#plot hooks

[baddywronglegs]

TTRPG plot hook.

The Prophecy (you know the one, everyone knows it, it's a bedtime story passed down the generations) is coming to pass; the Cataclysm is rising, and the Signs have illuminated the Chosen One.

Your party is assembled to accompany this Chosen One on their prophesied quest to save the world, where it is foretold they will stand between all life and the abyss, where you will be their honour guard, clearing their way and recording the tales of their exploits to come, new verses added to the great saga which has echoed through ages before their birth.

Problem is, one day out of town, barely out of earshot of civilisation, they slip down a river embankment and fucking drown. You're 110% sure that wasn't in the story but it is now.

Good luck.

[thecreaturecodex]

What's your options on bugbears in Golorian being all serial killers or atleast obsessed with fear? I think that has room for, improvement. Definitely feels weird for them though.

I love it.

It's one of my favorite lore changes between D&D and Pathfinder. It makes bugbears feel less like "goblin, but giant". And Paizo has made it clear that some goblins mutate and just grow to Medium size, so you can have giant goblins if you want 'em.

@monstersdownthepath suggested that bugbears have a demonic taint to them. Despite their CE nature, I'd suggest sahkils instead. Bugbears are the Fear of Marauders, of Banditry, of Murder. Only they're mortal. But I bet a lot of their souls end up in Xilbaba when they die.

I imagine that small groups of bugbears are somewhere between bandit gangs and terrorist cells, roaming around and striking for maximum psychological impact as much as to get material goods. Larger communities would be like Halloweentown, only much less friendly. With running competitions for "most blood drained in a single evening". And adopting more terrible monsters into their numbers as Honorary Bugbears. Life's no fun without a good scare! If the Thing Hiding Under Your Stairs and The Shadow on the Moon At Night really wanted to kill you, and then looted your supplies and took over your village until the well runs dry or next year's crop doesn't plant itself. That's a bugbear clan.

I also love the implication in Ironfang Invasion, through characters like Scarvinious and Scabvistin (great naming convention too, IMO), that some, but not all, bugbears are envious of hobgoblins. They like the idea of civilization, of order and rigidity. And so they enlist. And because of their strength and power, they can succeed. If they "beat the bear" out, in Scabvistin's words.

So if you want to give bugbears another hook, here's my alternate, but not necessarily incompatible take. They're brood parasites. Because what's scarier than a baby that's not yours taking over your life?

We know that in Pathfinder canon, goblins and hobgoblins are both communal breeders (thanks to nursery locations in both Rise of the Runelords and Jade Regent). A mother bugbear sneaks into a goblin creche and leaves her baby behind, after killing one of the young and either eating it themselves or feeding it to Junior. The somewhat addlepated and mutation-prone goblins won't notice or mind a slightly hairier infant, right? And then the bugbear baby takes more than its fair share of resources, maybe knocks off a few of the other kids, and then either leaves the goblin colony at a young age in order to find more bugbears, or stays and muscles his way into a leadership position.

Doing the same to a hobgoblin community is riskier. The hobgoblins are much more in tune and observant. But in this case, it becomes more of a mutualistic relationship that could tip into parasitism on either end. Maybe the bugbear can get along in the hobgoblin village by learning discipline, or be content with the role of scavenger or brute. Or the bugbear could try to take over, if the hobgoblins are weak. And if the bugbear doesn't have the resources to survive and thrive, the hobgoblins send them off on a suicide mission.

And even though they only rely on other goblinoids for raising their young...most of the time, there are rumors that they do this to other peoples. Even if it happens once in a hundred years, everyone will know the story of how the Munson boy got very hairy and very big very quickly, and then slaughtered and spit-roasted the family dog when he was only 4? That kind of fear keeps the bugbears powerful. And makes the bugbears very happy.

[dungeonmalcontent]

Your players need the stinger of a wyvern and must hunt one down, because it needs to be harvested fresh.

You as the GM have some options of how to proceed.

1) normal fantasy hunting trip. Various hazards and checks, probably a helpful NPC, confrontation with wyvern (maybe in the wild and then maybe a follow up encounter in its near/lair). Kill the wyvern, harvest the stinger. End of adventure.

2) seemingly normal fantasy hunting trip. Same steps up until you encounter the wyvern in the wild. The party encounters the wyvern as it bursts from the tree canopy. And it falls dead at their feet. Emerging from its back is a heavy spear with massive chain links that go taut as the wyvern corpse is dragged away by the giant that hunted it down for sport. Your players are, incidentally, in what is essentially a massive hunting preserve for a large society of giants. It is the middle of the hunting season for these giants and there are several young giants that need to kill a dangerous beast to prove themselves as adults. Adventurers are considered worthy prey.

3) your party attempts to hunt down a wyvern, but it turns out the nearest wyvern has a restraining order against them. It is also considered critically endangered and is located on a nature preserve with armed guards. The party must confront the legal system protecting the wyvern before they can hunt it down for its stinger.

[heroineimages]

Plot Hook

The city of Damascus is the PCs next stop in my Age of Antiquity campaign. One of the plot-hooks is that they learn about a hidden well in the city has magical properties that grant those who drink it immunity to fire damage for up to a week. A cult of Ishtar jealously guards the well, but the local Roman praefectus in charge of the legionaries and local Syrian auxiliaries suspects its existence. Players may choose to get involved to help the cult or help the Romans.

[plot-hooks]

The eldest son of a family that controls a business conglomerate hires the adventurers to take him on an ADVENTURE, so that he may prove to his father that he is worthy to inherit the family business.

His father is currently planning on leaving the business to person who is currently courting his sister and who IS A REAL BIG BAG OF DICKS.

When all is said and done, the adventure may be a success, and the son has proven that he is worthy to take the reins of the business. But along the way, he realizes that he doesn't want to be in business. He has fallen in love with the life of adventuring.

[ebookporn]

[dailydungeondelves]

Gimmie gimmie!

[enddaysengine]

Yithians (Paths Beyond)

My feelings around Lovecraft are complicated and probably deserve their own essay one day. Today, I’ll say I despise his worldview but enjoy building on the shared Mythos he was a part of, so I’m happy to talk about Yithians. They are one of my favourite aliens of all time (the others are Elder Things), which probably comes as no surprise for long-time readers.

I’ve mentioned before that I love how Pathfinder folded Yithians into its setting by identifying the Xiomorns as the bug creatures they are destined to inhabit. With resistance to acid, cold, fire, and physical damage, Yithians have greater freedom to explore many environments hostile to humanoids. Most of the time, this means they are encountered in the void of space, but it is entirely valid to meet them exploring the planes, especially its strange places.

However, you are unlikely to encounter the average Yithian on the Outer Planes. With training in Arcana, Nature, and Occult, most Yithians know much about the planes, but faith, religion, and the afterlife are relative blind spots. Of course, that doesn’t mean they know nothing; an average Yithian is still a genius compared to the average elf or dwarf.

There is also the question of whether players will know when they’ve encountered a Yithian, given their propensity for mind-swapping their way through time and space. Yithian can literally show up anywhere, including in the body of your closest friend or worst enemy. If GMs want to lay the seeds for a Mythos-inspired game without tipping their hand too early, introducing characters possessed by a Yithian consciousness is an excellent route. Try not to let the paranoia get to you.

In recent months, an alarming number of Chelexian histories and contracts have been uncovered as forgeries. While this is not unprecedented given Thrune’s redactors, even they were unaware these documents were false. Worse, they all seem to be commuted by the same person, stretching back to Cheliax’s initial conquest by Taldor. As adventurers investigate the mystery, they uncover that the forger is the Yithian /Yssm, although what end the alien is working towards remains unclear.

Not every member of the Great Race eschews studying the divine. Pnassic is obsessed with recovering Yithian souls (and their minds) from the afterlife. Their research into the outer planes and River of Souls eventually drove them to become a witch and seek out the Dowager of Illusions as their patron. Backed by the Infernal Queen, Pnassic works to undermine the psychopomps and return lost Yithians to their vessels before they even reach the Boneyard.

Mindscapes rarely form naturally, so something is definitely afoot when the Dark Archive discovers an entire town with fully fleshed-out mindscapes. The mindscapes are the handiwork of Tsaooul, a Yithian with prodigious psychic powers. Rather than swap minds with humanoids, Tsaooul uses their mental abilities to explore them through the mindscapes they construct in the Astral Plane. While there is no evidence of malicious intent, Tsaooul cares little about violating the privacy of others, while other occultists and arcanists aware of their experiments are more than willing to take advantage of the leftover mindscapes after the Yithian moves on.

[critical-catastrophe]

1d6 Nautical Plot Hooks

An expensive noble vessel drifts across the water, its crew injured and the ship itself too damaged to sail. The noble who owns the ship requests the party's aid but the longer the party stay, the more they realize that something is wrong here. The ship's richest inhabitants don't seem to need food, and they're watching the party with increasingly hungry eyes...

Someone finds a strange lute on board the ship. No one has ever seen it before, but the savvier party members can tell that it's valuable. Selling the lute on to a nearby merchant ship seems like the smartest option, but the fastest route happens to be through the remnants of an old pirate ship. It'll be fine. It's not like the ship is haunted or the lute is magic, right? Right, guys?

Apparently, one of the crewmates decided it would be funny to hire the party to transport their cat to the middle of the ocean. God only knows why the cat is even here in the first place, but at least this will be easy. Or, at least, it seems that way until Mr Whiskers starts talking. The more he talks, the more the party realizes is at stake in this mission.

A strange traveller washes up beside the ship, asking for help completing some sort of religious ritual. She promises great magical gifts to everyone who goes with her to the ritual site and helps her make the arcane glyphs needed. Is she truly a simple cleric, or is her magic in service to something older, and far deadlier? And what will the ritual cost?

The local Paladin Order, after being assisted by a party member in the past, wants them to escort one of their Paladins to an underwater city for an ambassadorial mission. The only problem? The Paladin in question is an absolute buffoon who, despite his good nature, doesn't know the first thing about the merfolk nation he's supposed to be making a treaty with.

Mysterious forces call the party to a mist-shrouded island on the horizon. If they dare to answer its summons, they find themselves amidst the ruins of a once-prosperous city. It's up to them, as the first people here in millennia, to discover what happened to these people. But the thing that calls them is getting stronger, and they begin to wonder if it might be what ruined this place...

[gyrrakavian]

NPC and plothook idea

Ratface the goblin has been insisting he's a human and demanding to go to some city the goblins in his clan are unfamiliar with for around a week now. He won't respond to any name but 'Gregory; or 'Greg', and his siblings Catscratch and Fleabite are getting worried about him. One of the siblings is starting to wonder if they should have raided the stuff from that dead adventuring party since that's when Ratface started acting weird. Ratface/Greg wants to go back to the site and grab more stuff.

Personally, I like the idea of a cursed pendant that slowly transforms the wearer into a wizard/warlock named Gregory. Give him blotches on his skin that match a human skin tone, or come up with another reason for why Ratface is acting odd and go from there.

[prt-razorfuck]

I'd like to play dnd again. I don't much like being the DM, but I suppose I could try a one shot.

"Florid fishmen feeling frisky on Fate's Altar leads to break in trade routes on vacation island, Mayor of Hasn't-Flooded-Yet issues travel advisory.

Danny Rotjaw, Mayor of Hasn't-Flooded-Yet (a rather ruddy-cheeked alcoholic dwarf who hates being above ground and was voted into office by spite) says that anyone, quote, "Stupid enough to go through Femurfuck Swamp deserves what they get."

The temple of Fate within the Femurfuck Swamp on the Island of Hasn't-Flooded-Yet is currently chock-full of angry fishmen, all of whom invested in Fishcoin, the new currency designed to destroy the economy of Hasn't-Flooded-Yet, and all of whom are flat broke because of it.

Ways to resolve the issue (passerby being eaten by hungry fishmen): kill the fishmen, kill everyone else on Hasn't-Flooded-Yet, negotiate with the fishmen, convince the fishmen to go through with a socialist revolution, teach the fishmen metallurgy and recast their Fishcoins into usable currency, found the state of Is-Mostly-Water, and other solutions."

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't go playing dnd. Too silly, too silly by far.

[ufohio]

On Kaleidoscope World, we use prompts to inspire standalone science fiction and genre stories from our writers. In the context of our collaborative setting, we use these stories to populate a fictional magazine called—you guessed it!—Kaleidoscope World. However, as standalone writing prompts, they really could be used by anybody looking to create a thematic sci-fi story. Go wild! The prompts featured here include special Pride, Valentine's Day, and Black History Month topics. The full text of these will be under the cut for anyone needing it.

Theme: The Search for a Kaleidoscope World! Prompt: Heaven. Utopia. Home. These are the words that launch voyages and sink ships. If we knew with certainty the Kaleidoscope World existed, we never would have come this far in search of it. For the first issue of the city of Earth’s favorite vintage pulp science-fiction publication, write about travelers and pilgrims who seek the titular, mythical planetary paradise—or about the people who find it when they’re not looking. Theme: Over the Rainbow Planet Prompt: Somewhere over the rainbow is a world of peace, love, acceptance, pride, romance, mystery, fantasy, and adventure. For this special issue of Kaleidoscope World, include reoccurring LGBTQ+ color schemes in a story OR write a LGBTQ+ protagonist in a classic plot from any genre. Theme: Rocket Summer Prompt: In the opening chapter of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), a rocket is launched in snowy January and creates so much warmth that winter is temporarily changed to summer in the nearby town: the ice melts, women shed their coats, and children go out to play in the streets. For the third issue of the city of Earth's favorite tales, write a story that takes place in a very hot climate or during this so-called "Rocket Summer." Theme: Fantastic Planet of Love Prompt: Love is a universal language—be you man, bug man, blob, or floating space jelly. Across the galaxy, all hearts speak, and though they can't always immediately understand the words, all creatures hear it. For this lovey-dovey issue of Kaleidoscope World, write about a couple (or more) from two (or more) different worlds and/or about aliens visiting a paradise planet on their honeymoon or honeymoon equivalent. Theme: Year on a Black Planet Prompt: Afrofuturism envisions the world of tomorrow through the lens of Black identity and history, combining science fiction and fantasy with themes of displacement, liberation, and diaspora. From P-Funk to Octavia Butler to Black Panther, Afrofuturism has been expanding American and global philosophy and imagination for years. For this special issue of Kaleidoscope World, imagine a dazzling African city in the far future, a planet influenced by African culture—or let yourself be inspired by examples of Afrofuturism in music and art.

[shadycatboi]

Suddenly had an idea for a cool dnd setting/premise.

Basically, two neighboring kingdoms lived together as best friends, with active trade and each of them having an abundance of a resource the other one needs, and absolutely free travel between the two. It all was perfect until an entire new continent just *appeared* between them and pushed them apart. Countless families broken, friendships destroyed, pretty much everyone has someone on the other side that they miss. Both kingdoms need each other to thrive, and are slowly failing, so both of them are plunging deeper and deeper into the continent to regain contact. The continent itself is dangerous, beautiful and bizarre, filled to the brim with mysterious races, creatures and places for the dm to make up and throw at the party.

[mysmistree]

So, apparently, it is fun to write plot hooks for D&D adventures. None of my players follow my tumblr, so the gist is this: I had this idea to have a Lich who, instead of claiming souls, slowly drains life from the area around it until it turns to sand. Figured, if at the appropriate level he is ignored, a nice escalation would be to have him steal the God of the Land and Sea from her throne and drain her energy DIRECTLY leading to the entire world starting to turn to sand. Realized, then, that I could do this with any god. My god of fire could be claimed by another cult, and the whole world would lose its flame and gradually get colder.

And then proceed to write entire apocalypse situations. My players will be starting at either level 1 or level 5 not even this week, but next. These ideas will not even BEGIN to be scratched until WEEKS of game, MUCH smaller adventures, other ideas. Ah, fk it, time to decide how the world will end.

[plot-hooks]

A child is taken in by her mother's best friend after her suspicious death. While you are in this craftspersons shop, you are present to witness a confrontation between the shopkeeper and the child's genetic uncle.

The uncle is extorting the shop owner for money and demanding that either the shopkeeper pay up, or they will take them to court for custody of the child.

If you investigate, it becomes clear that they are in debt, and unsurprisingly, do not care for the child at all.

[luxlicht]

My Wife is Going to Kill Me (or, mundane themes in Scion)

Running a story in the world of Scion is normally thought of to be one where you enter the underworld looking for a lost artifact – or battle an Ōmagatoki at twilight to stop it from releasing thousands of evil spirits onto San Francisco. But this is not where the story of a Scion starts. In fact, the first book for Scion, Origin, is mostly free of such supernatural threats. Oh, there are tinges…