Urban D&D plots

[avin]

So, my 4E campaign players are at Baldur's Gate.

I have been very busy and uninspired these days... and they feel like having some urban adventures.

As BG it's not a city of mine I feel a little locked creating plots...

Any of you guys have seeds / plots for small quests on a city?

Something like this: https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4vv/20081119

Something like BG CRPG plots... I don't know...

 

[Derulbaskul]

I suppose the easiest way to start something that can be developed is have the PCs arrive in the middle of an assassination attempt on a wealthy merchant or noble. Ideally it takes place at night under the cover of fog. Have the assassins wielding crossbows and sniping from rooftops.

So much happen after that. They can pursue the assassins (Skill Challenge), be hired by the target, investigate the target (maybe he is hiding something too... also Skill Challenge) etc....

This can also set the stage for the next adventures as the merchant/noble can introduce them to other prospective employers etc....

Other than that, slavers are always cool as are ghaundaun servitors of Ghaunadaur. Nothing like having people snatched off the street to be sacrificed to the patron of oozes and insanity!

You mentioned you are using the 4E ruleset- are you using the "real" Realms or the 4E version?

 

[Sparky]

I also saw a really great Skill Challenge of putting out a fire. Endurance and Strength to drag people clear (Endurance to not burn a healing surge might work too). Diplomacy to orgnize a bucket brigade, stop panic. Nature to understand fire.

The building on fire could be anything, a library (!), a hospital, a temple, a block of apartments, a distillery (kablooey), anything! They could save someone important, thwart the plans of whoever set the fire (if it wasn't happenstance), win the gratitude of the residents/occupants. Investigating the fire afterwards might be warranted.

 

[Rechan]

Well, let's look at what it says in the Baldur's Gate entry in the FRCS.

"depends on the trade passing through its ports and gates"

"city's population is believed to have long ago surpassed even Waterdeep's"

"contains an active and organized thieves guild, powerful merchants with questionable ethics, and influential cults and secret societies both malignant and benign".

All power groups maintained under a delicate balance by ex-mercenaries, the Flaming Fist; police, law enforcement, protector.

The city remains neutral in regional politics.

So, what do we have here?

1) A large commercial city that depends on trade. Thus, any sort of threat to commerce is going to put a serious hurt on the place. Piracy, sea/river monsters, or harsh weather along the coast (controlled by some entity), or problems/attacks up-river from Baldur's Gate could hurt shipments. Banditry, bad weather, or bad crops could cause problems for merchants traveling by caravan. Because it's all about trade, then there will be big problems with smuggling.

The merchants hold a lot of power. So, you could have merchants trying to undercut their rivals with sabotage ("Yes, release these magically enhanced pests into the grain warehouse of my rival, if you please"), cutting corners or covering up bad deals ("Yes, my alchemical leavings are being dumped into the river. Those mutated crocodiles are not my concern.") or ratcheting up their prices so bad that it's causing problems. Not to mention the whole issue of unions (which can cause riots, gang violence, and a slew of assassinations).

The PCs could for instance be hired as guards for a warehouse - and that same night, some flamboyant burglars break in, to steal something very valuable. And during the battle, some exotic creature is let loose from its cage, causing havoc all over the place.

2) Politics. Any city is rife with intrigue (murder mysteries, espionage, backstabbing and backroom deals between the city counsel, nobles, or between (or even from within!) the church). The different city factions are hinged on a delicate balance, that could be disrupted if there is a power vacuum. Add in the practice of not getting involved in regional conflicts, and various regional entities could be fairly sore about Baldur's gate.

3) Regional interests. The book mentions two adventure sites: One of the adventure sites is "Mandorcal's Mansion"; the district was owned by a rival of a tiefling drops dead (his blood drained). 3 days after it's purchased, a mansion stands in an empty lot. Then the owner goes missing, and traps any who come inside; rooms shift, diabolical chants echo, and scenes of butchery unfold before those inside.

There is also a sealed-shut wizards tower underneath the city.

4) Cults/Secret Societies. This can go back to #2, or it can be something entirely different. Far-Realms worshiping occultists, vampire-groupies, or even something benign like the Masons or Stamp Collectors, who might just appear to be the cause of something that they are not responsible for.

5) Typical City Problems. With Baldur's Gate being so big, it's going to have issues like crowd control, disease, sewage/garbage/clean drinking water, housing, etc. While they may sound boring, they're easy to play with (that tenament fire was caused by a slum-lord who wanted to collect insurance on his property, although he had no idea the warlock in 3C had a fiend bound in one of the rooms) or (Local druids are causing serious headaches over the sewage buildup which is killing local wild life, and now they are retorting by herding otyughs into the sewage areas; carrion crawlers are infesting the local garbage dumps). In fact, on that vein, check out the latest Vicious Venue. Not to mention riots, natural disasters/severely bad weather, bank robberies, etc.

6) Similar to #5: ye olde typical Urban adventure fodder. Thieves Guild plots. Monsters (like wererats) in the sewers. Monsters (dragon, vampire, doppelganger, etc) manipulating some group(s) from the shadows. Intelligent undead or other monsters stalking the streets at night. Murder mysteries. Haunted Houses. Kidnappers capturing people for some nefarious purpose (cult sacrifice, eating them, slave trade, etc).

 

[Jack7]

Here are some basic adventure ideas I’ve run in the past. The city my players operate out of is Constantinople, so some of these ideas are specific to that background but should be able to be easily adapted to your circumstances and campaign, especially if your players operate out of a city like Baldur’s Gate.


1. Constantinople has underneath it a large cistern system for the storing of water. Persian agents or spies have infiltrated some of the older original cisterns and are using them as an underground base from which to launch spy operations, as well as criminal activities (they use the criminal activities to fund their spy work so as to avoid having to receive financial support from Persian agents outside of the city). The players must find their underground system and uncover the activities of the Persian spy network. But the spies also seem to have support from someone inside the Byzantine Army or Navy.

2. A Greek engineer is accused of attempting to smuggle out of the city the Byzantine Empire’s greatest and most closely guarded chemical weapon, Greek Fire. But it is discovered as things proceed that the engineer was apparently accused falsely so as to cover the tracks of the real smugglers who are somehow using the industrial and dying district near the waterfront to move stolen quantities of Greek Fire to be sent to the Kingdom of Georgia. The players must find how it is being done, who is really behind it, and stop them before the next shipment can reach ship.

3. The Byzantine Empire desires to establish good relations and the support of Charlemagne. Charlemagne has sent an embassy from the Franks to begin negotiations with Constantinople so as to receive the official blessing of the Roman Empire in the east. In exchange for this Charlemagne has agreed to send six thousand Frankish knights to fight for the Romans against the Persians and Muslims. But as the ships bearing his embassy sail within sight of the city they are intercepted by three large and powerful pirate ships that demand the ransom of the Franks by the Byzantines for over 6000 pieces of Roman gold per Frank, a price they know the Romans cannot and will not pay. The party must help the Byzantine Navy launch a night time naval assault to recapture the ships and kill or drive away the pirates. But as the Byzantines make for the hostages and their ships after nightfall a Persian naval force (the pirates had been secretly supported by the Persians) races to intercept the party and the Byzantine navy.

4. A raider force of Vikings attacks a nearby city and the city seeks to solicit aid from Constantinople. The party is dispatched to supplement the military relief force being sent because unknown to anyone the Emperor’s niece is living there as a nun. The Vikings kill monks and nuns for sport and the emperor fears if the Vikings over-run the town then his niece will be slaughtered. By the time the party arrives the Vikings have already over-run part of the town and the fighting is now house-to-house urban warfare. As the party seeks to help drive out the Vikings they must also search for the Emperor’s niece, who may have been kidnapped by a third party with designs and motives of their own.

5. In recent months three of the Emperor’s cooks have been found dead of poison. Obviously there is a plot to assassinate the Emperor and the players must go undercover in the court, in the palace, in the government, and even in the hippodrome as charioteers and horse racers to ferret out the killers and discover who is really behind the plot.

6. Someone or some group is stealing Icons and holy relics from the oldest churches and monasteries in the city. At first it seems like possibly theft for profit. But then a monk, examining an ancient manuscript from four hundred years earlier realizes that all of the stolen items are related and were once used in a powerful and accursed ritual whose purpose seems to be evil and destructive. Possibly even designed to somehow destroy or curse the Empire. The players must find who is behind the thefts, what their real purpose might be, what the ritual might be, and what effect it might have.

7. The city is suffering from a deadly and on-going plague. Hundreds are already infected, many of those dead within three or four days. Two weeks into the plague the city suffers a devastating earthquake and it looks as if the Bulgarians may use the disasters as an opportunity to threaten an invasion of the city. At first the plague and earthquake seem to be acts of God, but then evidence surfaces that seems to indicate malignant design concerning the two disasters. The emperor and his court suspect the plague may have been deliberate exposure on the part of the Empire’s enemies, and the church suspects that the earthquake may be the result of sorcery or evil supernatural forces. With a Bulgarian Army on the march towards the city, with the plague in full bloom, and with most of the healthy people scrambling to help rebuild the defenses, the players must discovery if the plague and earthquake are related, and if so, how?

 

[Rechan]

So Avin, did this help?

 

[evilgenius8000]

Well, I don't have a big store of urban plots floating around, but I'm currently running an urban campaign. So far, the PCs have been investigating a murder in order to clear the name of their favorite bar's owner. The owner, being a drow (albeit a good-aligned one) and inclined to foster gambling and merrymaking (and the occasional barfight) in his tavern, was already looked down upon by the city's stern magistrate. So, when one of the Guard Captains was found murdered via a horrific drow poison, it was not surprising when the drow was blamed. Of course, he was framed. Two reasons: one, there's a bounty on his head, placed there by his mother. What better way to kill someone than having a city excecute him?; and two, the murderer killed the captain for some other nefarious purpose and didn't want anybody investigating, a fact that will ultimately will draw the PCs deeper into the plot. It turns out that the Guard Captain was onto some evil that was afoot in the city, involving draconic cultists searching for a lost tomb of a scion of Falazure, the draconic god of death and decay. The PCs get to travel around town looking for clues and coming into conflict with all sorts of baddies.

 

[Ydars]

Sometimes, in a city, I just like to randomly roll on this page and see where inspiration takes me once I have the seed encounter.

150 Benign Urban Encounters

This is a list of 150 urban encounters that start off as benign and then can lead your imagination somewhere interesting as a DM.

 

[EricNoah]

The most fun I had with a city-based plot was having the PCs defend three buildings from attacks from the thieves' guild all at the same time. The background story was that merchants and business people in a particular neighborhood of a crime-infested city were sick of paying protection money to the guild when they weren't in fact being protected, so they stopped paying. Word quickly spread that there would be reprisals, and the PCs put together a plan to defend three prominent places of business that were sure to be hit. The buildings were in fairly close proximity (within a couple of rounds of running). I gave the players maps of the buildings and let them recruit extra muscle. The attacks came in waves - one group trying to set fire to a building, another trying to kill a businessman, etc.

 

[jsepeta]

city of assassins

So much can happen after that. They can pursue the assassins (Skill Challenge), be hired by the target, investigate the target (maybe he is hiding something too... also Skill Challenge) etc....

or maybe the party has a nemesis, and the MOCK assassination attempt was a setup to draw them into a conflict unawares...