Need an idea for a quick side-trek

[der_kluge]

Two of my players can't play this weekend. That leaves 3 - coincidentally, all gnomes. Yea, I don't get it either. They are an artificer (we're still working through what that means), a rogue, and a ranger. The two who can't come are a human cleric and an elven druid. The party is level 1.

Rather than postpone (again - the same two couldn't come last time, either), I've decided to take the 3 on a kind of side-quest, since the game is just getting started, and there's a rather pivotal moment coming up that I want them to be a part of. Separating the gnomes from the rest should be easy - I just need a hole small enough. lol


That said, the party is currently in a forest, a couple of days from town. There is a pond crawling with giant frogs (like, Saint Bernard-sized giant frogs), and the party is here investigating some ancient shrines to Torm and Amaunator (basically dead Gods in my campaign). It's actually the starting location for Tomb of Abysthor, if you're familiar with it. In addition to frogs, there is a cave of a green dragon nearby, and they have found troll tracks. But those are encounters for another day.

Last game, a sprite came up to the gnome rogue and frowned at him, then flew away. It was meant as a joke, but I'm thinking I could roll with that as a kind of side-quest. (meta: the gnome rogue is CN, and the sprite didn't approve of his alignment).


One idea I had was that a sprite has been eaten by a giant frog, and the other sprites need help getting it out.

Other ideas: Some elaborate trick to get the rogue to put on a cursed ring of LG alignment

Anything else. The skies the limit. It doesn't need to be lengthy. 1-2 hours should suffice.

 

[MarkB]

The giant frogs are not naturally-occurring - they're actually the result of a curse upon the pond, one which the PCs have become subject to. The curse causes humanoids to slowly transform into frogs over the course of a couple of days, but gnomes' innate magical nature makes it harder for the curse to take hold upon them.

When they awaken in the morning, it turns out that their two companions have already turned into frog-people (use the Bullywug from the Monster Manual) and, their mental faculties failing, quickly flee the scene in panic, their leaping gait carrying them faster than the gnomes can run. The gnomes themselves are not unaffected - there are changes to their skin and eyes, and their hands and feet have become webbed.

The sprites know about the curse. The one who visited camp had hoped to save the party, but realised that they were already afflicted. When they find that the gnomes are resisting the change, they see a chance to make a deal - they'll tell the gnomes how to break the curse in return for the gnomes assisting them with a problem of their own.

 

[der_kluge]

The giant frogs are not naturally-occurring - they're actually the result of a curse upon the pond, one which the PCs have become subject to. The curse causes humanoids to slowly transform into frogs over the course of a couple of days, but gnomes' innate magical nature makes it harder for the curse to take hold upon them.

Well, the frogs aren't natural - they are the result of some centuries old drums of radioactive material left by a fallen empire. But you wouldn't have known that. lol
But in the most literal of ways, they are just giant frogs. As in, mutated regular mundane frogs.

 

[was]

..Maybe the pond is sacred/enchanted and causing the frogs to grow to giant size. Having devoured all other food sources, the frogs are now raiding the sprite community.

 

[Quickleaf]

A gang of kobolds have stolen the ponies!

And used a spell scroll of enlarge/reduce to sneak them into a Tiny-sized fissure the bigger PCs can't pass through.

And, being kobolds using magic items, there's been a mishap with the casting, causing all creatures in the cave system the kobolds flee to (including the kobolds) to intermittently change size. Or it could imbue some local medicinal mushrooms with Alice in Wonderland size-changing properties. Could be a fun dungeon gimmick with certain hazards requiring adopting specific sizes to overcome them (e.g. Large to grapple or break things, Tiny to get inside of a construct or slip through a keyhole, etc).

When the gnome players relate their story of "mighty morphing kobolds" and "we were as big as giants I tell ye!" the other players are sure to roll their eyes

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Since you’ve got a party of all-gnomes, I say roll with it. Maybe the sprite was eaten by a giant frog, but the giant frog has fled to an abandoned gnome burrow, filled with traps and various appropriate monsters (like clockworks and other constructs).