that enough “important” people have been taken, the local government has offered a reward for anyone brave enough to venture into the desert to put an end to the elven raiders.

PS: This is a slight paraphrasing of the hook of the Ashen Sands of Aegandos adventure that just entered beta. It’s from Fliud Games, and I happened to help write the adventure. If you happen to be in the Denver area this weekend, hit Tacticon and track down the Fluid booth where you can pick up a copy of the Player’s Guide to Aegandos and (if there are slots left) play test in the beta of the adventure with me running the games. Check us out!

All around the city marbles are falling from the sky. These marbles are no different from the normal toys children play with other than their origin is unknown, and they do not shatter upon hitting the ground.

Enough people have been wounded (though not severely) by the falling items that the local governance has hired the PCs to investigate the odd source of the marbles and put a stop to them.

PS: Sorry for missing the artifact on Tuesday. Work kicked me in the head hard enough that I just went home and almost collapsed in exhaustion.

Here’s one for anytime after the Great Depression onwards to space faring days.

Smilin’ Joe, the local used transportation dealer (car, hovercraft, space ship, etc.) sells the PC a car. However, the PC is no further than three blocks/parsecs from the dealership when they are pulled over, promptly searched and found to be transporting a tidy sum of illegal drugs in the spare tire (or engine room if a space ship.) Smilin’ Joe claims innocence and now the PC is in hot water with the law. Some unnamed benefactor bails the PC with a note telling them to be at a certain location within a few hours. What can all this mean? Is PC going to get back at Smilin’ Joe somehow? Who is the mysterious helper? The PC (and his comrades in arms) will have to find out as the adventure unfolds.

The local well/fountain/stream/spring that feeds the town’s water supply has suddenly dried up. A local mytic says she can taste magic on the air near the former water source. The town’s leaders hire the PCs to investigate what is going on.