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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5299576" data-attributes="member: 21169">1. Look up or create some monsters or other foes that will challenge the PCs.2. Think of interesting NPCs, locations, events.3. Create connections between the aforementioned. A plot, if you will.4. Give the PCs a reason to get started, a hook, such as financial gain or being asked to solve a problem.5. OPTIONAL: Write some history/backstory as needed.The process is the same for both adventures and campaigns.As an example, for the most recent session I looked up the level appropriate monsters for a level 5 party - dark creepers, kenku, orcs, bugbears, chitines, apes, ustilagor and some other stuff. I also had a cool NPC, Silver, a civilised dryad who runs a business, Levesel Natural Resources, which exploits the natural resources of a forest called the Levesel. To tie this together I came up with the following:The town of Sarstour is at the NW corner of a crumbling empire (the crumbling vibe creates tension and adventure opportunities). To the west is the Levesel with foresty type creatures (called tallemaja in this area) + useful plants and herbs. Beyond this are old ruins with weird monsters and beyond that, the spider-infested Hollow Hills. To the north are the mountains of the savage humanoids. I decided to name the bugbears and orcs 'gurks' and 'skogra' to confuse the players a bit and keep things interesting. There are two crime gangs in town, the Squawks (the kenku), and one run by the mayor's son, Unsound Erdan. Erdan is a mad wizard and has imprisoned and stolen the power of a fire spirit, Krasillix, in old tunnels beneath the river. Under the town are crypts containing undead and dark creepers. (I saw the Shadowfell as being a force bubbling up from deep underground.) My idea for a PC hook is that they have been hired by Silver to deal with her 'sister', Garland, another dryad who is raiding the empire and causing trouble for her operation.At this point I have a problem - very little of my material is getting used. The PCs only have reason to go to the Levesel and won't get involved with the Squawks, crypts, Erdan, etc. Then I had the idea that a boy could've disappeared + needs rescued, the son of an alchemist, named Ulver the Spagyrist, working with Silver. The Squawks have been kidnapping ppl around the area, mostly transients, to 'feed' to the Dark Creepers, who use them in vile experiments. Silver knows this and suspects the Squawks so tips the PCs off that they are likely culprits. In fact though the boy has been kidnapped by gurks who actually have a small outpost in the town, and taken to a bigger slave camp up north.Silver is heavily involved in the illegal trade of the drug, Black Blossom. originaly I thought she was working with the Squawks. But then why was she implicating them, that made no sense. So I changed it so she was working with Erdan, with the Squawks as rivals trying to muscle in. Another option I didn't think is that Silver was with the Squawks but wanted out so was using the PCs to get rid of them. That's actually a lot better. Oh well.The PCs are supposed to infiltrate the Levesel creatures to get close to Garland. In doing so, their sympathies may change. They may discover that really it is Garland's lover, a shifter called Vask the Pursuer who is the real militant force.If the PCs befriend the forest dwellers they may be asked to go into the Hollow Hills or Old Ruins to face the monsters that raid the Levesel. Alternately the nature spirits of the forest will tell the PCs about the suffering of a fellow elemental spirit, Krasillix, cruelly imprisoned. This will take the PCs back to town to face the real bad guy - the Enemy Within! Classic, eh? I like the symmetry of this structure.Now I have tied all my material together into a sort of a kind of half-baked plot.My adventure plan is *always* kept to one sheet of paper. I use additional sheets for names, info, stats etc, but I keep the overview always in front of me so I can eyeball it quickly.This was my actual adventure plan:EMPIRE IN FLAMES1. SarstourSilver - Levesel Natural ResourcesMayor GranulphUnsound Erdan2. Ulver the Spagyrist, son Dastuce - 14Squawks - Cracked Kemelin (their pub)House in Badside (Gurks), Ruined Fort (Skogra)3. Get GarlandWild Men (wilden, satyrs, shifters), Tallemaja (nymphs, dryads, treants)Circle of Trees - respected elder TallemajaVask the Pursuer4. Free the FlameCryptsUnsound Erdan, Krasillix5. The Hollow HillsChitines, spiders6. The Old RuinsApes, ustilagor, beholder gauth, oozes, dragon.In addition to the plan I had a page of notes (the stuff mentioned above), and a map of the Sarstour area. I had no map of the crypts.Of course what actually happened did not follow my plan. The PCs decided to massacre the Squawks (I'm a little unclear why, but you know what players are like), found out about the crypts, and went down there killing undead and dark creeepers and looking for Dastuce. They learned a lot about what the Squawks and creepers were up to.</blockquote>

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