D&D 5E Interesting 1st level adventure ideas

[Herobizkit]

One short adventure I was in borrowed/stole from The Titanic (and the Futurama parody episode of same).

Characters are all part of a group of rich nobles who are having an elegant party on a new airship to celebrate its inaugural journey. While out over the ocean, the ship is attacked by [flying beast/s of your choice] and the ship is forced to crash on a remote island...

Playing through the crash and finding a way to survive BEFORE landfall was crazy fun. ^_^

 

[Pants]

Here's what I used for my current game:

The players are hired by the local militia. The local militia has been hearing word of orc and goblinoid activity out in the frontier areas, but they have no proof and the higher ups believe its nothing but rumors. They send the players out to a nearby village a few days away to get the scouting reports from an old friend of the commanders, an ex-scout, hunter, and trapper who knows the area extremely well. If there's any suspicious goblinoid activity going on, he will definitely know about it. The players travel to the village and, about half way there, they see lots of smoke rising from the direction of the village. Arriving, they find the place sacked, the buildings burned, the people dead, and no sign of the commander's friend aside from evidence of a nasty scuffle with someone. Investigating the town, they find evidence of goblinoid tracks heading deep into the woods and something humanoid being dragged behind them. The players follow the tracks back to the goblin's lair and find the one survivor from the massacre who tells them that it wasn't goblins that sacked the town, but strange, tattooed barbarians. The survivor hid, but was captured after the barbarians left when the goblins came to loot the remains of the town.

 

[Imaculata]

A friend of mine had a cool idea for a short quest. A local mage academy, in the form of a giant tower, has been sunk beneath the ground by the head of the faculty, to contain a magical experiment gone wrong. The players must enter through the top floor, and gradually make their way down to the bottom level. Meanwhile they have to deal with the escaped experiments, solve puzzles, and overcome a mage exam to make them registered students. Thus giving them access to the lower areas of the academy and the library. The quest ends with a big boss fight with the monstrous experiment.

 

[Fractal Rabbit]

The last campaign I started at 1st level was called:

"Night of the Necrotongue" (inspired by Night of the Living Dead and The Blob)

I wanted to subvert the old, You-Meet-In-An-Inn trope. I decided to have the adventure actually take place in the inn itself.


As the story went, a low-level (good-aligned) Necromancer offed himself by experimenting with the creation of an undead /ochre jelly hybrid (the "Necrotongue", a jelly that could be released in zombie infested ruins that feed only on necrotic/undead flesh). When the experiment went horribly wrong, the Necromancer ended up being the first victim/food source of the undead jelly. The Necromancer had been renting out a suite of rooms in the inn's basement and was often not seen for days.

As the PCs stay there and get to know each other, they discover that the cats who kept the inn rat and mouse free have been disappearing. But strangely, so have the rodents. And the orphan boy who cleans the fireplace and the basement. And some guests...

I made a timeline that corresponded to A) how long the Necrotongue had been feeding and B) how many hit die it had, due to size and number of victims eaten.

The Necrotongue could, a la the 80's remake of The Blob, travel through drains and pipes.

Also, the inn had some cool features and set pieces:

-a large bath/pool (think a Turkish bath) fed by hot springs in the lowest level

-a common room constructed around an old set of Standing Stones (inspired by a Ducktales episode) and frequented, secretly, by Druids

-an all-purpose Temple/Shrine

-a sauna/steam bath house (inspired by Peter S. Beagle's The Innkeepers Song) where I had an ambush take place. A cutthroat tried to rob the PCs with concealment from the steam while the PCs were nearly nude.


It all went really well. The players had a good time and had a reason, because of the shared survival story, to stay a party. The Necrotongue was quite large when they finally killed it (and accidentally burned the entire inn down).

 

[Fractal Rabbit]

And by the way, I LOVED the idea of a politically charged, poison infested pie eating contest mystery for a beginning adventure. I am sooooo stealing that. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Eltab]

In a Pioneers background, a group of bandits have moved in along the road between the Big Town and the Frontier Outpost. Most of the area is hills; there is a stream between the Outpost and the Town, another stream joins there and a river flows back to Civilized Territory.
If the PCs want to be a posse, they must
- take down a "toll booth" the gang has set up along the road
- protect some outlying farms from bandit raiders
- escort a convoy of supplies from the Town to the Outpost
- interrogate some prisoners for more information
- figure out the contact(s) - if any - between the town's Thieves Guild and the bandits
- convince one Bandit Lieutenant to change sides and persuade his followers to join the Authorities too
- One too-clever-by-half bandit is trying to use a strong monster as a mount. Find the cave it lives in and take it down.
- locate the place where the Boss Bandit usually lives and raid it
- capture / slay the Boss Bandit and his Lieutenants; this breaks the gang
All in no particular order.

 

[feartheminotaur]

I played in one on Roll20 last week that was pretty fun: A party of adventurers was hired by a mage's guild to travel to a forgotten temple on a hidden lake, deep in the jungle and secure an artifact there. The party needed hirelings to help with the pack animals, forage, etc.

The hirelings were our party (6 of us). The adventurers were 8th or 9th level. First session, we teleport to a river port and start making our way up river to the mystery lake. Several weeks into the journey, after a few non-combat challenges, a sauhuagin mage on a roc swooped down to attack, while his minions climbed on to the boat. We survived; the high-level adventurers did not. Now we are 2nd level with a map, a mission, and a boat full of supplies deep in hostile territory.