Story ideas from real life

[kenjib]

Here's another real world story that could make for interesting game material.


Real Story:
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/segment_display.cfm?segID=149704

Robert Siegel talks with Tom Lewis, operation manager at Thurmond Lake Parks in Clarks Hill, S.C., about remnants of the colonial settlement of Petersburg. The remains of Petersburg have been revealed as the waters of Thurmond Lake receded during this summer's drought. The town was once Georgia's second-largest city. It was flooded 50 years ago when the lake was created. (4:00)

Adventure Seed:
During a drought the rooftops of a lost and forgotten town re-emerge in the lakeside shallows. Only the oldest people in the area known anything, and they refuse to talk. What dark secret caused the town to sink beneath the waters 70 years ago, and why was it's disappearance subsequently covered up by locals, and all records of the town's past destroyed?

Anyone else hear any other good ones lately?

 

[Hand of Evil]

One I saw today...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/806150.asp

Conch shell yields emerald treasure

Diver retrieves gem from 380-year-old ruin of Spanish galleon

KEY WEST, Fla., Sept. 10 — A diver has discovered the treasure of a lifetime — a 40.2-carat emerald embedded in a conch shell — while diving at the site of a Spanish galleon wrecked in a Florida Keys hurricane 380 years ago.

 

[Buttercup]

Suspected Spy Ship Raised

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20020912wo42.htm

The Japan Coast Guard on Wednesday salvaged a suspected North Korean spy ship from the bottom of the East China Sea, where it sank in December after a gun battle with JCG patrol boats.

Adventure Seed:

A Mysterious ship sinks just outside of the harbor of a costal town. Soon after, a powerful wizard arrives in town and attempts to use magic to raise the ship from it's watery grave. He is killed during the process by person or persons unknown. (Found w/ a knife in his back.) Where was this ship from, what was it carrying, and who will kill to protect that secret?

 

[Buttercup]

This is such a good idea for a thread that I think it needs a little bump.

I'll add something. Here is a story about a mysterious beast that was terrorizing a town.

“Some people say it is a human creation, others say it is a resurrected human being. But preliminary assessments based on footprints indicated that it might be a lion,” he said.

 

[kenjib]

Here's another:

Real Story:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/11/offbeat.2headed.turtle.ap/index.html

NAPLES, Florida (AP) -- What started as a routine day for sea turtle monitor Mary Toro turned out to be one of her most memorable after she found a baby turtle with two heads.

"I was shocked. I couldn't believe it," Toro said after finding the creature Thursday morning near Naples Cay.

Adventure Seed:
The PCs' home town starts to experience a strange rash of occurances. People wake in the morning to find their favorite pets altered -- a dog with two heads, a six legged cat. Residents are rightly unsettled, but the pets seem otherwise unharmed. When the party's sorcerer wakes to find his beloved toad familiar sporting four eyes, he realizes that the time has come to act!

...but what, exactly, is causing this strange phenomenon?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Okay here is another...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/807248.asp

Glowing green mice! - Mice whose fur glows green may be the first step to using gene therapy to treat hair loss, baldness and perhaps even to permanently change hair color, researchers say.

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[Bagpuss]

I think I'd rather go bald than have glowing green hair the rest of my life. Would your pubic hair match? That would give the misses a fright!