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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4562613" data-attributes="member: 54707">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?</blockquote>

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