01-Monday – Plot

Mondays are the days where I discuss plots for Tabletop RPG Sessions

Webs, Wraiths and whistling rocks…

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Monday is here and my 7th week of plots and adventure hooks. This week we are looking at three very different plots all of which are Adventures I have run before, 2 in my regular campaign and 1 as a one shot Adventure. So that’s what this week’s theme is about, one shots.

Now a one shot had been described as a few things with a few rules over the years but for me a one shot is a non-linear adventure that is either completely separate from the main campaign or at least parallel to the main story (see side quest). This means that the story of the adventure begins and ends within the bounds of the adventure that should look to be wrapped up in between 3 and 7 hours (1-2 sessions). That’s how I see them and I have run a series of one shots under the format of “adventuring guild offers coins in exchange for your skills ” to some great outcomes.

One shots

The hardest thing about oneshots is how we tie in the players into the adventure – how we hook the individuals – We will explore that on Wednesday night when we have the glorious twists that can help push things over the edge for our players into the realms of “oh, now we have to help.”

What calls from the woods

07MoBW

The party are travelling to their home town along a long stretch of road and managed to broker a ride with a caravan rider and his daughter, a priestess of the Chauntea, the goddess of life and bounty. About four days ride from their goal they started to notice the occasional shriek from a nearby forest. The caravan rider informs the party that the woods are called the Banshee woods due to the sounds that come from them. Many Clerics, sages and wisemen have studied the woods and they have never found a creature or reason for the noises but they believed it to be a phenomenon with the wind and the curled and twisted trunks of the trees.

As the party continued they ended up joining up with another caravan or two who also had heard the shrieks coming from the woods but had thought nothing of it. On the 2nd night of travelling with the now 3 caravans the party ran into a fourth group of wagons that had set up in a defensive position around a large bonfire. Approaching the caravan the uneasy travellers are eventually coerced into revealing that they had been camped here for two nights now with one or two of the members of their caravan disappearing every night, including all their horses found dead on the first night.

The Father and daughter not wanting to leave these people in need decided to stay with the group and, as the sun was setting, they would take any people that wanted to come with them to the city to their destination. The party is pleaded with to help guard the caravan in the unlikely occurrence of the people going missing tonight.

Later that night as the party was on watch the one closest to the forest seems to nod off. Without realising a scream comes from the camp – The preistess of Chauntea has gone missing and drag marks indicate she was taken from her tent and towards the forest. The party member closest to the forest remembers a vague dream-like vision of a woman floating across the grass between him and the forest before seeming to slide past them and into the tent with the priestess.

On eight legs they stride forward

07MoWeb

The Party having reached their destination, the lost town of Mildover, they find the mining town in ruins. Situated between two peaks of the Spike, a series of tall, jagged mountains that rupture from the earth like spears erupting from the earth. Once a prosperous mining town it fell into ruin where it was discovered that the town’s local herbalist was actually a practitioner of dark magic.

As the town burned her the herbalist, Ingrid, cursed the town so that it would never prosper and with her dying breath she uttered a string of dark mutterings that summoned the dark things that scutter on webs of stolen breath.

Laughing at the curse, as the naive often do, the town went back to business. A week after the miners returned to their toil they started to notice more webs than normal were in the mines, along the beams and even some of the walls of older mine passages. When the first miner went missing they thought nothing of it, but when a second and third disappeared whilst in the mines the town became fearful. The skittering of long chitinous legs could be heard at night and the webs became thick like spun fabric. Not long after the fourth townsfolk went missing, the smith that lit the fires under the herbalist-come-witch, the town was deserted and eventually surrendered to webs.

The party is here to recover an artefact that the town left behind in their haste to leave the town.

A seige in the night

07MoRo

The party sitting down in the tavern, after a long week of adventuring, are approached by a wealthy merchant who has given them work in the past. The merchant has a problem. A farming village a few days travel from here has requested an unusually large order of military supplies. The merchant needs the supplies delivered but also wants to try and prevent any hostile actions that they may be planning as he has invested interest in what he suspects is the target of the farmers’ ire.

Upon reaching the town the Party notice that a hastily built wall has been built midway through a large field, on one side there is crops of corn and wheat and on the other side is what remains of the same crop, except great swaths of the harvest is cut off at the ground and huge boulders that seem to be the cause of the destruction have appeared in the field. Talking to the farmers they suspect a tribe of wood elves is ransacking their farms, destroying their crops by use of large boulders. One of the boulders even crushed one woman’s house who has yet to wake up from the ordeal.

The Farmers want to take up arms and defend their land in the easiest way they know, attacking and killing the elves to prevent future attacks.

Thanks for joining to look at this week’s adventure hooks. I hope you are, like my party were, excited to see what the adventure holds this week.

I will take this time to announe that next week will be a shorter week as I plan on taking some time off from writing (and work) but I will still endeavour to post something daily, but I will likely on post one adventure rather than a potential 2 or 4 options. Don’t forget to come back each day of the week to look at the NPCs, Twists, Maps and Encounters for this weeks adventure. And as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The trouble with taverns…

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Monday already and that means another selection of adventure plots is here. With this year going stupidly fast I barely noticed we are into our 6th week of writing these out so I am going to mix up a couple days this week (but still keep roughly the same format) so put a bigger twist on the challenge as a whole.

Credits and images tool blurb thing

Image from http://www.publicdomainpictures.net which can be found here Lnk to image

Taverns and Inns

Every DM would know of the session 0 hook “you meet in a tavern”. Players find NPCs to create bonds with, earn (or swindle) money, meet buyers of goods or simply get a good night rest on a bed instead of the forest floor. This week all paths lead to taverns and thats where our plot hooks start.

Deaths Door

06MoDD

Deaths door is a cosy tavern famed for its garden salad, its inclusive policy and its well mannered proprietor Percy the humble.

Deaths door tavern got it’s name from an adventuring party who stopped a necromancer from opening a portal to a layer of hell and summoning forth a dark lord of undeath.

However, lately tavern patrons have been found dead with their limbs twisted in horrific ways. Six dead bodies have been found and the only link between them all is that they all visited Deaths Door at various times over the last week

Percy Merrywinkle has requested that someone step in to find the cause of these deaths as he believes there must be another cause to the patrons deaths.

Mer’s wandering Inn

06MoWt

Mer’s wandering Inn is a thing of magical delight. Every few nights the Inn disappears from where it is and appears in a different city all together leaving the land it was located at empty with a sign displaying the number of days until it will relocate there.

By every second dawn the Inn has magically relocates to a predetermined place and has since it was created by Bryn, a dwarf wizard of some power who lived a mug of ale in a different location every few nights.

However as the party stay over on a non-transportation night the inn shakes, trembles and then on with a loudly sound like ripping paper or parchment all is still and quiet.

The inn has relocated, for the first time in a few hundred years, to a new place. Great discoloured clouds of magic and strange exotic animals and plants surround the Inn, it’s owner, the party and a few other patrons.

The Goblin and Lute

06MoGaL

The Goblin and Lute is a roudy establishment what people go to get utterly blind drunk.

The entire bar staff are all goblins and there is one rule. Drink, Pay and leave. Most of the patrons are regulars and the Inn is relatively famous for it’s business model. You drink what and goes much you want but you leave with only the clothes in your back. The last part is not shared much as the patrons like to see the bewildered looks on newcomers faces as they wake up from a big night of drinking with their purses as empty as their memories front the night before.

The city guard have tried to get their men inside for years but they always end up drunk, almost naked and confused in front of the houses of Lords and ladies.

The strangest thing is that as soon as the paying patrons who Harbour no ill will leave the tavern they are immediately sober and are extremely happy with their experience at the Goblin and Lute.

Thanks for joining me today to look at something that I, to be honest, generally overlook. I have a go to tavern that I use in most dnd sessions where the players find familiar comfort food, a familiar half-orc innkeeper and a relaxed attitude to a dnd session.

For me The Frisky Mare tavern is where most of my adventures start in some shape of form. It’s slightly rough looking Innkeeper, Tess the half-orc, looks after the party and keeps and eye on the ruffians. In the morning flat bread with grilled mushrooms and tomatoes and/or Glory rolls (double egg and double bacon with cheese rolls) is served for the hungry party and Tess offers advice and info into some leads for work or information.

The Frisky Mare is fundamentally my tavern. It’s my comfort zone and I am going to shake it up this week to give me, and you, some new taverns and Inns that could kick off your next adventure.

And thanks to my new followers. Welcome and thanks for clicking that button to read what I put out daily. I enjoy exploring this process I have done subconsciously for over a decade (maybe 2…) and recording it to be viewed and maybe used by many more.

I really look forward to each day I do this. I also look forward to the day that someone reaches out to tell me they used something I created here in their own adventure. I think that would feel like rolling two nat 20s. Don’t forget to have fun, rekindle that spark and as always don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Variety is the spice of life.

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Hello Monday. This week we mix it up a bit. There is fluidity in open ended adventures and since we have been doing this for five weeks now I think it’s time to have a look at extending the randomness and going through a few thing that cross my mind when looking at adventures

This week we are looking at 4 randomly generated adventures that I don’t quite remember using when I was playing this game system when I was… 22 so a number of years ago now. The real challenge of this week for me will be to implement an approach I ahve been refining for a number of years now looking at how to improve my improvisation skills as a dungeon or game master.

Created in Gimp from a personal photo.

Let’s have a look at the four randonly generated adventure hooks today.

Flying Menace

O5MoG97

A flight of wyverns have been taking a village’s sheep and cattle. The farmers have called for aid in getting rid of the beasts. The village has requested aid but no one has responded to the request of a farming village as the pay does not seem to be worth the risk.

For the love of the gods

05MoG16

The holy symbol of a high priest has gone missing and without it the prayers to his deity are going unanswered.

Condemned until proven innocent

05MoG25

An innocent man has been sentenced to death, his public pleas for help (as he is kept in a suspended cage in the village square) are a constant as he pleads innocence.

Practically Barbaric

05MoG43

A tribe of trading nomads have gone into a frenzy while within the city walls. Their destruction and strength is sufficient enough to overpower the city guard.

A shorter post today as I wanted to keep the theme of the adventure short. This week is really focusing on improvisation and having a lot of prep work done on the adventure or NPCs (to some extent) can be detrimental to having a fluid feeling improvised game night.

The main reason for this week is the game of OpenLegendRPG I had on the weekend. Where I went in wanting to flex my creative prowess with little more than a “wandering Plot” more on that later. Using the description of the level 1 characters, a area (based off a city map from current times) and the driving theme we had a 4.5 hour adventure with ups and downs, discoveries and betrayals that ended with the table enjoying the adventure and wanting to discuss the session for the following 30 minutes.

OpenLegendRPG encourages (needs) strong improvisation skills due to its “your attempt failed however..” approach with action checks, attacks, spells and decisions that require a dice roll. The ideas is to not have a party stuck being a door if the rest of the story is on the other side of the door but they lost the key. I have also applied a similar approach to Dungeons & Dragons multiple times in my current 3 year campaign – each time it only further encourages my players to explore and do what they want to do, rather than what I have planned for.

And thanks to my new subscribers – I hope you are able to make use of what I post here whether it is for TTRPG, writing a series of short stories or spinning a goodnight story for your children instead of reading the same book for the seventh time that week.

As always don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

The Tournament

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The inspiration for this week’s Adventure comes from my youth and where I grew up.

I grew up on a farm where the lights from the cities couldn’t reach. The inspiration comes from two places on the farm. The flats had a creek cutting through it which was surrounded by a dense mass of elm trees. During the daytime it was a place of wonder and adventure, at night the light from the moon and the stars could barely cut through the dense canopy and the only sounds was the creek trickling or of things in the darkness.

The second was up the hill towards the house. A forest of nearly 3000 trees.
At night great patches of moonlight created a patchwork of greys amongst the trees. In the spring and summer the thistles would grow so large that they turned living walls of green, which also created little nooks for things to hide in and stalk prey…

So this week’s plots will revolve around a lord, his wizard and a hunt amongst the trees disguised as a tournament to choose the lord’s next guard.

Picture by Brian Ralphs, found here

The knight, Sir Percival Winterbourne, is a tall and impressive figure who had one of the largest allocations of land in this kingdom. His royal guard are revered across the land and a great many songs are sung about them in the taverns of the surrounding towns and cities. Each year Sir Percival sets up a contest of champions to select one amongst the candidates who would be deemed worthy to become one of his Guard. This year it’s different from the normal jousting and martial arts, it’s a hunt for a great beast in the woods and the party that brings back the beast, alive or dead, are the ones who would claim the prize.

A beast scorned

04MoSt1 / 04MoLe1 / 04MoEs1 / 04MoFe1

The king spared no expense this year, he has brought in an exotic beast from a far away land and has let it loose in the nearby Wyrdwood forest.

Or so that’s what he wants everyone to know, to be truthful the beast was meant to be the final test for an individual in the area. A final test of bravery and skill that would bring fame and glory, and not to mention riches to his people from the crowds that attend his yearly tournaments, however something went wrong and the beast escaped its captivity and the knight believes that it is somewhere in the forest.

The Party has three options here for this quest this week.

  1. They are participating as a group to earn favour of the Knight (04MoSt1).
  2. They have been hired to help a young aspiring squire achieve knighthood, he is passionate, savvy but needs a team to participate (04MoEs1).
  3. The knight hires the party to find the beast and report back on its location, or if possible capture it alive so he can still have his tournament (4MoLe1).
  4. The party arrives a day after the competition has begun. The Knight has one of his courtiers trail the party (poorly) before appearing before the group and asks them for discrete assistance. None of the participants have returned and Lord Percival believes them in danger. He requests the party to bring back the survivors or the bodies of those lost so that they can have a proper burial. (04MoFe1)

Thanks for joining me for the beginning of another week, this time I am following the traditional zine format where you have a single adventure focused on in the book which just gets expanded from there. So this week we are exploring the family farm I grew up on, well sort of, and in particular the feelings, emotions and sensations I had on that green hill at night.

Without taking up too much time I just wanted to reflect that this is the fourth week I have been writing and I wanted to personally thank those who read and interact with these musings from my mind. A big shout out to the people who are following me as I can’t tell you how humble I feel that people want to subscribe to read what I type here – thank you.

As always don’t forget to trigger that spark of imagination that drives adventure and don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

No sleep for the town of Sparrows Rest

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Monday is here and it has brought with it a few new htings for Brazen Wolfe Tabletop. I spent a few hours over the weekend trying to get some last customisations in place for the site and I am happy with how they turned out.

So this week we are going back to my failed adventure. Yup. Failed it big time. Had a lot of pressure to, a now good friend from work was joining me for her first Dungeons & Dragons experience and I misjudged the difficulty of a ancounter and it ended in a TPK. My first and last Character kill – but thats a topic for another time. Lets got on with Monday – That mean Plot!
This week there are some strong warhammer influences – for those hardcore nerds and geeks out there call out if you can see where its going.

Sparrows Rest Keep

Photo “The Tower Inn” By Eryk Szczygiel via https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4Plek

Sparrows rest

The now farming village of Sparrows Rest was once the site of a massive battle. Forces of order against forces of chaos, beasts and men of destruction faced off against hordes of undead and the fighting didn’t cease for years. Only after the destruction of the Sparrows Rest Keep, long revered as a sacred site, and the final push by the defenders of good did the war end.

Many centuries later and a town sprung up on the land made fertile by the blood and bones of the long dead. The crops grew plentiful in the sun and the inhabitants of the town were peaceful joyous folk who made offerings to the three kingdoms in which their town bordered such was the bounty of the land.

All except for the land around Sparrows Rest Keep which was forbidden to be tended by any farmer or owned by man living under the sun.

For decades the descendants of the original settlers have toiled and worked hard upon the land and they have been rewarded, until now.

Strange shadows haunt the city at night, crops have been disappearing – which wasn’t an issue as the farmers believed the stock or local wildlife was getting to it. It had happened once or twice before and the sun had blessed them with enough bounty that the offering was still fine. But..
Less game and large grazing animals were in the local woods and fields and the stock were also disappearing, a few at a time. Strange chitterings could be heard against the walls of the houses of the townsfolk at night and the local authorities believe it’s just a matter of time until something worse happens.

The village has called for aid and the party answers the call.

The Offerings is upon us

03MoLe1

The town mayor has requested aid as it is a few months until the tithing, where they pay respect and give the offerings of their hard work to the neighbouring kingdoms and something is wrong.

Great patches of land have started to become barren. Seed is harder to take and what does grow, disappears overnight. This blight is getting worse and it started not far from the old keep.

Family affairs

03MoSt1

The party arrive in the city to find Percy Fairweather dead, his family mourn over his body as it is put, respectively of course, onto the back of a cart and the onlookers are shooed away.

The party is requested to seek out the only suspect, his fiancee, Kat Baker, and bring her back to find out what happened to the young man.
She was seen running from Percy’s house and fleeing in the keeps direction on the back of a white horse.

For a blade

03MoFe1

Timothy Carpen approaches the party. He is a tall and broad man with a look of extreme confidence that is almost infectious. He explains that when exploring the keep for a fugitive, who reportedly lives up there, he was attacked by a creature most foul. He ran the creature through with his Great Grandmother’s blade and it crawled off to die in whatever pile of rubbish it lived in.

He asks the Party to retrieve the blade for him as he wishes to return the blade to its place at their families mantle.

Thanks for joining me for another week and for another few plots. As with last week if you like a particular plot hook more don’t feel shy! Sure up your Charisma or Presence check and comment with which plot you like most and we can turn it into an adventure hook for the week.

And if you do post, feel free to mention from where you are from, it would be great to get to know the people who are reading and getting to see a glimpse into my mind.

Oh and one more thing… don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Never a dull moment in Zel

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Monday already. Time seems to be flying by. I guess that can’t be helped when the State (most of country) is in lockdown due to the pandemic. But enough on that.

This week I want to move across to one of the other TTRPGS that I love to play in as well as run. OpenLegend. Open legends is a free RPG system that has limitless customisation opportunities for those who want to play in its system. Creating a character, admittedly, does take some time but thats what happens if you customise you characters to this level of detail. I will explore this at the end of the week and maybe do a special serioes of posts for this week

Job-board

Thieves

02MoStLe1

The mission is simple: find out what’s stealing from my shop and I will reward you. You want more information come seek me out at James’s Emporium

James

Caravan Guard

02MoEs1

Guard detachment wanted, transporting refugees to Jellfort. Seek out Madeline at Saint Joane’s Refuge for more information and to see if you are suitable for this mission.

Madi

Magic

02MoFe1

I have heard rumours of a source of magic that has surfaced at a nearby settlement. I need it.

Please locate and speak to my assistant Kaitlyn to get more information and to prove your suitability for the task ahead.

X

Courier

02MoEs2

Seeking an enthusiastic party to transport livestock from my warehouse to a buyer across the city.

Brumblethatch Ispich

Bounty

02MoSt1

Jeremiha Roost is wanted on the charges of murder, bring him back dead or alive to the local authorities to collet your reward.

Zel city Watch

Whats next…?

Let’s experiment this week onwards… If you like a particular quest above the others that are listed above leave a comment referring to the 02MoXxXx# (example 02MoEs2).

The quest with the most comments will be the one selected for this weeks adventure – if there is a tie.. I will let the dice decide the winnner.

Tried a different approach with this week’s Monday plot writeup.

The aim for this week is to have setting-neutral content that will work in any TTRPG that you play as well as modern, futuristic or Fantays settings.

I will have a larger writeup (or several) on OpenlegendRpg during the week as it truly is a RPG that I wish I played more of and I believe it deserves to get more attention.

Watch out in the coming days for the follow on pieces from today’s content, and as always.

Dont forget to roll with Advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Dare to trespass into the woods..

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First Monday, no pressure… Ok we have a fairly easy one today as I was listening to a playlist and scrolling through some old photos today’s topic of stories almost wrote themselves. So sit back, have a drink and enjoy.

01MoEs (will explain this another time)

The local kingdoms king has sent out a call for aid, his daughter, the crown princess Lisa, has fallen ill to (supposedly) a witch’s curse and only the rumoured healing waters of Buttebing spring within the dark Mant forest can cure the curse. The king asks the party of adventures to escort the princess to the healing spring and bring her back safely. The king offers a favour that the party will name upon return of his daugther if they are able to return with his daughter cured from the curse.

01MoSt

The local village populace have approached the party as they took respite in the local Tavern, the Frisky Steer. The village folk alert the party to a merchant, whose’ business was reportedly failing, who was going to enter the nearby forest for he has found the source of a great healing tonic that thrived on the muddy embankments upon the Yooligo river systems. A nearly blind woman comes forward from the back of the crowd and warns the party that a powerful witch guards this magical ingredient and has threatened to curse the entire village if they touch what grows on the banks of the river.

01MoFe

As the party leave the inn you have rested at for the past two nights waiting for a benefactor to meet them, he never did come, they see a man in the tattered clothes of a merchant standing in front of a building that is more charcoal than wood. The man sobs into his upturned palms and apologies to someone called Sylvia. As the party approaches the man tells you of his story, how the business was the means to earn enough money for his mother and father to live in comfort for their remaining days. Now it lies in ruins, a burnt shell much like his hopes for his parents’ futures. He requests the party to go seek the healer who promised to make him healing potions which they failed to deliver on their end of the bargain. If possible, the party bringing back the healing potions could save his business and family.

01MoLe

The local alchemist has excitedly approached the party claiming that she has uncovered an ancient scroll that speaks of a creature in the woods whose milk could cause a man to live forever. The alchemist, although apparently brilliant, is acting erratic and a lot of the villagers overhearing her say she’s gone mad. She insists that if the party could go find the creature that it’s existence alone is enough to grant her the recognition she deserves and that the discovery would lead to peace within the land.