Introduction:
Apologies for the formatting and the grammar these were written quickly and not meant to be used except as inspiration. Many of these were made with my home-brew world in mind but they are still perfectly usable as inspiration all the same. There are some that were hastily added to my folder without sources so some may be familiar and if you recognize please don't be afraid to let me know so I can add the source. These are not meant to be rip-offs or me trying to steal the credit as I never intended to share any of these so I didn't record the places I got them thinking it wouldn't be needed.

Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdventureHooks/comments/97mmmc/is_this_sub_still_active/

Extended Plots (can run alongside other plots:
A stranger comes into the party looking to help the group in a quest to defeat the current BBEG. later on the party discovers that the stranger was helping the BBEG and gave him his mission to destroy the world. he is actually an immortal being who was once considered a god but went into a deep sleep until he could figure out how to right his particular wrong, which in turn resulted in the creation of the alleged BBEG. (source. Dragon Age Inquisition™.)

The whole group (or one member) awakens during sleep in an endless void filled with floating stones and other random objects. while searching they find a huge pillar with an entrance, inside a group of hooded strangers with pained expressions and poses stand around an altar. after a short while a young man with jet black eyes appears sitting on the edge of the altar and states that hes been watching them for some time, he offers them powers and glory with no catch. if they players accept these powers they will be secretly watched and judged by the young man and at the end of the current campaign if the ending is peaceful or altruistic then the young man will congratulate/reward them, if they end it on a sour note or by killing the BBEG then the he will take away the powers stating he is disappointed that they weren't as interesting as he thought. (source. Dishonoured™.)

An old man approaches the group begging for their protection from a local lord. He explains that when he and the lord were young military squad found a treasure and in order to determine who should get it they made a Tontine (blood pact) so that the last living member of the squad will get the treasure, the old man and the Lord are the last survivors of the squad. The treasure is hidden and behind a complicated lock that requires the key from each of the dead members to open, all the other keys have been placed in the lock and now the Lord is sending assassins to kill the old man. The group must either protect the old man and eliminate the Lord or betray the old man and tell the Lord his location. Alternatively they could kill both and take the treasure for themselves. (source. The Simpsons™, season 7 episode 22 "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish" .)

Large Plots (Campaign Inspiration):
The Dwarvish and Elvish peoples are in a race to create the perfect army of warforged and the party has been hired by the humans to negotiate a peaceful disarmament of both nations. After all aspects of the research is destroyed during the plot the two remaining warforged are locked in battle with eachother with the more peaceful of the two recruiting the party to defeat the other.

Word travels to all the capitals that a mythological item referred to as The Apple has been located and all the major kingdoms want it. The Dwarves want to study it to learn its secrets and subsequently destroy it so nobody else can have it. the Elves want to study it but in order to replicate it and hold the advantage, the humans wish to find it and it and lock it away for good. The Orcs believe it is a sacred artifact meant to be used as a weapon.

The elven kingdom is in disarray over the discovery of the ancient artifact hidden atop the tower in the centre of the city. after a citywide riot the artifact is damaged causing a massive explosion devastating the centre of the city and destroying the tower.

A race from another world has invaded the land. This is an opportunity to have some fun and have a race from other popular properties and brands introduced into the world (e.g. The Charr of Guild Wars™, The Qunari of Dragon Age™ etc.)

Short Plots (Two Sessions):
Anyone who enters a small town is rendered unable to die but their injuries and pain remain. A force-field has been raised around the town barring Death from entering and ushering those inside into the afterlife. Upon investigation it is revealed that a local father who's daughter died raised the force-field to protect his daughter from death, the spell is corrupting him driving him mad.

A PC's heart is irreparably damaged and someone tells them its possible to curse/trick a mimic into transforming into a heart permanently so that they can place it in the PC's chest as a new heart

While visiting the Orcish island nation the PC's explore an ancient ruin where they discover that an ancient evil devastated the island and imbued the orcs with an unnatural energy that made them more aggressive. with their new nature the orcish society was devolved into the way it is today. the evil warlock intended to manipulate the orcs into his own personal world dominating army but the newly transformed orcs killed him and after some time they developed a new way of living. (pretty sure I wrote this one after watching Warcraft 2016.)

The King is a mimic/doppelganger the group is the only one that knows and when they confront him to kill it the king explains that he has been king for longer than the original was and the land is enjoying a prosperous existence because of him. it is up to the PC's to decide what to do with him.

A cataclysm or catastrophe results in damage to a prison freeing several extremely dangerous prisoners. the group is covertly recruited to round up and detain or kill the escaped inmates without letting the populace catch on to their presence or there might be a mass panic.

The group encounters a classic cross-roads demon on one of their journeys.

In the forest two moons are visible if you move to a certain spot at a certain time they allign. this is a crossover between worlds. (Might be an opportunity for the DM to allow the players to explore the Shadowfell or the Feywild.)

Single Encounter:
The group is approaching a merchant caravan on the side of the road when they hear shouting. A merchant is kneeling beside his caravan with a bag of gold spilled across the road. When the group comes close he warns them to stay back for their safety. The merchant will go on to explain that in his pile of gold there are golden scarabs which will slowly multiply and eat all gold coins they come in contact with, they are also indistinguishable from a regular coin.

The group encounters two brothers (the brothers grimm) creating a net libram of monsters, creatures and the like. they are currently on the trail of a supposed Bulette like creature with gold for skin.

While being transported via carriage to another town the group is stopped in their tracks by a collosal grey wolf. This wolf is the spirit of the forest they are in named The Great Wolf Sif. The Wolf wishes to extinguish them as it sees tthe group as trespassers in its territory. (source. Dark Souls™ .)

The group while sailing encounters what they believe to be a sea monster or leviathan but it is a particularly unhappy storm giant who feels that the group has trespassed on his territory.

Single Quests (single Session):
While exploring a range of tunnels and caverns the group discovers a large strange fountain at the centre of the cave in an enormous cavern that has a glowing river running like magma hundreds of metres below it. suspended in the centre is fountain from where this liquid flows and after some investigating it is discovered that it is actually the heart of an ancient stone giant which the party is inside of. (source. Dragon Age Inquisition™.)

Dungeon with tough traps and checkpoints that characters respawn at when they die. (Opportunity to explore dungeon traps and puzzles stress-free.)

Nothics are wizards and scholars who have been transformed by the forbidden knowledge hidden in this dungeon. On their journey into the dungeon the players encounter humans in varying stages of this transformation. When they reach the end of this dungeon they finally encounter full Nothics who are worshipping a Beholder who is the one granting them said forbidden knowledge.

An incubus demon is impregnating women in the area producing a comparatively large population of tiefling children.

Lifejammer Throne. A crashed neogi ship which cult of immortality operates out of they put people in the chair and drain them for life everlasting.

During their travels the group is stopped and questioned vehemontly by an unknown group who ask if they have seen a particular individual. After the group denies seeing anyone one of the PC's notice they are carrying a bag of holding and upon further investigation a mage is revealed to be hiding inside. The mage informs the group of the situation and asks for their help.

A government agent from the Dwarven nation has tasked the party with investigating a fire genasi blacksmith who claims he can craft items of higher quality than the dwarves. upon investigation it is revealed the fire genasi has made a deal with a demon to be immune to fire enabling him to forge items by hand.

A building in the city has been quarantined due an outbreak of bloodflies. the group will have to infiltrate and destroy the bloodfly matriarch to disperse the swarm and cleanse the area. (source. Dishonoured 2™.)

The local logging company needs someone to deal with a clan of centaurs that are driving lumberjacks out of the forest.

During a winter solstice festival in a remote village the party hears tales of an ancient and magical figure who visits the town at this time and delivers gifts and food as long as the town celebrates the whole night. This being is named Krampus.

A serial killer is on the loose and the group is copping the blame.

The group is invited to a masquerade ball only to discover upon arrival it is comprised of only vampires and their familiars.

Only one man knows the local monsters weakness and he is serving a life sentence/death penalty in the local jail.

Koschei the Deathless. the group finds a starving prisoner who only asks for water should the group give him water he will transform into a powerful storm giant who will fly into the sky to seek his captor. (source. Slavic Folktale of the same name.)

the group is passing through a village when all the villagers pile into the buildings for one night a year. during the night the village is plagued by a headless horseman.

the group is tasked with rescuing a princess from a tower but when they arrive the princess is a psychopathic murderer who wishes to bathe in the blood of the innocent. (source. Elizabeth bathory.)

A town has had multiple burglaries and strange crimes with little to no evidence of a suspect. a local stable hand suspects one of his masters horses. in actuality the horse is the child of a minotaur and a centaur resulting in a horse with human level intelligence.

Final Word:
As of making this post I am the moderator now. This is because I couldn't post this list for a long while so I investigated realizing the moderators left so I requested it. If you guys want we can work on it and try and grow the subreddit and build a community but if not that's cool too. Share it around if you want. Peace.

hey to any who hears. Are people still willing to use this subreddit? If i can get some more attention for it, I'll post a big dump of all my adventure hooks and quests.

World Of Grind

Okay, imagine a setting where everybody is immortal. The "revolving door" afterlife is managed by the gods, who will have a chat with you and then respawn you hale and healthy the next morning at the last shrine you visited (or you may request permanent death). These gods only recently rose to power because they were the only dieties offering this service to their followers (thanks to a major artifact they forged), and they completely displaced the old pantheon in doing so.

You respawn with simple clothing bearing the symbol of the diety you currently worship, and the temples will exchange labor for meals and basic gear to get people off their feet. The temples also act as banks, letting you deposit money and gear or pre-purchase equipment vouchers in bulk.

Yes, this is inspired by MMORPG mechanics, and you could pull a lot of psychology from that, but it's an interesting sociological question. Most nations would assign corpse-looting a harsher penalty than murder, since theft is more inconvenient than death. Similarly, assault is more severe than battery. Capital punishment doesn't work, so severe criminal sentences start at exile. Repeat offenders who don't want to leave are threatened with boredom (imprisonment and solitary confinement) or pain (torture).

Grinding is a common strategy (but anybody with a comfortable living thinks it's crazy). You can get up every morning, go out and do something really dangerous, die, and then get up the next morning and attempt it again. It's unpleasant, but it's an effective strategy for anyone with patience.

Hooks:

• Everyone is armed, and weapons are carried openly. If you see a group of unarmed people wearing respawn clothes, you know they're poor and probably up to no good.
• Every morning a bunch of people will pour out of the shrines and temples of the gods and scatter to the horizons to go grinding. Once in a while a few of them will come back with treasure and celebrate (for maybe a week before they run out of money and repeat the cycle).
• It's common for adventurers to forge friendships with other grinding adventurers. You rarely see just one adventurer (unless they're up to something really crazy, or all their friends got eaten by something). Similarly, adventurers may develop bitter rivalries. "We spent a MONTH trying to clear the Ruins Of Lacerating together, and then you STABBED ME IN THE BACK FOR MY SHARE OF THE TREASURE!"
• Grinding will not turn you into an overpowered high-level warrior. You grind for a goal, not to gain XP. That said, everybody who has done grinding eventually develops one or two skills that they are VERY good at, usually combat-related. If a member of the party develops a reputation, they may get daily duel requests from the same people (maybe even for non-combat skills).
• A severely injured or flat broke adventurer may go jump off a cliff because respawning is cheaper than paying for room and board. Respawning hungry and tired can't kill you, but it will make you weaker. A hungry and emaciated adventurer may try stealing food right out of your hands, or steal food in bulk to give an adventuring party the energy they need to finish a tough quest.
• Thieves and bandits are extremely aggressive, sometimes even suicidal. "Okay, guys, let's attempt a robbery every day for a month until we succeed."
• Robbing a temple or defacing a shrine is not recommended, it will get you blacklisted by the diety who owns it. There are rumors that some of the old gods from the previous panethon are accepting requests for resurrection in exchange for dark favors. A notorious adventurer may be afflicted with a curse that requires him to collect artifacts to sacrifice them to dark gods, or his body will start to rot.
• It would be quite the unexpected turn if someone found an artifact weapon that trapped the soul of anyone it killed. Even the gods themselves would take interest in that, since it upsets their power.
• An adventurer has been blacklisted by all of the gods. One of the gods has shown mercy and offered him a quest of redemption, but they need the party's help.
• Zerg rushing is effective if you want to harass a particular person. Bodyguards are totally necessary to deflect bored and suicidal people. (Like social media death threats, with actual death.) Some bodyguards will recommend that their clients allow themselves to be killed once in a while, without making it too easy, to reduce the number of assailants in the long run. A party might be brought in as outsiders to "leak" the celebrity's schedule to the assailants and make sure they feel like they got what they wanted.
• It's difficult to spawn camp someone. If you know someone is doing it, you can ask your diety to spawn you at the diety's primary temple instead of your last save point shrine, or you can wander around the afterlife looking for another diety to respawn you at their temple. Of course, someone blacklisted by several gods would be much easier to spawn camp, and might need some help getting away from their attackers.
• Political uphevals and civil wars get extremely nasty, even over minor stuff like labor unions and local elections. The losers are usually exiled. Wars tend towards attrition and seizing stockpiles. The party may be brought in as mercenaries to help break a stalemate in a political conflict.
• Healers are somewhat rare, as death from disease and injury isn't a big deal, so healing magic is for combat, not long-term care. Respawning will even heal your scars (unless you tell your diety that you really want to keep a particular scar). However, curses from dieties and other powerful beings can be difficult to remove. An adventurer may have picked up one such curse and need help removing it.
• Pregnancies are interrupted by respawning. An expecting couple may wish for bloody revenge on someone who killed their unborn child.
• Cities may be divided into districts with distinct laws, citizenships, and security. An exile may want the party's help in breaking into a district, or clearing their name after being falsely accused of a crime.
• Blood sport is extremely popular because nobody has to hold back. It may be the most lucrative entertainment industry around. The party may be drawn to a tournament by the money prizes, but then learn that the game is rigged by very rich, very influential people.
• Getting someone to stop respawning at a shrine is difficult, they can just do it. A mercenary who has been paid a flat fee to kill a criminal every morning may find the contract's costs are now deep in the red, and ask for the party's help in convincing the adventurer to leave.
• A politician who lost a war a century ago has spent the last century slowly and subtly destroy the reputation of their opponent. The party maybe hired to discreetly obtain blackmail material, or entrap the target in a compromising situation.
• A high-ranking member of a guild has become disgruntled, and wants to make a lucrative exit. They wants to betray the other high-ranking members, withdraw up all the assets from the bank, and run to the next nation to lie low for the next century or two. Of course, you can't stab everybody's backs alone, so the only thing to do is hire some muscle and pay them handsomely. (Courtesy of Eve Online.)
• Going crazy puts you in the same social category as violent criminals, especially since it's difficult to pry you off of a spawn point. A couple of high-ranking politicians and business owners have been locked up in a sanitarium for mental issues, but one of their associates is pretty sure they weren't crazy. They want to break them out and prove that the sanitarium is taking bribes to make persons of interest disappear.
• One city district's criminal punishments is community service in the form of joining the city watch for a period of time. Your job is to keep the city safe from adventurers and criminals, and you have to wear a shock collar to make sure you do your job. Don't get blood on your uniform, you'll have to pay the cleaning bill.
• Looking old is a choice, since the gods will usually wind the clock back to your prime unless you ask them to keep you old. A dying fortune teller whose reputation and business are built around looking old asks the party to quest for ingredients needed for a medicine that will prolong their old age for a few more years.
• A series of disasters brings a city to famine. One of the better-organized districts starts a cannibal death lottery to keep food consumption down. A politician believes that the lottery is rigged in favor of their opponent, and hires the party to investigate in the more violent districts to find evidence.
• A decades-long engineering project nears completion, and a local guild of adventurers decide they want to topple it for teh lulz. They publicly declare that they're going to do it, and are promptly exiled, but the next day they respawn, rush out of the local temple with a lot of high-powered ordinance from their guild bank account, and very nearly succeed. The party is hired to make sure the guild doesn't derail the project in the month before it is finished.
• Two of the world's largest adventuring guilds decide to have a war, with an (unwilling) city as the battleground. Ostensibly this is using a formal scoring system to decide who gets a magical artifact they joinly acquired, but everybody knows most of the members just want to kill each other and cause property damage. There are rumors that one of the guilds has some serious firepower, and the other guild captures and breeds very large monsters. The party is hired to for consulting to help keep things under control for the week of the war, and they immediately get bribes from both guilds. (Courtesy of Eve Online.)

Lately I've been toying with the idea of modeling a campaign after the TV show breaking bad.

An mysterious alchemist is cooking up potions/ drugs of some kind, and the players get leveraged into becoming his means of distribution.. I'll let the players decide weather the ultimate goal is to kill the wizard or start their own empire.. All the while a group of hero investigators work tirelessly to catch the players, and rid their country of the scourge drug.

Side quests can include stealing more materials for the wizard to continue cooking his drug.. Extorting money from late paying clients...

Thoughts and input are welcome!

Hey all, I'm building a sort of sandbox for the first adventure for my D&D 5e campaign and need some help for one of the side quests that may pop up.

There are a number of forces vying for control of the capitol city where my campaign begins. There's two relatively established criminal factions: Enders Guild (a network of Thieves and Rogues) and the Hurch Gang (which are the more muscle, extortion, protection style group) which are both being slowly edged out by a ruthless 'other' organization.

I'd like to create an encounter where the PCs come across the Enders and Hurch in conflict with each other, which will let them in on the animosity and existence of both groups, and might clue them into the fact that there's this third force in play.

Thoughts? Thanks!

Listen, I'm asking for a favor here. We've been close friends for a while now and I really need to make a good impression with these people. The firm has always felt good about coming to you to handle situations like these...well, because you're the best. We need you to take a little trip.

Last night a man that we are representing passed away. Maybe you heard of him? His name's Jim Basalt. You know, the big "faith healing minister" who runs the tent revivals and writes those self help books? Well, looks like death finally came and collected on him. I can't say that his message ever really sat well with me, but he was paying us lots of money to represent him legally so were going to do our best to keep that relationship alive...even if he aint.

Now here's the problem son. This is why we need you. Before he died he had us take care of his last will and testament. Most of it's pretty normal fair, but we have run into a bit of a technicality here. Here, just let me read it to you...

"To my first wife. I leave all possessions of monetary value that we have obtained during our tenure. I know that you will treat them with the care are respect. To my second wife. I leave the savings that I have in the first national bank. It may not be as much as you had hoped for but I pray you will find it satisfactory. To my third wife. I leave any amount of cash that my future royalties will bring in. It is my hope that these will be substantial enough for you to live comfortably."

Sounds pretty normal right? Sounds like a man who wants to do right by the women he loved. Well, here's the thing. As far as we can tell he's only ever been married two times.

We need you to find this third woman. We need you to do it fast. Preferably before the press somehow finds out about this will. I'll tell you right now son, this will was written a few years ago, before the man struck it rich with his fancy holier than thou books. If people start finding out about this we'll have every two dollar whore from here to Macon crawling out of the woodwork trying to get a piece.

I'm trusting you with this one son. You've been good to me in the past. I wouldn't trust any other P.I. to handle this. Do your best.

DISCLAIMER: I have never done a cross post before so if I was too quick on the draw and didn't let my other post live long enough in the other sub before doing this, then ill be the first to admit I fucked up.

Reguardless. I think this fits as well here as it does in /r/worldbuilding. Comments or critiques on why I'm a horrible writer are totally welcome.

So anyway, I've taken a few classes on German mythology and that, combined with a sudden obsession with Darksouls has lead me to try and create a grim and deadly world as seen in both of those settings. For the most part this started as beauty and the beast... if it was done with the classic German fairies. the kind that seem to have nothing better to do that make humans miserable.

Come, Dear Traveler, and let me tell you a tale of a land that no map can lead you to. A domain no guide could bring you across. This dark realm can only be found by those who wander too far into the woods, any woods. Every poor soul that loses sight of the trail, or strays too far from the homestead, runs the risk of being pulled into this black forest. Once lost in the cursed wood, no mortal man, woman, or child can ever find their way back out again. They are doomed to be preyed upon by phantom wolves, trapped and damned by witches, ensnared and toyed with by the fairies, or any one of many other unspeakable fates.

Thus was the nature of this land until a Young Prince was lost to this world. He boldly confronted its surreal inhabitants and a deal was struck. While the terms of the deal are a mystery, the Young Prince and his decedents were given the right to establish a domain of their own within the dark forest. For a time, all was well. A grand castle rose and the Young Prince became a Great King; however, it was not meant to be.

For many years the Great King and his kingdom became a beacon of hope for those who were lost in the forest. Its castle towers rose high above the tree line, and its walls (mostly) kept all the horrors of the woods away from the king's subjects; but, one day something changed. Some say the king became to greedy, that his domain grew too large. Others say he refused to sacrifice one of his people to the fairies. Still others say it had been the plan of the sprites all along: To let the mortals have hope only to smash it once more. Whatever the reason, the pixies decided they'd had enough of the Great King; and just as he had built his domain from nothing, it would be him that returned his empire to the dirt.

It was during a celebration of some kind, that much is certain. The ruins still hold banners of joy, the tables and halls set for great feasts. Perhaps the kingdom was celebrating the birth of another royal child, for the great king had many; or, maybe they were rejoicing another year of safety under his rule. Regardless of why they were joyous, it was quickly dashed. At the peak of celebration, the Great King was transformed into a Terrible Beast. It was their ruler, their savoir, that began to gobble up his most trusted advisers and his bravest soldiers. Many fled to the waiting horrors of the woods, as those who stayed were destroyed by the very man who brought them together. Soon the grand kingdom hand become a slaughter house, inside and out, and the Terrible Beast had annihilated all he had built before the sun had even set. But as you know, Dear Traveler, that is not the end.

Though many were slain in the catastrophe, many of the Great King's children survived. What's more, they retained their father's blessed blood and found they could raise castles and kingdoms of their own. For only those of the king's royal blood could rule in this land, all others who tried found their dominion quickly overrun by horrors. And so, the children of the Great King, all established kingdoms of their own, and they prospered.

So now, Dear Traveler, we have come to describe our world as it is now. Our many kings and queens fight each other over dwindling resources, like fresh water streams or groves of fruit trees. Our few bastions of safety and civilization are constantly plagued by the phantoms of the forest, seeking to wipe their castles form existence as they did once before, so long ago. And what's worst of all, while we fight one another, and fight the horrors of the wood, our Great Father, sits alone on his dead throne. The beast of a man kills all who enter the ruins of the old kingdom; and I fear that his unnatural blood lust is not yet satiated. I fear, Dear Traveler, that he is waiting. Waiting for the moment, when he will destroy all that his children have created; and when he sends us running back to the forest and into the waiting jaws of the wolves.

So you may venture out of the walls in all your boldness. I do not question the necessity of communication and trade with our neighboring kingdoms; but, i warn you that the safe places are fast fading. And soon, there may be no safe places left, even for someone like you.

I ran a game one time where players all knew eachother before hand and just finished an easy quest. When the game started instead of throwing them in a tavern I immediately looked at the elven player and said. "An arrow whizzes by your ear, nicking your lobe. The smell of burning corpses and fresh blood fill you nostrels." Then I looked at the entire party and began to explain that they were the commanders of an army and they were standing on the hilltop of a battle field. Monsterous creatures clashed against their army of humanoids. Orcs, dwarves, elves and man shielded and aided eachother in this monumental battle against otherworldly creatures. I let the players attack and cast spells as if they were max level. At the end of this fight I had a massive dragon the size of a large metropolis black out the sun and descend on them. When the woke up from the dream they each heard a whisper saying Sa'mola has returned.

This hooked them into a nice long campaign that wasnt about money and treasure but battle planning and army raising and political reasoning with the many kingdoms.

The party is taking a break from doing whatever they do to attend a Festival of some sort. Depending on what you are playing you can flavor the festival into something different. They are expecting it to be a huge party, but when they arrive to the town they notice that everyone is gloomy and people are openly weeping in the streets.

When they get further into town they see a long line of men holding little coffins. 73 dead children in all. How did this happen? Who's to blame?

Personally, I would run this as a Call of Cthulhu adventure. I based this off the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster. I always though early 1900's America was perfect for Call of Cthulhu. You get to bring in a lot of themes like socialism and labor unions. You get to introduce big Darwinist Capitalists as NPC's. It's a period of history I personally am in love with. I think I would introduce some type of daemon who thrives off death and chaos. It would be the indirect cause of a lot of the violent incidents that went on. Or maybe a few cultists from the "old country". Just to bring the Cthulhu flavor back in.

You could run this in a lot of systems though. Maybe this isn't even a direct adventure but is more or less the setting in the background? Who know, I'm sure you guys can come up with pretty interesting things.

The players wake up [or are just from] in a fictional 1980's world (cause the 80's is a perfect setting for an RPG). This is a world where the cold war ended not in a whimper, but in a precedent of collaboration and friendship. The two country's then joined forces and went on to conquer the world or something...because reasons.

To be honest I haven't really thought this one through all the way, but I really like the idea of playing in an "altered" 1980's. This isn't a world where a collaboration between the US and Russia would be idyllic and beneficial for everybody. This is the "Murphy's Law" version where they some how mash the worst aspects of communism and Capitalism together.

How did this happen? I have no idea...I just think it would be cool to play as a dude running around with a white suit and a power glove who fights against things...because reasons.

I'm not sure how the politics work. I'm not a politician, just make something up.

I see a lot of in-depth adventure hooks on here, but sometimes we all just need some short and dirty idea-sparks for our own imaginations to evolve into something new.

This thread is dedicated to short and sweet adventure hooks, for when you need a basic idea in order to expand off of and spark some creativity.

For example: [Sci-fi] Your ship has been traveling through deeps space, when they start to hear a mysterious noise coming from outside the ship, in the depth of space where there should be no noise...

[Fantasy] A poor farmer has been developing some strange tastes over the last few months, such as eating only every other day, demanding for the entire town to be silent for 1 hour at noon, etc. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, if there weren't also reports of murder in the area... A friend of the adventurers have asked for them to investigate.

This is inspired by a story my son brought home from school. It is part of the Oxford Reading Tree series in school. In the series there are books about a family with three children Biff (a girl, about 9 or 10) her brother Chip (same age) and their younger sibling Kipper (about 5 or 6). Mum and Dad are only ever called Mum and Dad, they also have a dog, Floppy.

Anyway in the book before this one they move house, in this book they find a Secret Room separate from the main loft conversion, with the panel door papered over. Inside the secret room they discover a dolls house. Just like the house they are in.

Where it gets creepy is inside the house are miniature figures, of a family in Edwardian clothing, three children, a boy, a girl and a younger boy, plus a dog. While written text makes no reference to this, the illustration is pretty clear that the figures look identical to the children in the story.

Personally the idea of finding a miniature version of myself inside a house I just bought would freak me out, and is certainly a mystery worthy of a Cthulhu investigator.

It sounds like the start of a Stephen King novel rather than a children's story. Way was the room hidden away, papered over? Why is the only thing left in it a doll house and why do they figures in the dolls house have an uncanny resemblance to the new owners?

In later books in the series they discover a magic key that lets them travel through time, before this the stories about this family were pretty normal stuff like putting on a play at school, or building a den in the woods, but this is where the weirdness really starts.

The group get's hired for a job to haul some cargo to an outer rim planet. The cargo seems to be ordinary bricks of soy product and cattle feed. Upon arrival however they are accosted by the local police force who are basically the pseudo alliance presence for the planet. If everything goes peacefully then the local law confiscates the cargo and basically destroys it as they are clearly looking for something. Their ship is grounded and their pay is clearly out of the question.

What the party doesn't know is that they unknowingly part of an intricate plan to smuggle illegal goods onto the planet. This was done by tipping their ship off to the local authorities and getting them to go on a goose chase. Then at the same time their is basically a small crew of ships (4 or 5) who use the parts distraction to smuggle goods off planet. These goods can be anything from medication, to drugs, to weapons,...etc. It all depends on the flavor and the motivations you want to the people who hired them to have.

From here the party has a few options:

1. They have to clear their name. Or they can find a way to escape. It's important to present the police force as a very minor extension of the alliance so the party knows (or at least feels) they have the option of using force. If they do you can use you're better judgement as to what the alliances actual response would be.

2. If they get off the planet they can go back and confront their employers. It is then up to the GM to decide if the employers actions were "evil" or "good". This usually depends on what the smuggled cargo was and why it was important.

3. I like to have the party hear about another ship who got basically the same treatment that they did. Except that they actually had goods that were being smuggled. They can break them out, get thrown into the same cell as them, interrogate them (if they are working with the alliance at this point)...etc. It gives a good view into the motives of the employers if they stay on planet.

4. Whatever the employers were smuggling had to be coming from / going from somewhere. The party can look into that if an opportunity presents itself. Again, depending on what the cargo is will most likely flesh out these people.

Depending on how much you're party takes interest in whats happening on planet this can stretch from One session to Three or Four. It's probably a classic trope, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. Depending on how much though you put into the characters, organizations, motives, etc...this can turn into a really good adventure.

[I hope this is the type of thing you are looking for in this sub. If anyone has any questions I can talk about some of the themes I have put into this adventure and how some of them have gone with the different party's I have ran through it. It has been different each time.]