Greifenwald is a small town on an unimportant island. People keep to themselves, tolerate their neighbours and a small-sized city guard ensures peace. But when the characters arrive they are told, that over the last week people have disappeared outside the walls and strange creatures have been seen. Suspicion falls on a small band of orcs living nearby, although these have never caused any problems, tending to stay in their own little village, just coming over to trade occassionaly.
But the night the heroes reside in the local inn, turmoil can be heard. A band of orcs, accompanied by a mysterious figure have snuck into the inn after nightfall and try to abduct the innkeeper`s daughter. After a fight some orcs are dead, so is half of the city - guard and the rest of the abducters is off into the mist (with the girl). The heroes are declared deputies on the spot and ordered to find out, what the hell happened.
But the problem ist little complicated: In no time a torch & fork - mob ist assembled and ready to kick some orcish ass, but something is wrong. The dead orcs have wounds, that the heroes didn`t deal to them and are already at a state of decay indicating they aren`t dead for hours but rather for days.
The story: The butcher`s son, the first person to disappear, never intended to follow his father`s footstep. Being a shy and rather sensitive boy, he spent most of his time reading and testing some magic. And one day: BINGO - he manages to summon a real demon. The demon is not really powerful and can only offer some tricks in necromancy. But the only thing the boy really wants is the love of the innkeeper`s daughter. Since he`s not that powerful, little butcherboy will need some sacrifice to support the lovespell he found in a book. Not to mention the amount of fresh blood the demon needs to keep from just disemboweling little butcherboy. So on an old orc - cemetery he raises some dead and off he goes to get his sweetheart and whoever falls into his hands.
August 17, 2003, 14:40
What keeps him from being able to get the innkeeper's daughter's love in the first place? The innkeeper didn't approve of him because he didn't like the butcher, or was he just shy and awkward because he was a bookworm and his dad thought he was weak?
The plot's great and a little more background will help fill it out.
August 18, 2003, 16:39
September 1, 2003, 0:06
September 15, 2003, 13:03
I played this adventure with a group in a GURPS Fantasy Setting and they just sent their priest out, formed the mob into a militia and trampled everything not explicitely labeled "living" to dust. When they got hold of the boy they organized wood and wine and burned the poor bastard while getting drunk as hell. They aren`t really sensitive people.
November 10, 2003, 14:42
I really like this idea. D&D is way too full of epicness. Practically every plot I see involves some god or demon or powerful wizard who do these horrible things because . . . um . . . they are evil and that is what evil people do (even if their is better way to do it that does not involve hurting or stealing). :-P I like that this plot is motived by realistic goals and that your villian is multi-faceted and unexpected. The demon part is a bit of a crutch, but very forgivable (I can not think of a better replacement that is not even more inconcievable and corny). I am definately going to try to find a way to bring it into my campaign even though I don't have any goblinoid tribes near my main city or use demons.
Tim C.
P.S. Your players probably killed everything because they are like most players. Poor DMs train them to be hack-n-slash, and if they can't kill it then that is the only time they will bother to figure out another solution.
February 8, 2004, 0:49
February 8, 2004, 1:38
A skeleton of a plot goes in the Ideas section, not Plots.
February 8, 2004, 2:55
February 8, 2008, 20:26
December 19, 2011, 14:03
An interesting start - a spark that could be easily built upon.