Suggestions for riddles/prophecies

[Ripley the Bard]

Wow, I'm glad I'm getting so much help! I'm sure I've gotten enough help but I'd like to describe how I'm planning to insert this prophecy, in case anyone else has more advice.

The party will be in the streets of a large city, perhaps a metropolis, probably while it's dark, and they will be accosted by an old beggar. He could be human, elven, goblinoid, but I'm not set on that, nor is it important except to show that they could "take" him in a fight; he will be small, malnourished, weak. He will be insane. However, when he grabs one of them he will furiously whisper or croak a prophecy. it should reflect his insanity, but it will be a legitimate prophecy.

 

[arscott]

Well, what do you want the prophecy to be about?

 

[Ripley the Bard]

ooh, very good question. In response to your previous post, I am indeed a poet.

What is it about....With my poetry, I don't know what I'm writing until I've written it; this is something similar. However, I do have part of a phrase.... "A storm of arrows will blacken the sky" indicating a war or battle. I'm wanting to implement a major artifact; perhaps it's about this artifact? Yes, I'm sure that's it. It will cause a war.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Wow, I'm glad I'm getting so much help! I'm sure I've gotten enough help but I'd like to describe how I'm planning to insert this prophecy, in case anyone else has more advice.

The party will be in the streets of a large city, perhaps a metropolis, probably while it's dark, and they will be accosted by an old beggar. He could be human, elven, goblinoid, but I'm not set on that, nor is it important except to show that they could "take" him in a fight; he will be small, malnourished, weak. He will be insane. However, when he grabs one of them he will furiously whisper or croak a prophecy. it should reflect his insanity, but it will be a legitimate prophecy.

Sounds cool - my prophecy sort of had a history like that... the original writer of the prophecy was a supposed scholar named Darius, who became obsessed with what he said was a vision of the future that he received from a good deity. Everybody thought he was mad, as it spoke of the rise of a powerful evil deity and the evil deity's eventual victory, but this evil deity had just suffered a disastrous defeat that left the deity with virtually no followers in the world. Darius lost his scholarly position and his respect, and ended up out in the street, croaking out his "the end is coming" rants on any street corner that would have him... obviously a madman. He died poor and alone.

Thousands of years later, the PCs hear a snippet of prophecy from an evil priest they had captured (The triumph of light shall foretell their dark doom... or something like that) and, eventually get access to the whole thing - more from a good priest/ally, but she later sends them to a library that is a great storehouse of prophecy, legends, myths, etc. However, the works of Darius the Mad were unknown to all the scholars there, save one... who was a bit of a loon himself.