Roleplaying Hooks & Storyline Ideas

[Head Moderator]

Roleplaying Hooks

Here are one sentence ideas to spur on your roleplaying tonight, or help you come up with your own mission!

☼ • The stone gargoyle decorations on the castle in Navahla have gone missing overnight; royal scions hire adventurers to aid in their recovery.

☼ • A pair of wererat criminals are captured but they vanish from their locked coach during their transfer to prison.

☼ • What appears to be a book of spells is actually a recipe for an extended magical ritual to call down meteors from the heavens -- with the power to destroy an entire city.

☼ • A mage's cache of material components was stolen by a notorious rogue. The PCs are hired to steal them back by whatever means necessary before the components can be used to summon a storm elemental to wreak havoc on the land!

☼ • The heroes are sent to kidnap a young prince -- for his own good. Unbeknownst to the prince's guardians, assassins in the palace will kill the prince during the next full moon.

☼ • The PCs are hired to start a riot during an important election in Zyon.

☼ • A greedy lord taxes his vassals to pay for the expensive gifts he buries with his ancestors. The PCs help the serfs by robbing the lord's mausoleum to return their hard-earned funds.

☼ • One of the adventurers unexpectedly sees her own face on a "wanted" poster outside a tavern.

☼ • Under deep vaults in the Ridgebacks lie the remains of a long-dead madman, which must be properly buried in sanctified ground before his spirit will stop haunting the mountain passes.

☼ • A cultist begins construction of an enormous musical instrument composed of the skulls and bones of hundreds of elves -- an eldritch machine designed to bring forth melodies capable of waking the cultist's dark masters.

☼ • A child is lost somewhere in a northern forest -- time is running out before he will die of exposure.

☼ • A worried changeling father asks the heroes to locate his runaway daughter somewhere in Navahla (or another major city) -- and though the daughter can change her appearance at will, she was wearing an embroidered green cloak when last her father saw her.

☼ • In a fishing village in Madder, the heroes discover evidence of an underground slave trade leading all the way to the Anoi'pua Islands.


^{Thanks to "Steal this Hook" .}

[Head Moderator]

Storyline Ideas

1) THE MISSING MUMMY
When the Historical Museum of Navahla's exhibit, "Ancient Rulers," opens to the public, the most anticipated item on display is the recently-discovered sarcophagus of Salvitorn the Third, a centuries-old Sarkotos lord. The docent of the exhibit throws open the sarcophagus to reveal Salvitorn's mummified body, but besides the musk of embalming spice, it's empty. Did the local rich aficionado hire thugs for "grand theft mummy" to add to his private collection? Has a curse somehow shriveled the mummy to dust? Perhaps worst of all, did Salvitorn walk out of his box of his own accord, bent on punishing the living for his centuries-long dirt nap?

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2) THE ALMANAC OF TOMORROW
In a dungeon, the heroes discover a chamber full of loose parchment pages (note: fire hazard!). Buried under the pages are the remains of a magical almanac that adds a new page to itself each day. Years ago, the book's cover burst under the strain of the stream of new pages, and now the dungeon room is packed with them. Each page carries the date it was created and makes predictions about what will happen tomorrow (that's tomorrow from the day the page was created). They predict weather patterns, casualty numbers, troop movements, and other significant events.

The most recent page reports that a disaster will occur tomorrow, and the heroes may be able to prevent it! Perhaps it reports that tomorrow's "casualty numbers" are in the hundreds. Perhaps it reports a weather disaster brought on by a rogue member of one of a high ranking noble house. It may report pestilence and famine that the heroes know to be caused by an evil curse. The almanac loses accuracy if it is removed from the dungeon chamber but still produces useful information. Investigating its origin might lead to further adventures.

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3) THE BLANK CODEX
The uncle of one of the PCs dies and leaves his adventuring nephew or niece a curious old codex bound in leather and locked with a keycharm. The cover has no title but is decorated with circular sigils. When they get it open, its pages are blank -- yet the book radiates magic! It turns out that each page is written with a special kind of illusory script: unreadable unless certain conditions are met. Some of the pages are time-based: one becomes readable when one of the moons is waxing, for example. Others are based on characteristics of the reader: only elves or those with blue eyes can read.

What can be read there? The book is the journal of a powerful mage and war veteran in the uncle's family (the arcane mark of the mage is probably on it somewhere). The mage traveled extensively and saw many wonders and mysteries, making the book a gold mine of potential adventures. Now that it has emerged, the book may also draw attention to the heroes. A representative of a powerful noble house would pay handsomely for such a work of scribing; enemies of the old mage may try to steal it; and an obsessed cultist who believes it may contain a map to a protected temple may threaten or kill the heroes for it.

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4) ESCAPING THE HANGMAN'S NOOSE
An elven blacksmith charged with murder will be hanged at sundown tomorrow, but his daughter knows he's innocent. There's no time to prove his innocence before the appointment with the gallows: the heroes must rescue him from death first, and then, while on the run from the law, help seek the evidence that will clear him. Did the man's prosecutors simply miss clues that lead to the real killer, or is the man being deliberately framed? Perhaps the real killer is a relative with a grudge who has used their relationship to frame him. Perhaps the man was in the process of forging a weapon that could expose and slay a vampire secretly preying on the town, and the vampire's minions have influenced the town's process of law to condemn the man before the weapon can be finished.

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5) A TALE OF GUILT AND HONOR
Brother Yerrond, an aging cleric of the Common Church, bashes the ornate stained-glass windows of his temple. He scratches runic symbols on his forehead. He leaves town, carrying a bar laden with weights across his shoulders, leaving his community wondering what hidden guilt had been eating away at him. The heroes are asked to track down Yerrond, and when they do, they find him making his way toward Westby in Doxenia. Yerrond assures them that he hasn't gone mad, but he asks for their help in locating a particular family from Doxenia. Because he killed the youngest son during his youth, he seeks to offer his life to the family as payment for their son's. Brother Yerrond refuses help with his heavy weight during the entire journey, but he appreciates the heroes' assistance with the perils of the trip.

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6) WHERE DEAD MAY HIDE
A walking corpse wearing a cloak to hide its appearance is looking for a way to take a coach to Rumeria, and it needs the heroes' help to make the journey. This may be an opportunity for a serious story about a restless spirit trying to return home and the "undead discrimination" he faces along the way, or -- perhaps more likely -- a silly, light-hearted adventure about a zombie (or other undead) on the run. To keep the tension high, have numerous close calls, with discovery just around the corner. The local guards wants to see his papers and compare his face to local wanted posters. A nearby traveler complains about the smell coming from the traveler. A child rolls a ball right between the legs of the zombie while resting at an inn and runs to catch it -- only to look up into those dead eyes. . . . There may be one or more other groups on the move trying to locate the departed traveler at the same time: some living family members who claim it owes them money, or some obsessed cultists, or a biographer who just won't give up.



^{Thanks to "Steal this Hook" .}