Trinket Adventures

[Mikeavelli]

Hi all,

In my campaign, the players needed to get the ability to Plane Shift, which they managed last session. After getting this, they started asking a few questions about how it works, and I made up some rulings:

In order to shift to a Plane, you need to have an object from that plane in order to focus on.

You can't intentionally direct where you're going to plane shift too. Instead, you end up at the vaguely defined origin of that object. So the bone of an outsider might take you to where that outsider was born. A stone might take you to the quarry where it was mined, or to the structure it was last a part of, A sword would take you to the smithy where it was forged, etc.

It's possible to "plane shift" to the plane you're already on. At first I thought this shouldn't be allowed, but then I thought that it's really the same as just Plane Shifting to some neutral plane, and then plane shifting back. So, I see no harm in cutting out the middleman.

After learning this, one of the players decided, "To hell with what we were supposed to be doing, I'm going to figure out where this wine bottle came from!"

The Meta-plot wasn't terribly important (This wasn't a save-the-world adventure, so the only consequence is that the people who were paying the PC's to do work are going to be upset... Or just assume the PC's got killed somewhere along the way), so I'm going full on with this.
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To make this a bit more generally applicable; How have trinkets played into your campaign so far? What have players done with them, and have you centered any adventures around discovering the secrets to them?

Specifically, all of the players have chosen to have very vaguely defined backstories in regards to their trinkets. The empty wine bottle is just the best wine that character ever drank. This gives me the freedom / obligation of deciding what their actual significance *is*, or building that into the adventure.

And if you want to specifically help me out, ideas for plot hooks when a party teleports into the place of origin for...:

An empty wine bottle bearing a pretty label that says, “The Wizard of Wines Winery, Red Dragon Crush, 331422-W

fan with image of sleeping cat

crystal that glows silver in moonlight

silver coin sized silver skull



Would be especially helpful.

[Safety Sword]

An empty wine bottle bearing a pretty label that says, “The Wizard of Wines Winery, Red Dragon Crush, 331422-W

fan with image of sleeping cat

crystal that glows silver in moonlight

silver coin sized silver skull

Would be especially helpful.

The winery is secretly a base for a death cult and they have recently begun poisoning the wine with a new type of mind control poison and sending it as gifts to important government figures.

The fan is a mundane possession of a legendary good monk who has recently had her image tarnished by some nasty rumors. The fan was present at the events in question and divination spells cast on it lead to the characters finding the real truth of the matter (either the rumors are false or they are just the beginning of the monk's true hidden evil).

The glowing crystal is actually the keystone used in a powerful ritual to summon the mythical Lord vampire lycanthrope "Ripicus Yourthoaticusouticus"*. The PCs must decide to either become keepers of the stone to protect the world, users of the stone to summon and kill the Lord or the harbingers of doom who release the Lord upon the world.

Silver skull: One part of a cursed treasure that causes business relationships to sour in odd ways until it is passed to a new owner as part of a business transaction. The "curse" should be lighthearted and provide comical embarrassment for your PC. For instance a perfectly good item the PC is selling develops a rather obvious flaw right before his eyes and he must talk his way around it to make the sale. The item is later found to belong to the God of Trickery and was used to give him the simple joy of watching people tie themselves up in knots.

*You may like to change the name ;)

[Tvtyrant]

And if you want to specifically help me out, ideas for plot hooks when a party teleports into the place of origin for...:

An empty wine bottle bearing a pretty label that says, “The Wizard of Wines Winery, Red Dragon Crush, 331422-W

A wizard and his draconic friend Crush run a massive grape plantation. In a drunken fight about whose name would go first they flipped coins, and Crush won. However the wizard Abbaza refused to be beaten, and so had a title instead of a name put on the bottle. Crush then decided to name the wine after herself instead of fighting for name positions. Currently they are thinking of naming their new year "The dragon of Wines Winery, Black Wizard Abbaza, 331423-A" but want a second opinion on it.

[Safety Sword]

A wizard and his draconic friend Crush run a massive grape plantation. In a drunken fight about whose name would go first they flipped coins, and Crush won. However the wizard Abbaza refused to be beaten, and so had a title instead of a name put on the bottle. Crush then decided to name the wine after herself instead of fighting for name positions. Currently they are thinking of naming their new year "The dragon of Wines Winery, Black Wizard Abbaza, 331423-A" but want a second opinion on it.

Very Clever.

[JAL_1138]

Winebottle: From the vineyard of an ex-adventurer who took all that gold and loot and bought some land with it, to have something to do on downtime between quests. (IRL "crush" is used as a synonym for harvest time) Red Dragon Crush is named thusly for the grapes being harvested the same year a dragon that had plagued the region for a long time with burn-and-fly raids was finally defeated when he and eleven others ganged up on the scaly b*****d and ganked it in its lair, making the name a bit of a bad pun too. Only a dozen bottles, one for each participant, were ever made. Bottle 331422-W is one of them, 33/14/22 being the date they defeated the dragon and the letter designation referencing the name of one of the members of the party. The adventurer the bottle was given to disappeared in mysterious circumstances thirty years ago, the place the bottle was found being the only clue anyone has had since--and the wizard who runs the winery, too old now to go forth a-questing, will pay handsomely for anyone who can tell him what happened to his old friend.

Crystal that glows in moonlight: A piece of ithildin "ore" from a long-defunct mine (ithildin being the stuff the Doors of Durin were inlaid with, a variant of mithril). The mine was completely exhausted of valuable materials, and the once-thriving town is now a sleepy little hamlet much like Phandalin from LMoP. Unlike that lost mine, no tragedy befell this one when it was in operation other than being used up, but rumors that a monster has taken up residence in it now that it's abandoned have been circulating for decades, and the adventurer who went in to check many years ago never came back...

Silver skull: The actual skull of a CR-1/4 pixie that landed a polymorph on a particularly vindictive barbarian. The barbarian did not take kindly to being turned into something small and humiliating, and when the spell wore off an hour later, killed the pixie and dipped its skull in molten silver to preserve as a trophy.

Fan with image of sleeping cat: the possession of a minor noble with debts to a powerful criminal faction, and may have been unwillingly involved in a cover-up.

[Rallicus]

Seems like everyone else has the suggestions pretty well covered. Don't forget that trinkets can be utterly pointless and useless as well. An example in my game was when the half orc barbarian found a decapitated rat head trinket on a tribal warrior (there IS a reason he was carrying it around, but a few players lurk here I think so I can't reveal why). He examined it, rolled a nat 1, and came to the conclusion that it had winked and smiled at him.

Naturally he thought it was cursed, so he buried it immediately. Rest of the session, everything that went negatively his character believed to be a result of the rat's curse.

So the wine bottle, fan, etc could be just a product from a distant kingdom. I don't have a phb near me but maybe they could transport to said kingdom. You could describe the local architecture as "alien," the people as very different with skin tones described with synonyms, their language as incomprehensible... the players would think they're on another plane but in reality they're just in a foreign land on their prime.

[JAL_1138]

the players would think they're on another plane but in reality they're just in a foreign land on their prime.

This I like. It could fall down with one Comprehend Languages spell, but if not, it makes for great shenanigans when "a bunch of heavily-armed, drunken foreigners" are subdued and sent to the drunk-tank to sleep it off, then the madhouse when simeone realizes they're actually sober.