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July's Ideas For Map-Based Adventure
🕑 Added 2020-07-30 11:33:53 +0000 UTCHi everyone! As every month, we're giving you some ideas for sessions related to our maps. These descriptions are available for our patrons with tiers $5 up so think about changing your subscription by clicking here!
The adventure seeds below are designed to work with the Spellarena map of a bridge over a river. It is system-agnostic and can be used within different fantasy settings, from heroic adventures such as Forgotten Realms or darker worlds e.g. Hyperborea (Conan 2d20) or Warhammer.
Bridges are great places for chance meetings with strangers, so instead of a single adventure, this time we present various plot hooks for your group. Each time your party crosses a bridge, choose one or randomly decide, what happens!
The swamp below
This adventure seed is designed to work with the Spellarena map of a treetop village. It is system-agnostic and can be used within different fantasy settings, from heroic adventures such as Forgotten Realms or darker worlds e.g. Hyperborea (Conan 2d20) or Warhammer as well as almost any science fantasy or post-apo game.
Deadly swamp
After the Jadestone fell, the continent heaved and shuddered for a time. Eventually, survivors emerged from their shelters, and explorers from distant lands made it to the impact site. A vast greenish swamp stretched as far as the eye could see, bubbling and producing noxious fumes. People and animals exposed to the fluid turned feral and soon mutated and transformed into horrible, bloodthirsty monsters.
Later the famous Seer Ardana discovered that tiny particles of jadestone can be found in the murky waters. With them, wizardsmiths could create miraculous weapons and armors and thus the sifter profession was born. Sifters know how to find jadestone deposits, extract the particles and transport them out of the swamp. All that while battling monstrosities infesting the swamp.
Threedips village
In the north, the swamp encroaches into the Deathwatch Forest, spreading under the giant trees, constantly trying to mutate them. For unknown reasons the plants resist and industrious sifters took advantage of this, building a village over a rich jadestone dust deposit.
Threedips thrived for a time but after a while, the deposit was depleted, which forced sifters to search for jadestone further and further away. However, the village remains a major transfer point for sifters, explorers, merchants – and smugglers.
In the main part of the settlement, you can find a large inn (“Sifter’s Rest”), the headquarters of the Sifter Guild, barracks for the village’s Swampguards (who make sure nothing dangerous climbs up the trees), a well-supplied general store run by a wizardsmith named Voscoe and a shipyard – probably the only such place built up in the trees, with finished boats and rafts lowered dozens of meters down into the swamp.
Things to do
For adventurers, Threedips might be just a stop on their way, a place to replenish supplies and find an odd job or two, or the destination because the party is searching for something lost in the swamp – perhaps even for the legendary Intact Stone, i.e. a large piece of the meteorite which, if it exists, will give its owner unlimited power.
Visitors looking to earn some money but not ready to die for a legend can find bounties on monsters, rescue expeditions, merchants searching for bold explorers to map distant part of the swamp, and of course, departing boats in need of escorting.
There is also a silent war being waged in the shadows of the great trees between smugglers and the king’s secret agents. Officially, with jadedust being so powerful, the King tries to control its presence on the market, but everyone knows it’s all about taxes. That’s why free-minded entrepreneurs need smugglers, who supposedly know other routes into the village than boats.
This adventure seed is designed to work with the Spellarena map of a treetop village. It is system-agnostic and can be used within different fantasy settings, from heroic adventures such as Forgotten Realms or darker worlds e.g. Hyperborea (Conan 2d20) or Warhammer.
Voices in the dark
The Green Hell Jungle is named so for many reasons: plants, animals, and monsters want to eat you alive, the heat and humidity are oppressing, terrible storms can turn parts of the forest into a swamp or create raging rivers that sweep you away in an instant. Intrepid adventurers can brave most of those dangers. But not the Voices.
At night explorers camping in the jungle hear whispers on the wind. The Voices plead and threaten, eroding both will and sanity and eventually people wander off into the forest, never to be seen again. The first explorers, ignoring warnings of the native peoples, dismissed the voices as mere madness.
Later it became obvious that something sinister dwells in the jungle, luring travelers for unknown reasons. But kings and merchants kept sending brave fools into the Green Hell Jungle, because those who returned, did so laden with treasures.
Safe Havens
A grand prize has been offered to anyone who would end this threat. One group came very close, discovering a network of safe havens in the jungle: ancient ruins dotting the Green Hell, places where the Voices couldn’t reach mortal ears.
Now explorers push from one such haven to another, safe from the Voices as long as they spend the night in one of the mysterious ruins. Each group that discovers a new haven is hailed as heroes and it is said that soon the entire jungle will be mapped and the source of the Voices destroyed.
Recently though, the camps are under attack. Monsters emerge from the darkness, some wearing the faces of long-lost explorers…
Optionally, you might also decide that each ruin must be ‘activated’ before they become a haven. This might involve performing a ritual (while being attacked by monsters) or exploring and cleansing a dungeon under the camp.
The nature of the Voices
Your party may be visiting the jungle for a specific reason or just exploring, searching for treasures, or earning money by discovering new safe havens. They might be interested in destroying the sources of the Voices, in which case you need to decide what they are. Below, you can find some ideas, linking the Voices to popular campaigns:
- If you’re playing the „Tomb of Annihilation”, the Voices are just another Acererak’s curse, affecting a part of the peninsula.
- In a Warhammer game, the Voices are whispers of a chaos demon imprisoned deep in the Drakwald.
- They might be twisted dreams of a sleeping, mad dragon or minor deity. They don’t realize their dreams are affecting the mortal world, but also don’t wish to wake up – unless the PCs do something for them!
This adventure seed is designed to work with the Spellarena map of a bandit cave. It is system-agnostic and can be used within different fantasy settings, from heroic adventures such as Forgotten Realms or darker worlds e.g. Hyperborea (Conan 2d20) or Warhammer as well as 7th Sea or other swashbuckling games.
The Whispering Grotto
Caves make great hideouts and a group of bandits called Deadeyes was delighted when they stumbled upon the Whispering Grotto. Located deep in the woods many locals considered cursed, the small cave system seemed ideal for the posse.
Soon, they found out that there are indeed voices in the cave: disembodied whispers occurring at random times. Some don’t make sense or speak exotic languages; others repeat what someone said in another part of the cave system. That feature proved particularly useful, as Savina, the posse’s leader, likes to listen in on her minions’ conversation as well as to prisoners. Naturally, bandits know about this so they are careful what they say while in the cave.
However, the Deadeyes don’t know that the whispers are a lingering effect of Fey magic. Every so often a gate to the Sidhe realm opens and strange creatures emerge, usually killing everyone in the caves, then cleansing the stones and performing a special ritual.
The posse
Savina leads a group of about ten men and women. Ex-soldier, who served in newly discovered lands beyond the ocean, she rarely speaks of her adventures. It is clear though, that she hates the king and everyone who supports his regime.
Other members of the group include all kinds of crooks: conmen and women, horse thieves, ex-gladiator-for-hire, even a priestess. They rob, kill when they have to, are always on guard, and treat the posse as a family – which means they also argue a lot. All of them have somehow wronged the king and lost something precious because of it.
The king dispatched his right hand, Sir Marsk of Tialnoc to deal with the Deadeyes and some people wonder what secrets Savina brought from beyond the ocean. Then there is also a rival gang, Mary’s Mares. After a few joint jobs, Savina and Mary become lovers and then bitter enemies – but no one knows why.
The adventure
The PCs might be yet another group the King (or his officials) hired to deal with the Deadeyes, another gang, or stumble upon the posse while searching for one Theodore Brunswick, a ridiculed expert on the legendary Sidhe creatures. Theodore, currently imprisoned by Savina, is the only person suspecting the purpose of the cave – and the imminent danger.
Recently all the Deadeyes have been complaining about the increasing intensity of whispers. They become paranoid and want to move camp, but Savina isn’t ready to abandon such an excellent hideout. One of the bandits made contact with a Fey being and now acts as its agent.
Soon after the PCs’ arrival to the cave and possibly just before the final confrontation with Savina, the gate to Sidhe realm opens in the waterfall and suddenly the party must cooperate with Savina, if they want to make it out alive. Perhaps they’ll even visit the Fey realm? Afterward, will they apprehend her or let her go?
