Needing Renaissance era Adventure Ideas

[Caspian Marqine]

I'm going to be starting a renaissance era D&D game set on Earth, tho I'm having problems figuring out adventure ideas, the curse of depending on D&D tropes to set up adventures I suppose I'm figuring on setting it around 1498-1510 in Italy and having it wander from there. Any ideas?



Jonathan

 

[Mythmere]

I'm going to be starting a renaissance era D&D game set on Earth, tho I'm having problems figuring out adventure ideas, the curse of depending on D&D tropes to set up adventures I suppose I'm figuring on setting it around 1498-1510 in Italy and having it wander from there. Any ideas?

Jonathan

Plague
Inquisition
Flare-up of Pope attempting to reconquer former papal states
Noble feud in a city (ala Romeo & Juliet)
Discovery of new catacombs beneath Rome or other Roman city
War between city states
Recover lost merchant caravan
Escort bride over the mountains to Milan from Rome
Moroccan pirate-king unifies Muslim pirates to attack Genoa or Venice

 

[Mythmere]

Pisa sinks into the river swamps; recover from underwater, including survivors in air pockets

A false prophet

A crusade against the Cathars or Albigensians

 

[janta]

Siena's Horse Race

I've got a similar campaign about to begin, though it's set in a fantasy version of Renaissance Italy, and I used this article for inspiration. It's a pretty interesting concept -- a no-holds-barred horse race through the city streets.

I was going to mention the Cathars, but Mythmere beat me to it. There's also the rise of protestantism at roughly this time too (I think -- my college history classes were some time ago).

If you're not especially interested in realism, you could always have Atlantis rise from the ocean again.

Umm...adventures on the old Silk Road? Maybe use some of the old travelers' journals for ideas (e.g., Ibn Battuta, and for some reason the only other thing springing to mind is the legend of Prester John). Rumors of the Holy Grail?

I'll have to think some more about this one....

--Janta

Edited to add: how about something to do with alchemy? Perhaps an alchemist somewhere has discovered the secret of the Philosopher's Stone -- who'll get to him first?

 

[Wombat]

Renaissance Italy, home of Secret Societies! The hermetic knowledge craze, thus Magi Need Apply! France, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the Turks using Italy as a proxy patch for their wars! Discoveries of the New World! Imports from the Mysterious Orient! East Meets West! Gypsies! Heresy! Humanists on the rise!

The number of potential adventures in such a time and place is simply staggering. I've been working for years on creating a Musketeers & Magic game for this era, though the specific rules keep eluding me...

In other words, this is one of the most perfect times and places for adventuring, to be compared only with pre-Classical Greece and the Viking period of Scandinavia.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A renaissance scenario from Monkey God Enterprises - set in a fictious England analog that is quite good: All the King's Men. It is for a fairly fantastic game world, with monsters & wizards, but quite enjoyable. It is a mystery/comedy adventure for 3.0 set around an acting troupe.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Loads of crazy internal urban adventures and politics.

Plagues.

Pirates.

Bizarre imported and rediscovered beasts.

Alchemy.

Recovered texts and magic.

Lots of sailing or travelling off to deal with strange rising empires or fallen ones.

Loads of mysterious and very well educated refugees.

Holy and unholy alliances.

Fantastic art and the politics surrounding same.

Countrysides undergoing some rather odd environmental changes. Little ice age to the very very very end of the period. Other odd things earlier.

Here's an odd little anecdote:

This is a Florentine political episode. The names have been changed because I'm not good at them.

There are two premiere families in Florence. The (in)famous Medici and the 'Crazies.' The latter plot to take out the Medici and realize that the only way to do so is when the whole of Florence society is at mass for the Easter service. They bribe/blackmail the bishop and as the host is raised to signal its consecration they leap over the pews and attack the Medici. What results is a running battle through the cathedral as the Medici seek to retreat into the Bishop's quarters and then counter-attack.

By the end of the day the bishop's body is hanging from the posts of the Cathedral and the whole town is in chaos as the two families simultaneously seek to negotiate individual truces and collectively seek to wipe each other out.

The crowning point to how crazy the Renaissance was is that this whole episode results in little other then bloodshed. The two families still lived in the same town and still hated each other when it was all over.

The Medici had proved themselves to be relatively unimpeachable, however.

Can you imagine how crazy that whole episode would have been with clerical magic involved?

 

[Dogbrain]

A crusade against the Cathars or Albigensians

200+ years after they were already exterminated???

 

[Dogbrain]

Take the most far-out, convoluted, and bizarre conspiracy theory you can imagine. It is a childhood game compared to Renaissance Italy.

In Sicily, al-mafia or its predecessor was still a "peoples' protector" organization. On and off, through the period, Sicily and Napoli (the southern half of Rome) were somewhat independent, ruled by Aragon, carved up among local warlords, etc.

In many ways, the combination of chaos, death, plague, great social refinement, learning, art, brutality, gentility, cruelty, and sublime philosophy oddly resemble what one saw in the TV show Xena. Change the names and the clothes, and Xena was surprisingly close to a heroic fiction view of Renaissance Italy.

Yes, it even had swordmasters of reputedly superhuman ability.

 

[Dogbrain]

Can you imagine how crazy that whole episode would have been with clerical magic involved?

"Now we have raised him, and he can tell us what happened! He will prove that you were behind his death."

"HAH! You did not raise him! You summoned a demon to inhabit his body!"

"BAH! It is YOU who would know of demons, goetist!"

In the end, the Bishop is allowed to speak and accuses the side that had him raised. The truth was that the side that "raised" him actually had summoned a demon, but the side that killed him blocked the demon and ensured that he was raised, this was because the bishop had a previous deal with the side that killed him. After the ensuing trial, his son married his murderer's daughter, cementing ties and wealth.