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Absol197
2013-11-07, 08:24 PM
Hey there! Coming up in my campaign, the players are going to visit an Oracle that is said to be able to answer every question, but she requires one task be completed for every question answered.

In reality, she's not really all knowing, but more like Good Magician Humpfrey in the Xanth series: she uses divination spells, scrying, and dozens of different info gathering implements to learn answers, along with being an Oracle like the one in OotS. She knows when people are coming and uses that time and the time during which people are competing the tasks she sets to research/divine the answer.

The important thing is she doesn't actually set the tasks. She gets told by her deity what tasks to set, and they're small or odd things that don't seem major or important now, but her deity knows the effects will ripple out to have a much bigger and better effect.

O already know two tasks: she's going to ask for 50 good pieces, but want specific gold prices from each person. The bigger one is to ask them to go slay a dragon. She'll give them the dragon's name and location, and when they get there they'll find s white Dragon ravaging the country side, and a silver Dragon trying to stop it (the silver Dragon is their target! ).

But the players are going to ask lots of questions! What weird, strange, odd, or mysterious tasks can you think of for this Oracle to set? Nothing too dangerous or time-consuming (these are supposed to be small side quests, not main plots), but I'm lacking creativity right now and this seems Like something the Playground would enjoy!

Have at it!

karkus
2013-11-07, 09:24 PM
Good Magician Humpfrey in the Xanth series

You have no idea how happy it makes me that I get this reference.

But honestly, your dragon encounter seems like the best type of quest to have; weird missions that, if you immediately jump into combat without thinking things through, you will effectively fail the mission.

Absol197
2013-11-08, 02:14 AM
You have no idea how happy it makes me that I get this reference.

I was wondering if anyone would know who that was :smalltongue: !


But honestly, your dragon encounter seems like the best type of quest to have; weird missions that, if you immediately jump into combat without thinking things through, you will effectively fail the mission.

What's actually going to happen is that the silver dragon is not going to be right there. The players will have to seek him out, and they might choose to just go and pursue the white dragon without asking for the silver's help. That will get awkward :smallamused: . The other thing is that the silver dragon is actually a very nice guy (and very young, too), so the mostly good party won't want to really kill him. IF they ask the oracle why they're supposed to kill him, she going to say something to the effect of, "From noblest intentions the gravest evils sometimes flow." Basically, she has no freaking clue why that dragon's supposed to die, her god just said that the task she needs to set (and her god didn't even tell her the color of the dragon, so the fact that it's a silver is news to her!).

But what other ideas do you have? The one other I thought of was, "In a valley south of here, you will find a little bird with a broken wing. Care for it until it is strong enough to fly, but use no magic to aid its recovery." But that's boring. If I have to I'll use it, but I don't want to resort to that!