Session inspiration desperately needed (MORTALPLAGUE DO NOT READ)

[twisted.fate]

Hey guys, I'm dying for inspiration for my next session. It's been almost a week and a half since my last one, and I still have no clue what to run for the next one (session coming up on Tuesday, so I have a few days).

I know where my campaign is going plotwise. We're in the endgame with 4/5 plot coupons collected. I know where the next one is and how to point them to the dungeon. My problem is that the players just came back from two pretty much back-to-back dungeon crawls (one was in the way of where they were going, the second was their destination) spanning about seven, maybe eight sessions total.

I want to give the players a session in between dungeon crawls, but the plot is close enough to the end that sending them on a lame sidequest for a session or two would probably come off as irrelevant to the players. I've done a few "a monster attacks the city! only you can save mankind!" encounters (both main story and sidequest), so I want to avoid that as well, unless I can give it a clever twist (and for the love of Gygax, I can't think of one).

Here's the Cliff's Notes:

• Setting is a single isolated city deep in the jungle, next to a huge lake covered in a massive eternal hurricane (the island at the center that no one has ever returned from alive will serve as my final dungeon).
• Players are 13th level, unofficial champions of the city, drawn together sort of accidentally to collect the Plot Coupons and Save Everyone From an As-Yet-Unspecified Doom.
• Antagonists are a court of fey, who operate like the traditional Unseelie Court - totally amoral, beguiling, ruthless, and nasty.
• The players left off last session having convinced the Duke of the city to hold a state funeral for a PC companion who died in the last dungeon. Funeral custom in the city is to mourn from sunrise to sunset, then party from sunset till pass-out time in memory of the dead. State funerals are that, but for the whole city at once.

So, for those of you who stuck around this long (thanks in advance), here are some vague ideas I've had and am not satisfied with. Please critique and provide your own if you have them. I will be forever grateful.

1. The funeral partying is disrupted by fey in disguise causing mischief who the players have to root out via a skill challenge, and then maybe fight (feels sidequesty/not impactful for some reason)
2. People are turning up petrified during the festivities, ohnoes a gorgon or medusa is running around (I just used medusas though - another monster or condition I could substitute maybe?)
3. The Big Bad lays a breadcrumb trail of disinformation to delay the PCs' efforts to find her (or just to annoy them), PCs must discern fact from fiction and find her real trail? (cool, but I'm planning to reveal where she's gone in a Shocking Revelation next session anyway - she's gone to the island in the middle of the hurricane, and they're going to find out when the immovable hurricane starts moving)
4. Foiling an assassination attempt on the Duke is a thought...
5. A monster appears. (Oh god I do not want to resort to this please help me).

Like I said, please leave critiques and suggestions. 13th-level game, 5 players.

 

[jonesy]

I pondered for a moment the implications of a thread warning me that there would be mortal plague to be contracted upon reading it. Ah, no, it's a person. Never mind.


How about:
You notice that the people at the party are beginning to look rather pale and weak, as if suffering from a food poisoning of some kind.

As they investigate/time passes:
[A member of the party] realizes that one of the infected isn't so much pale, as he is translucent. Unpon further investigation it seems that this is the case for all of them. They are ever so slowly beginning to fade from view.

There's an artifact of somekind present on site which is pulling the people into a pocket dimension. If the party casts detect magic they'll find it. Or simply if they search the area they'll find it. It is an extremely old and archaic looking thing, so they would recognize it as special. If they find it they can try and figure out how it works, and they can use it to travel to the place where the people are being taken.

Or, if they don't find it have them drawn to the place as well, and have the artifact follow them into the dimension later on its own.

I don't know what happens in the pocket dimension, that's as far as I got in that line of thought.

 

[Gilladian]

Hmmm... do the PCs own any odd small magic item, especially one they've picked up recently? A charm, a simple +1 ring of protection, etc...

If they do, or if you could have them be given something, it could easily be WANTED by someone else. It is not quite what it seems, and is needed for some reason.

Maybe it can disable the magic item jonesy mentioned; or maybe it is a fey item and they WANT IT BACK! It could be VERY interesting if the item is on the body of the dead PC companion. All day the thieves could be lurking, making attempts to raid the body without being caught. And then, during the revelry, they could make one final massive attempt.

Or, go back through your storylines for early games, and find a thread that was never fully resolved, or a couple of them. They don't have to be terrible things; maybe just "what ever happened to..." threads. And have those folks show up. Maybe the young couple the PCs helped run away and get married - now with two kids in tow... or the Inn that burned to the ground but they rescued half the staff - could offer them a free place to hang out and party for the night. Those things won't take a lot of time, maybe, but I bet they make the players happy!

 

[Herobizkit]

Personally, I think your idea #1 is a great palette cleanser. After two back-to-back dungeons, I would be grateful for a fun, RP-centred adventure.

Have the Unseelie court steal the corpse - then use it as a villain in the Last Dungeon.

 

[twisted.fate]

I'm thinking I'll combine jonsey's suggestion with my idea for #1...the fey could be trying to suck the Duke and her right-hand-wizard into the Feywild through subtle means, in order to destabilize the city for the final strike.

The players will have to find the perpetrators through a skill challenge - failure means the Duke and the wizard get successfully stolen into the Feywild, and the players must find a way to go back there (they've been once before and it ended badly, so this will be fun) to retrieve them. And in the meantime, I'll be feeding them information that the storm is acting weird, so they'll be forced to choose between investigating that right away, or rescuing the Duke. Helps introduce some tension, because whichever one they pick, there will be serious consequences.

If they succeed, of course, they get to root out the perps, and then grill them on how to disable the device/ritual/applied phlebotinum thing in time to save the Duke. Or maybe they just fight them. It's a thought. Works either way. And of course, that way, they can just proceed straight to investigating the storm, no need to rescue anyone first.

Thank you everyone! =)

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I don't know enough of your setting/city detail to say for sure, but here is what I would do..

You say the PCs are the unofficial champions and have finally reached a point socially where they can convince the Duke to afford a state funeral for one of their team.

This would aggravate many of those officially serving in the militia/guard, especially if they recently lost a comrade and did not get the state funeral.

It would also scare those snobby noble types about being replaced in the power structure of the city, encouraging them to want to push these 'commoners' back to the level they belong

and depending on how 'good' the group is, the local Guilds may see a coming threat to continued profits if the group turns into the official guardians

finally, if you have any roaming bands of adventurers they will see the group as competition for work.

This gives you at least 4 major factions that could be interested in knocking the PCs down a notch or two... with lots of options on how to do that:

simplest, kill them.. knife in the dark, swords at noon, poisoned brew... etc

harder, frame them for killing someone else

much harder, develop a story that the PCs actively brought the previous monsters into the city in order to gain power and fame.. mention that the PCs have recently been researching about a little known creature called a "Cadaverous Hound".. then later in the evening arrange to have a Hound released into the city as if the PCs are at it again. Preferably in a way where the PCs heroically 'save the day' after some solid collateral damage.

even harder than that, through the use of potions and illusions, arrange to have one or more PCs go 'mad' and attack the Duke in a rage over their lost companion.


and if you want, these factions can be completely unrelated to the main plot and simply an effect of the game being founded in a city. Or you could have them being manipulated by the BBG... or both.

Either way, having skulking assassins and plotting nobles could result in alot of roleplaying opportunities!

=======================
completely different idea.
Around 2:25 am when most folks are passing out from the imbibing, the PCs unknowingly enter a lucid dream in which it appears that time has stopped. They are capable of walking across water and through the no-longer raging hurricane, but will have to work around simple things like closed doors. The PCs and their equipment are the only mobile objects in the world.

Just when things start getting to the point where it will reveal too much, Quori swoop out of the woodworks and attack {creatures from the Eberron plane of dreams} to repel the 'outsiders'
Depending on which system you are playing, for 3.x I recommend using the Oneomancy rules published in 'Occult Lore'
If 4e, treat encounters as at-wills and dailies as encounter powers.
In either, encourage stunts and out-of the box thinking.. bend the reality of the dream to your purposes.

...and TPK them by using wave after wave of Quori. After they all die, they wake up with a splitting hangover and bruises all over their bodies.
{A PC can wake themselves up with a high enough Charisma check...and then go around slapping the others to wake them up. PCs slapped in this manner and are damaged gets a bonus to that check equal to the amount of damage they took.}


Why did this happen? well.. a rogue Fey decided to 'help' the PCs by giving them a bit of fore knowledge. Perhaps they can later track him/her down and gain more assistance?