Looking for encounter ideas during a street fair / masked & costumed festival type celebration...

[magnusmalkus]

Heyah Folks...


I'm launching a brand spankin' new campaign and my PC's are on their first adventure. The main adventure is a juiced up B4- The Lost City, and I'm using the adventure published in Dungeon Magazine #142 (2007) "Masque of Dreams".


I'm fleshing out this somewhat-urban encounter setting. There's a street fair going in in a small oasis hamlet and the setting is ripe for juicy encounters... but not much is given in the Dungeon magazine and my creativity is dry...


The setting is this:
The party has been asked to escort some supplies out to a luxury oasis a few days journey away where the wealthy merchant class and noble aristocrats have gathered for a week-long revelry culminating in a masquerade ball where an event will occur to propel them into the main adventure... I have this FINAL event scripted but there's plenty of room for more fun-stuff the few days before the poop hits the fan with the street festival.


The party arrives at Ashinanas Oasis where the adventure begins. The oasis is about the size of a small hamlet. It exists in the lea of a huge rock cliff over a hundred feet high, at the base of which, running nearly the length of the cliff, is a crystal blue spring.


There are a few villas that stand out as the homes of what are probably very wealthy aristocrats and maybe a few retired military generals. Tents and huts make up the remainder of the citizens/servants housing.


There is one Inn, The Dancing Tabi near the fountain at the center of town. A quaint adobe affair with one deluxe room making up a second floor.


It is 3 days before Ashinana's big event and the festivities are well underway. The hamlet is swarming with followers, laborers, merchants, aristocrats, and personal bodyguards. The entire town is decorated in bright colors with flowers and ribbons attached to every post, sign, and cart all up and down the main strip.


Festivities are in full swing; those who are not relaxing at the spa and garden or partying at the Dancing Tabi, are walking the main road in town among the street performers, game barkers, and merchants.


Jewelers, artists, perfumers, vinters, carvers, brewers, glassblowers, tinkerers, fakirs, chemists, fashion designers and an assortment of other craftsmen hock their wares from their tents. Some people are dressed in their costumes, others wear fine garments. Even the peasants and servants are dressed appropriately for the festival (if not ridiculously).


So... Beyond pickpockets and con-men... what else can I put in the players paths? Anyone have any unique encounters that they've made up themselves or seen published anywhere else before specific to a Street Fair/Bazar/Masked Festival?

Thanks in advance folk!

MM

 

[MarkB]

This is a setting ripe for mistaken identity, what with all the masks. Maybe a noble lady mistakes one of the PCs for her philandering fiance and flings her engagement ring in his face along with a stream of abuse before storming off.

Maybe a PC sets up a meeting with a contact via passed messages and is given a description of his or her mask and costume, only to find when they reach the location that there are three people who meet that description - and at least as many who resemble the PC. How will they narrow down the search without blowing either side's cover?

Going for a more magical angle, an old staple is some nefarious trickster selling enchanted masks that cause people to take on the traits of the beasts the masks depict. One or more PCs may fall foul of such a mask directly, or they may merely need to track down the masks' purveyor before their wearers are driven to inflict real harm.

 

[magnusmalkus]

Good ideas for starting points... I could use the mistaken identity incident to introduce an NPC who may lead to more adventures... a patroness of some charitable organization perhaps.

But,

I DO want to avoid introducing too many NEW adventure hooks... the PC's are about to enter a part of the campaign where they are dealing with an underground civilization (Basic D&D module B4 - the Lost City) that's been totally removed from the rest of the world for hundreds of years. No one inside is aware of a thriving surface world, and no one on the surface world even knows the subterranean city still exists. So, with no outside world ties, and no subterranean people on the outside, how does one thread in plot hooks for the immediate adventure at hand? The plan has been to lure the PC's to the entrance to the subterranean city with the abduction of Ashinana (an archaeologist, the ruler of the oasis and the Lost Cities only discoverer), then let their curiosity take over from there... but there's got to be some other plot device besides Ashinana to drop hooks and feed the PC's bits to foreshadow the up-coming adventure...

Hidden ally: I could set the PC's up with a guy who sends them a letter wanting to feed them information but needs to stay in disguise, setting up a meeting at a better time & place (but why in public?) ... but if I don't have a solution to the snafu myself, I can see this turning into a time-sink at best, or more likely, a lost opportunity due to giving up.

Regarding the masks, the published adventure springboard has exactly that situation... that's the poop that hits the fan at the climax. But that doesn't mean I cant have a perfumer selling subtly magic oils that make the users more susceptible to his particular charms, thus enabling him to exploit them somehow. Maybe create some kind of addiction?

I figure the street fair could do with some kind of seer, so I've created a gypsy that can confirm one "yes or no" question per person, per year. The answer will be based on what is currently true, not on what may or may not yet be.


...

Seems like the creativity is at least dripping... I have a few days yet.

Anyone else have anything to contribute? Anyone know any published resources that set the players up in a street fair, or bazaar, or carnival? Have you ever created such an encounter?

Thanks folks!

 

[ExploderWizard]

The PCs can stumble across a merchant that sells strange wares. Amongst the other baubles could be an actual relic from the lost city. The merchant could tell stories about the crazed wanderer who brought the item to him and the fanciful tales of a lost civilization beneath the sands. Of course that is all just madness brought on by thirst.....

 

[Greenfield]

Okay,

Games were common to faires. Archery contests, horse races, pulling contests between teams of horses, pick a sport.

Many of these the PCs may decide that they're "expert" in, and such games just beg to be played out. I've run these things many times, and the players *always* try to cheat via magic.

How much trouble would you like to have happen?

Now, depending on the local government, they may have a tradition of pardoning a petty criminal on holidays. Others might start of the party with an execution, just to get the people into a festive mood.

If it's a sizable crowd, expect to find a few pickpockets around.

Also, occasions like there were often used for public proclamations, the sharing of good news if you will. With "good" being a relative term.

Faires also tend to bring people into town who don't come here very often. A chance to trade, buy supplies, have a little fun, cause a little trouble, maybe buy/find a wife. And, of course, the locals will always look askance at the odd folk that are attracted in this way. Rumors about them and their strange practices. Lovely fodder for plot hooks.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Ghouls wearing carnival masks. I had great fun with that one. (Vampire street gangs are cliché, you see.)

 

[urLordy]

A circus caravan advertises: For just a copper piece, enter here to see the Mysterious Mummy that Will come to Life! Of course, the mummy won't ever come to life ("not today folks!"), but it is the mummified corpse of one of the underground dwellers but nobody knows it. Maybe there is some symbol on the coffin the same as something the PCs have seen elsewhere.

If the PCs don't take the hint to check out the mummy, have a thief bungle a pick pocket attempt and lead the PCs on a merry chase and they see the thief escape by ducking into the mummy caravan.

 

[Electric Wizard]

A halfling or goblin hamstrings a character, cries "Oops, wrong one!" and disappears into the crowd.

Woman from a desert tribe has a full-body tattoo that is actually a stylized map revealing the entrance to the underground city.

A gypsy's monkey is picking pockets and shoplifting. No one can catch it.

Hard-up juggler is actually a wizard's apprentice. He travels from festival to festival, stealing spellbooks for his master.

 

[Kelimar]

Well if your festival is large enough there's always the risk that some folks will get a bit too rowdy causing damage to buildings or people, perhapse the inn keeper or the owner of a small shop could hire the party to ensure that such an event doesn't happen.