“ A casual remark by one of the party about something met on a previous adventure leads to a summons to and grilling by the Mages' Guild (or equivalent), probably resulting in an expedition back to that area to recover the things for study by the Guild. The party's presence will be 'requested' for this expedition.”
“ The dwarven gods true names can only be known by dwarves. They are referred to by nicknames in the presence of non-dwarves. I.E. Gudurran( Allfather) Baenna ( Hearthmother) Dudrak ( Ore), etc. No torture or magic or direct intent can reveal their true names to non-dwrves.”
“ When running a new party, get around the question of plot density by having the first discovery to be a deck of fate, or whatever you call it. If you use a real deck, you should definitely stack it to have the desired outcome, which is to curse the party to attract weird things to happen and involve them. This should not be told to the players at the time, so that they won't just up and try to get themselves 'decursed'. Though quite why they would want to is beyond me.”