101 Unusual Encounters

[Warren Okuma]

230) Gnats hovering over a strange stone. They follow you if you carry the stone, and eventually dwindle and die off.
231) A cow all alone in a pasture with a very high fence surrounding it.
232) Heads on sharpened stakes... crow heads.
233) A lone copper coin, attached to a string (spot 15) and kids ready to pull it away.
234) You smell cheese. Blue cheese. It's in the middle of the woods and far from civilization.
235) It starts raining vertebra.
236) A street cleric telling a very small crowd (two people) that the end isn't coming and all will work out.
237) A kobold jumps out and starts dancing. Two hops on left leg, then two hops on right leg and turn and repeat. CR 0.
238) You see pottery shards on the ground with names written on it with faded charcoal. (somebody voted along time ago)
239) Bird die off. One thousand dead birds. It happens periodically, and nobody knows why.
In a bar a half orc comes up to you. You kill my tribe, you kill my father, you kill my brothers... I buy you drink.
240) Road side vendor: Smoked Kobold.
241) Some kids try to sell PC's sun dried vegetables (each 2 cp is good for one meal).
242) Two housecats attack!
243) A road side vendor is selling Sweet Mustard Dwarven desserts.
244) Handless lepers beg for money.
245) A ditch full of water. Except the water gives no reflection. The water is normal.
246) Some peasants are setting up a barn and ask the adventurer's to help. They will feed them afterwards. And tell them the story of the moaning well. The well it went dry and now it moans.
247) Hobbit commoner (2HP) offers to hire on as a torch bearer. He wants 5 sp per day, payable one month in advance.
248) Upside down rainbow.
249) Town crier announcing the death of some minor knight.
250) A half submerged rowboat by a long abandoned river dock.
251) A campfire and the remains of spellbooks and scrolls.
252) A bronze rectangle two hand spans by one hand span with the thickness of your little finger.
253) In the middle of the hottest day of the year it blows soothingly cool.
254) An orc minstrel will threaten you with song if you do not pay up. He has a total of +4 to his roll.
255) A disheveled merchant tries to sell the PC's bars of lead. If they buy it, it's just lead. If they don't, then he is later found dead.

 

[Agent Oracle]

256) Two men wearing ragged clothes are at the side of the road, pounding two rocks together. If the PC's get close, they will see that they are pounding the rocks on a length of chain that connects their ankles together.

257) A mossy green rope lies in the dirt. There are about forty feet of it and both ends are badly frayed.

258) Three goblins working an old cart... one pushing, one pulling, and one standing in for a missing wheel. There's nothing in the cart.

259) A metal door is mounted into the ground in the middle of the wilderness. There is no way to open it short of a direct Flame Strike or Fireball spell. On top of the door are inscribed several meaningless numbers; 4, 8, 15, 16, after that it's kinda overgrown...

260) Two travelers from a strange land amble past, deep in conversation in an extremely foreign tongue. the short, slighly pudgy one is carrying an exotic bastard sword with a S-shaped marker on it, the tall, lean one is unarmed.

261) A very attractive woman is staring into a shallow pool, she appears to be quite angry at someone, but you can't tell who.

262) Two casters appear to be engaged in a very highly choreographed duel, complete with counter spells and acrobatic jumps to avoid being hit. If the players interfere, the casters will stop fighting and tell the players that their presence is interfering with their rehearsals.

 

[mhensley]

263- A brawny barbarian is crucified by the side of the road. He is barely alive.
264- A wizard with a pointy hat, twelve dwarves and a halfling are hiding in a tall tree.
265- A giant eagle flies high overhead carrying some animal (or person).
266- One magic shoe hangs in a tree.
267- Upon awaking you find that all of your gear has been stolen and replaced with exact duplicates.
268- A ranger approaches your camp and asks you to put out your fire.
269- The body of a badly burned ogre lies in a field.
270- A 10' deep pit trap with a trampoline at the bottom.
271- An old abandoned graveyard in the woods. Two of the headstones look new.
272- Children throw rocks at you and run.
273- A cat follows your party for several miles.
274- Two giants playing catch with a beholder.
275- A ferry with a skeleton as the ferryman. He poles the ferry across the river when anyone steps on.

 

[kolikeos]

A 10 by 50 feet hallway, as you reach the middle of the hallway you trigger the trap that sets 2 jelly cubes at the opposing ends of the hall

 

[Presto2112]

* The five foot wide passageway leads downward at roughly a 30 degree slope. One of the PCs triggers a pressure pad that rapidly releases a greasy substance on the floor about sixty feet down the passage. At the same time, a huge block of granite is released from the ceiling near the top of the slope and is now hurtling down the greasy chute toward the PCs.

 

[awayfarer]

276: A tree falls into the road twenty feet away, such that its top is smack in the middle. When the party are just past it, it pivots on its top, reaches the opposite side of the road and re-plants itself.

277: An arm, severed at the shoulder, is found. It is stuck roughly a foot into the boulder from which it juts.

278: No matter how many times they look back, the PC's keep seeing the same outhouse about thirty feet behind them.

279: An old, badly torn up and burnt book is found. The title is something like "*lay*rs *nd*ook *.5"

280: A thin trail of sand leads towards a dry well nearby.

281: A PC is suddenly hit by half a pot-roast flung from a nearby window.

282: Nearly everyone in this small town are footless. A guillotine stands in the middle of the twon square.

283: A skeleton stands over a patch of freshly dug earth. (If the earth is dug up, a headstone is found several feet down)

284: A dwarf with a bow and arrow is attempting to shoot a grape from the head of an ogre.

285: Drunk, scantily clad nymphs.

286: When the man next to you in the bar slugs back his drink, it spills out of his shirt.

287: The town crier runs past, weeping.

288: While on a steep road that leads to town, a barral goes past downhill. A noise like "Whoaoaoaoaoaoaoa!*" is heard as it passes. (*Alternately "You'll live to regret this!")

289: A headless man juggling various humanoid heads and one watermelon.

290: Two men are dueling just outside of town. They look exactly alike except that one is dressed in commoners clothes and the other wears a nobles garb.

291: Two philosphers have an arguement about whether or not material things exist. One exclaims something loudly and the other disappears.

292: A scarecrow bites the head off of any crow that comes close.

293: An elderly elf counting extremely large numbers. "One billion and four, one billiong and five, one billion and six..." etc

294: A young woman wearing a dress made of small, live, mammals sewn together.

295: A begger whose begging bowl has no bottom.

296: The man who takes off his enormous, rectangular hat turns out to have an enormous, rectangular head.

297: A small fissure opens up in the earth and spits out a cute little puppy.

298: A limbless zombie has been skewered to a tree and left to rot while writhing.

299: An enormous mound of copper. Close inspection reveals that some pieces of it resemble the edges of coins.

300: A horse with a whip sits on a wagon, whipping the humans that tow it.

301: In the morning, everyones shirts are on backwards and pants are in a nearby tree.

302: Flowers grow from the otherwise bald scalp of a young noble.

303: A wizard is selling invisible clothing from a shabby looking wagon.

304: A local fishmonger finds a small ruby periapt in a sea bass.

305: The long line of ants in the road is carrying what looks like a human thumb.

306: PC's step into a village only to find that none of the (otherwise plain) buildings have windows or doors.

307: A bathhouse fills a bath with a water elemental and charges extra for their touted "Elemental Bath"

308: An enormously fat squirrel sits by the road. There is a faint stench of carrion somewhere closeby.

309: Twenty feet ahead of the party is a thin, pale man on stilts. No matter how fast they run, he is always the same distance ahead. If the group stops, he waits.

310: An old crone sits at the city gates, offering prophecies for a copper piece.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

A famous one from my old gaming group.

311. The room is clearly a great hall, sixty feet long, long fallen from its original glory. Well crafted stone pillars support the ceiling, with signs that gold leaf had once adorned them but has been stripped off ages ago. A few scorched circles and crumbling skeletons indicate orcs may have met their fate here at the hands of a wizard and his fireballs.

And a full length warship, prime and ready to sail, sits in the center of the room. It is far too large to be taken out of any of the room's doors, and there's no sign of how it got in. A few additional skeletons suggest it may have somehow crushed a few orcs upon its arrival, though the ceiling shows no sign of hinges or any concealed way to lower in a ship.

 

[awayfarer]

312: A man thought to be long dead really is; the catch is that his corpse just washed ashore with only a few days decay.

313: A halfling child has pinned a hill giant on the outskirts of town.

314: It is illegal to wear a fez in the town of Skimaldr.

315: A bard claims to have found a song so beautiful that it kills all who listen to it. Several of his fans have recently been found dead.

316: A potent hallucinigenic drug has started growing in the nearby graveyard, primarily over the plot of a dead alchemist.

317: Somone has replaced Sir Reginald Crumblys priceless souvenier spoon collection with a number of antique forks.

318: A hunter is found with his foot in caught in a trap, a bear dances around and insults him in the common tongue.

319: A skull with flaming eyes appears in every glass of wine poured from the last shipment that reached town.

320: An enormous, brown horse runs through town every day at noon.

321: The barefoot madman in town has begun floating several inches off the ground.

322: A giant ladel falls from the sky, punching a hole in the mayors roof.

323: If you travel long enough on the east road, you'll see yourself coming the other way.

324: A local knights arms have disappeared. The bizarre handicap does not seem to cause him any pain, just mild inconvenience.

325: A man who claims to be from five minutes in the future disappears five minutes after you meet him.

326: A local woman of ill repute just gave birth to conjoined twins; one of angelic bearing and the other with a whiff of brimstone about it.

327: A PC wakes up to find themselves tied to a corpse, face to face.

328: The town conjurer hasn't left his house in weeks and no one who has gone to check on him has come back out.

329: The stained glass window in the local temple shows a different picture depending on whether you're inside the temple or out.

330: A tentacle has taken up residence in the town fountain.

331: The enormous granite throne in the woods is revealed to have a hole at the base.

332: Smoke pours from the second floor window of a local home...and into the window of the house opposite.

333: The local eatery is serving steaks and chops made from exotic creatures. The displacer beast chops are not sitting right with anyone.

334: A farmer is found in his fields whipping a pit fiend who forlornly pulls a plow.

335: 38 dead dwarves stand in a field, all facing east.

336: There is an unusually large number of pregnancies this year, even among women thought to be past child-bearing age.

337: A medusa sculptor charges hefty fees for exquisite work, if you can find her.

338: The cook at the local tavern is missing his face. He appears to be fine other than that little detail.

339: The worlds first dire human is found.

340: Everyone who eats the apples from the abandoned orchard is later found exploded.

341: All the bread in town suddenly goes bad. The veyr next day each loaf is found to have a number of teeth mixed in.

342: The mayors nose hair will not stop growing.

343: The village graveyard is always in a new place each morning, roughly half a mile from the village itself.

345: PC's suddenly realize they see the same twelve people in every establishment they enter, and ONLY those twelve.

346: A commoner recovering from a grevious wound suddenly becomes super strong.

347: Birds keeep trying to get it on with bees.

348: The stormclouds that developed yesterday are now raining nails.

349: Some people swear that a rat swarm is trying to communicate with them.

350: The morning after the PC's arrive in town, every inmate in the insane asylum has a clone.

351: A young but rather dirty woman is seen hugging a tree by the side of the road.

352: Supposedly a frog with a crossbow and a rapier has been robbing wayfarers.

353: There seems to be more cats in town these days and fewer people.

354: The blacksmith returns to work, friendly as ever. This is bizarre, as he has been dead for a month and is more than a little decomposed.

355: Every bit of parchment in town has the same word written on it.

 

[Rhada]

356. A thin halfling only wearing strange wings made of wood and rags and a pair of googles, surrounded by a swarm of stirges and claiming to be "the master of the stirges". He was abandoned in the wild and raised by the bat-like creatures. Thanks to his artificial wings, he can fly, and can give orders to the stirges.

 

[kolikeos]

An Animated House, as per the Animate Objects spell, just waiting for somebody to walk in.