This blog is mainly meant for DMs, hopefully providing tips and tricks to help running a campaign and handling problems as well as providing plot ideas.
I am playing a heavily house ruled 3E campaign, but the entries should be applicable to other systems as well.
I am playing a heavily house ruled 3E campaign, but the entries should be applicable to other systems as well.
Adventure/Encounter Hooks III
Posted 26th September 2008 at 12:39 PM by Fenes
Twisted curse
Background:
A thief broke into a wizards tower, trying to steal some valuables. Not having any spellcraft skill worth of note, (perhaps using some dust that glitters when touching magic, or just appraise), the thief took a powerful magic item - which cursed the thief with "Polymorph: Wolf". The thief's on the run now, believing it a trap of the wizard, and looking for a way to get cured.
Unfortunately, the item is even more powerful than the thief imagined - it causes lycantrophy as well, the victim of a polymorph spell gaining control of the shapechanging, and the lycantrophy taking effect, once he or she kills a sentient being as a wolf.
The wizard was trying to study the item, and learn how to cure its victims when the item was stolen, and is now searching for it - but he can't find it with scry until the polymorph is undone. He's still looking for it though.
Also looking for the item is a "wolf pack" of lycantrophs - the item's earlier victims, led by a ranger. They have been stalking the area for the item, tracking down the adventurer that delivered it to the wizard, and killed him. They haven't been able to breach the defenses of the wizard's tower though - the wizard increased them after the thief got away. The wolf pack has been killing several peasants and travelers, and is holding a few people prisoner which they want to turn into werewolves once they get the item - among them the son of the local noble.
Hooks:
The party can encounter the "wolfed" thief in the woods, and if they discern its intentions may help the thief with dispel magic. The thief may tell them a sob story about an evil wizard, trying to get them to help getting away, which might make the encounter with the wizard, once he tracks them down, more interesting. Rumors of the missing people, and lycantrophs, might make them suspiscious of the wolf though, and if they kill it they find the magic item - and get chased by the wolfpack and the wizard.
Alternatively they might have been hired to look into the missing people, or the dead adventurer, or get hired by the wizard to track down the thief.
Or the adventurers might stumble upon the massacred retainers of the noble's heir, and may be mistaken for their killers, or get asked by a survivor to help them rescue the kidnapped noble.
Locations:
Wizard tower in the woods - standard build, but with more protective magics after the break in.
Lair: Cave where the wolf pack keeps their prisoners, hidden behind a waterfall. The prisoners are tied up, and in bad shape.
Village with inn, where the adventurer was killed. large stable, where a horse was also killed and partially eaten.
Hunting lodge, where the son of the noble was taken, and his retainers killed.
Merchant wagon, traces of a battle, all animals and people dragged away to a stream. Difficult, but not impossible to track to the lair.
Background:
A thief broke into a wizards tower, trying to steal some valuables. Not having any spellcraft skill worth of note, (perhaps using some dust that glitters when touching magic, or just appraise), the thief took a powerful magic item - which cursed the thief with "Polymorph: Wolf". The thief's on the run now, believing it a trap of the wizard, and looking for a way to get cured.
Unfortunately, the item is even more powerful than the thief imagined - it causes lycantrophy as well, the victim of a polymorph spell gaining control of the shapechanging, and the lycantrophy taking effect, once he or she kills a sentient being as a wolf.
The wizard was trying to study the item, and learn how to cure its victims when the item was stolen, and is now searching for it - but he can't find it with scry until the polymorph is undone. He's still looking for it though.
Also looking for the item is a "wolf pack" of lycantrophs - the item's earlier victims, led by a ranger. They have been stalking the area for the item, tracking down the adventurer that delivered it to the wizard, and killed him. They haven't been able to breach the defenses of the wizard's tower though - the wizard increased them after the thief got away. The wolf pack has been killing several peasants and travelers, and is holding a few people prisoner which they want to turn into werewolves once they get the item - among them the son of the local noble.
Hooks:
The party can encounter the "wolfed" thief in the woods, and if they discern its intentions may help the thief with dispel magic. The thief may tell them a sob story about an evil wizard, trying to get them to help getting away, which might make the encounter with the wizard, once he tracks them down, more interesting. Rumors of the missing people, and lycantrophs, might make them suspiscious of the wolf though, and if they kill it they find the magic item - and get chased by the wolfpack and the wizard.
Alternatively they might have been hired to look into the missing people, or the dead adventurer, or get hired by the wizard to track down the thief.
Or the adventurers might stumble upon the massacred retainers of the noble's heir, and may be mistaken for their killers, or get asked by a survivor to help them rescue the kidnapped noble.
Locations:
Wizard tower in the woods - standard build, but with more protective magics after the break in.
Lair: Cave where the wolf pack keeps their prisoners, hidden behind a waterfall. The prisoners are tied up, and in bad shape.
Village with inn, where the adventurer was killed. large stable, where a horse was also killed and partially eaten.
Hunting lodge, where the son of the noble was taken, and his retainers killed.
Merchant wagon, traces of a battle, all animals and people dragged away to a stream. Difficult, but not impossible to track to the lair.
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