#adventure prompt

[writing-to-survive]

#193

"Is this not considered kidnapping?"

"You came willing, saying—and I quote—'I call shotgun.'"

"Which I didn't get."

[autocrats-in-love]

Prompt (259)

The hero stared out at the desert.

“It’ll take forever to cross this!” The hero said. “Great, we’ll have to spend eternity together.”

The villain chuckled sarcastically. “Can’t wait.”

They decided not to tell the hero about their wings.

[seaside-writings]

Prompt #1,159

"Fuck me,"

"Gladly,"

[incorrectprompts]

Prompt #317

"How curious you young ones are. Utterly and completely fascinating."

"In like a good way or a bad way...?"

"Like a specimen in its own natural habitat."

"And to your right ladies and gentlemen, if you approach carefully, you just might get a glimpse of an [A] observing its surroundings carefully."

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 110

The clock on the wall ticked with a steady rhythm, filling the room with a sense of impending doom. Blood trickled down, staining the lips of the figure sitting bound in chains. Despite the evident pain and damage inflicted, there was a defiant glint in their eye, a spark of resilience that refused to be extinguished.

"You've fallen, just like they all do," sneered the captor from the shadows, their voice dripping with malice.

The figure chuckled softly, a dry, raspy sound that echoed in the dimly lit room. "Fallen? Perhaps. But a hero? That's a title I've never claimed."

The captor's laughter cut through the air like a knife, their amusement evident. "You may deny it, but your actions speak louder than words. Heroes always end up on their knees before me."

With a sudden crack, the chains binding the figure shattered into pieces, falling to the ground with a clang. The captor's eyes widened in disbelief as they watched the figure rise, their gaze burning with an intensity that sent shivers down their spine.

"A hero may fall," the figure growled, their voice low and menacing. "But they always rise again, stronger than before. And this time, I won't be the one forgotten."

A flash of crimson filled the captor's vision, a searing pain spreading through their body like wildfire. They stumbled back, clutching at their chest as if trying to quell the inferno burning within.

"Never again," the figure declared, their voice a haunting echo in the darkness. "Never again will I be at your mercy."

[asassydork]

@writing-challenges-and-prompts inspired winter fantasy moodboard.

[josephinegerardywriter]

"You destroyed the [important plot item]!"

"What, like I can't make a mistake?"

[sistertotheknowitall]

“But to the BatFam? That is just Some Guy. A random dude - if you will.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m missing my spleen.”

“Oh cool, yeah, missing organs suck. I’m missing a kidney and part of my liver. Oh! And my gallbladder but that was more of a necessary evil, it was like, poisoning me or something.” Danny was so focused on applying pressure to his wound (and maybe being a bit too light headed) that he didn’t notice how silent his friend had gotten. Like-wise the comms had gone equally quiet as Gotham’s vigilante family realized that they knew very little about this kid.

It was concerning how quickly they all started to see him as a friend considering it was them as vigilantes he interacted with the most. Tim was the only one who saw him frequently when out of the suit because he was a regular at Danny’s day job. (He worked as a barista in the coffee shop Tim favored.) The others saw him occasionally but more often than not it was just in passing. Steph, Duke, and Dick had to stop themselves from approaching him on the street.

It was odd, one day he had just moved to Gotham, seeming to appear out of nowhere, and then the next he was a constant presence in their lives. Usually armed and ready with a concerning or odd quip, it had started with him being another victim of the city’s petty criminals and had snowballed from there.

Now it wasn’t like the bats saw Danny everyday, but it was expected that he would cross paths with at least three of them before the end of the week. They ran into him more often than any other Gothamite, including the criminals and rouges they fought.

At first the constant meetings by “coincidence” was suspicious. If he wasn’t the one being saved from a mugging, kidnapping, or city wide villain assault, then he was near by and trying to help.

(“Trying to help” usually meant drawing attention to himself so the original victim could escape. Once it had meant Danny armed with a baseball bat against four grown men. Bruce and Dick have tried to talk to him about putting himself in harms way but the kid is surprisingly elusive when he wants to be. Yet, even when avoiding Batman and his eldest, Danny could be found on the patrol route of another family member.)

But honestly? The guy seemed just as exhausted as they were of seeing each other. By the twelfth time in a month, Danny had accused them of stalking him.

The background check Bruce and Tim had run came back clean and he never seemed to be involved in the various criminal activities. He was just there, a weirdly unlucky bystander. So as far as Dick and the others could see, Danny was a completely normal dude. He just said strange things and wasn’t intimidated by them, he actually made it a point to be unhelpful sometimes. When trying to learn his name he gave them the run around for two months. (“I know about stranger danger. I don’t care how often you say you’re the ‘good guys.’ I’m not falling for it.”)

On one memorable occasion Danny had disappeared for a week and a half. When they started to assume the worse, he popped back up behind the counter at work. Tim had relaxed significantly when he entered the shop to Danny organizing pastries in the display case. Once he’d placed his order, the young CEO asked Danny if he’d been on vacation. To which Danny had just sighed and told Tim “I wish, but no I was called to court to handle some affairs I couldn’t get out of.” (After a check to see if Danny had gotten charged with something and coming back empty, Tim had concluded that it was an odd way to say he had had jury duty.)

Thinking about it now, outside a stray comment or two, Danny didn’t talk about himself or his life. They knew he didn’t have a good relationship with his parents, “they were much more goal oriented than that joke of a kidnapper, but I think drugs do that to a person.” (It was still unclear if he meant his parents were kidnappers themselves or on drugs.) They knew he had an older sister who would “kill me again if she finds out I was in another bank robbery.” They also knew he was, possibly, depressed after last week’s comment of “is it considered murder if you’re already dead but, like, still alive?” (Damian had saved him from a drug ring but after another “baby ninja” comment the young Robin had threatened to give Danny back to his would-be murderers.)

Dick knew Danny was a weird guy who never wanted to elaborate on the things he said. (Jason was still confused on what he meant by “rotted milk soul.”) That didn’t mean the comments themselves didn’t say a lot about him. And tonight’s comment, accompanied by the prominent and jagged autopsy scars, said more than Danny was probably willing to share.

[the-infamous-eel]

Tucked away in a corner of the Veil of Shadow, adjacent to the Fey Realm, sits an idyllic forest glade. A babbling creek tumbles over waterfalls and around one side of the clearing. It would be the perfect spot to stop and rest if it wasn't for one small detail... the glade and the surrounding forest is shrouded in perpetual gloom. Lurking under shadowed bough are all manner of dark creatures and restless shades. And in the center of the glade, leering out from the branches of a dark oak, is the toothy grin and luminous eyes of the Gloam Beast.

(Based on one of my favorite little pockets of Oblivion belonging to the Daedra Prince, Nocturnal, from ESO. Plus a little Alice in Wonderland, for good measure)

[zylev-blog]

Bruce was sitting in front of a fire. He had just gotten done cooking his dinner, and had began eating. A teen he didn’t recognize sat next to him. Bruce barely paid the teen any attention; in this time period, kids were more fiercely independent than the teens of his age were.

“So,” The teen drawled, getting his attention.

Bruce internally growled. He didn’t want to make small talk. Just as he was about to tell the teen off, the teen continued speaking.

“What’s Bruce Wayne doing in 1732?”

He choked on his food. He hadn’t heard that name in years. He had gotten stuck in the past during a League mission, and apparently, nobody could save him… or maybe they didn’t know when to look. He had covered his tracks well, since he didn’t want to disturb the timeline too much.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He deflected.

“Oh? So we’re playing it like that?” The teen hummed, swinging his legs. “You won’t be born for over two hundred years, in a city that doesn’t exist yet, to fight crime as the vigilante known as Batman.”

The teenager was a time traveller. Hope sparked him his chest. Maybe… maybe he could go home. “You’re a time traveller.” He chose to ignore the part where the teen knew he was Batman.

“Yeah,” The teen said. “I’m Danny. I’m from your future, about, uh, five years after you vanished? Dick adopted me. Found me dead in an alley and brought me back to life. Brought me into the fold, and stuff. I have powers, and one of them is to travel in time. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find where you went.”

The teen looked like adoption bait. He could understand why Dick would’ve adopted him. But then again, he was still stuck on the part where Dick had adopted a kid at the same age he had adopted Dick.

“Are you here to take me home?” He asked.

“If you want to.” Danny hummed, “But uh, can’t be to the time you left. Timeline disruptions and all that, yknow? I can take you to my time. It’s like… ten years after you vanished.”

“Please.” Bruce begged. And how far had he fallen to beg a teen?

Danny grinned. “Dad’s going to be so jazzed!”

[starry-bi-sky]

“Your brother is adorable.” The cashier cooed at Danny, peering over the counter with a smile. “What’s his name?”

Danny looked down to the surly, scowling little de-aged Batman currently holding onto his hand, glaring up at the cashier with bright blue eyes.

Things had already been bad enough when he’d gotten caught in a fight in Gotham, but things went from bad to worse when a magician had hit Batman with a de-aging spell and then shoved them through a portal.

Into a different fucking dimension.

Because of course neither of their lives could be easy. And now the two of them were stuck in Iowa in the middle of nowhere, at a truck stop gas station, trying to go on a cross-country roadtrip to reach the nearest hero city and get home.

He looked up and smiled awkwardly, trying to come up with a name off the top of his head — one of the heroes called Batman ‘B’ when he got hit right? B for Batman, right. B… B… Bee… Bees.

“Buzz.” He said, and tried not to grimace as the cashier’s face warped with surprise. “Like the astronaut.”

This was gonna be a long trip.

[writing-to-survive]

#192

"What in God's name is that!?"

"My friend."

[frospino]

Fellow DMs, I need some help with a one-shot I'm preparing - I would greatly appreciate any inspiration you could throw my way! <3 (If you're a player, feel free to toss ideas you'd like to see in a game my way!)

Setting: In my world, fiends roam the mortal realm at night, terrorising the population. Artificer guilds have developed protective runes and portable rune circles, but not everyone can afford the portable circles. Groups of mercenaries and other hired hands specialise fiend-protection for common folk, merchants, artisans...

The group is the crew of a mercenary ship. Their legitimate business is protecting whoever hires them on sea journeys. Their not-so-legitimate-business is smuggling, especially of those who have unjustly been branded a criminal.

Adventure hook: The crew smuggles a teenage runaway. The teen has gold, so they accept the job without asking too many questions. One night, a strange power seems to take hold of the teen. It disables the runes from within. The ship is attacked by a fiend which eventually possesses the ship and effectively traps the players. (The adventure will open with a skill challenge to ward off the demon - how well the players do here will determine how intact their ship is at the end of the adventure.)

The fiend steers the ship to the Grey Isles, a pirate haven.

Act 1: Gather information and allies

The players quickly realise all is not well in pirate haven: a strange force has taken control of their ships and disabled the protective runes on buildings. The pirates are looking for help: a former pirate captain has barricaded himself in a mountain-fortress. The fortress is guarded by friends. The pirates assume this captain is responsible for whatever is happening on and around the Isles. If the players offer to team up, the pirates will test them in a tournament of strength and wits first. <- this is so that everyone gets a better idea of what the characters are capable of - the group was created for this oneshot.

(what they don't openly disclose: They know this for a fact, for a group of pirates has been abducting children from the continent to use them as vessels in blood rituals. The captain just decided he wanted all the power for himself. Who would've thought. Not the pirate king.)

Act II: Gaining access to the fortress

At dawn we plan... One idea I have is that the pirates will offer to engage the fiends in battle, distracting them from the group. The players can then sneak into the fortress via a secret passage. In this scenario, the players would need to find a way to scout the outside of the fortress without being detected.

If you have other ideas for how they could gain access to the fortress, I'd love to hear them!

Act III: Inside the fortress and boss fight

The players will need to find information on the ritual and how to undo it, and then obviously find the Big Bad and fight him and his fiendish bodyguards.

I'm used to designing huge dungeons that would take way too long to complete for a one-shot - if anyone has an idea on how to make this interesting without taking hours of game time, let me know? <3

[seaside-writings]

Prompt #1,248

"Well, I have to be someone's problem,"

[happy-hat-makes-a-game]

Why making flesh golems is a horrible idea

One migth think that making flesh golems is more ethical then raising zombies, and some even consider it a way to create super-human by combinig body parts of talented people. But even necromancers unconcerned with morality of the situation shun this practice for it's usually disasterous result.

That is because flesh golems have inane but unachivable desire to become fully human, which their artifical mind twists into a dark obsession, and they'll even turn agains their creator to achieve it.

In the most common case, they believe that to be human, they must be loved and start to seek and eventually demand love from their creator, even going to such lengths to kill their creator`s loved ones.

But sometimes, they belive that having more human body will make them human, and they start to hunt people, harvest their organs and implant them to themselves. They start clumsily with showing more eyes into their eyesockets or ripping their sews to place more stomaches into their belly, but they grow more skilled with each hunt and eventually gain enough skill to graft whole limbs onto their body, becoming misshapen mass of faces, eyes and limbs. And when some chunk of their body falls of, it remains alive, becoming a monsterous minion of it's master.

This is a work of fiction, any resemblence to non-fictional people or groups, living, dead, or undead is accidental and unintended. Constructive criticism will be accepted.

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 112

As the villain approached the kingdom, the air crackled with tension, and the paparazzi swarmed around the king like eager vultures, their cameras flashing incessantly.

"Excuse me, could you please clear a path?" The king's voice was polite but firm, yet the paparazzi seemed oblivious to his request, their focus solely on capturing the perfect shot.

Ignoring the king's plea, the paparazzi continued their relentless pursuit of the perfect picture, their flashing cameras blinding in the dimming light. Sensing the king's frustration, the villain's expression darkened.

"Do I need to spell it out for you?" The villain's voice was cold and commanding, sending shivers down the spines of the paparazzi, who scattered in fear at the sight of her demonic form.

"Thank you," the king said, visibly relieved as the chaos subsided. The villain's lips quirked into a small smile as they returned to their normal form, a silent understanding passing between them as they made their way towards the castle.

Inside the castle walls, tension hung heavy in the air as the king led the way to the meeting room, the sound of their footsteps echoing ominously in the silence. Workers whispered nervously amongst themselves, casting fearful glances at the king and the mysterious figure beside him.