Growing One Hundred Adventure Seeds

[Josh]

In the 3.5e DMG, there was a list of 100 adventure seeds. I remember as a nascent wanna-be GM being blown away by the wild range of stories you could tell in an RPG. But, I don’t think I ever actually built an adventure off of any of them. I’m going to post a new seed every few days, and invite short brainstorms of how you would build them out into an evening’s play.

Here goes:

1.) Thieves steal the crown jewels

I like this one, it immediately asks questions (who are the thieves, who is the monarch, are the jewels merely valuable or perhaps enchanted) and slightly subverts a trope: normally its the players who are doing the robbing.

Version 1: Returning the King’s Greatest Treasure
A gang of disreputable adventurers have slipped into the king’s castle past its secret wards, broken the vault and fled with his treasures. He puts out a vast bounty on the return of the jewels, but only if the leader of the gang is also captured alive – few know that the leader of the gang is in fact the king’s own rebellious daughter! They were seen riding at speed towards the hills and caves of the Black Warrens, where no human can track them down. But it is said no one moves in the Warrens without paying tribute to the High Gourmet and his Ogregarchic Butcher chiefs. Perhaps the PCs cna pick up a lead from him.

Version 2: Lockdown
The decree comes down from the criers that the Queen’s jewels have been stolen and all travel in the land is forbidden until the culprits are found. This is a big problem for a merchant acquaintance of the PCs, whose goods will not survive an indefinite quarantine. He offers the PCs 40% of the profits if they can help, a princely sum. Can the PCs get the merchant’s goods out the city, whether by sewer, cart, boat or royal airship while avoiding being accosted by zealous guards looking out for adventurer types? Of course, who is the merchant’s rendezvous than the very underworld kingpins who have stolen the royal treasures. Will they help the criminals against the sudden royal guard attack, or turn loyalist in the hope of reward?

Version 3: Crown Maketh Kings
The Eternal Emperor has ruled the land for as long as anyone can remember. Not kind, but not excessively cruel, he has kept peace. But now the Whiteglass Crown, the very source of his immortality and mastery of the royal enchantments has been stolen! Whoever owns the crown is de facto monarch, in control of the automata guard, the great magical gates, even the 10-league highways that join the wide nation. But who does own the crown? All the factions of the kingdom are searching for it: the Emperor himself, the ambitious Sable Duke, the autonomist mining guild and even the old Sphinx has been spotted roaming the skies for the first time in decades. Will the PCs throw their hat in the ring? Either for one of the many bidding employers or for themselves? Or will they simply try to protect the people and places they love as the realm descends into civil war and chaos. And anyway, what are the motivations and whereabouts of the mysterious wizard who waltzed into the emperor’s inner sanctum with such ease?

[greenmirror]

My spin on it would be

If you have established a Rival Adventuring Crew that the PCs hate, have them run to the party, badly injured from the jewel heist and asking for help. They need to get out of the city quickly before the King’s Inquisitor, Vilnius The Nose, sniffs them out.

The Rivals try to low-ball but will offer up to half the fenced value. The gates of the city are barred and patrols doubled. Perhaps the sewers offer a means of escape and a ward against Vilnius hound-like senses. But strange things dwell beneath the city.

Or perhaps the party will turn on them or turn them in. But can they prove they weren’t accomplices? Afterall, The Nose can smell the thieves’ stink on them and such filth are best left to the courts…

[Josh]

I love it Green Mirror! I like the idea of Vilnius, they remind me of Bellows from the novel Mordew, a factotum for the city-ruling wizard.

A new day, a new seed!
2. A dragon flies into a town and demands tribute

Hm, I didn’t love this one at first, but there are some cool ideas here I think. The straightforward hook is ‘kill the dragon (possibly after retrieving dragon-killing sword), save the town, get praise’, but things get more interesting if you present the dragon as far too big and powerful to fight directly.

Version 1: The mummer’s dragon

An Orange Dragon comes to demand a long list of payments from the town, and the townfolk are all set to obey. But one scholar thinks something is wrong: he has never read of an Orange Dragon, nor of one with a taste for ‘that good ale the inkeep breaks out when the Earl comes round’. He hires the PCs to investigate. could there be a link to the strange hallucinogenic mushrooms he has started to find in the nearby woods?

Version 2: Pay the rent, or, Dragons as Job Creators for the Adventuring Class

The dragon knows the town is wealthy and demands an impossible ransom of gems. Pleas that the town’s glory days are centuries past and that the local emerald mines were overrun by the Dao and their elemental slaves generations ago fall on deaf ears. The PCs are begged by the villagers to journey into the depths as many times as needed to retrieve three sacks of emeralds before the week is up and the town burns. More mercenary PCs may be able to negotiate for property or titles in exchange for their services. The dragon is sure to return semi-regularly throughout the campaign, motivating more dungeon delves, until at last the PCs are able to slay the beast – and recollect their hard earned treasure.

Version 3: If you want something done right, do it yourself
The colossal dragon demands the firstborn child of every family in the town for his dinner – again. Luckily, the town pays a fee to the Illumined Order of Draketongues for this very purpose. Unluckily, riders sent to the Order’s Citadel have not returned and no ambassadors have come to negotiate a less bloody offering. Can the PCs find out what ill fate has befallen the Order and find the secrets of draconic negotiation within their mysteriously abandoned citadel?

[greenmirror]

Thanks! I think Vilnius is a combo of The Witches and the weaselly alien from Dr. Who that can sniff out the Doctor’s Time Lord essence in pre-WWI England. Bellows is awesome.

I think my favorite is the Orange dragon hook, but all offer fun to be had. The Emerald extortion racket is one of those great, “wait is this a noir plot?” moments. Maybe the Dao and the Dragon have history and scores to settle. Perhaps the emeralds have deeper purpose.

Alright, my turn to take a crack at it.

Pious Edgemoor no longer commends rich, golden tribute to their once sacred bog as offering to its murky depths. Rebuked of this heresy by Saint Cerwenned, the village now tithes to the dead Saint’s Cult. The crops wither and the faithful starve, but the collection bowl will have its take. The zealous clergy of Cerwenned have even dredged three wondrous artifacts from the moors waters.

But in answer the dragon, Dryg, has crawled from its primordial soup to reclaim those tools of power: The Rod of Rule, the Girdle of Guile, and the Golden Face of Twin. Rumor says they lie deep in the Catacombs of Cerwened, and while the clergy’s pride denies it, the waters of Dryg’s bog already seep into their hallowed chambers.

Can the Party recover these items before the bog swallows the catacombs and town? Can the Monks of Cerwenned be convinced to renounce greed before it turns them to monsters in their own right? We shall see.

It’s vague but it is the kinda vague I like to work with.

[Josh]

That’s super cool, I love the visual of the swamp dragon, and the corrupt monks provide great RP opportunities. Especially if the party has some religious and some irreligious PCs in. When an adventure involves the Magic Tchotchkes of Important Plot, I always wonder what happens if the PCs just decide to run off with them? I guess in this case the town sinks into the bog, and they have made an enemy of both Dryg and St Cerwened’s church: those better be powerful items!

Seed 3 is The tomb of an old wizard has been discovered.

In your average fantasy campaign this seems to be a biweekly occurrence. Good job there are hordes of adventurers ready to take on these kooky dungeons (or megadungeons) and learn the wizard’s secrets. Lets see if we can come up with some alternate takes:

Version 1: Never meet your heroes (or their corpse)
Garhan the righteous gave his life centuries ago to defend his homeland against invaders from the west. Statues of this patriotic pyromancer stand in every town square. So then why has his long-list tomb been rediscovered hundreds of miles inside the enemies’ kingdom? And why is it bedecked in accolades and eulogies from the court of the hated Black Rose Empress?
The players must search Garhan’s tomb not just for treasure and magical loot, but for the truth of their own history, and who might have benefited from rewriting it. A shadowy order of Illuminati may well be making their own moves in and around the tomb to make sure the truth never gets out.

Version 2: The Dead Have Friends
Prinaes the Great, Master of the Storm, Sage of Ages, etc. etc. was buried in a sealed tomb in a secret location with all his treasures. Now the secret location has been found and the dungeoneering has begun. But Prinaes the Fourth, his well-monied but magically bereft heir is furious. He is offering vast sums to adventurers who can retrieve his ancestor’s precious items from the university vaults and adventurer’s forts where they have been sequestered, and return them to their rightful place. The second half of this mission is no easier than the first, as the looters have left Prinaes’ magical wards and alarms fully raging, and the magical guardians have no way to differentiate friend from foe.

Version 3: Let the World Be His Tomb
When the Archmage lived he weaved magick into new realms: enlarging cities, widening oceans, creating mountains from whole cloth. When the Knives of Deity cut him down, his creations vanished, causing widespread chaos that took decades to recover from. But now voices whisper in taverns that the Archmage’s landscapes did not vanish, they simply moved. Certain ritual symbols enscribed on any common doorway offer passage into the patchwork world of sorcerous whimsy that now forms the Archmage’s tomb. But his creations, living and inanimate were never intended to exist without the Archmage’s supervision, and unexpected magical horrors are now mixed in with the planned wonders of his genius. The secrets of which symbols lead to which parts of the Archmage’s tomb realm are closely guarded, and trial and error is fearfully dangerous, but incalculably rewarding to the fortunate.

Version 1 offers a small twist on the traditional theme, Version 2 largely reverses it: the many fortresses of magical collectors, all of whom likely know eachother and have their own grudges, could easily be viewed as a spatially divided megadungeon with many factions, and Version 3 says ‘you know what, megadungeons aren’t big enough for me!’. I also like the idea of being able to enter the dungeon from anywhere, which I imagine would create a wacky cosmopolitan milieu of fellow explorers.

[greenmirror]

Thank you! Swamps and the beasts that dwell below are my passion.

Maybe the swamp just continues to grow as Dryg lays waste to all with brackish breath. The church might send dragon slayers to defeat the beast and inquisitors to reclaim the bounty lost. I assume the items are sentient, have agendas, and will warp the PCs with use. I feel like they are the tools of dead trickster god. Maybe they are trying to get back to him or see the world for themselves now that they’re free.

As you say, seed 3 feels a lil regular. But you’ve done a good job of making the trope fresh. Version 1 is great. Love a re-contextualization of history. And the powers that want to control that narrative opens up the door for Enemy of the State (1998) shenanigans.

I like Version 2 the best because it subverts the assumptions of dungeon games in line with modern ethics discourse in archaeology and its history (and present) of glorified tomb robbing. Does this open the door for the players to return more items to their resting places? Even if the answer is no, it creates a tension that the players now have to address.

Version 3 feels really epic. I would love to play in a game of this scope. It reminds me somewhat of dungeons in The Nightmares Underneath but with a firmer skeleton. Dungeon as Otherworld is my jam.

My spin:
Through luck and perseverance, the party has breached the catacombs of Dread Kargas the Red for the promise of untold arcane riches. Few speak Kargas’ name aloud; his legacy has made red a byword for devilry and a shade best not worn off the battlefield.
It is said by some Kargas was not buried at all, but entrapped within a labyrinth woven around his fortress library. The Knights of Eight Blades believe Kargas still walks those halls, and will venture to lay him low should they find the tomb disturbed.
This, however, cannot be true. For Kargas was not sealed into the labyrinth alone. Kargas’ bane has slumbered long and hungers for life, while the ghost of the wizard wanders the labyrinth, harried forever by the memory of that thing which dragged him down. Perhaps the knowledge to defeat the creature lies within the library, though Kargas certainly never found it.

[Josh]

In my regular campaign at the moment I’ve been doing a lot with swamps (or to be less prejudicial ‘wetlands’). I’ve got a nomadic society who canoe around with tiny ceramic gods in their prows, get ting into multi-generational blood feuds and making sure the bog daemons never break free of their bindings. Its good fun.

I like your approach to the wizard tomb prompt, lots going on. I wouldn’t want to get caught between a wizard ghost, his Bane and a group of angry knights at the same time! Unless there was sufficient treasure on the line of course…

So prompt 4 is wealthy merchants are being killed in their homes

Its setting us up for a mystery: Who killed them? Why? How do we stop them? Its also surprisingly grounded for 3rd edition dnd, its not wizards or priests or warlords dying, its just regular old merchants, presumably in an urban or semi-urban setting. So naturally, I’ve made the first version all about satanic contracts and in the second version turned it into a guard-quest.

Version 1: Mammon’s Long Claw
Three of the most influential business people in the city are dead, and the details filtering through the cities backrooms and taverns are grisly in the extreme. A powerful patron employs the PCs to get to the bottom of it before any others die. But when the party starts to realise that each mogul’s improbable success has ties to the infernal they may start to ask questions noone wants answers to. Can they track down the devil responsible, before it claims its other 4 contracts? Do they even want to? And what ‘thank you’ might they receive from the remaining nefarious merchants whose secrets they have uncovered, or the churches that turned a blind eye?
(This could be a whole campaign rather than an adventure to be honest. It also permits some interesting tension between the stated mission and the expected result which makes me think of The Wire: should they solve the murders no matter what, or just brush things under the rug? What are they obligated to share? Can they navigate knowing too much?)

Version 2: No good deed
Only four men with means were willing to fund the revolution and now three of them are dead. The Tyrant In Exile’s assassins have left no doubt as to the perpetrator. Feligrim of the Cloves has no intention of dying before his hated one-time ruler, but he knows the old capital is too corrupt and sprawling to protect himself against. He has hired every able adventurer of note, the PCs included, to guard his Grand Caravan as it crosses the Desert of the Red King to his holdings in the distant west. Sand worms, nomadic raiders and shadowy assassins may be the least of the worries, as it swiftly becomes apparent at least one of the adventuring groups is working for the Tyrant.
(I kind of like how with this one the desert itself can be thought of as a dungeon, with respected PCs having more say in the route, while the caravan itself and its nightly camp routine allows for some fort-building games for interested players, and provides a travelling court of ‘big energy’ NPCs with drama and intrigue)

[greenmirror]

Your bog nomads sound cool. I like their lil ceramic gods.

Prompt 4: I love mysteries! Even if they can be tough to make satisfying. Version 1’s city of devil dealing is a great idea. Very occult noir. I imagine police and clergy making the players lives difficult and telling them “Just drop it” a lot. Version 2 reminds me of a story in Kalpa Imperial just a touch which is nice. It also seems like a great opportunity to include a haunted Petra-like ruin in it that the players can find/take shelter in/etc.

Pale Mask

On the eve of Carnivale in Venatrix, two Princeps of rival houses Giocundus and Helvi have been found dead, unmarked, and locked within their lavish studies. Stranger still, each was seen leaving these quarters shortly before their bodies were found. As each house prepares for war on festive streets, the party is approached by envoys from each house to find a culprit before the streets run red.

But what do the strange ivory masks found in each Princep’s study have to do with their deaths? Does a third player benefit from chaos in the city? House Grenaldus surely stands to gain, having just secured exclusive trade in imported ivory. And their Campo stands locked and silent as tensions escalate.

Uncaring, Tower Clock of Plaza Chimera tolls towards Carnivale. And a cloaked figure masked in ivory roams canals and streets leaving the bodies in their wake. Some say it moves like a shade, and can take people’s faces. Few know it desires its prize within Campo Grenaldus and wants a face that can get it in. Because the ivory belongs to it.

A deal was made. And it always gets its due.

[Josh]

There’s a lot going on in that one! Love the cultural theme. Feels inspired by locklands?

I love the Carnivale complication to the story: what happens when it arrives? A simple street party Great setting for a street chase or a subtle stealthy combat encounter Jason bourne style)? Or something more mystical, perhaps tied into the masked figure’s timeline. I feel the stirrings of a 100 magical carnivals list aha.

Who is this ivory masked figure? What was the deal? Very mysterious and cool.

The next seed is:
5. The statue in the town square is found to be a petrified paladin.

Version 1: Her time will come
Long has the proud mien of the Daughter of Light looked over the markets of Dawnhold. The days of such noble heroes are long past and now countless threats beset the land: vampires mass in the North leaving whole villages drained and discarded, the Speaker of Trolls once more lets loose bloody summons on the eastern winds and the silver mines are overrun by chittering horrors from the deeps. So when the king’s archivist comes to the PCs with the knowledge that the Daughter is no mere statue but the preserved paladin herself, they know they hold the land’s future in their hands. Either this world lacks Flesh to Stone spells, or the sorcery is immune to all such simplistic solutions. The PCs must search for the key to her release: a shortlist of wise hermits and isolated temple monasteries are given to them to begin. When mysterious armoured figures move time and again to stop them, they may wonder who would stand against the Daughter’s return. Her own acolytes in fact, sworn to secrecy, who know that the great battle for which she is preserved will not come for many centuries yet.

Version 2:
The PCs are hired to travel to the High Anchorage and obtain the means for Caspian the Pure to be revived from his stony state. A straightforward fetch quest, although complicated by the Anchorage’s position atop the elementally-active mountain of storms. The trouble begins soon after Caspian’s return however. Law and Virtue are excellent foundations for a society but few are able to live lives totally devoid of sin – a reality Capian seems to have little tolerance for. As the jails fill to bursting, the merchants flee the city, and even the kind-hearted city priest is defrocked for violating canon law, many begin to wonder if it might be best for Caspian to return to his silent vigil. Perhaps the gorgon is available for contract work again? Alternatively, the PCs may set out to challenge Caspian by bringing report of his deeds to the very Herald of Heaven themselves, or contesting him in his own labyrinthine courts. If they simply move on, they may well have to navigate a campaign world riven by a glorious, rigid, crusade.

Version 3: In distant times, the explorers came into the five valleys. They struggled against hardship to build a new town, and faced constant war with the local orcs. In the battle of six dawns, the great leader Saint Petras was slain, and the town named in his honour. Now a great city, Saint Petras never forgets their stolen hero and still wars with the orc. Many border homesteads are burned every year, and just as many orcish tunnels are collapsed in retribution. Why then, the Grotesque, a 8 foot tall black-stone monstrosity that leers over the ancient stones of the Old Bathhouse waving an axe is considered acceptable decoration has been a question of long debate in the city. Still it has never been removed. But now a new translation of ancient texts by visiting scholars suggests the Grotesque is Petras himself! As the city riots in outrage, the PCs are implored to get the scholars out the city, hide Petras’ statue somewhere safe, and help the scholars travel inside the Black Mountain to obtain unequivocal proof of Petras’ true identity. Even if they succeed, will exposing the rotten roots of the feud actually stop the killing?

[greenmirror]

I can see the Locklands influence now that you mention it, though I was going for a Generic Fantasy Venice™ complete with Fortunados and casks of amontillado (this would have to be a Carnivale random encounter). The masked figure was my attempt at tweaking a doppleganger into something I like more. Something more ghostly.

Seed 5

I will admit I pulled out my old DMG yesterday to peak ahead, and was excited about this one.

Version 1:
I love the setup and the tension of “ugh, okay well do we complete the mission anyway against the acolytes wishes?” And if they don’t, do the PCs try to step up to fill those shoes or find someone else who can? Do they let things fall to ruin? Good and unsatisfying choices!

Version 2:
This kind of idea was the first thing that popped into my head when I read the prompt yesterday. Overzealous paladins are a favorite trope of mine and I’ll try to do my spin justice below. As to your version, I love the idea that people are floating a new deal with the Gorgon, which makes me wonder if this is how it all went down in the first place.

Version 3:
I will always love the “Oh actually this guy you love is something you hate” bait and switch. And the thought that their could be a resolution and reconciliation between the orcs and the five valleys with time and work is complicated but hopeful.

My version:
In life, Sacerdos Pius was a sanctimonious twit. In stone, an agreeable roost for pigeons. But alas, Pius has been freed and lips sweet with praise to Just motions of the Heavens that lead him to this moment. He draws the religious to him, blowing hot the embers of their faith, correcting them when necessary, building them up after smacking them low. All across the valley Pius raises tents, lays hands, preaches the Unceasing Law.
It will be at least a month for the slow fervor to take root. When their numbers are strong, they will seize the town to better serve The Law. Those that are different serve The Law least. Those who swear faith and fealty serve it most. “Law is the fruit of Obedience,” is the slogan of a new age and Sacerdos Pius sows by word and sword.

I’m thinking real Charlemagne, forced conversions, pagans building massive earthworks to keep this jerk outta there territory vibes from Sacerdos Pius. He will undoubtedly take larger and larger cuts of dungeon loot to fund his Inquisitions, and maybe outlaw the practice outright. After all, dungeon punks are a bit too different to live in a proper society. The rub is of course that no one really likes this guy, he just has powers and obedient soldiers, so instigating a rebellion is gonna be fun, if messy as hell.

[Josh]

Yes I think the overzealous paladin is a great device. I like your idea of ramping them up into a campaign-level threat. Then you can always consider another twist: what if its all necessary to stop an organised greater evil after all? Or he thinks it is at least. I think Eberron had paladins whose divine flame was actually a devil in disguise.

Seed 6 is: A caravan of important goods is about to leave for a trip through a dangerous area

Oh and I already used my caravan idea! So naturally the prompt suggests an escort quest: get the goods where they need to go. Yes you could subvert that, but I’m going to try reading this one straight*.

I’ve actually never run an escort mission. Why is that? I guess they feel quite railroady and linear, and potentially repetitive. But maybe I just need a bit of a different angle to make it work. We’ve got pacing and exciting set dressing baked in, so lets focus on choices. Here I’ve suggested ideas that probably would work best with a gradually revealed hexmap, but a sufficiently rich pointcrawl map would also work.

1: Trailbeaters - choosing the path
250 Breezebloom palm saplings sure fill a lot of wagons. But their fresh green seeds provide the only known cure to the knifeback fever decimating the southern kingdoms, and the Domini of those lands have beggared their people for 5 generations to obtain viable samples of these notoriously picky plants. As they die swiftly in salty air the High Arborist has elected to lead the March of Trees overland through the scarcely traveled jungle-mountains of Parnath. The Caravan will be slow even with 40 strong woodcutters, as they will have to stop often to water the plants and rotivate their soil: they stand no chance of navigating the jungle’s dangers alone, and so the PCs have been hired.
They must stay ahead of the caravan, mapping what they find, scouting the long-lost people and ancient creatures that live there, and choose what path they deem fit through Parnath. perhaps they will negotiate passage through the cities of the scaled ones, or find the key to open the giant’s road through the Kror Mountains. Will they advise the caravan avoid the Snaketongue river and its vast crocodiles, or slay the largest and make use of its uncluttered banks?

2: save the little children
When the PCs are hired to escort a wagon late at night from the edge of town, they probably expect contraband. Instead they find 10 small children hidden under crates, and a savagely wounded driver moments from death, imploring the PCs see them safely to the Gate of the Moon. The journey should be simple, if long. But as soon becomes apparent, the children are latent sorcerers of astonishing power and others are looking for them. Mages on griffonback, roaving airships from mysterious organisations overhead and masked clerics riding iron horses, all harass the countryside and wilds. The PCs will need to use guile and careful camp site planning to avoid an endless series of battles. The uncontrolled powers of the children are also likely to cause problems, especially if they are pushed to discuss the circumstances of their childhood.

3: The great caravan robbery
*OK I failed. This is a robbery not an escort mission

The Plateau of Worms is at war: its nations shed endless blood, towns are abandoned, roads and fields turn to undifferentiable iron-tinged mud.
Plousioteros Kai Tanna, seller of arms, funder of warlords, now threatened by his own merchandise, has decided it is time to move to greener pastures and is carting his wealth out under heavy guard. An ally of the PCs, or perhaps an enemy of the Plousioteros drawn to the party by their general competence, has the map of the treasure wagon’s path. It is a winding route which will likely take weeks to complete, leading into sunken karst roads, narrow dykes across moors and ultimately down the Nine Switchbacks of the Wizards. The guard will be too much for the party to handle, but if they move fast, they can find an ideal ambush location, prepare it and make a deal with local mercenaries or militias to assist them in the raid.

[greenmirror]

I’ve never really liked the “Actually this person doing heinous stuff is actually doing it to fight an even greater evil” trope. Probably because that’s how such things are justified in the real world. Sacerdos Pius absolutely thinks in such terms and embodies Law in extrema by enforcing hierarchy as an absolute with no exceptions.

Most of what I knew about Eberron was supplemental stuff from the Wizards site way back when, but the idea that alignment and religion were independent spoke to me. The 9 alignment system, and truthfully even the Law-Chaos axis, don’t make much sense if you look at em too hard.

I really like the caravan of child-sorcerers being smuggled out! Lots of opportunities for complications and drama with the kids and their powers. And the asymmetry of flying opponents vs. a caravan is extreme. It will have players looking for the closest forest (undoubtedly haunted) and possibly abandoning the caravan altogether if it proves burdensome.

The Wind Tides of Thabandor
That’s right, it’s what we’ve all been waiting for: Airship caravan!!!
The hulking airship Leadbetter is leaving port with armaments bound for the besieged republic of Irid. But the direct path is blocked by the towering Skein Mountains whose peaks no airship has crested. And usual route through the winding Harpin Pass is contested ground between the kingdom of Irid and their bitter enemies The Rull. The way to Harpin is harried by Rull patrols and artillery emplacements, but a rumored alternative route lies to the North–under the mountain. Others say the Hermit Airwright Gonn has found a way to top the peaks. But finding them will cost valuable time that Irid may not have.

[Josh]

I really like Eberron as a setting, lots of imaginative ideas in there, and I find its high magic pulpy feel is perfect for the Dnd 3e+ rulesets. Its heavy use of airships and other borderline steampunk/sailpunk ideas was also v cool, and I like your airship caravan idea a lot! Your framing is practically useful too: let the players choose between through, over, or under, and then you can prep whichever you need in a fairly linear fashion if time-pressed. I’d definitely pick under, I love the visual of the blimp passing through cavernous tunnels.

Prompt 7 is: Cultists are kidnapping potential sacrifices
The best ways to make this old idea interesting, IMO, is to add some complication to the sacrifices, play with the cult themselves, or to make the selection criteria unusual. I’ve tried all three, in that order:

Version 1: A magistrate or other powerful authority comes to the PCs with an urgent contract. Four youths have been abducted from the village of Greenhollow and taken into the depths of the Writhing Wood by the malevolent Cult of the Budding Prince. This sect has been preying upon the locals for decades to fuel their twisted superstitions, and the youths are to be sacrificed on the spring equinox in only a few night’s time! The paths leading to the Prince’s Circle are tangled and overun with animated plants and carniverous vines, but the cultists themselves can put up only a token defense. A party that takes time to check in with the villagers first, or gives the cultists time to speak before cutting them down, will learn things are more complex than they appear. Though the youths have been abducted against their will, the sacrifice is only a metaphor: they spend a week in darkness during the prime of their lives to renew the year, and then are released. The villagers tolerate this sometimes traumatic ordeal as the cost of the region’s exceptional harvest. It is up to the PCs to decide what fate the cult truly deserve, but their law-abiding employer will be displeased with anything except a capital sentence for the cult.

Version 2: Obey your father child or the Painted Jokers of the Screaming Clown will take you away. Do not stray from the path on the edge of town or they will dance their knives into your meat and laugh all the while. Be home by dark, or the last thing you see may be the bloody altar of the Circus and the insane eyes of the Ringmaster. All the people of the land are raised on these tales, and it is true that this region has more than its fair share of unexplained disappearances and gruesome screams in the dark, but no one has ever seen a Joker, sketched their form, or described the cast of their features. The PCs should have heard many a dark rumour or hushed story of woe by the time they are approached by a travelling salesman who claims to know how the Jokers select their sacrifices – that all in the town who have both laughed and cried by midnight tonight shall be whisked away to the Circus. Will the PCs risk the dangers and aim to stop the Circus forever? Or focus simply on saving the people of this town, this night?

Version 3: Goram the Greedy, Dark God of Gold and Ambition lives up to his name when it comes to sacrifices. With his church’s aid, lords and ladies have acquired great power and so all turn a blind eye when his Testers of Means ride the land to find ‘Unacquiring Souls’ fit only for the flames. The poor farmers of Whitecrop have little opportunity for greatness, bound as they are to near-barren land and subject to brutal tithes, and so they suffer especially from the harvest of sacrifices. As the party ride through this village on their way to somewhere worth seeing, their elders hail them down. They offer directions and secret means of access, long remembered, to the nearby dungeon long-dead Bonetroll Lord, under condition that the party take as many villagers as they can with them. The party are welcome to the body of the gold they claim – it is the mere act of risking life for treasure that will protect them from the Testers.

[greenmirror]

These are all really good. Version 1’s false sacrifice is a great dilemma to give players. 2’s clowns have the feel of a feverish fable that, whichever path is chosen, will haunt the players for some time. 3 is a great setup to me. The idea of dungeon delving with a town full of people to look after is a really unpredictable complicator. I imagine kids getting into shit, following the adventurers, and parents furiously going off on the party about it.

The tired GM in me would adapt “Silence” from Buffy to run this hook on the fly. But if players were familiar with the show or I wasn’t being lazy I’d make this prompt about

The Ushers of Boz
Nine have gone missing, and nine appeared. Bewildered and suffering from some inarticulate trauma, nine souls abducted 50 years prior have been returned to their homes without having aged a day. Their families’ mixed reactions range through fear, disbelief, and bewildered joy. The abductee’s relief at having returned is matched by their difficulty coping with it.
What the players learn from this happening is that each of the nine has been claimed as an Usher of Boz, goddess of strange paths, and discarded. The returned might disclose the paths of Boz with some time and effort. Or perhaps the players can find the hidden temple of Boz themselves.

[Lee]

A jolly good idea, (3.5e) based and (seed-)pilled, dare I say it.

Throwing my suggestion in the ring:

Long Live the King
The King has died with the party in the royal palace. Everyone rapidly descends into their own mix of grieving, scheming, and blame-avoidance.

Version 1: Fact Finders of the Court-in-Mourning
The party were in the right place at the right time to be verifiably blameless (great alibis) to the authorities that be. Suspicious of all sides and unable to deputize anyone with more authority for fear of favouritism and their own uncertainty in who may’ve been involved in the king’s death, they have to tread the land seeking clues. Ancient prophecies and curses, guilds of assassins with cypher’s ledgers, poison sellers and their curious clientele, and abandoned fortresses and deathly caverns can all hold intel adventurers would need to go get. Their focus would be on proof to return to the court within.

Version 2: the Great Game
The party (or their patron) are either behind the death of the king or otherwise deeply vested in the outcome. They must maneuver against rival factions, leverage inconvenient gaps in enemy alibis, and generally muck about to produce the worst atmosphere possible while vying for their own place on the throne in the coming secession proceedings—all while not alienating the counts-elector, their own (patron’s) rivals, so far they’d never vote for them. Mix of “hard” targets to eliminate and “soft” targets to sideline while pissing them off minimally, involving both intrigue within the court and without.

Version 3: No One Leaves til We Have Crown & Killer
Not only is the King dead, but the crown itself has gone missing! This utmost symbol of authority is magically sealed with a great power over the lands, and would spell the realm’s doom if eloped with by malefactors. The party needs to retrieve the Crown and determine who the Killer is; are the thief and killer the self-same? What was everyone’s motivations, and once they find them out, will the party still be steadfastly working to solve the problem? Either way the capital is locked down and there’s no in or out until the Crown and Killer, both magickally confirmed to still be stuck within, are found.