D&D turned up to 11.

[Dordledum]

2. As for meeting in a tavern, I didn't decide on D&D turned up to 11 as my theme until after the game started. The party is together to bring a tribute to the main kingdom of their failing empire. They are living at the end of a golden age.

You still need a tavern brawl! And a basement with dire rats.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

You still need a tavern brawl! And a basement with dire rats.

You need to fight in a Tavern full of Anthromorphic Rats (Or Moon Rats, I love those guys) with a basement filled with humans.

Make the back story about how these intelligent rats really and truly did build their own tavern, than humans adventurers discovered it and threw them out. The Rats rise up, take it back, and bind the humans and throw them into their cellar.

The rats all built a tavern human sized because it's what they know. They're smart rats, but not That smart. All they know is they've been sick of being in the basements of other taverns and wanted one of their own.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I once had a party land on an island where human sacrifices were taking place to placate the god of a volcano. The players thought the story of the god under the mountain was hooey, so the rescued the sacrifical victim and slew the priests. What they did not know was that the sacrificial victim had volunteered out of patriotism, because an annual sacrifice kept the island from being destroyed and allowed the rest of the inhabitants stay young forever. When the island started to sink, one of the party members had to sacrifice himself to save the island or they would all die. That was some drama...

Sir, it would be a pleasure to play at your table. It's unfortunate that California is so far away from Ohio.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Come, muse, let us sing of rats!"
-- From a poem by James Grainger, 1721-1767

 

[ThaDium]

I like the tavern full of moon rats idea. I'll be playing with that.

On a side note, as a "turn it up to 11" random encounter, I'm going to have a manticore fly overhead as the PCs travel along a major trade road. Being evil and roughly the size of a cow, it will proceed to poop all over the cart of a nearby group of travelers. I'm curious to see how my players will react, given that it is not their cart that will have been pooped on.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Make the poop chunky...with identifiable bits.