#plot hooks

[theworldbrewery]

1d12 reasons to kill all the gods

because the gods put mortals in the untenable position of having to do their dirty work for them, either because of a cold-war-type pact of avoiding direct action against one another, or because they're too proud/think of mortals as disposable.

because the gods are merely ascended mortals who have amassed power that is rightfully dispersed throughout all peoples.

because the gods tried to kill you first.

because you lost something precious that can never be restored, and you hate the gods for not thinking it was important enough to intervene.

because the gods use children as their soldiers and oracles, and these children inevitably die horrible early deaths.

because you crave their power for yourself.

because the gods are parasites, sucking mortals dry of belief and faith and will to act.

because the gods were created by mortals, not the other way around, and the mortals who created the gods use them to enact a cruel cultural hegemony.

because you serve dark forces from the lower planes, and those dark forces aspire to overthrow the gods; you will be rewarded. You will.

because the people were in this universe before the gods arrived in it, and the gods are a colonial power you want to overthrow.

because the gods are the arbiters of good and of evil; you will cleanse the world of sin by destroying the judges.

For the Lulz.

[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.

[enddaysengine]

Tashtari Laser Wolves (Stars Beyond)

Laser wolves is just straight up a great sci-fi name for an animal, made all the better by the fact they can actually shoot lasers at you. Tashtari may be beasts, but it's best not to underestimate them - they are smarter than some humanoids and communicate through a unique bioluminescent language. So yeah, one more thing on Castrovel that is smart and will kill you in unexpected ways. 

There's no immediate planar connection for tashtari canonically, but there's some easy ones to draw. Nirvana’s petitioners take the forms of animals and beasts. Tashtari are surely found on Elysium, especially in the Amaranthine Forest, since it is the realm of Ketephys. While the Hunter's favoured animal is a hawk, he is also associated with hunting dogs. That canine connection could very well be associated with tashtari on Castrovel instead. Finally, tashtaris are resistant to fire damage, so the Planes of Fire won't be a comfortable location for them, but they can weather its heat better than other mortal beasts. 

Wolves are popular symbols for a reason and I wouldn't expect tashtari to be any less widespread on Castrovel. Lean into that to lend recognizable but distinct flavour to the world with laser wolves as heraldic beasts. Don't forget to get weird either. Perhaps a lycanthrope variant on Castrovel turns its victims into tashtari during solar storms or auroras? Tashtari are smart and lashunta are psychic - can laser wolves develop occult powers to compliment their dazzling abilities? Do hound archons associated with Castrovel take on the appearances and abilities of laser wolves? Or do they just specialize in laser-based firearms? There's lots of fun to be had here and I'm sure you can come up with some wild ideas I haven't even considered yet. 

When elves isolated themselves after the Gap, some communities took this farther than others, cutting themselves off from everyone including other elves. These reclusive communities have become hotspots for strange new religious movements and corporate research experiments. The hamlet of Tashtari's Howl is one such location, where elves and aiuvarins revere tashtari spirits as their ancestors. While this practice is uncommon on Castrovel, it isn't unheard of, but the citizens of the Howl take it a step further by ritually exposing themselves to wolves' radiation. After centuries of isolation, many of the elves has begun displaying strange phospholuminescent mutations reminiscent of their totemic patrons. Strangely enough, the local tashtari have also changed. Some grow to abnormal size, while others burrow underground, metastasizing into glowing flesh pits that extrude towering capillaries to collect the sun's light.

The CBO of Akasna Tech believes he is being haunted by a gigantic ghostly tashtari. No one else has seen the beast, but he insists that it is real and vindictive. Akasana has had a number of setbacks lately, usually involving property torn to shred by tooth and claw. Is a rival undermining Aksana or is someone within the corporation making clever use of drones to open up space for their promotion? Or worse yet, is the undead beast real, hunting down Akasana executives for their role in Castrovel's ecological and cultural degradation? 

Laser wolves are often mistaken for swamp gas at a distance — or will-’o-wisps. Devotees of the Lantern King recruit both into their fey bands, using their lights to distract, prank, and mislead the unwitting. Unfortunately, covens dedicated to Nhimbaloth utilize the same practice to much more malicious ends, which makes meeting a pack of wisps and wolves in the Drift a dicy prospect at best.

[notetakers-blog-of-holding]

Questions To Ask Your Players As A DM

As a DM, it can be helpful to ask your players some questions before you jump head first into your campaign. I like to put these questions into three categories: Logistics, Character, and Campaign

I'll include some example questions that you can ask your players before the campaign begins.

Campaign Questions can be very generalized. These questions can help you get an idea as to what aspects of gameplay that your players like the most, along with any hard boundaries that your players may have.

What is your favorite part about playing D&D?

What is your least favorite part about playing D&D?

Are there any topics you want to specifically avoid or explore?

What kind of tones or themes would you like to be present or absent in the campaign?

Are there any house rules you particularly like or dislike?

Game Logistics: The most integral part of a campaign. You'll probably definitely be asking some of these questions after each individual session.

How often do you want to meet and for how long?

List all available days and times.

How do you think tardiness and absences should be handled?

Do you want optional days (one-shots) or breaks built into the schedule? How?

How much time are you willing and/or able to spend on the campaign between sessions? (leveling, side conversations, discussions with DM, reviewing notes, giving feedback, etc.)

Character Questions often cover things like combat and backstory integration.

What kind of combat roles are you interested in? (tank, melee damage, ranged damage, control, support, healing, etc.)

What kind of non-combat roles are you interested in? (socializing, scouting, surviving, thieving, utility, crafting, investigating, etc.)

How much effort do you want to put into creating your backstory and involving it in the narrative? (written length, detail of NPCs and locations, adding plot hooks, etc.)

Is there anything specific you do or don't want to have happen to your character? (transformations, relationships, conflicts, etc.)

[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.

[slowpokes-things]

I saw this image on the bird app so I wanna talk about it a little bit ⬇️

I’ll be the first one to say, yeah, I liked the older antagonists more. I liked the concept of the Zero point too, and Jones was a good protagonist over the story as well. I’ll also say, I don’t 100% jive with this new story. But I think that it’s fair to say that doesn’t make it bad right?

Nothing has been perfect, Cube Queen and Geno were very nothing as antagonists. There was very little known about them and their motives, other than “TAKE OVER REALITY ZERO”; Cube Queen was different in the way that she wanted to destroy everything at least. They both have just as much development (if not just a little more) than say The Herald or Megalo Don. The difference here is that Geno and CQ were built up a little bit over the course of at least 1 season.

Geno was known to be the mysterious leader of the I.O. for a while, that added mystery and a certain set of depth, expectation, and want to discover this character. Cube Queen was a threat that was only known as a golden cube aboard the UFO, something the island had barely won a war against the season prior to her introduction. We had seen she was capable of activating these cubes, one of which was a huge threat to the island alone. When she was released she sent droves of monsters, built her own temple-like POI, and almost destroyed the island in The End Chapter 2 Edition™️.

They had plot hooks, that’s what I’m trying to say. So did the Herald, and the Nothing. But…that’s just not something we’re seeing with this chapter, or the last. Stellan? Gone. Kado Thorne? Dead in a side quest. The Society? Brought down in one season. Valeria? Not even the game will tell us where she went. The gods? Fled. Megalo Don???? Who knows. The Wanderer was really the only one who seemed he might bring some plot hook like the former two. But now that it’s just…Dr. Doom? There’s nothing to hook people anymore, no mystery, no intrigue…

That’s what we need really, we don’t necessarily need the old plot back. We need intrigue, plot hooks for more than a season, and characters (protag and antag) that are allowed to develop and grow and be compelling. I will say that I really enjoy what they’ve done with hope actually, she’s truly become her own character and I appreciate that!

But yeah, there are definitely people who are like this. But I figured I’d just make my point clear since I saw that. :3

[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.

[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.

[voidycatboi]

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.

[klinefelterrible]

So I am also an overhead crane operator and doing this numbing idiotic work that I do allows me to think about my stuff and my novel and I believe I might have a one (1!) solution to a problem that I have with SO MANY CHARACTERS and the plothole #37372

[nevesmose]

Here's an RPG/story plot hook for you. From the Chronographia of Theophanes Confessor, describing events in 808 - 809 AD:

In  the  same  year,  while  the  army  of  the  Strymon  was  receiving  its pay,  the  Bulgarians  fell  upon  it  and  seized  1,100  lbs.  of  gold. They  slaughtered  many  men  together  with  their  strategos  and officers.  Many  garrison  commanders  of  the  other  themata  were present  and  all  of  them  perished  there.

Eleven hundred pounds of gold, Theophanes? That's crazy. That's just under 500 kilograms of gold. Gold is heavy, is what I'm getting at.

So let's put your RPG adventurers or protagonists or whoever in that situation. They've successfully defeated the forces of the evil empire (sorry Byzantium fans) and have come into possession of a whole army's worth of gold.

And then what?

You literally just finished a difficult fight to get it in the first place. People are wounded or dying and supplies are desperately low so you can't just stay put with your gold forever. Someone's going to need to go for help, but who? Who can you trust to actually come back instead of just taking some of it and leaving you behind? If you're the one to go, do you trust that the rest of the party will still be there when you get back?

It might be better to just take a bar each and leave the rest, but... it's an infinity of wealth just sitting there. Would you ever stop regretting not even trying to get all of it out somehow?

You can't move it yourselves so maybe you could go back to the nearest town and hire wagons or something but good luck keeping it a secret. Very soon the price of everything you need will have gone up by sheer coincidence to a minimum of one gold bar.

By the end of the week a whole shanty town has grown up around you and your gold. Eventually they're going to realise that there are far more of them than there are of you and the polite fiction of "trading" with you for your gold will come to an end.

So the question then becomes, do you wait to be attacked in the middle of the night or do you take action to protect yourselves from what you know is coming? You fought an army before. Killing a village's worth of commoners before they do the same to you is nothing in comparison.

The next day your party's mage, driven mad by the terror and guilt of what you did, starts trying to create some kind of gold-and-bone golem so that your riches will walk themselves out.

It doesn't work and with every day that passes in the stinking charnel you created, the half-made creature looks more and more like an unspeakable heathen god surrounded by its sacrifices.

The gold is still there.

[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.

[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.

[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…