As for the ritualized abduction, that sounds a bit too much like the football game that i already planned to include, in which the good (and semi-good) pcs must complete the game with out doing undue damage to the orc's ball (live kabold).
It is going to be an odd session. The PCs will be traveling from their outpost on a glacier, passing though the territory of the plains orcs (who are not entirely involved in the war between the mountain and forrest orcs and the elves) on their way to deliver a group of refugees to a mine that they cleared earlier and left a couple of cohorts to guard.
The original refugees were members of a regional religious cult (NG) that beleives that a god named Ryglax created dwarfs, giants, kobolds, gnomes, and goblins and wants them to live in peace. All but a handful of their warriors died holding an orc army inside their mine/settlement while the civilians escaped, and then set off their oil well.....The surrviving warriors (Lead by a gnome paladin and a goblin paladin on giant hampsters) have been harrassing the orcs since to throw them off the trail of the noncombatants (Lead by the widow of the cult's Dwarven sherrif). The surrviving sqaud helped the pcs when they had to defend a fort from an orc attack, and when the party leader heard the story of the pregnant dwarf widow and her children leading the refugees he had to help....so he decided to give the mine he had just cleared to her...and her goblin and kabold and hobgoblin friends. Did I mention that he is a cleric of Moridin?
So they went and tracked down the refugees, who had taken shelter at a played out mine town near a glacier occupied by the descendents of the dwarf and human miners. These descendents are slightly tall "dwarfs" with human constitutions and bad dutch accents (Cribbed from an old RPGA FR model) Then (after rescuing the dwarf boy lost on the glacier from the oger mage) they returned to the mine (a few weeks journey), cleared the lower levels (they pulled out before after finding the elf slave kids that they were returning to the elves when they learned about the refugees) left guards, and started back. They determined that the trial though the mountains was too dangerous due to the war to safely get the refugees though so they are going to go around via the plaines and take the river. So the PCs scouted this route, ened up joining one orc tribe (Don't ask, involved evil druids, they all have a nice tatoo now, the dwarf keeps asking about hot irons) and then met the "medical caravan" and decided that they might as well get paid for going in the direction they were going to go anyway.
So they arrive back at the glacier base, heavy one orc (Ugala). Just in time for Mrs Longbeard to go into labor (which for dwarfs can take months). The party leader (who was out of town for Memorial Day) was stuck by her bedside for the duration, which was when the Rogue/bard decided to go try to fail the orc test of manhood.....
The refugees have now been living at the glacier for 6 monthes, and the locals have grown attached to them and have decided to relocate with them. So the party leader dwarf now has take his party of elves and humans (college game party size varies from 6-9 with most of the regulars other than the dwarf and the bard playing some flavor of elf or 1/2 elf) and move 70+ refugees, including one female orc, one infant dwarf, goblinoid women and children, a couple of kobold eggs, and a collection of mongel dwarfs, though orc territory during an orc-elf war.
A bit frustrated at this prospect, he walks 3 miles out the the only tree growing out of a rock outcroping in the glaicer to vent his frustration on the tree......
.....So anyway, the fey living in the tree has been very, very, VERY, lonely since the Ice age started 150,000 years ago and the mountain forest turned into a glacier.....If they can get a few thing for her she can complete a spell and teleport her tree and take them with her...but she doesn't want to relocate to either a warzone or a treeless plain, so she will only do it if they agree to take her, her tree (250 ft Douglas Fir) and the 60 tons of granit that it is rooted in with them the other 1/2 way to the mine in the mountains. The range of the teleport spell will only get them 1/2 way there, so it is up to the pcs to decide if they want to move the tree 1/2 way though orc territory first and then teleport near the mine, or teleport into the middle of orc territory and then move the tree and the refugees the rest of the way.....
.........So, a few portals later, they have the componets needed for the teleport spell, 97 camels to pull things, have loaded the tree, upright, into the old cursed pirate ship "The Black Rock" that they recovered from the middle of the jungle and put on wheels, have built wagons for the gobinoid refugees, and the mongeral dwarves have put their tavern (and still) on wheels to take with them.
Fortunatly, Ugala's tribe is in the middle of orc territory so they are hoping to provoke a wedding instead of a fight.
The first question next session is how they are wording the invitations.....
