# 1001 Mysteries...



## The_Warlock (Sep 26, 2008)

1001 Mysteries...

In the vein of a number of the old “101 X” posts, what I'm hoping for is people pitching in descriptions of odd, creepy, mysterious, unexplainable phenomena and scenes for use by GMs into their campaigns to add color and provide enigmas to their world. 

The point isn't to detail what is really happening, how it came to be, or any mechanical stats. Just a scene for the PCs to stumble upon. A GM who uses one then can let it remain a hanging mystery, or if the PCs show great interest develop it into a true plot hook, encounter (whether a haunting or just a gnome with a weird taste in illusions), or adventure that meshes with his or her world and plots.

I'll start it off....


1) Faceless (Cross-posted from Creepy...)

On a lonely backwoods or frontier trade path, the group notices several sets of wagon tracks that dig up the dirt and damp earth and go off the road. If they follow them, the find themselves in a small dell not easily visible from the road, made of three or four low hills. The earth is churned and trampled by feet, hooves and wheels. One merchant's wagon is smashed and overturned at the base of the far hill. There are no horses, though the wagon's cinches are covered in blood. 

About two dozen naked human/humanoid bodies lay scattered across the dell. While most are covered in mud, they don't appear to have any obvious wounds from a distance. 

The first one the group approaches is contorted, face down in the mud, but it's nails are broken and it's hands covered in blood as if it was attempting to scratch it's attacker.

When they roll the body over, the body has no face, from forehead to chin, is solid flesh, ripped and torn by fingernails to reveal muscle and smooth bone beneath, with nary a socket or orifice. As if the poor soul, suddenly bereft of sight and breath was desperately clawing at their own head to make a way to breathe.

All the bodies share this faceless death.

Several sets of hoofprints and wagon wheel tracks leave the dell more sedately and return to the road, heading in the same direction the group was heading, and eventually lose distinction from the common ruts in the road about a mile on.


2) Blood from a Stone

When the group is within an underground area made of, or faced with, stone, they come upon a room where there is the sound of a slow dripping. From the ceiling, where no crack or hole exists, is a damp spot which slowly enlarges to a drip of a thick, crimson substance. It falls to a place on the floor where, similarly, there is neither crack nor hole. Yet only a tiny puddle of reddish fluid sits. 

No matter how long it is watched, the pool never grows in size. The drips from the ceiling pass through any barrier or container placed in their way. Unless the object is the skin of an intelligent creature. If so,  they find that their hands are covered in blood, and they hear a distant wail, as if from a man being tortured, that no one else can hear. AS the scream fades, the blood seems to soak into their hands. 

If the blood is wiped away from the stone floor, it seems to evaporate as it is pushed away, briefly revealing a single brownish stain, which the drips quickly cover up.


3) From Behind

In a abandoned or secluded home, tower, or small ruin, the group comes across a room that looks like it was once a study of some sort. Rotted furniture and broken glassware litter the room, as do several books with many pages torn out and scattered. 

A closer look will show brown stains on the floor in odd and irregular patterns, certainly not the expected splashes and splatters of injury or combat.

Investigation shows that many of the pages bear similar dark brown smears and stains, often lines and curves.

Dedicated investigation will show that some of the smears on the pages and the floor seem to line up.

Attempts to piece the puzzle together will eventually have the pages of the books laid out in the rough image of a Thaumaturgic triangle, the stains the boundaries of letters of a common language. The words say, “Fear beyond the door. Open and safety revealed. A (a blank area) S behind. Watching.” 

The blank area in the words is in the center of the diagram, and from the looks of it, something was there when the writing was done, but is now gone.


4) Untreadable

In an ruin or other abandoned building, the group comes into a dust and cobweb covered room. While examining the room, locked away for years while furniture dry rotted, one will notice that there are “muddy” bootprints...on one of the walls. They appear to show someone having walked down the wall, then the continued apace diagonally across the room, and end with one print halfway in the far wall. 

If examined closely, caked earth has dried and cemented itself to the wall, but the prints on the floor merely disturb the dust there, with no traces of other material. 

No doors, secret or otherwise exist in the surfaces the footprints appears to come from or go to.


5) Whose Shadow

Wherever one or more of the group is, but when they are somewhere other people are in nearby rooms or such (at an inn, a noble party, etc), one of the party notices a shadow cross their field of vision from behind them. If they point it out without looking, others will see it, but as soon as they turn to look, they notice no one behind them. An NPC will approach them from where they were originally looking, for some mundane purpose, having noticed nothing.

This will repeat one or two more times. If one member watches the shadow, while another tries to “catch” a glimpse, the watcher will see the shadow move and disappear as if obstructed by some hard edged object which throws no shadow itself.

Sometime later, when the group is in a lonely or abandoned locale, the first to have seen the shadow will notice that wherever their light source is throwing shadows, there is one more shadow than the number of members of the party. 

Any overt mention of the shadow, or pointing to it, will cause it to appear to leap sideways - “landing” in one of the group's shadows, and that person's shadow will fade away. Apparently forever gone.

The next time that person is in direct sunlight, they will feel suddenly and briefly weak, only to watch their shadow “fall” out of them onto the ground in a fetal position, shiver, and then stretch to normal proportions, and act in all ways normally henceforth.


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## megamania (Sep 27, 2008)

6)

Find a small bag of old old ancient coins hidden in the rotted wall of a rotting shed/cottage PCs take shelter within.  Any that touch the coins have dreams / visions of a murder of a noble.  With minor research, one learns of a noble that was slain a hundred years ago by an unknown assassin.  Rumored his payment was a pouch of coins now cursed as they represent blood money.

7)

Old Tavern with paintings on the wall.  Paintings are marked and painted in a way to clearly show a passage of time.  However, in the background, a person is visible that seems to be in each one... never aging.


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## The_Warlock (Sep 27, 2008)

Cool. Thank you, Mega.


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## Andor (Sep 27, 2008)

8) In an 10' X 10' room an ancient Orc skeleton holds a pie. Although the skeleton is dessicated and fragile with age the pie is somehow fresh and steaming hot.


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## fba827 (Sep 27, 2008)

The unaware soldier
9) Every night, at a particular spot, a ghostly soldier apprears.  Some nights he appears to be sitting and reading a book, or sharpening a blade.  Other nights, he seems to be walking as if keeping patrol.  He in no way acknowledges anyone or anything, oblivious to everything - as if he is simply repeating actions.  His uniform style suggests that he was a soldier from a long fallen kingdom.  However, one particular night of every year, instead of his regular actions and appearance, his ghostly body is covered with burn marks on his unform, arrow shafts in his leg, and cuts slashed across his face, and he lays on the ground as if reliving his death, mumbling in whispers about the wizards and demons coming and how he must get back to the castle to warn them.


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## The_Warlock (Sep 28, 2008)

Thanks folks. Looking good, this is exactly what I was hoping for. 

I may have to use the dead orc/fresh pie in a silly run through of X2 Castle Amber I'm currently GMing.


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## ejja_1 (Sep 28, 2008)

#10 The pc's are traveling through the woods between 2 local towns, when they spy a little girl skipping through the woods humming to herself. Upon following the little girl they will come upon a depression in the woods where they will find several childrens corpses in various stages of decay. A vision will then come upon them of a local town official murdering the children. What will the pc's do? How will they stop the murders from happening again when the only proof they have is a vision and several rotted corpses?


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## The_Warlock (Sep 28, 2008)

11) Winds of Arrival

When camping for the night in the wilderness, one of the group has a vivid dream of a beautiful, almost blinding red gold sunrise. As the Dream continues, they see dark vertical lines in front of the the sunrise. The lines grow more distinct, resolving into menhirs. One begins to crack and shudder, as the sunrise turns the color of blood. Shattering, the menhir reveals a clawed hand, the rips open the Sun to let blood and rotten bodies spill out over the land.

Any members on watch will see a storm at the edge of the horizon, with red flashes of heat lightning. Minutes later a brief, screaming windstorm rushes over the campsite bringing with it the smell of death and rotting bodies, and a spray of rust colored rain.

All is still for a few moments, then the normal night sounds return, though they seem now much fainter, and strangely ominous.


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## The_Warlock (Sep 30, 2008)

12) Ancient Song
When the group is camping outdoors while travelling near or through a woodland, late at night, they begin to hear sounds of many people laughing and distant upbeat music.

Looking about, they will notice ripples of silver light in the dark woods around them, coming and going as if pushed back by the light of their campfire or torches. 

If the group puts out their light sources, the silver light will grow, eventually covering their camp and the surrounding area with a translucent scene of a masquerade ball amidst manicured trees, simple but elegant decorations, and some few marble sculptures and a well. All the beings are all tall humanoids, elves or humans perhaps, wearing a variety of painted animal masks, as they dance, laugh and make merry while drinking and eating from small tables. The sounds of the party seem somewhat hollow, as if echoing from a distance.

The merrymakers will seem not to notice the group. 

Any attempts to interact with them will prove them to be insubstantial, except for the food and drink. Those who partake of the food fall asleep to dreams of one partygoer sneaking away, and men in black coming from the night and slaughtering the merrymakers to the last. The sleeper can only be awakened by the dawn, or magic which wakes a target.

If, however, any member of the group attempts to sing or play music, the merrymakers will stop and look directly at him/her, as if listening. If the song is upbeat/joyous, the merrymakers will begin to dance, and at the end of the song, cluster about the musician clapping and patting them on the shoulder with ephemeral hands as the entire masquerade fades away. 

The musician, however, will notice a tiny flickering in the distance of silvery light. Getting close the light fades away, and the character will fall into a deep, dried up well. 

They will find literally dozens of bodies worth of ancient, broken bones and dust, and a single dust covered, but otherwise unblemished, lacquered wooden masquerade mask of a fox.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 1, 2008)

13) Expedition

While the group is travelling somewhere (wilderness, in a city, via ship), a magic mouth comes into being by an unknown trigger and speaking in an old language with an odd accent.

If the group stops to listen, and can comprehend the language, they hear the following related.

"Day 10 score and 5. It is as if the woods are alive and hateful. Despite this, we make progress, and have been able to confirm that we continue in the direction provided by the Oracle. Savages beset us as we broke camp. Delshes and Hiskar were eviscerated before we could counter attack. In the end, magic and crystal prevailed, and we killed most before they fled. We have brought my bondsmens' heads should we still need their expertise before this journey is over. Soon, our goal will be in our grasp."

The magic mouth repeats it's entire tale once more, then disappears, it's magic finally expended.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 2, 2008)

14) Who Watches

When the group is camping in a remote location, the night watches pass uneventfully, except for a regularly occuring, if odd sounding, night bird call across the region they are in. But if the sound is investigated, it is always off in another direction.

In the morning, when breaking camp, literally hundreds of sets of taloned, bird or reptile-like small foot prints can be found in the mud and earth surrounding the camp just beyond where the firelight reached.

If tracked, the tracks come from every direction, heading directly toward the group's campsite. However, the tracks simply start, as if from nowhere, a mere 100 yards from the camp.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 2, 2008)

15) Deadwater

In a remote locale, the group comes across a beautiful spring-fed pool amidst crumbling rocks and renewed nature. 

Animals will refuse to approach the pool, and familiars and magical creatures will feel skittish while in proximity to it. Those with natural lore will be able to determine that the water is perfectly safe to drink. 

Perceptive members of the group will be the first to notice something wrong with the reflections in the pool. 
Thinking, sentient beings (Int 3 or equivalent in a system of choice) cast no reflection.

Unless they have died and been brought back by some means. Such beings always show their true, original form (in the case of the reincarnated) as a reflection.

Returned individuals who drink from the pool always feel refreshed and without fatigue. Returned individuals who swim in the pool see a vision of something they desire.

Those who have not returned from death who drink the water note that it has a strange coppery taste, and see a vague but gruesome image of their own death, leaving them shaken until the next dawn. 

If an individual who has not returned from death attempts to wade or swim in the pool, they are forcibly dragged under the waters by an unseen force, and then released moments before drowning. They are likewise shaken by the experience until the next dawn.

Should the group leave the area for more than a day, and return at some point, they will find the pool gone, replaced by fire blackened earth.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 2, 2008)

16) Fractured Peace

Deep in an underground locale, multi-level dungeon or basement of some long ruined structure beyond the bounds of established civilization, the group will hear a gently melodic sound, not quite music, like wind blowing through some distant instrument.

If investigated, they will find, out of plain sight, but not truly contained or under cover, what appears to be a fracture in the air. Light refracts and reflects through odd "panes" hanging in mid-air, causing odd shadows on any nearby surfaces, while a calming windsong like sound emanates from the fracture.

While within about 30' of the fracture, no being, regardless of immunities or protection, is capabale of taking violent or aggressive action. 

Additionally, all beings within 30' perfectly understand the languages of other beings within the area.

Unfortunately, creatures beyond the boundary of the Calm are fully capable of raining death and destruction down on those within it, and those within cannot retaliate while staying within the area of the Calm.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

17) Fragment with a View

In ruined room, or treasure, the group discover a shattered piece of silver just larger than a man's fist, that is as smooth as glass, with edges just as sharp and jagged as if it was glass. It seems unbreakable, yet cannot scratch or cut the softest materials, though it can draw blood if used to cut living flesh.

More disturbing is that despite it seemingly shiny surface, it reflects no images, just light sources.

If this is investigated at length, it will be noted that any light reflected off the shard onto another surface has strange, faint shadow forms in the reflected light, but nothing truly discernable.

In mere starlight or absolute darkness, those near the shard with sight beyond the norm will see images within its small surface which seem to shed no light into the real world, but still be visible. 

The images are usually hard to place due to a lack of perspective, living flesh, twisitng impossibly hued crystals, bubbling gelatinous fluid and such. No matter what the visions, they are never the same with a new viewing, regardless of how much or little the viewer has moved, though during any one viewing, moving the shard appears to shift the point of view through some other otherwordly space.

If the shard is ever totally immersed in warm blood of a living (or just recently living) creature. It appears to dissolve into nothingness. 

The last person to view the shard's otherworlds is granted a painful, but helpful, vision to some goal or quest of theirs, and finds a strange sharp-edged "drawing" on their left hand, both back and palm reminiscent of the shard's shape. It cannot be removed.


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## Andor (Oct 3, 2008)

18) Anachronism

The party encounters a lost individual dressed as a wizard or psion. He asks them for directions to some mundane location, and if they help him he insists on paying them for their help telling them they have done more than they can know. If examined the coins he pressed upon them show an unknown but aged king whose name matches that of the ruleing king's youngest son.


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## Andor (Oct 3, 2008)

19) Misplaced

While traveling (where is unimportant, but the farther from the sea the better) the party notices the overwhelming stench of rot. If the seek it they find the decaying carcass of a whale lying in an otherwise unremarkable field. 

Possible details to add:

-Lying rushed under the body of the whale is a goblin shaman who appears to have been performing some magic ritual.

-The whale bears intricate tattoes about it's body and has a necklace of coral and glass.

-The stomach of the whale contains a human skeleton dressed in archaic armour.

-The head of the whale bears a shipping label in some undecipherable script.


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## Andor (Oct 3, 2008)

20) Ancient Evidence

A landslide has revealed an ancient ruin. Within the complex contains the rusted, tripped and disabled remains of many deadly traps, some with skeletons still impaled on them. 

A large central chamber bears the evidence of an epic fight although all that is left now is dust and bone. The rotted remains of great chests are along one wall, all empty. A still functioning magic circle holds the eternally trapped skeleton of a great demon.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

The whale is FABULOUS. Especially since I'm playing in a campaign with a goblin shaman of a sea god, and I could SO see that happening.

21) A Shooting What?

When in the wilderness, the group sees a flash up in the sky, and then a great whistling and thunder as a shooting star streaks overhead, but closer than any have ever seen. Just past a line of trees or hills there is a crack of thunder and second flash of light, followed by the earth bucking like a sea wave, knocking the group from their feet.

If they decide to investigate, it takes perhaps an hour and a half on foot to find the site of the impact. What they find is a blasted crater perhaps 200' in diameter. At it's center, however, there is an unblemished circle of land about 40' across. Upon it is a great stone obelisk, smooth carved and brightly painted as if erected mere days ago, depicting an ancient wizard-king's triumph over a terrible foe. If the area around the crater is searched, the smallest of extremely weathered hard stone foundations are found scattered on several of the surrounding hills and copses of trees.

If mapped out, the edges of the ruins bound enough space to be considered a small, but circularly laid out, village where no one has ever heard rumors of one, let alone a wizard's empire.

No names, writings, nor secret compartments are to be found.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

22) Land locked

While traveling through rocky terrain, such as foothills or a low mountain pass, the group hears the sound of a small bell ringing the watch.

If the sound is followed, they find a small box canyon. 

Literally half-embedded in the stone of walls of the canyon, as well as partly in several boulders is a whole sailing ship of magnificent design. There is no sign of actual damage to the vessel, except the torn and tattered sails and rigging. Where the wood of the ship and the stone of the canyon touch, they seem to have been fused together.

A small bell rings the hourly watches on it's own, imbued with magic to do so, so long as it remains attached to its housing on the ship.

No bodies or inhabitants are to be found. Nor any signs of violence.

There may be some cargo still in the hold.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

23) Facetious

The group comes across a broken open barrow, perhaps infested with undead. Apparently previously looted, it is obvious that a pile of stones near the back of the barrow is more recent, and looks deliberately stacked. 

If moved, it reveals an ancient metal door that swings sideways into the ceiling on some sort of pivot.

Beyond is a simple room with layers of dust, and dozens of foot prints, obviously from different times that lead to a stone pedestal engraved with various abjurative runes and patterns. Upon it is a fabulously crafted full face mask of steel, silver and ivory, covered in some dust, but otherwise unblemished, depicting a beautiful smiling face.

As soon as light falls upon it a voice is heard, "True heroes? Let it be so, that my gift of speech be freed."

No amount of attempted interaction will produce any other result from the mask.

If taken, the individual carrying the mask finds that they can understand any speech heard. If a character dares to wear the mask, they find that they can speak fluently the language of any one person at which they are looking. Alas, once worn, the mask always returns to the possession of the person who wore it first after removal from the barrow, even if others wear it afterward, or it is thrown away.

More disastrous, one day after one person has worn it, the mask will make off color remarks, innuendo, and insults at random individuals near to the bearer, always seeming to originate from the bearer, in their own voice, and perfectly understandable by the target, despite language difference. The mask does not need to be worn for this effect to begin taking place.

With each day, the mask will choose more obviously wealthy, powerful, or physical imposing beings to direct it's insulting jokes at, making the bearer's life miserable, if not downright dangerous.

The only way to be free of this curse is to find the abandoned barrow, fight whatever new beasts or brigands have decided to use it as their home, and place the mask back upon it's pedestal. At this point will be heard the bearer's voice from the mask, "No sense of humor. None at all."


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

24) The Black Sink

Amidst out of the way ruins, the group comes across a secluded, mostly intact chamber of a building. Set into the middle of the floor is an utterly black chunk of black crystal the height of a man, and twice as wide. 

Almost completely non-reflective, one can barely make out the edges of it many faceted surface.

There will be some scattered, but old, detritus, as if the pace had been used as a campsite in times past.

Members will note that any abilities they possess that magically or mentally divine, reveal or augur utterly fail, drained away without effect, while in the room with the crystal. 

Investigation will prove the room to be completely invisible to detection magicks and to scrying, making it a superb hideaway from powerful enemies.

The problem exists only if the group camps in the aura of the crystal. Seemingly at random, one member will have a fitfull sleep, filled with nightmares, and hearing voices asking questions. They will wake fatigued.

If the group continues to sleep in the crystal's presence on multiple evenings, others will suffer the nightmares of dozens of voices asking questions and dark forms gliding through liquid rock.

If the group sleeps there again after each member has had the disturbing nightmares, all their sleeps will be troubled, finally seeing horrible amorphous forms coming for them, seemingly "eating" the images and questions that fly by in the nightmare, and then noticing the characters, and rushing forward to devour them with lamprey like mouths on tentacles.

Wakened by the nightmare, they will find themselves wounded, covered in many circular bite marks and bleeding freely.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 3, 2008)

25) No survivors

Wherever the group happens to be, preferably somewhere where wars have been fought in the past, there is a shout nearby, followed by a scream.

Around a street corner or past a small area of trees and brush they find the body of a man wearing archaic armor and bearing heraldry unfamiliar in the present day.

Several crude arrows or darts have impaled his back, and his blood still flows from his cooling corpse. A scroll case is tightly clutched in one hand.

If nothing has been taken from the man within half a minute, the group watches as the body rots, decays, turns to bones and leathery sinew, and then even the bones begin to weather and finally crumble, while the armor tarnishes, and cloth and leather disintegrate to dust around the remnants. If the now cracked and dry scroll case is examined, it contains nothing but dust.

If the scroll case is taken before the decay begins, it remains intact despite the man's dissolution.

Inside is a hastily scrawled message in ancient script. If decipered it describes that a camp of "the enemy" has been found ready to ambush at a unfamiliar named location.


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## Andor (Oct 3, 2008)

26) What the hell just happened?

One night, in the middle of a completely uneventfull 2nd watch in the deep of the night the entire party (even the guards, even the elves) is suddenly and violently awakened by the sound of an iron chain snapping. Nothing has been disturbed, there are no chains present. Each party member bears bruises and cuts around their wrists and ankles as though they had been manacled and fettered. While no time has passed their hair has grown an unruly inch. If there is a paladin/champion of freedom in the party they bear new whip scars.

Give the party 1000 xp.

If there is an evil member of the party they find a note in their pack reminding them to live up to their half of the bargin. They remember no bargin.

If they are in town when this happens they are the only ones effected, exept that the village idiot is utterly (and incoherantly) grateful to them for something.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 4, 2008)

That...that...that was beautiful *sniff*.


27) The Whispering Woods

Near a frontier town there is a small, but overgrown, remnant of an old growth forest that fills a small valley. The locals claim it is haunted. None hew its trees, and hunters only explore it's edges in lean seasons.

Should the group investigate, they will notice some minutes after entering a constant low rustling, as if a breeze through leaves. But the air beneath the boughs is stale and still. 

Those who try to listen closely can make out what seem to be dozens of voices speaking in low tones over one another seemingly from no source.

If the group spends more than an hour under the canopy, one member will hear a louder whisper a clue or hint to a question or puzzle they have been seeking an answer to.

Then the sussurus will stop. Some minutes later, it will begin to grow, this time the words will be clear from the hundred voices, repeating over and over again, "GET OUT!", until the growing whispers become shouts, then a screaming whirlwind making the which makes the trees shake.

Even if they run, the group will be disorient by the deafening noise and flying leaves, as their ears begin to bleed, until finally they black out.

They will then wake with a start, all in a dimly lit room on cots, likely a temple or other healing house, with some healers in attendance who will notice their awakening.

If asked, the healers will say they were found on the main road into the village (the one the group originally arrived from, nowhere near the whispering woods), senseless and fevered, bleeding from their ears, eyes, and mouths. 

If questioned further, it is the day the group originally arrived in the village, before their expedition to the forest.


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## Set (Oct 4, 2008)

Neat stuff!

One I used on my group awhile back;

28)One of the PCs (roll randomly, or let them all have it, but from different perspectives) awakens from a vivid dream that sticks with them; 

_In the dream, you are in a classroom with a bunch of other students. Some are talking in accented voices about coming from a far-away land and how their own countrymen seem strange to them now, as if they have changed so much that they can never come back. You end up talking with one girl who is playing some word game with another girl that also involves the name of a country she can’t seem to figure out. The teacher is a tall woman with long black hair, who doesn’t seem to do any teaching so much as lean back and ignore you while various discussions take forth, rarely interjecting some comment or correction, although she seems a bit bored, and even dismissive at times. 

At the end of class, you are looking a picture that someone has made with chalk in one of the desks, of a young boy with hair forward in a mop over his eyes and a white mask covering his lower face, along with another girl, a half-elf with amber colored eyes, who is wondering who drew that, since it’s been there forever. You leave class together, only instead of a hallway, you are in a damp tunnel, leading up to the sunlight. The girl you are with walks out into the sunlight, but you stay behind. _

************************************************* 

On the streets of the city, you bump into a woman in the market place, she’s got a severe expression and was clearly distracted. She’s dressed in a moderately expensive looking dress with a tight leather bodice, painted to match, and has a fair amount of makeup on. Her hair is shoulder-length and brown, dyed with red henna, and her eyes are amber. She has clear half-elven ancestry, and you know you recognize her from somewhere. She looks up ready to snap off an angry comment, from the looks of it, but stops herself and just stares at you before turning to leave as she also recognizes you. 

It turns out that she lived through whatever dream you just had as a child, almost 40 years ago (which is why you can’t be the boy she saw, because he was human and would be much older)! Only it wasn’t a ‘classroom,’ although she admits that children might want to remember it that way. It was a slave-pen in a bluffside cavern near the city, where slavers would stow away their illegal cargo before sailing into port to meet with their underground contacts. This particular pen held only children, and the ‘teacher’ was a dour-faced black-haired woman who made sure that they were fed and that nobody got away. Almost all of the children were young girls, with one or two exceptions, and were mostly human, with a few halflings and a single half-elf. The two girls who spoke of their homeland were from the Scarlet Brotherhood, sold into slavery by their own parents, who had been holding out for blonde-haired, blue-eyed children, and sold off their ‘impure’ kids. (replace with campaign-specific stuff as needed)

The ‘chalk drawing’ of the masked boy was made by an earlier inhabitant of the pen, scratched into the rock with another rock, and some of the kids would fantasize that the masked boy was going to come and rescue them some day. 

The half-elf woman remembers a gift for sorcery even then, and explains that she used a spell to animate the twine holding the bamboo ‘bars’ of their pen together, and then to restrain the woman standing guard over them, while the children made a run for it, the larger ones carrying the smaller ones in a dash for freedom. Other guards at the end of the tunnel made short work of that escape attempt, and only she escaped, to return to town and find that her mother had vanished in the months she’d been away, and turning to a life on the street. 

She can be convinced to point the PC in the direction of the slave-pen, in the bluffs to the east/west/whatever of the city, but points out that it’s been forty years and she can't imagine why these dreams would happen now...


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## The_Warlock (Oct 8, 2008)

29) Time & Time Again

While travelling between distant outposts of civilization, the group wakes up from their camp feeling haggard, but not truly fatigued. 

Sometime later, they see several small plumes of smoke rising from the road. Just around a hill they come across a sacked and burning trade caravan. The guards and merchants slaughtered, only one is found alive, limbs crushed under a topple wagon, and impaled by several javelins.

Seeing the groups, he cries out weakly, "No, I can't lose her. Not again. Not again." The merchant then passes into death.

Some few small valuable still remain, but for the most part the caravan has been completely looted, and what wasn't of interest to the brigands was torched.

Should the group continue on without investigation, an hour or so later, they will see more plumes of smoke in the distance. When they arrive around another hill, they will find themselves looking upon the same scene of destruction. Once again, the merchant weakly makes his plea, and dies. Any objects the group took previously are back in the same positions they were originally found the first time.

More thorough investigation of the caravan will reveal that the most badly burned and shattered wagon appears to have had a body crucified to it when it burned.

At this point, while time seems to proceed, the group finds that no matter what direction they go, they either come across the caravan again after a couple hours, or if they go away from the road, they find themselves back on the road after a short time.

When night falls, the caravan disappears, even if the group stands among it. If the group wakes before dawn, and rides hard, they will shortly come across a vicious battle around a caravan camp between the defenders and a band of brutal and savage brigands. 

While a tough fight, the group should turn the tables. When the last brigand is killed or driven away. The merchant the group has now seen dead multiple times, walks up to them with a broken arm and spattered in the blood of friend and enemies, "I prayed that help would arrive in time. And here you are. Thank you! What comforts my camp and caravan can offer are yours."

With that, a lithe and beautiful young woman steps from the largest wagon, armed with a crossbow, "My father and I BOTH thank you travelers. Who knows what these blackhearts would have done had you not arrived in time."

The group can travel with the caravan from then on until they reach a common destination, but none of the travelers show any magical or priestly powers to account for the group's experiences.

When they reach an outpost of civilization, however, they will find that they seem to have lost a week of time due to their travails with the recurring caravan raid.


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## The_Warlock (Mar 10, 2009)

30) The ColdWell

In a long abandoned ruin or a track of wilderness which shows occasional bits of worn stone that could once have been walls of some town or city amidst the nature, the group notices a chill breeze, even if summer, coming from somewhere just out of sight.

Moving forward they find the remnant of a cobblestone paved square, in it's center a fountain pool filled with rippling water, and a statue which has been broken: it's face sheared off, and it's upraised right hand and whatever symbol it held removed at the wrist. Both pieces lie under the surface of the pool

More importantly, the entire clearing is covered in rime frost, and cold air from a polar climate dominates the area, sending a wash of chill air out in all directions. Steeping into the wide plaza has all the effects of stepping onto an arctic ice sheet on the unprepared.

Scattered around the plaza are many bodies of different races, and from the appearance of their clothing and armor, wildly different eras and cultures. All frozen to death, though most also show brutal wounds of many sorts. A selection of weapons is scattered randomly about, freezing to the touch and frozen to the cobbles.

Despite this cold, the water in the fountain remains liquid, but resists mundane or magical attempts to lower it's surface. Magical efforts are half as effective as they should be. In either case, this makes it difficult to reveal the broken statue pieces without touching the water.

A living creature who touches the water is drained of their body heat swiftly, though the hardy may resist it. Those who resist suffer as if they had stood unprotected in the plaza for 10 minutes, those who fail merely fall to the plaza floor unconscious and shivering.

When a person resists the water's cold, there is a cracking sound, and a windy moan, and one of the dead bodies rises moving toward any living creature in an attempt to beat them unconscious and push them into the pool.

When a person falls unconscious due to touching the pool water (or is shoved in whole body by a frost zombie), two of the frozen bodies rise to assault the living.

There are three to five times the number of frozen zombies as group members. Even if the group shatters the bodies into icy chunks before dealing with the fountain, frozen body parts will animate to engage them - while individually weaker, they will count as some form of swarm composed of frozen limbs, bones and heads.

If the group can successfully remove the face and hand of the statue from the water and somehow reattach it to the statue in some permanent fashion, any active frost zombies collapse, and all the bodies that were there melt away as if they were nothing but ice. In addition, the deadly cold retreats and instead becomes cool and comfortable regardless of the weather & season (cold or hot).


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## The_Warlock (Apr 2, 2009)

31) Predation

Shortly after the adventurers enter a known/living dungeon (an extensive sewer system, for instance, or a series of caverns or delves near civilization that are routinely populated and fought over by magical or underdark beasts/races) they hear a pair of horrid screams and at least one audible snap from not too far away, followed by silence. 

Should they investigate, they will find the scene of the battle. Two men, one in chain mail, the other in scale, lie in great bloody pools. Both were killed by paired thrusts through their chest and abdomen. 

More disturbing is that both have somehow had their skulls removed, leaving limp bags of flesh that were once their face and scalp attached to their necks like obscene hoods.

A bloody, four-toed, splay footed set of footprints leads off down the corridor, growing fainter over about 200' until it is lost in an area of muck, mold or water, as befits the type of dungeon.

The bodies of the slain men would have some basic dungeoneering equipment, a small amount of coin, but their armor and backpacks have been ruined, and any fragile equipment was also shattered. One may have a journal describing parts of the dungeon, or perhaps a map to a hidden section of the dungeon.


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## Andor (Apr 2, 2009)

32) It's got to mean something!

The next time a pc flips a coin, it lands on it's edge.

The coin is not magic, and the trick does not repeat itself. Extended trials show no statistical deviation from normal coin flipping trials. The coin is a completely normal, current circulation copper piece that did not come from a special horde.


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## Jack7 (Apr 2, 2009)

*The Iceman Cometh*


The party is moving through an area, any area. They hear a sound up ahead like conversation. When they investigate they find a body lying upon the ground. It is apparently the source of the conversation. If they approach close the body seems to float a few feet off the ground, then turn upright, allowing the feet to hit the ground. Then the figure will flee suddenly while speaking about something only the party members should know about.

As they chase the figure it will come to an intersection and then turn. When the face is seen the party-members will realize it is the face and figure of a dead former comrade or party member. He will point at his temple, then make a circle in the air and say in a his own recognizable, but hollow sounding voice, "I never meant this..." Then he will disappear.

Sometime later the party stumbles upon an apparently frozen dead man. He is completely encased in a thin sheet of blue ice that makes him appear as if he is covered in a veneered sheen of crystal. He is slowly melting. He sits bolt upright with opened eyes and across his lap lies a large battle axe. He is melting. (That is the crystalline ice sheet covering him is slowly melting.) As he melts he grows in size. If the party stays around until he is fully melted then he will stand over 12 feet tall. After sitting for three minutes completely thawed he will exhale a breath that is visible like ice crystals. It will stink and at the same time will begin a buzzing sound like angry flying insects.

At that point he will stand and attack the nearest party member. He will make three attacks and if he can kill the party member then he will return to his chair and shrink to normal size and refreeze. If he makes his three attacks and does not kill the party member then he will shatter. 

In either case the surviving party members will thereafter hear a sound like metal being shredded. On the wall behind where the frozen man sat will appear in ice the phrase, _"The Iceman Cometh..."_

Then the ice will form into a large jet-black raven who will fly over and land upon the shoulder of the leader of the party. His claws will feel chilled and metallic. He will drop something out of his beak. It will be a frozen tongue covered in weird glyphs.

After that there will be several rounds in which no sound can be heard...


This is a good thread idea by the way Warlock. I like several of the entries and especially, _"What the hell just happened?"_


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## The_Warlock (Apr 2, 2009)

Jack7 said:
			
		

> This is a good thread idea by the way, Warlock.




I was certainly hoping people would think so. Keeping things weird and magical is important. 

PS: Yours is seriously disturbing. I'm pretty sure most players in my runs would just be completely confused and sweating.



			
				Jack7 said:
			
		

> I like several of the entries and especially, _"What the hell just happened?"_




Yeah, I think Andor wins this thread with that one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use that in the next campaign I run.


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## Raven Crowking (Apr 2, 2009)

Removed


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## Jack7 (Apr 2, 2009)

> Keeping things weird and magical is important




_It is indeed_. Very important and I think magic should always include an element of the "weird and dangerous."

In many of my scenarios and adventures I specifically include a difficult moral dilemma, and sometimes a "strange or bizarre or unexplained event." Similar to what Andor suggested with the _*"What the hell just happened..."*_ entry.

But after thinking about this thread and what you suggested I've also decided that every time they encounter strong enough magic or a dangerous enough situation then somewhere in that same scenario/adventure will be, what I'm gonna call, a *Weirding*, or a *Wyrding* (depending upon circumstances). And this thread gave me the idea.

So here is my next _*Weirding/Wyrding*_. 


*The Colossus of Roads*

The party is moving along a deserted Road system in the wilderness. They come to either a fork in the road or to an four way intersection. Where the roads meet or split, in the exact center of that spot will be a shiny mirror, lying partially buried by the muck but still obviously visible. The mirror will be slightly convex and if the party members attempt to dig it up they will be unable to, as every time they dislodge earth new earth will immediately spring up to replace what was dug away. But if they shine or polish or clean the mirror then they will be able to see a very disturbing scene in the reflection.

The mirror will go mostly dark giving the feeling of gloom to the surrounding countryside, even in broad daylight. They will see in the mirror a series of scenes in which a huge, monstrous, colossal thing with an inscribed globe of iron in his hand and a crown of swarming insects and spiders on his brow is seen walking across the landscape. Every time his huge feet hit the ground they dig in several feet and as he passes his footsteps leave behind puddles of freshly churned blood. The images give the impression that the ground is shaking, but nothing can be heard emanating from the mirror. Occasionally crushed bones are seen in his footprints. Suddenly the Colossus is at a fork or intersection at a road and the players will realize that they are at the same exact spot as pictured in the scene with the colossus. Only apparently at a different point in time.

The colossus looks around and from his viewpoint the players can see for miles. The colossus looks up and sees plummeting out of the sky a huge Roc. The roc is apparently dead and falls out of the sky to land at the foot of the colossus with a tremendous crash which breaks the body open. The colossus raises his leg and tramples the huge dead carrion fowl into a bloody pulp. When the colossus is finished trampling the corpse he looks down at it. Having spilled out of the stomach and intestines of the bird are the remains of the party-members who are watching the scene, partially digested, but recognizable from their gear and equipment.

Then the mirror goes dark.

At that moment an earthquake begins which lasts for about thirty seconds. It throws everyone to the ground. After that everything is still for several seconds and then the players see a huge hand explode from the ground near the intersection. Then another. The hands begin to dig up the surrounding ground as if a corpse digging itself out of a grave. If the characters stay in the immediate area then they will be covered in the surrounding dislocated earth and may become injured or even killed.

When the head appears it is of a gargantuan figure with a strange helm and on the top of the helm is the _"mirror of the intersection"_ or _"mirror of the fork."_ The entire figure, which stands over 120 feet tall and appears made of bronze digs itself free in about 3 or 4 minutes leaving a huge, gaping crater in the ground where the road used to be. The colossus then stands upright and seems to scan the horizon as if looking for something. He will then look at the sun or moon, whichever is visible. He will walk up and down the various roads for about a half-mile along each branch of the road, apparently trying to look for something in the distance, then turn to follow a different road. Each time he steps the ground trembles but he makes no impression of any kind upon the ground.

After he has _"walked every road"_ he will return to the intersection where the huge hole is, turn and look directly at the party members, and then stoop and use his finger to inscribe something in the ground. He will then stand, shake his head while looking at the party and leap into the hole out of which he came. It would be expected that a huge impact would occur as he leaps in but no sound, shaking, or impact is noticed. He simply completely disappears into the hole. If the party members go and look into the hole they will see nothing but a huge, bloody feathers and the apparent stinking and mostly decayed remains of a huge bird carcass, covered in worms, insects, and spiders.

If the party members can gain a good vantage point by which to see the huge writing of the colossus they will read, "For you there is no road forward, and no road of return. I am sorry."


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## RangerWickett (Jan 26, 2010)

*35. I Can Has Minion?*

The PCs find a wide sheet of paper sitting on the ground or on a table. A small binding circle has been drawn in charcoal, and inside the circle lies a book. The book is open to the beginning of a story, the biography of a cat. The first page shows a moving illustration of a white cat that occasionally watches the PCs, but is just as likely to tend to a spit on which he's roasting a mouse, or leave the frame altogether.

The PCs can turn the pages in the book freely, and read other stories about animals, but while each story starts with an illustration page, none of their main characters are present. If they look for the story about a mouse, they see signs of a recent struggle, and cat claw scratch marks on the floor.

If they move the book or erase the binding circle, if the book is closed the PCs start to hear plaintive meowing. If the book is open to a picture frame, the cat climbs out, then follows the party for a year and a day. Occasionally the party will wake up to find a wild animal dead near their camp, or a dead burglar outside their home. The cat, when they next see it, is innocently licking a faint red stain off its forepaw.


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## The_Warlock (Dec 13, 2010)

*36. Dead Man's Chime*

While traveling through a wilderness, preferably a mix of hilly woodland, the light breeze brings the faint sound of hollow whistle and wooden wind chime sounds.

If the PCs investigate, the find a copse of twisted trees and thorn bushes at the end of a short ravine that seems to channel the wind toward the trees. While the trees themselves seem to add to the sounds, the hollow sounds come from inside the small woods.

After a painful and difficult navigation of the briars, the group finds itself in a roughly circular glade, stones of many hues arranged in a complex pattern on the ground, though overgrown with weeds and grass. Near the center are the bleached skeletal remains of a figure half again the height of a man, with a serpentine skull, another dozen colored stones scattered amidst it's taloned phalanges.

The most disturbing thing, however, are the skulls, literally scores, hung from black cords and tarnished metal rods overgrown with thorny vines, arranged like wind chimes. As the breeze blows, it wails hollowly through the eye sockets, and the occasional knock of empty heads makes a echoing "thock" sound. Nonetheless, the whole seems to sound almost on the verge of some written piece of music.

If any living thing steps into the glade, the sounds coming from the skulls seem to become a murmur, and in dozens of languages begin whispering..."Get out...Get out...Get out" slowly causing unbidden fear to grip those who hear it...(saves as appropriate). 

Those who fearfully run pell mell through the woods suffer brutal attacks from the thorn bushes. Should they die due to the attacks, thorn bushes engulf the body in a spray of blood.

If some companions are still watching the glade when a companion dies, they will notice one of the chimes bears a new, bloody severed head: that of their lost companion.

Those who search the woods for their lost companion find a trail of bloody thorns, and a briar bush covered in torn flesh and blood, but nothing else. 

The group who leaves the Copse of Skulls (whether on their own, or running in fear and survives) find themselves blinking away bright noon day sunlight with a small copse of straight, tall trees beside the road or trail they had been following earlier. 

Sitting on a nearby rock are any companions who "died" in the Copse of Skulls, looking quite irritated, and covered in several small lacerations, as if from running through a forest or underbrush, saying that the rest of the group rushed off without them earlier on the trail.

Should anyone try and backtrack, they can find no sign of the twisted trees or their wind channeling hills.

Characters who survived the Copse will notice that those who died have some kind of bit of fluttering twine or paper object clinging or tied to some part of their pack.

If examined, there is a crudely written note in brown ink in archaic script that holds a hint or clue to something the character has been seeking, or if not perhaps a simple map to some lost treasure, followed by the words, "Payment accepted."

(This one requires some trust on the part of your players - feel free to pass a note to the "dead" ones if you feel you must).


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## The_Warlock (Jan 11, 2011)

*37. Mirror, Mirror*

At some point, when the group comes upon a room with a large mirror in it, one member of the group will hear faint grunts of pain. No one else can hear the sound.

Looking into the mirror will reveal the expected reflection, except that the character who can hear the sound will notice that the reflection of themselves has clenched teeth, and a fearful, desperate look in his/her eyes. 

It then seems to notice that it's reflection is different, and writes, either in dust on the floor, or furniture, or on the mirror itself, "Help" which appears backwards, and then surreptitiously points to a melee weapon on the real character. If other members of the party are also in the reflection, the mirror-character seems to be trying to avoid letting the mirror-party notice it's attempt at communication.

If the real character puts the requested weapon, or another "helpful" item, down so that it is reflected near the mirror-self and unattended, the mirror self picks it up. 

The mirror self then assaults or is assaulted by mirror images of the real character's companions, and the mirror-self is born down in a pile of aggressive doppelgangers who reveal knobby skin, goat-like eyes and shark-toothed maws. The mirror self fights valiantly but is born out of view by the assault, at the last minute ripping an amulet from it's neck and throwing it at the mirror, which shatters upon contact.

Any real character must avoid a deadly barrage of silvered glass if within 10' of the mirror. 

If searched afterwards, the real character will find the item it "gave" to it's mirror self is gone, though trails of green-grey blood spatter the back of the mirror shards. 

Amid the ruined glass is a necklace and amulet made of incredibly crafted glass chain links and a stylized glass eye which are as hard as steel. If worn it grants some form of benefits to perceiving disguises, illusions, and shapeshifters. 

Or perhaps just makes the wearer think normal folk are disguised horrors...


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## The_Warlock (Jan 11, 2011)

*38. What World Are You From?*

Late one night, camped in a wilderland frontier, preferably with cover, be it boulder strewn moor, or stunted marsh trees, or the equivalent, but with a clear view of the night sky overhead, the characters on watch hear the sounds of an echoing chase, with many feet, and flapping wings which seems to fade and close on their camp with nothing to see. 

Anyone looking up at the night sky will see what look like heat shimmers, followed moments later by the moon overhead changing from bright and full to an angry blood red, parts of it sheared off and floating in the sky behind it, and a foul stink and thin haze creeps into their camp, kept at bay only by the light of their campfire.

A few moments later a figure crashes through the scrub and cover into their camp, clutching a bleeding stump of an arm, and gasping for breath, before hitting the ground at the edge of the firelight. 

When it looks up, it is a haggard, older face, but one well known to the characters - a significant adversary or villain they have foiled before, but never killed or brought to permanent justice. He/she will also seem to recognize the characters, but confused, ask, "How? You're dead. Dead. I saw them kill you and eat the corpses. HOW?"

That is when the sounds of the chase arrive, bringing strange man-things with no faces, just masses of ganglia where a head should be with weird polearms that arc purple lightning at their tips, and from above the flapping of great wings as a strange cross between a wyvern and a manta ray alights at the edge of the camp, ridden by a robed figure who grips the sides of the flying beast with tentacular hands, but has a taut mummified elven face whose eyes have been replaced by worms. With a sibilant voice he commands the ganglians to eradicate the escape slaves.

The ganglians rush forward attacking the party, using abilities that trip, shove, and daze with lightning, in an effort to surround them. Once that has happened, the rider will command his beast to fly, swooping  down to snatch the wounded villain, and fly off. As he is taken, he screams at the party..."Don't let them find it! Whatever it takes. Never let them find Esker's Delve...kill them all, kill the twins!" as he is borne out of sight.

As the characters vanguish one ganglian after the other (make them a significant challenge) the remainder appear to get weaker, transparent, and shadowy, and translucent, tortured faces of men and women can be seen overlayed over their faceless necks. When as many as the party member remain, there is a mighty thundercrack, which knock the characters to the ground.

The moon is once again itself, and normal night sounds and smells return. Any animals the characters have seem skittish for a while, but otherwise normalcy returns, though the group has any wounds they suffered in the battle.

If anyone decides to search or track, they will find the tracks and blood trail of the dream adversary, impossibly faint at the edge of the camp, deeper, and more normal where he fell, and then faint transparent blood stains that go for a dozen feet in the direction he was carried off.


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## kristoaster (Jan 12, 2011)

Number 38 sounds more like the beginnings of a whole adventure than a single mystery


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## The_Warlock (Jan 12, 2011)

kristoaster said:


> Number 38 sounds more like the beginnings of a whole adventure than a single mystery




Depends entirely on what world the PCs ARE from.


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## The_Warlock (Jul 8, 2011)

*39. Shadows of a Race*

Preferably while the party is traveling in a uncivilized wilderness, lightly to heavily forested, the most aware members catch sight of a silhouette blinking in and out of the trees in the distance with a faint sounds of hooves, then silence.

If investigated, the party finds no obvious trail, though a trained tracker will notice a set of jagged, cloven hoof prints all by themselves, as if something was in mid gallop, but no tracks immediately before or after it. 

If they look farther afield, they will find another set of similar tracks 60 or 70 feet further on. The tracks seem fresh, no more than an hour old...

If the difficult dispersed tracks are followed, about 20 minutes into trailing them, a series of staccato impact will be heard from behind.

Turning, the party will see a vaguely horse-like creature, blip in and out of existence, only to strike and bound off again with it's sharp and spiked hooves, screaming in a most human way from it's crocodilianly long maw which stretches back the length of it's horse-like skull, the top of which is covered in shattered ivory protrusions.

The creature will not stop, and may accidentally teleport trample anyone in it's path, or narrowly miss them (as seems most appropriate).

The creature will quickly leave pursuers behind, but can still be tracked as before. 

A similar charge through will occur after another 20 minutes of tracking. It will become apparent that there are other older tracks present, and pieces of stone near the path darkened by old blood, as the galloping sound is again heard.

This time, the beast is even more distorted, with swept back shard-like ivory horns, improbable fangs, glowing eyes, and whip-like tendrils writhing from its back and flanks. 

A final push of following the trail leads to a secluded and overgrown dell, wild overgrowth of thorn bushes and poison ivy hindering access. 

Finally breaking through reveals a terrible scene, made worse by it's age. A bowl like area, recently drained of water or bog, a tiny spring trickling into the muddy pseudo-graveyard. 

All the figures in the terrible diorama are adipocere mummies (corpses mummified by their own adipose and fat tissues without oxygen): half a dozen mannish sized figures, some with obviously broken limbs, others pierced with terrible wounds, some impaled on the petrified remnants of a tree's branches...all near the partially netted body of Unicorn, long since dead and equally leathery and mummified, a horrible caricature of itself, only a short stump of it's horn remaining.

If the unicorn's body is cremated or otherwise given some form of proper repose, there will be heard a great whinnying from the path they followed.

Afterward...will the humanoid mummies animate and attack? Will the adventurers examine the cracked rock face that the trickle of water comes from to find the rest of the unicorn's horn still in tact? Or will the remainder of the grisly scene merely become a sinkhole, trying to wipe the the memory of it from the forest, happy to take any too slow to move to a mud covered death by suffocation...


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## The_Warlock (Aug 31, 2011)

*40. What Time Is It?*

While traveling from one bastion of civilization to another, a tremor wracks the earth near the PCs, making it incredibly difficult to stand. The last party member to remain standing hears a terrible cracking and rushing sound, and a sinkhole collapses directly under them to the horror of their comrades.

The sinkhole PC rushes through a slick, abrasive, musty chute-like ride, eventually dumped into a damp, unlit oubliette - the rushing sound of the sinkhole behind them, but no feeling of any tremors or any continuing rush liquefied earth. The chamber is utterly stable, and completely dark.

As soon as the character takes any action to stand, speak, etc, a querulous voices sounds from every direction (except from the area of the rushing sound), "Sorry! SORRY! No, the fourth triad of elemental vortice matrices...damn, Sorry! Just a simple question...What year is it, if you please?"

The voice will dodge any questions directed at it as best as possible, becoming more concerned and worried as it tries to get the PC to answer it's question of year. 

If the PC refuses utterly, the voice finally exclaims..."Oh, OH! NO, the OTHER matrix..." and the PC will suddenly feel a heavy weight in the chest as if they can't breathe...and then black out.

If the PC answers, "Well, hmm. Oh dear, no, no, that simply won't do at ALL. That's completely off. Who calibrated this measurement, this isn't even the correct ERA. I'm terribly sorry. With my appreciation..." and an unseen force unbalances the PC, causing them to pitch backward into the rushing sound.

In either case, the rest of the party will see, only seconds after he disappeared, the swallowed PC, reappear over the sinkhole, as the sinkhole refills in from below and any cracks in the earth undo themselves, as if the tremor never happened. Trees, vehicles, campsites, animals, and the remaining PCs still have any damage or injuries incurred by the initial earthquake. 

If the swallowed PC refused to answer the question, they fall over, covered in terrifying wounds, as if skin and muscle was simply evaporated in various places (assume some form of temporary critical injury or disability), and covered with a variety of unidentifiable bits of grime, muck, slime, and such.

If examined quickly, expert healers, alchemists, or forensics find 1 to 4 small silver gelatinous bits of slime which waver and pules on their own. If they are touched with flesh, the mote disappears and the person who touched it receives a disjointed vision of what the swallowed PC experienced. If they are not captured and stored within a minute, they appear to evaporate.

Magical or alchemical research identifies them as some form of liquefied magical essence which reduces the effect, strength, or duration of a magical item or effect by half. A magically capable character who applies the silver gel can chose which attribute is halved, otherwise it is random. The halving lasts the target's new duration, or 1 minute (for effect or strength). If a magically capable character applies more than one mote for the same purpose to the same target, the target's duration can be halved for each application, or the reduction in power increases to 10 minutes, 1 hour, and finally 1 day for effect or strength.

If the swallowed PC answered the question, they find themselves standing, and unharmed, except for an odd musty smell. Hanging around their neck is a simple silver amulet on a silver chain. The amulet is a simple circle, divided into 5 pie slice sections by thin engraved lines. The PC instantly knows that if they remove a pie slice, it will disappear, and they will gain "time". (By game system it should be roughly the equivalent of gaining a Move Action)

Once all 5 slices are evaporated, the necklace the amulet is attached to evaporates as well. 

No other marks or information presents itself. Attempting to determine the nature or history of the amulet results in the character making the attempt being either blinded, or knocked unconscious, and a pie slice disappearing.


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## nedjer (Aug 31, 2011)

Andor said:


> 18) Anachronism
> 
> The party encounters a lost individual dressed as a wizard or psion. He asks them for directions to some mundane location, and if they help him he insists on paying them for their help telling them they have done more than they can know. If examined the coins he pressed upon them show an unknown but aged king whose name matches that of the ruleing king's youngest son.




Yeah, magic coinage = much fun.

Players seem to see the gold piece as some sort of totally reliable, fixed part of play. Soon as they go into a room and see the money's moved or changed it's always been 90%+ 'who messed with the money', because money can't go magic, form colonies and drown your lungs with liquid gold in the middle the night 

Forgot the urban myth version of this before; which is a swallow - the piles of gold line up alongside the sleeping player and get longer over a couple of nights. It'#s like a snake seeing if it's large enough to consume you in one go yet.


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## Iron Sky (Sep 1, 2011)

*41 - Painted Prophecy*

The players find or buy a canvas with the assurance/notes/rumor that anything drawn on it is created in reality or scenes painted will come true.

Presumably, they'll paint things they desire upon it (with maybe a skill check to see how well what they paint looks like the real thing). PCs are rewarded a small and diminishing amount of xp each time they use it.

After numerous attempts, they give up, probably discarding/giving away/selling the canvas.

Months or years (many sessions) later, they start discovering the things they painted - horribly disfigured, mutated, or warped in the case of poorly painted objects, creatures, or environments - have come/are coming true, come to life, or been created they just didn't happen where the PCs were at where and when they painted it.

Now where the hell has the canvas gotten to!?


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## ghostcat (Sep 3, 2011)

42 Wizards Duel

The party is travelling through a ravine or canyon when a figure suddenly appears on top of the left hand canyon wall several hundred yards in front of them. The figure leans forward, hands on knees apparently taking deep breaths. About half a minute later a second figure appears on top of the right hand wall and sends a lightning bolt at the first figure. The first figure retaliates with a fireball and promptly disappears. The second figure soon follows leaving nothing but the smell of scorched earth and ozone. 

43 Thus Spoke the raven

_An oldie but it fits right in here_

The party is staying in an inn. About midnight there is a tapping at the window of the party's room. This tapping persists until the window is opened. On the window sill sits a raven. The raven says "Nevermore" and flies off before anyone can grab it.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 22, 2012)

*44) The Grue*

At some point when the party has entered a dungeon or cave system, the find a section which has all normal ways of entry collapsed except for through an underground stream which passes into the section, with a swim just long enough to tax the breath holding capabilities of the least physically adept members of the party.

They will notice claw marks on the stone near the stream in the collapsed section, and occasional 4-toed clawed foot prints in section of sand or dirt - but never more than three foot prints.

The section is a confusing nest of passages, as well as natural and worked rooms. Any statuary in the worked rooms has had the head removed, nowhere to be seen, and the chest where the heart should be clawed and scratched out. Minor treasures and loot, some scattered, some trapped, is still to be found in these idle chambers.

So long as the characters are within the full radius of a light source, nothing attacks them. However, after the first 10 minutes of exploring the area, they will occasionally hear the click of claws on stone, or feel a slight breeze as if something moved past them.

Adventurers in shadowy light will feel a hot breath on the backs of their necks every so often. After the third breath, they will be struck for damage easily equal to a longsword, as if from nowhere. Wounds always appear as if from a four-taloned hand or paw. 

No amount of mundane or magical vision will reveal the enemy before, during, or after the attack. A being with some form of truesight looking at the victim at the time of the attack, will see the briefest pulse of 4 glowing red eyes, and nothing else. 

A creature who suffers damage from the attack becomes vulnerable to the attacker, even if healed or a long period is spent in light. Each successive attack on a previously struck victim suffers a greater amount of damage (based on system and balanced as the GM sees fit), and more claw marks are left behind with each attack.

A victim who is knocked out or killed by the attack is grabbed by some force and dragged out of the light into the darkness.
While the attacked cannot be trailed, the bloody marks of the victim can be followed.

Similarly, if a character finds themselves in complete darkness (the entire party has darkvision for instance) - the attacker strikes, but starts with damage equal to two longswords. If multiple characters are in complete darkness, it picks random targets for it's attacks. A character in complete darkness must also make a Reflex save or equivalent, or be dragged screaming off into the darkness.

The attacker strikes no more than once per minute. If a victim is being dragged off, the attacks stop for 30 minutes.

Whether by accident, or following the screams or blood trails of a comrade, the party can find a tunnel, hidden behind a long fallen boulder which needs the strength of at least 3 people to move. The tunnel stinks, and the walls and floor are crusted with filth. At the tunnel's end is a large room, with high ceiling and impressive buttresses, and arcane sigils carved and inlaid into the walls. Also set to the walls are strange-looking torch or lamp sconces, all of which have been broken and shattered. 

The floor is covered with filth coated skeletons, and the missing statuary heads. Any victims or comrades are on the top of the pile. If it has been more than 30 minutes since they were taken, the only way to identify them is by the shredded clothing and scattered gear, as all flesh and organs are gone, replaced with a steaming red-black filth. 

Less than that, and the body is intact (alive if dragged off in the complete dark), with an unseen and unknown force playing with and picking at the victims hair and clothing. 

If light is brought toward the room, it dims further and further until even magical light is nothing but a candle's worth once the source is fully in the room. 

Once the room is lit even feebly, there is a terrifying shriek (save vs fear) in the room, and any conscious creatures in the room are each attacked once per round until they leave or fall to the attacks.

This may be enough time to grab the unconscious comrade, and flee backward where the light will regain it's strength. 

At no point is there ever a target to fight. If magical attacks which create light in an area are used, they will cause another Fear causing shriek, but the attacks will stop for a minute or more, depending on the power of the magic. But the skittering claws, and the occasional wheezy breath will still be heard at the fringes of the light for the remainder of the PCs movement through the catacombs. 

Should the party reach the stream, the attacks will cease completely so long as light reflects off the water. 

If the light is put out, the party member nearest the water will be pushed down and held underwater with unaccountable strength, but the 7 gnarled limbs and twisted face which mixes that of a beautiful woman and a locust will be seen as an empty "bubble" in the water by those with darkvision. 

Attacks with fire, light, or silver can actually hit the beast where it's limbs plunge into the water, which causes it to scream and flail, but not release it's target, unless it is hit by three such attacks in one round, or by one such attack for a critical or maximum damage. 

Should that occur, the drowning character is released, and the beast flees, invisible and invulnerable again.

Blood stains from the attacks upon it pool by the edge of the stream, and can be collected. 

If the party chooses to stay in the catacombs, the stalking and attacks will begin again in no more than an hour. 

Once outside, any treasure they looted from the chambers is still their's and appears to be free of any curse - though whenever such is used (whether weapon, coin, or magic item), they feel a hot breath upon the back of their neck.

Attempts to divine anything about the blood reveal nothing about the beast or it's lair, only that the blood is that of a virgin. 

If the PCs ever return to the dungeon where they found the Grue, the entire collapsed section is missing, and in fact, the dungeon as they knew it has a section they never investigated.

However, months or years hence, when investigating a different dungeon, they may come across another strange collapsed section, a stream, and a nest of chambers with a new set of weird worked chambers from a wholly different culture or tomb - but with the heads of the statues knocked off...

And then, the hot breath on the back of their necks...


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## The_Warlock (Oct 23, 2012)

*45) This One Ring*

In some hidden ruin, or treasure hoard, there is a skeletal hand wearing a simple unadorned ring. To anyone with the ability, it detects as powerful magic. Attempts to detect a curse, or what the ring can actually do, fail. Divinations carefully phrased may eventually suggest that the power of the ring is to "Return".

If the ring is worn, there are no obvious benefits, though enemies who fumble when attacking the wearer seem to specifically strike themselves or their allies. 

The wearer of the Ring has regular vivid dreams of an ancient seeming and extravagant empire, specifically in beautiful palace grounds, gardens, and similar upper class locales but with a verdant sky and strange red plants. 

After some weeks, other party members may notice changes to skin tone or hair color on the wearer. At this point, the wearer of the Ring seems to have a knack for getting better accommodations, meals, or when bartering for goods or services.

At this point, the wearer may or may not notice that he or she feels more vigorous, wanting to eat and drink more, and of foodstuffs of higher quality.

The dreams continue - always feeling like the wearer belongs, but never able to see his own self in the dreams. 

If there are no other possibilities, and the wearer perceives the ring as the source, he or she may take it off. If it is placed anywhere on their person, the next time they look at their hand, the Ring is back in place on their finger. 

If they throw the Ring away, it stays gone, until the next time the character wakes from sleep - and finds the Ring once more on their finger. At this point, the Ring allows the wearer to call a single item to hand that he/she possesses and carries with but a thought (Free action, or equivalent). Items already in hand are dropped. 

If they sell or give away the Ring, it stays gone for a week...but upon waking after that period, they find the Ring back on their finger, and the cleanly severed hand of the person they sold or gave it to laying on their chest. 

If they try to destroy the ring, it is easily shattered, and appears back on their finger the next morning. 

If they cut off their own finger with the Ring on it, and throw it away or destroy it, the next morning, the find that they have regrown the finger, with the Ring on it.

The changes to face, hair, body and skin tone continue to progress slowly, though the hand wearing the ring remains unchanged. 

The next dream finally allows the dreamer to see himself in a mirror, a strangely inhuman looking humanoid, admiring it's alien wardrobe - and then flexing one of it's hands - clearly of another race, bearing the glinting golden ring. Before it smiles a shark-like smile as the dream ends.

If the character chooses to continue to bear the Ring, one month later, as teeth have slowly gotten sharper, and body hair begun to fall out, the rest of the party wakes to find the Ring bearer utterly gone - except for his cleanly severed hand still bearing the Ring.

If instead, the character cuts the entire hand off at the wrist, a shriek emanates from the ring, and the whole hand scuttles off like a spider, never to return.

The character's next dream is of the shark-smiling humanoid, now emaciated and grimacing from an elaborate throne. One of it's hands clearly that of the dreamer. While it's lips move, there is no sound as the dream fades further and further into a hazy yellow mist.

Afterwards, the former Ring wearer never suffers the dreams again. If they are able to find a way to regrow or regenerate the hand, the hand is a pale, yellowish-skinned, elongated thing with an extra knuckle on each finger, and the ring finger looks like it has the mark of a ring recently removed with indecipherable text scarred into the skin. The character retains the ability to call small worn or carried items to that hand with a thought. 

If the character does not have the means to regrow the hand, the alien hand will appear to have grown from the stump overnight after waking from sleeping under the next New Moon.


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## The_Warlock (Oct 24, 2012)

46) Shadow Boxer

In a dungeon, tomb or ruin, in a once intricately carved and furnished room, there is a marble pedestal which is carved out of the wall or floor, and not easily removable - the top of which is carved to resemble a mighty hound of some kind, standing ready to rush to the hunt or combat.

Upon the pedestal is archaic text, which, once deciphered, says "Ever watchful, Ever faithful, For those who treat well."

Should the PCs look closely, there is a slightly stained indentation on the pedestal just forward of the hound's front paws. If they put something of value to them on the pedestal, it will roll into the indentation, and that will appear to be the end of it. However, if they look away and look back, or when then leave the room, the hound statue will be laying down, gnawing on some unidentifiable treat between it's paws, and the valuable placed there will be gone. 

So long as the statue is otherwise left alone, that will seem to be the end of it.

However, the next time the character who put the valuable on the pedestal would be ambushed or surprised, there is a low growl, and a portion of his shadow will detach, race away, and knock over the ambusher targeting the character or closest to the character before the ambusher can act. The hound shadow will then disappear. This will happen once for each valuable given to the hound statue.


If any of the characters instead damage the hound statue or it's pedestal, or break it's foundation to remove from it's crypt the hound statue will be seen to have dropped into a threatening stance, or at the very least that the remains of it's head have bared teeth.

For so long as the pedestal/statue is gone from the room, and until each character involved in the defacing of the statue provides a valuable to the statue once it is returned to the room, anytime the characters responsible enter a dangerous situation, a shadow hound will detach from one of the characters shadows, and attempt to knock down, trip, or push a random character into danger always at least as strong/capable as the character it is accosting. The only warning, a low, hateful growl.

Should vandals of the statue offer valuables once all the pieces of the statue are back in it's room, the shadow attacks will stop. In addition, if after placing the tribute they look back, or come back to the room some time later, the statue will be whole and once more in good condition.

Vandals can never receive the guardian benefits, no matter how much they give to the statue, though given valuables will disappear just the same.


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## d3k0y (Aug 20, 2013)

Bit of necromancy and all, but I just found this on StumbleUpon and wanted to add to it.

47) What House?
When the players are in a small-ish town, or city. More than just a farm village, but not exactly an urban sprawl there is a house. Perceptive players might notice that the house is slightly out of sorts looking. There are lights on inside, and the closer player get to it the stronger the smell of almost a huge feast being prepared. They can hear movement inside if it is quite out and they listen closely, but nobody can see anything through the windows, which are oddly foggy and at best they can only make out the vague shapes of furniture. Knocking on the door presents no answer, calling through the door only results in the player yelling receiving some off looks from the townsfolk. The door is locked fast and no amount of effort will open it or scry through it.

At this point someone may notice the architecture of this one house is similar to the houses near it, but not exactly the same and the whole place just seems slightly wrong. Nobody in town seems to notice the house in any way, nobody looks at it, nobody talks about it, if inquired about townsfolk have no idea what you are talking about, there is just an empty field there and always has been. If inquired further they will find that anytime someone tries to put something there, no matter how sturdy it may be, it always falls over taking much more damage than would be expected. Even simple rocks and boulders will be found on the side of the lot the next morning with massive cracks in it. Anyone that attempts to stay away to watch this event happen is never able to witness it happening, with a single blink the rock will be moved from the lot.

After the party first interacts with the house, the player that interacted with it the most will wake up the next morning with a very very old key at the very bottom of their least open pack, as if it had been there for ages with the contents on top of it completely undisturbed. If the player decides to go try the key on the house, the door unlocks easily and swings open with almost zero effort, surprising for how locked in place it was while locked.

From the outside the opening to the house looks like one would expect a house in this area to look, but with small things being incorrect on it. Candles seem to all be leaning heavily toward the very center of the house, with the flame being perfectly straight with the candlestick, despite the lean. Rocking chairs don't rock, flat chairs have heavy wobbles toward the center of the house. The smell of food seems fresh and wonderful at one moment, then sick and rotten with another breath. The air seems to come to a complete stop once it reaches the door no matter how windy it may be outside.

There are many rooms off the first hallway, so you can only see a few features without entering the house completely. The player with the key can enter unrestricted, but all the other players may notice a very small bit of pressure or effort needed to breach the doorway. If the party separates, the player with the key will seemingly disappear from everyone else once they lose sight of him/her like the house is trying to tear them away from the rest. No amount of looking around the house will turn up the keybearer to the party, or the party to the keybearer once separated.

The party finds the that most of the house looks to be centered around the keybearer. His vague likeness is found in all of the pictures, many of the linens are of the players favorite color, and their favorite activity seems to be catered to; bards have a music room, fighters have a small armory, clerics a shrine. Any writing in the house is in illegible jibberish to everyone except the keybearer, who can read what appear to be memories about them from a third-person PoV.

Whenever the party decides to leave, they always find the keybeared waiting outside before they get there.

The keybearer always exits and find the road completely empty. Nobody in town anywhere, anytime the keybearer opens a door to another house, he enters through the front door of the original house. If he leaves the house, and enters no doors and just comes back to the original house, the keybearer finds the party leaving the original house and suddenly the entire town kind of rushes back into existence for the keybearer and the party has no idea what happened.

The next day the key and the house is gone, and the person to had it finds a strange marking on a random part of them, and any time they are in the dark they feel as if they are being watched, followed by the smell of their favorite food being prepared or the occasional jingle of an old key.


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 20, 2013)

48) The Hum (based on true mystery) there is a location where people hear a hum.  The sound is isolated to the area and people that hear it gets angry and angrier.


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## Andor (Aug 21, 2013)

Holy Thread Necromancy Batman!

_Reap what you sow_

The PCs are traveling and come to a small village holding a festival. The PCs are welcomed to jon in the festivities. If they accept give them a days worth of activities to do and a feast. Track how well the PCs treat the villagers and give them plenty of opportunities to interact.

Suggested events:
-Contests of Skill or strength such as wrestling or stone throwing. Are the PCs good sports? Do they cheat or use magic?
-Tale Telling. The PCs are travelling adventurers. Do they spin tales or disdain the locals?
-The Thief. A small boy, 9 or 10, tries to steal a trinket from the PCs. Do they react with good humour or anger?
-The Maiden. A 16 year old girl has an obvious crush on the exotic and powerful PCs. Do they treat her gently? Spurn her cruelly? Take advantage of her?
-The Hunt. A scavanger hunt in the local wood. The locals will have an obvious advantage over the PCs unless they use magic. Signs of orc presence may be found in the woods.
-The Blessing. A PC Cleric is probably much more powerful than the local priest. Will they spend a spell slot to invoke a blessing on the feastival? If the PCs are oddball worshippers do they respect local customs or show disrespect?

After the feast, as night falls, a dirty and bloodied runner staggers in from a distant farm babbling of Orcs. Knowledge checks will show this is bizarre since Orcs haven't been an organized force in these parts since the fall of the last great Khan 300 years earlier. The raiders banners match those of the last great khan. (Alter the race of the raiders as appropriate to local campaign history.) Soon the village is attacked by a large and well armed force, far greater than the PCs can possibly cope with. Do they try to protect the villagers or themselves? Fight or flee? Organize a retreat? In any event the village will be destroyed and burnt to the ground.

If the PCs die in battle trying to protect the villagers they will wake at dawn in the road. The village is gone as are their wounds. If they investigate they will find some overgrown heaps of stone that match the layout of the village as well as a few ancient and worn bones. The local altar from the blessing lies overturned in a field. 
-If they bury the remains and restore the altar it will take the remainder of the day. When night falls the ghost of some villagers they interacted with most prominently will appear and thank them. If the PCs were kind to the villagers they will tell them where to dig up some level approriate loot the orcs had missed looting. If they were asses the villagers will thank them but not reward them.
-If they move on without investigating or investigate but do not bury the locals the PCs will dream about the ghosts of the villagers. If they treated them well the ghosts will tell them of a local quest target the PCs can investigate but they'll need to fight for their loot.

If the PCs run away and survive the battle then when they pass back through the village in the morning they again find it gone and abandoned but otherwise as above. If they treated the villagers like crap AND leave their remains to rot they may be attacked by some form of undead when night falls. 

If the PCs manage to save some of the villagers by leading them away from the Orc attack and protecting them through the night, they will fade away at dawn. When the PCs return to the village they will find it much changed, but the temple will be recognizable. The PCs will be recognized immediately by the disbelieving villagers who tell them the legend of the strange adventurers who appeared and saved their ancestors only to disappear the next day. (Perhaps an elf villager is actually still alive to recognize them!) The PCs will find statues to themselves in the town square and be gifted with level appropriate loot and an offered base of operations that always welcome them back.


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## Josh Oxborrow (Apr 9, 2014)

*Greater Necromancy*

I also stumbled here and love this so my contribution as well as an attempt to revive it:

#50 Fairy Circles

While camped in a heavily forested area the party can notice lights and sounds of festivities. Further investigation will reveal a clearing where inhumanly beautiful figures are dancing and feasting. Those who would be attracted by those they see are affected by a charm that draws them forward. One party member has attracted the attention of the King/Queen of the Fae and will be compelled to stay with them. If they agree then they will lose their character and be replaced by an appropriately leveled member of the fairy court. 
At a time of great need for the party/a session or two the character can return, having aged far more than would normally have occurred and at a level far greater than the party to assist them. After his assistance he will explain that he must return to his love but his child wishes to experience the wide world. 

(Great way to change characters without killing old ones.)


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## Josh Oxborrow (Apr 9, 2014)

*Grabbagging*

So I really like this so I'm going to challege people to do a daily write up. Try using www dot fifteenminutesoffiction.com/grabbag.asp for a prompt if you can't think of something. 

(coexist, pumpkin)
#51 
While the party is at a village it has been noticed that people have been going missing. If the PCs decide to investigate they will find tracks outside of the village leading to a cave with a nice little door. While investigating the area the party may notice a pumpkin patch with unusually red pumpkins. On further investigation the ground underneath each of the larger pumpkins has recently been dug up. Trying to move the pumpkins requires a fair amount of force and if moved will either pull up a body with the pumpkin as a replacement for the head or rip off with a horrible screech leaving a spine in the ground. If the screech happens a leafy hulking druid will come out of the door and attack the party. The head sized pumpkins will pull themselves out of the ground attached to the bodies of the missing villages and attack the party. After defeating the druid the remaining pumpkin heads will revert to their normal selves and can return to the village. The pumpkin heads can't be removed they have replaced the skull of the people but have eyes and mouths and the people can function as normal.


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## Josh Oxborrow (Apr 10, 2014)

*#52 The Iron Beard Competition*

(Enough, Inlaid, Beard)

While traveling underground or through any dwarven/barbarian lands the party will encounter a town in an uproar over the 238th annual Iron Beard Competition. Any character who has noted that they have a beard or that has a beard in their character portrait is able to enter, dwarves feel compelled to enter. 
Competition will include:

Beard lift: (use the character's strength to see how much he can lift and constitution to see how much pain he can handle) Characters will compete to see how much they can lift with their beards. This is accomplished by braiding rope into the beard and then the competitors lie on a board over a dock with their heads hanging off. Weights are attached to the ropes until the person can no longer hold his head up and he tumbles into the water. People are there to help pull them up and detach the weights. 

Shield Beard: (use characters constitution and agility to block or deflect the balls) Balls of weighted sand are hurled at each other by the competitors standing on a platform. You must absorb or deflect the balls with your beard. Dodging entirely is not allowed. 

Bear Beard Seduction: (uses charm or charisma to attempt to impress a female bear) The player is placed in a narrow corridor with a male bear tied at one end and the player at the other. A female bear is released and the character must attempt to impress the female bear enough to lure her to his side. 

If the character wins he will be awarded the honor of Iron Beard and receive a potion that will imbue his beard with the strength of iron (with appropriate benefits)


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## The_Warlock (Apr 10, 2014)

*53. Thunderstruck*

While adventuring or traveling in the wilderness, well off the beaten path, a storm rolls in unexpectedly, catching even the most naturally attuned characters off guard (A magical divination about weather asked earlier that day may return "Dark clouds gather", but nothing more). 

As the rain pelts down, before the party can find shelter, a lightning bolt arcs down and strikes the least perceptive character (lowest notice, sense motive, or perception scores, as defined by system), knocking him or her to the ground. The character will be unconscious for a round or too, crackling with small fairy lightnings, and smelling of burnt meat. 

When the character awakes moments later, they will hear a faint ringing sound in their ears, and everything they see will have a strange, pale aura. If they concentrate on either of these senses, they will be able to sense a direction in which they get "stronger", and also swear they hear voices in the ringing saying "shelter" and/or "sanctuary".

If the character does not follow the signs to "sanctuary", every so often, while the storm lasts, the character will be attacked by strange creatures that appear to them as insect-plant creatures, made of crackling auras. The character can fight them normally, but no one else in the party can see the monsters. Other characters who have truesight or similar magics, can, at best, see an amorphous "hole" in their sight wobbling around the thunderstruck character. True sight using characters can directly attack the enemy, but treat it as if it is non-corporeal. These attacks continue until the storm abates, or the group investigates the "sanctuary".

Following the signs to the sanctuary, brings the group to a hill that appears to have been shattered or flash flooded on one side, the dirt having crumbled away to reveal stonework ruins, probably the base of a large tower, or small fortified building. There is an entrance which will get them out of the storm.

Once inside, the thunderstruck character can find a path through the halls to a lower level, and another. Deadly traps block some of the passages, and strange, lightning enhanced monsters lair in some of the rooms. The affected character does bonus damage to the lightning monsters, and can touch characters searching for or disarming traps - giving them a strange tingle, which aids them slightly in their tasks so long as the affected character is in physical contact with them. Alternately, if the character tries, they can fire lightning bolts up to 10', doing damage equal to twice the hit points/health they are willing to expended, or 5 points per point of Constitution (or similar) they are willing to take as damage. Damage taken by throwing lightning cannot be healed will the Storm rages outside.

In the lowest level, there is a central room with a metal door inscribed with images of storms rolling over an alien landscape with too sharp mountains, and walking "trees" with lobster-like limbs. The door appears to have been partially melted to the stone doorframe. Several long dead skeletons lay in front of the door, hands outstretched to it. Some minor treasure and mundane gear might be found on them, though most is rusted, rotten, and worthless. The affected character can touch the door and channel lightning into it, which causes the scenes on the door to move.  The scenes show the beings crafting a great angular tower with an orb on top (rather like a great lightning rod), which is eventually struck by lightning, causing the creatures to stop moving while the lightning continues to strike and the storm clouds just circle overhead. The character must put 50 hit points (or system equivalent) of lightning into the door, at which point the melted edges liquefy and the door opens.

Inside is a round room, covered in carved magical symbols, and glyph-like images hand in the air, seemingly made of electricity. In the center is what looks like a lightning rod stuck in a strange tree-stump like growth that grows out of the floor. The rod glows with a green-blue nimbus.

Anyone, except the affected character, who touches the nimbus takes electrical damage as if they had been struck by a great sword or equivalent. If they attack the rod, they take triple the damage they inflicted instead as green lightning and thunderous boom hit them, the lightning even arcing back out of the room to those who used ranged weapons or spells to do the damage. The green lightning does damage even if the attacker is protected from or immune to lightning damage. 

If the affected character touches the rod, he knows that he can absorb the strange lightning. For every 10 points (or system equivalent) he or she is willing to absorb, 1 point of Constitution or equivalent is taken. 

Whether by attacking or absorbing, if the group can cause 100 points of damage to the rod, there is a sharp crack, an alien sigh of relief, and then a thunderclap which knocks all characters from their feet. 

The affected character can no longer hear the ringing or see the pale auras. 

Underneath the shattered stump/rod is revealed a hollow in the floor. In the hollow are a number of strange blue-green fruits (equal to the number of party members), and a gnarled wooden "wand" inlaid with iron, with a steel ball at one end. 

Anyone who eats a fruit can now, once per day, jump half again as far as normal - crawling lightnings playing about their feet and boots when they leap and land. The character who was thunderstruck can use the "wand", which allows him or her to fire a short range lightning bolt (perhaps 30' maximum) doing damage equal to 3 times the health they are willing to expend, up to 3 times a day.


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## Josh Oxborrow (Apr 10, 2014)

*#54 Dark Bazaar*

In a familiar city/town a new bazaar has been set up. The tents are bright with cheerfully waving flags, jesters, jugglers and vendors crowd around and hawk their wares and skills to anyone who pays attention. The tents are filled with magical equipment and weapons. Any party member who is affiliated strongly with a Good deity will feel slightly uncomfortable and those who make checks to sense motives can see that something is amiss but they can't quite understand. 
Anything the characters want they can find be it the highest level weapon or invulnerable armor of invulnerability. But they don't have enough to buy it. The merchant will haggle a bit and finally offer to give it up for a significant discount if the character will watch the stand for him till he returns. If pressed he says he will return in a couple hours or after dark at the latest. (sufficient sense motive will tell you something is up) If the character agrees and shakes or verbally says he'll watch the stall. The vendor looks extremely relieved and hurries off. The character will find themselves with a working knowledge of the wares and a near irresistible compulsion to stay (critical success may allow the character the leave) He can attempt to leave every hour but if he hasn't left by nightfall the jesters and jugglers start to look a little more sinister and push everyone out including the remainder of the party. 

When it is fully dark red shackles appear on the character's feet and the feet of all the other vendors. The air around shimmers and the character is in hell. A demon appears and starts going through a vast pile of treasure that is on the floor. He then looks up and grins at the player and says "Welcome to the Dark Bazaar" 

He is shoved into a pit with a bunch of other prisoners that are recognizable as the other vendors. They explain that they daily appear in a different city and the only way to get free is to either earn an outrageous sum of money or to trick another person into taking his place when night falls. Each day the character is able to try to trick someone into staying in the bazaar. If he fails he has a chance to randomly lose a stat point because of the suffering he under goes each night in hell. 

The character will be easily locatable through scrying or divination magic and will always appear less than a day's travel away. The vendor that tricked the party member will still be easy to find in the city where the dark bazaar was originally located at a bar where he will quite drunk and willing to explain what happened with a little pressure. If the party returns him to the bazaar he will return to the stall as was promised and the character will be free. 

Otherwise the party can determine the bazaar is run by the demon Andromalius who seeks the Tablet of the Gods which may be retrievable and traded for the lost party member. 

When the party member is freed if he remembers to take the original item he can have it. If he forgets it then he loses it. Either way he has a permanent bonus against and resistance to demonic influence and attacks based on hate.


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## Josh Oxborrow (Apr 12, 2014)

*#55 Hopefully they hear a who*

As a delayed magical effect after drinking an unknown potion or after taking a hit with a spell. Once the character sleeps they will shrink down to about 1 inch tall. 
Describe it as something of a dream as they awake in a field of boulders or field of tall strange trees as appropriate. You can plan a short adventure for the character where they fight off or escape an attack of ants. The magical effect lasts for 3 days unless a dispel magic spell is casts on them.


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## The_Warlock (Apr 12, 2014)

*56. RATS!*

At some point when the group is in an urban environment - in a private dining or bedroom at an Inn, in a dark alley, in a city cemetery, or in a sewer system, one or more of the group may notice a single rat in the shadows, possibly under a piece of furniture, or on a pile of trash (depending on the environment) watching them intently.

If characters attempt to attack or scare the rat away, it will give a fearful shriek and disappear into a hole in the wall.

If characters attempt to coax or befriend, or with magic or skills communicate, with the rat, it will approach. If the party has no way to communicate with animals, it will proceed to run in circles and make pantomime like gestures which the characters may attempt to decipher by means of their intellect or skills. If communication is possible, the rat provides a broken, limited response: "Bad coming. Hungry. Angry. Many flee. No hurt flee when bad comes. Family with fear, senseless run."

The rat can repeat or reorganize the message, but doesn't seem to be able to offer greater detail. After a few minutes of either pantomime or communication, the rat cocks it's head to the side, and flees into a hole in the nearest wall, surface, or pile. 

Time should pass - hours, days, perhaps weeks. The next time the group is in a chamber alone (private room at an inn, sewer, night time alley), they will hear a scratching sound from one of the walls. Anyone who listens at the wall hears the sound of dozens of tiny scratchings - claws perhaps?

At which point the wall in question will collapse, and a flood of thousands of fear stricken rats will explode into the room, squeaking, squealing, and running and climbing over anything in their path.

The swarm rolls over the PCs with whatever rules are appropriate for the system. While the swarm is not attacking per se, it inflicts minor damage on the PCs as it rushes over them like a living tsunami. Note whether PCs who are able to act attack the swarm, or do their best to weather it.

Three combat rounds later, the squeaking tide has vacated the chamber and headed down as many different passages, alleys or streets as it can. Looking into the collapsed wall reveals what appears to be some kind of altar and several sarcophagi in an ancient, hidden chamber. The entire chamber appears to shimmer with purple and ochre light, and the altar appears slick. 

Shortly after, barbed tentacles appear to push through the shimmering air around the altar, two for each PC, and begin attacking and grappling, attempting to pull anyone it has grappled toward the slick stone altar.

The tentacles are difficult to damage, though are weak to applications of bright light and fire. If the group can either destroy all the tentacles, or use magic to consecrate, bind, or seal the altar, or ranged attacks to destroy the altar - the purple glow fades, the stone of the altar melts into a pile of rancid meat, and the tentacles disappear.

The hidden room seems to be a cross between a tomb and a summoning chamber, the sarcophagi holding ancient dessicated humanoid bodies with horrible mutations - jaws and mouths out of place, bony tentacles, horns, and extra limbs. Minor treasure, magic, or weapons may be found, though any such are covered in nauseating and revolting pictographs that limit their appeal or value. Once the PCs have explored the ancient chamber, and all exited it...there will be a rush of air, a pop, and the room will be gone - and all that will remain will be dirt, stone, or a hole into whatever room should be on the other side of the shattered wall (a noblewomen's bedchamber in an inn, a merchant back storeroom, a busy kitchen, etc) which may instigate it's own encounter with it's own ramifications.

If any of the PCs went out of their way to attack the panicked rat swarm, within a couple of days, at a point where the PCs would be asleep, or otherwise would leave large amounts of their possessions somewhere safe...they will return to find that clothes, backpacks, food, armor, and weapons (if applicable) of the group have been gnawed at and ruined by hundreds of tiny teeth. Most any non-magical possession left behind will need to be replaced completely. Magic items of wand-sized or smaller are destroyed if wood, cloth or paper, or gone if of tougher materials. Food, potions, and alchemical agents will be opened and smeared over all the ruined gear. Tiny rat footprints can be found in the mess. 

If the the PCs merely resisted or fled from the rat swarm, no such attack will happen. Rather, the next time the party would be surprised by an enemy or blunder into/fail to find a lethal trap or hazard - a lone rat will appear in sight, and squeak loudly from a direction that alerts the party to enemies, or will run over the trap or nudge something into the trap from it's position, triggering the trap, but nimbly avoiding it and scurry past the PCs.

Just before it disappears, it will stand on it's hind legs, and "bow", then disappear into the shadows.


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