Yora
2014-08-09, 08:36 AM
There was an adventure in Dungeon 10 years ago, called Mellorn Hospitality, which has a cool premise, but is still written to pretty much follow a preset order of encounters. I want to take this premise and make it into something bigger and make the most of the potential.
Near an elven village, a portal opens every 7 years in a cave, from which monsters emerge to hunt for humanoid victims to drag back to their otherworldly realm. After any attempts to destroy the monsters, keep the portal from opening, or sealing the caves had failed, the elders of the village came up with an alternative solution. They would host a big market every year during the time when the portal opens, to provide plenty of alternative victims while they hole up in their houses during night. Since six out of seven years nobody gets taken, none of the outsiders have discovered the pattern yet.
In the original adventure the PCs are guarding a merchant who gets taken, they follow his trail, find the gate, and discover a convenient way to end the thread. If they figure out that the elves know about it, they say they are deeply sorry, and that's about it. I think there's much more room to make much more of the basic idea.
Two things come already to mind:
Since the market is only a decoy and bait to lure large numbers of traveling merchants, the elves don't need to make an actual profit from it. In fact, they could even accept making a considerable loss, as the main goal is to make the merchants come back every year. The leaders of the conspiracy might buy goods the village doesn't really need, just to make sure the merchants make a good profit. However, it would be crucial that nobody notices the manipulations and gets suspicious.
The other thing would be, that the conspirators would like if someone tries to seal the portal for good without risking their own people. At the same time,they wouldn't want anyone to know that the market is a trap to basically catch human sacrifices to appease monsters. So once the PCs are starting to ask too much questions, at least some conspirators would try to get them to leave or killed.
Pretty much everone of the adult villagers knows that monsters come from the cave and capture some of the merchants. Not all of them like it, but they won't reveal the crimes of their leaders to outsiders, which would have terrible consequences for the village. Some might be willing to stay silent only up to a certain point, but refuse to comply when more extreme things are demanded of them.
I would like to make this into something for at least two or even three sessions, with at least one possible way to seal the portal for good, though it could be a quite tough one. Any ideas?
Near an elven village, a portal opens every 7 years in a cave, from which monsters emerge to hunt for humanoid victims to drag back to their otherworldly realm. After any attempts to destroy the monsters, keep the portal from opening, or sealing the caves had failed, the elders of the village came up with an alternative solution. They would host a big market every year during the time when the portal opens, to provide plenty of alternative victims while they hole up in their houses during night. Since six out of seven years nobody gets taken, none of the outsiders have discovered the pattern yet.
In the original adventure the PCs are guarding a merchant who gets taken, they follow his trail, find the gate, and discover a convenient way to end the thread. If they figure out that the elves know about it, they say they are deeply sorry, and that's about it. I think there's much more room to make much more of the basic idea.
Two things come already to mind:
Since the market is only a decoy and bait to lure large numbers of traveling merchants, the elves don't need to make an actual profit from it. In fact, they could even accept making a considerable loss, as the main goal is to make the merchants come back every year. The leaders of the conspiracy might buy goods the village doesn't really need, just to make sure the merchants make a good profit. However, it would be crucial that nobody notices the manipulations and gets suspicious.
The other thing would be, that the conspirators would like if someone tries to seal the portal for good without risking their own people. At the same time,they wouldn't want anyone to know that the market is a trap to basically catch human sacrifices to appease monsters. So once the PCs are starting to ask too much questions, at least some conspirators would try to get them to leave or killed.
Pretty much everone of the adult villagers knows that monsters come from the cave and capture some of the merchants. Not all of them like it, but they won't reveal the crimes of their leaders to outsiders, which would have terrible consequences for the village. Some might be willing to stay silent only up to a certain point, but refuse to comply when more extreme things are demanded of them.
I would like to make this into something for at least two or even three sessions, with at least one possible way to seal the portal for good, though it could be a quite tough one. Any ideas?