Ingredients for adventure: help me make adventure stew

[Desdichado]

For a one shot that I want to run sometime soon, I've figured out what elements I want to use, but haven't yet figured out how to pull them all together. I'm actually brainstorming this with some of the best minds in the RPG world as we speak, but I thought I'd put it up here and let y'all noodle over it too. Can't have too many great ideas, after all.

This one shot will probably not be D&D, but it very likely will be d20. Probably d20 Past set in a Pirates of the Caribean like setting. A bit more horror than D&D, and certainly without nearly as much available magic for the PCs. Here's the elements I want to include. How would you hang all these together to create a 5-hour or so one-shot session?

After a bit, I'll chime back in with the results of my independent brainstorming going on in a chatroom on the side.

• Fiends. I don't care what kind.
• Undead
• Dinosaurs
• Headhunter cannibal savages
• Swashbuckling battles between pirate ships with blazing cannon fights.

For fun, you could add Asian pirates ala Swiss Family Robinson which could even open the door for ninjas, but that's probably pushing it. The whole concept is campy enough already.

 

[Torment]

Hehe, well the adventure could totally start with a fierce ship battle.

That's my contribution, I guess they could find a map onboard the enemy ship leading them to x and x island, which could involve the rest of the elements.

 

[Monkey King]

After a bit, I'll chime back in with the results of my independent brainstorming going on in a chatroom on the side.

• Fiends. I don't care what kind.
• Undead
• Dinosaurs
• Headhunter cannibal savages
• Swashbuckling battles between pirate ships with blazing cannon fights.

Hell, why not just run the Treasure Island ur-plot? I mean, with fiends and undead and dinosaurs and savages? The mutineers are fiends, the fight at the blockhouse involves savages, the island is covered with dinosaurs, and, oh yeah, the dead men on the dead man's chest? Undead men, of course. Then a big pirate battle as the finale.

For five hours, you really only have time for 4 to 7 big encounters. Make 'em count.

 

[kenobi65]

OK, first, you've got an island, like the Isle of Dread, populated with savages and dinosaurs.

In order to protect themselves from the carnivorous dinosaurs, the tribe's medicine man occasionally summons fiends to fight off the T-Rexes and velociraptors. Some of the fiends manage to escape the control of the medicine man, and are living in isolated spots on the island...but they'd really like to find a way to get to the mainland, where they can cause even more trouble.

One day, a pirate ship, crewed by undead, lands on the island, lured by rumors of gold. The savages and pirates fight, but then the fiends discover the pirate ship. The most powerful fiend fights and kills the undead pirate captain, and takes over the ship, ordering the crew (which now includes some fiends) to set sail for the mainland.

The PCs discover the savage island, and, after misunderstandings with the now-depleted savages, learn that an even bigger threat is now sailing towards their home port. They have to give chase, and eventually catch up (fiends aren't good sailors) and engage in a climactic naval battle.

 

[Stormborn]

Here's the elements I want to include. How would you hang all these together to create a 5-hour or so one-shot session?

After a bit, I'll chime back in with the results of my independent brainstorming going on in a chatroom on the side.

• Fiends. I don't care what kind.
• Undead
• Dinosaurs
• Headhunter cannibal savages
• Swashbuckling battles between pirate ships with blazing cannon fights.

For fun, you could add Asian pirates ala Swiss Family Robinson which could even open the door for ninjas, but that's probably pushing it. The whole concept is campy enough already.

Open en media res as the PCs ship is being approached by a pirate vessel. The PCs are retainers for a scholarly noble seeking the mythical Oni Isle in the South China Sea. The Swashbuckling battle ensues with a ship crewed by the damned (tieflings perhaps or half fiends) and ruled by a fiendish captain determined to prevent them reaching the isle. Or alternatively the ship is filled with a secret order of ninja that long ago swore to keep the island contained by any means neccessary inorder to save the world, but of course wont tell the PCs that.

After the battle flash forward a few days to the point that the scholar/noble's magical compass has pointed out the mysterious isle. The ship approaches it on a dark night, preparing to send a launch in the morning. The night watch cries out. Undead sea monsters are attacking the ship! An undead giant squid the flies maybe.

The next morning, or that night if the battle goes really poorly, the PCs take a launch to shore and hack their way through a jungle infested with pygmy (halfling) cannibal savages on velociraptor mounts until they reach a temple guarded by a fiendish T-Rex.

Once they make it inside the scholar/noble reveals that he has come all this way to awaken some dread ancient demon imprisoned in on the isle and they are meant to be sacrifices.

At this point you can simply have him kill them all and let that be that (if it really is a one shot) or you can drop the T-Rex and make the final battle be against the demonic entity that possesses him when he puts on the Evil Artifact.

 

[diaglo]

why am i having a deja vu moment? i coulda swore i wrote on a similar topic not 4 hours ago.

 

[Desdichado]

OK, here's the adventure framework that I worked up in a chatroom with Rel, Enkhidu and a few others. It gives a nod or two towards the original King Kong story, but that actually seems like a good thing to me. Anyway, this looks very similar to Stormborn's idea too.

diaglo--yeah, you poked your head in for the early part of that chat too, didn't you? Anyway, here's the finished product of the brainstorming. I'll troll through the other responses for other great ideas to add to this.

• The PC's patron is a vampire. Years ago he made a deal where he sold his soul to a fiend, but then he discovered the secret of undeath and has so spared his soul from being taken. The fiend is really pissed about this, naturally, and has been trying to send fiendish "collection agents" against the vampire for some time. Finally, the vampire is able to renegotiate a new deal with the fiend; he'll get off his back if the vampire completes a ritual that summons him to possess a suitably large and nasty beasty in which he can rage around town and kill lots of people, harvesting their souls instead. This is all backstory, though. What the PCs "know" is that the vampire (it's not known that he's a vampire) has extensive shipping interests in the area, but one of his ships was attacked by a tribe of savage cannibals who killed his crew, shrunk their heads and ate them. As a punitive gesture, he hires the PCs to make sure that they're not a threat anymore by killing their "god" a T. rex that roams around the island. They need to bring the body back, but the cargo hold is big enough to make that doable. The game starts in media res as they're arriving at the island.
  
  
• The cannibals come out in their canoes and attack the ship. Big fight.
  
  
• The PCs track the T. rex to it's lair and fight and kill it. If they're smart, they can do this with some cleverly laid ambush or trap that makes the fight considerably easier. Since T. rexes are CR 8 and I doubt I'd have the PCs be more than 5th level (in a much less magic saturated setting too, making their effective level probably even less) they had better, come to think of it. Maybe I should use Allosaurus stats or something instead to make it not a death trap for the PCs.
  
  
• Handwave through the passage back to the main city where the vampire is based. It's a harbor town not unlike Port Royale is the idea. Anyway, they take the T. rex body, which is now fairly decomposed (although agents of the vampire have come along with the PCs to try to preserve it as best as possible. Perhaps mummified rather than zombified is what we're looking for here) to the vampires big estate away from town up on a cliff. He starts a ritual that will summon the demon to possess the body.
  
  
• PCs figure out they've been had and try to fight the vampire. He's got enough undead around (zombies, I presume, although I can do better if needs be) make it impossible for them to stop the ritual, but they can fight through the undead and maybe even fight with the vampire itself before he makes himself scarce (or gets killed.) The vampire's not really the climax of the adventure though, as the fiend-possessed undead T. rex starts rampaging through town.
  
  
• Not sure yet how to plant this idea in the PCs' heads, but they can get on their ship and fire cannon at the T. rex in an attempt to save the town before it's too late. The idea of shooting broadsides from a pirate ship at a half-fiend mummy T. rex is just too cool to pass up. While they're doing this, an entire flock of winged demons of some kind attack the PCs to harass them.
  
  
• Finally the T. rex turns into town out of range of the cannons, and the PCs have to go on land to attack it. If they want, they could get a hastily rigged together wagon and donkey team with a cannon or two on them and take after the T. rex that way. Otherwise it's mano a mano with that bad boy.
  
  
• PCs win, probably minus a few of their original number. The end.

Anyway, that doesn't sound terribly exciting the way it's written up, but I think that's a damn fine framework for an adventure already. Now I just have to go and worry about the particulars and details. It's also more railroady than I typically like, but one shots have to be, where you don't have the luxury of letting PCs amble around doing whatever they want to.

 

[Land Outcast]

PCs figure out they've been had and try to fight the vampire.

How? did the vampire get them first row seats for the ritual? Why would he allow them to know what he's doing?

 

[Desdichado]

That's a very good question. I don't know yet.

But that's why I want more feedback and more brainstorming!

 

[Rel]

How? did the vampire get them first row seats for the ritual? Why would he allow them to know what he's doing?

As I recall the reason I posed in our chat was that the Vampire knew that the possessed T-Rex might want immediate revenge on the Vampire. The Vampire knows that he might have to go into hiding briefly in a small cave, too small for the T-Rex to get into.

But he'll need something to eat while he's in there so he has his Zombie Minions detain the PC's in the cave until he can come feast.