D&D 5E Brainstorm - stories to tell with WotC's new position on various folk (fka "race")

[Weiley31]

Druid solves the problem by going to a local farmer. (locally sourced food only) and casts Awaken on cows for the Illithid to feed on. To finance this expensive diet, the adventurers plunder old Ruins but they are charged for grave robbing and the cows, goaded on by a rival circle of druids, rise up and revolt, demanding to be free.

Cow Druid Confirmed. Use Minotaur race stats for Playable cows. For playable Goats, use the Cervan race from Humblewood.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I wanna talk Gruumsh in more detail. Wanna do that here, or would you prefer a new thread for that?

Maybe a new thread. Hoping to keep this thread focused on adventure seeds.

I'm looking forward to learning more.

 

[Eltab]

The mind flayer wonders why he can not be named the village Executioner. He doesn't need an axe or go to all the trouble of building a gallows. Just tie down the condemned lawbreaker in a chair.

 

[Eltab]

Elven nation with the Eldreth Veluuthra as a force in politics and the clergy offer a ritual version of Gift of Correlon.
These elves are rather nasty to outsiders (EV thinks humans are a pest to be exterminated). Most older individuals have been male and female, maybe both or neither, at some time in their life.
Other elven nations / cultures have one or the other feature or neither.

For initial conflict: the elves moved into some ancient Elven ruins and are rehabilitating them. Humans are expanding into / around the "empty" forest due to population pressure.

 

[GlassJaw]

I could see the quest of fiding a way to feed their illithid friend

Full stop.

A creature that survives solely by killing other sentient creatures isn't a creature you befriend, it's a creature you exterminate.

Mind flayers are literally the embodiment of evil in D&D. They are powerful, cold, and merciless. They enslave sentient races like cattle for food.

I'm fine with whatever WotC wants to do to make the game more inclusive but we're talking about mind flayers here.

 

[Weiley31]

Mind flayers are literally the embodiment of evil in D&D. They are powerful, cold, and merciless

They also make great accountants.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Full stop.

A creature that survives solely by killing other sentient creatures isn't a creature you befriend, it's a creature you exterminate.

Mind flayers are literally the embodiment of evil in D&D. They are powerful, cold, and merciless. They enslave sentient races like cattle for food.

I'm fine with whatever WotC wants to do to make the game more inclusive but we're talking about mind flayers here.

I was under the impression the Mind Flayer story was a joke.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Small kingdom (or province, or whatever) is suffer depredations by a tribe of orcs from the nearby mountains. The orcs are pretty vicious, and have slaughtered a lot of farmers and even completely wiped out a small village. Those they don't kill they take as slaves.

Heroes get to have fun killing orcs for a while, going off on various missions and being richly rewarded by the nobles for their efforts.

But, over time what they discover is that the nobles are secretly in league with (insert bandits or drow or drug dealers or Nazis or something) and have been provoking the orcs, and committing their own atrocities against them. The nobles have learned there is an ancient tomb, potentially stuffed to the gills with treasure, right smack dab in the orcs' stronghold, so they are hoping to motivate the populace to go to war and wipe out the orcs.

 

[Guest 6801328]

They also make great accountants.

But not programmers. They insist on writing everything in SCHEME.

 

[toucanbuzz]

1987, Trouble at Grog's (Dungeon Magazine #4, "Road to Danger" adventures). We shouldn't forget that this isn't new territory for D&D. The tagline for this popular AD&D adventure was "can't a half-ogre find a little peace in a riverside town full of adventurer's, bigots, and thieves?" And that's exactly what happens. The townsfolk assume Grog, because he's a half-ogre, must be responsible for the latest bad thing to happen in town. The PCs arrive to cure that.

We can keep going (e.g. Against the Slave Lords), but D&D has largely been about heroes fighting against injustice. I don't know why we need to act like this is something new simply because they're considering taking away the INT penalty for orcs or renaming it "folk/origin" instead of race. Regardless, if you haven't run it, it's a fantastic adventure.