1st level adventure ideas

[ruy343]

Howdy all,

I'm not asking for my own benefit; instead I'm asking for 1st-level adventure ideas to have a repository on hand of adventures appropriate for one-shots or for starting off a campaign in a memorable, level-appropriate way. I'll share here a few of the ideas that I've come up with in the past, and invite you to share some ideas that you've employed.

The Necromantress
in a quaint little village, the talk of the town is the the recent death of the blacksmith's apprentice (the tanner's son), and how his fiancée, the mayor's daughter, left some days ago distraught with grief in hopes of finding someone to raise him. When the players stay the night, a group of skeletons come (making a noise/ruckus - combat encounter!), knock out the innkeeper's son, and try to drag him away. The players are left with a mystery - where are the skeletons coming from (DM's choice), why are they kidnapping an ordinary boy, and who's behind it?

After investigation and adventure, they come across a ruined structure in the woods containing a strange laboratory, where they discover the tanner's son lying on a table, neatly eviscerated. It turns out that the mayor's daughter came across a fellow who offered to teach her dark, necromantic magics (using another man's heart to revive her "true love"), in exchange for her loyalty and assistance in a task (left to the DM's choosing). At the end, she'll surrender before she dies, and the players now have a moral quandary - what do we do with her?

Possible encounters - combat with skeletons, conversing with crazy undertaker, combat with forest/mountain creatures, laboratory encounter (oozes?), necromantress (level 2 wizard - necromancer) and, depending on success in first encounter, the tanner's son's zombie.

[Falcon X]

I once did a series of one-shot adventures for Level 0- Level 2 characters in a small, rural sub-arctic fishing village (Think Alaska). I'll give the synopsis here. If you want more detail, I can provide. Personal message me if you feel it's appropriate.

1. The Herb - Parts of this are ripped from Quest for Glory 4, if you've played it.
There are underground mushroom gardens attached to tunnels that go back very far. Every year, a representative of one of the local tribes comes to the village for a special herb that grows deep in the tunnel system. You are tasked with retrieving it. You go into the tunnels a good ways, have some rope climbing skill checks and the like. Finally you reach a series of rooms.
A. The Leshy: In this wide cavern covered in unnatural vines, there are 3 exits (The way you came, Room B, and Room D). In the center of the room are 6 bushes. One of them is giggling. If a person physically touches the giggling bush, it dissapears and another bush starts to giggle. Continue this until the last bush is touched, the Leshy appears and gives a riddle that will help solve the quest, and also opens room D, which is hidden behind rocks and vines. He is also a very dangerous earth spirit, so it's best not to mess with him.
B. The Pond: A long tunnel opens into an underground pond with an empty island in the center (has some scattered elderberry leaves on it if you look closely enough). There is a path that goes around the left side of the lake (crescent shaped) and exits to the next room, which is the way you have to go to the herb. As you step out, you are confronted by a shocker lizard that is unnaturally aggressive. Quickly, more shocker lizards come to aid the fight. A smart person will note that shocker lizards multiply each other's power exponentially. Running back should be played up as the obvious option.
What's more, there is a crazy man among the lizards who will chase you.
NONE of them will go far into the tunnel after you, as there is an enchantment on the waters that is driving them all insane, and it will drive you insane too if you stay too long or drink the water.
SECRET: There was once an elderberry bush that sat on the center of the lake and dispelled everything. It is gone and thus the enchantments are pervasive. The cause of this is a Hag living in an underwater cave. She is a witch (think Baba Yaga). The characters could go so far as to confront her, but more likely they will never know she is there.
If the crazy man is dispelled, he can be anyone you want him to be. In mine, he is a wizard who had just moved into the village. Long story...
C. Beyond room B is another tunnel that leads to the desired herb. Yay! Throw in a boss battle if you feel like it.
D. The Pit: In the room that Leshy opened up, there is a pit that blocks your progress. You see a rope ladder on the opposite wall leading down into the pit, and there is a huge obelisk on the other side as well.
Known ways of getting across: Knock the obelisk over towards you somehow so that it goes over the whole gap. The pit is climbable (possibly even has hidden ladders), so you can climb down one side and up the other with possibly a battle at the bottom. You can also try to climb across vines that are on the sides of the rooms, but it is very dangerous.
E. The Elderberry Bush: This is a sentient bush with red berries, eyes, and stinging tentacles. Overall, not too dangerous and it can even be knocked unconscious. It was driven off from it's home in room B. Possibly it was uprooted by the Hag. Possibly Leshy moved it. Possibly it ran away itself in fear. In my game, the Hag stole it's teddy bear and it ran away in fear (leading to the party trying to get the teddy bear back).
Regardless of how it's done, the red berries can cure the madness and if the elderberry bush is returned to the pond, the enchantment will end quickly and the man and the shocker lizards will go back to being nonagressive.

2. The Druidic temple - Kind've Zeldaesque
- I've run this three times to large success. Each was adapted to different levels, some had different intros, and each had different end goals. In one, the person at the end is an Oracle that answers 3 questions. In another, it was a druid who finished our druid's training.
A. The ritual: You must perform a ritual to open the temple. In mine, there were three things: A blood gift (simple cut of the hand), a seed, and a specific action or phrase to be read aloud. For the seed, it can be seen that some local monkeys or other wildlife have this thing. So, you get it from them.
B. The opening cavern: You are in a very large room with a pit below all of it. Jutting out of the very center bottom is a rock spire. On top of the rock spire is a see-saw type stone bridge that goes from where you are to a ledge across the way. There are 3 ledges on the other side of the room at various heights accessible by the see-saw.
- Bottom: Has some large rollable rocks and a chest (nothing important inside unless you want there to be. It's there to attract their attention.)
- Middle: There is a door to Room E with a keyhole that can't be picked.
- Top: The exit to the next room. You see a small owl sitting up there watching you. If you get close at all, or scare it, it flies into the exit behind it.
C. The Lizard room: You enter a small, circular room with floors that slope downwards slightly. There are also 4 pedestals about 15 feel up the sides of the walls with small (mechanical) owls sitting on top. There is an exit on the other side.
When a person has crossed at least halfway through the room, both exits close, locking whoever is in there inside. Then tiny lizards start pouring from the top of the cavern (water could also be used, but that's cliche). Eventually, the room will be so full that people are smothered.
The secret is that you must kill or otherwise defeat the four mechanical owls. When you do, a small hole opens at the bottom and empties the lizards out. Both doors open and you can progress to room D.
D. Altar room: A large room with vines and plants. On the opposite side is an altar. Underneath the altar is the key to room E, any hidden items you want to give, and a hole that leads directly back to room B, likely a rope ladder they can climb down.
- Before the alter is a sleeping dinosaur (or other nasty beast). When it wakes up, it goes into a berserking rage. It should be possible to defeat, but more ideally they sneak out below the altar while distracting it. For an added challenge, place two assassin vines that also wake up when the dinosaur does.
E. Room E is whatever end goal you want. In mine, it is always a beautiful room with a priestess of some sort, either an oracle that will answer three questions, or a spiritual guide of some sort.

I'll post more of my low level missions if I have the time.

[Ewhit]

First adventure should be how the group came together and the begging of an adventure
A small town friends ,the tavern ,tournament each brought together by same letter by unknown person who they finally meet or not. Etc
Ice town or city reports of creatures in mountains group goes to search before more famouse people do

Town disappearances lead to church leader cult
Sea coast town sea creature adventures Cthulhu based
Fey portal realm adventures
The epic marsh or desert wasteland locating ancient ruins and broken statues of #party group saviors of city X portal to ancient past where dragonborn tiefling drow whatever you want are in prominent cities why are you here are you the protectors who statues were built
Start in ancient past where gods avatars rule cities and need to be pushed back to the stars
Or where human main cities are being built for first time

[Falcon X]

Oh, right. Adventure starters that are complete in themselves. Here are two of my first ones. I don't remember the details, but it should be enough.

The Illusionist's experiment
What's going on: An illusionist (Mine is a kobold) is preparing a devastating attack on a very large city, but wants to test his plan on a smaller scale first. Almost everything the players do is scripted for them by the illusionist. The illusionist is doing this as a study to find faults in his plan and see the human element.
Part 1: All the players show up at the tavern of a country town and find a job posted. Alternatively, they could be ordered onto the mission.
The job posting talks about cattle being stolen and asking someone to investigate. Investigating, you can also find rumors of a crazy wizard that has recently been in the area.
Your searching leads you to a cave. Could have a bandit fight to enter if you so feel inclined.
Part 2: When they enter the cave, they all notice a giant shining light at the top of the room. This is an illusion inducer that puts them to sleep. At any time during this dungeon, if the players ask for a will save, they wake up in this front room. They were asleep the whole time.
They find that the way they entered is nonexistent, and they must go forward. They might hear laughing or goading from the illusionist. There are two exits. One is a door with a keyhole, the other is open.
They now go through a horrifically deadly dungeon to get what they assume is the key. The illusionist might plant more reasons for them to go on. The characters will all likely die. When they do, they wake up at the beginning and are compelled to try the dungeon again. If they don't figure it out, the illusionist can do more and more overt things until the players know that they are sleeping.
Part 3: When they figure it out and make a will save, they wake up in the entry room. They now have the exit behind them, but also a way forward. Whichever way they go, the illusionist meets them. There can be a boss battle or not. In mine, he pretended to be a level 3 sorcerer and they had to fight him in a room with 2 Dire Cows.
Regardless, the players see that the wizard has captured a ton of cattle and mutated them (Fiendish template, dire template, or my favorite Laser Cows (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yJ6xRelWIIA/Ub5OUt6GUwI/AAAAAAAAAYc/XDRHsLyTxiI/s1600/Gunnerkrigg+Laser+Cows.jpg)). He tell s you in 3 days time, he is going to berserk the cows and release them to stampede and devastate the small town. He then forces them to exit. They no longer see an entrance to the cave and can't find one.
Part 4: The adventurers should try to defend the town. They could rally support, create an evacuation or underground safe houses, sandbag the perimeter, create siege weapons, find a druid to calm the beasts, try to find where the cows are coming from, etc.
Part 5: On the evening of the attack, the rabid cows cows come as promised. They can be seen from a ways off and you can handle it as you see fit.
THE COWS DON'T MATTER
What has really happened is the illusionist has sneaked his minions (again, kobolds are perfect for this) into the town through an underground tunnel. The kobolds have stealthily spread throughout the city and placed themselves nearby every man woman and child they could find. Thus, while the able-bodied fighters are at the perimeter, the minions, in one well-timed swoop, will kill the entire town's population.
Epilogue: The players can do whatever they want. Heroics might happen, but they should leave with the sense that there is a terrible, terrible illusionist in the world. In mine, they escorted the survivors to another town, when they got a message that brought them to another part of the continent.
Campaign development: At some other point in the adventurer, they are exploring an enemy lair (in mine it is a kobold city). There they find a map of the world's biggest city (think Waterdeep) with notes on the hidden access points. If they don't put two and two together right then, drop more hints.
What is going to happen is that a separate (but possibly connected) army is going to attack the city as a distraction while the kobolds sneak in for the ten-second slaughter.
This time, however, the players should have more time to do something about it.


War is brewing and the city is being attacked by an army!
The players can come from multiple places. In mine, some of them were prisoners in the dungeons. Explosions or guards being called off allowed for an escape, but before they did, an old man prisoner reminded them of how vulnerable the treasures of the building they were in were. Another approach is having the players, or some of the players, be a part of the army and ordered to find the queen.
Long story short, the players end up at a part of the tower where the queen just happens to be at the time. An assassin comes at the same time the players do. He kills the queen, but in her dying breath bestows an ancient jewel on one of the party members and tells them to seek the oracle, the fate of the world is in their hands.
This actually led directly into the Druidic temple in my last post, after some travel and a few misadventures.

[Grayfigure]

My old Favorite open ended one is:

Caravan to Great City Hyjinks:
Your player characters are either Hired Hands or Travelers that are apart of a caravan headed to one of the Great Citties. But out in the Wilderness, danger can come from anywhere. The Caravan is attacked by The Big Enemy Group (tm)! (Could be a consolidated Bandit militia, goblin/kobold horde, or any sufficiently low lvl Faction of enemies you might want to use for your campaign). In the ensuing chaos, you can either have the PCs save the caravan through their combined efforts, or, if youre leaning toward a more dramatic bonding experience, have one of the NPCs gather together groups of survivors that just happen to have all your PCs in it and lead them in an escape. Half way through, the NPC is either tragically killed, or Heroically sacs himself so the others can escape (bonus points if your PCs come away with a critical clue to why this is happening). Have them go through a few more hyjinks of traveling in a small party through hostile woods, and end the Opening Campaign with them making it, as an adventure group now, to the walls of the Great City with news of the Big Enemy Group.

[Democratus]

Hi, Seas!

The characters are from varied places across the continent. However they all have the same destination: the new continent!

Let them meet each other on board, as there is little else to do but socialize and get sea sick during the voyage.

Warm-up exercises

1) (Un)Dead Calm

The ship gets stuck in a dead calm or seaweed patch (see Sargasso Sea). For days it languishes without moving. On the 3rd night a full moon comes out and dead sailors (skeletons) crawl out of the seaweed and try to drag people down into the deeps.

Defend the ship!

2) Tow, tow, tow your boat

The sailors state that they must get out of this area before the dead attack again. The party must assist in finding a way free. Perhaps they join in on a rowboat to tow the ship. Maybe they use skills/spells/etc. to free the ship from the seaweed.

3) Grocery shipping

Supplies have run dangerously low due to the delay in the dead calm. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The party must help the ship hunt down some "big game" to feed everyone. Take a skiff to a nearby school of huge (insert sea creatures here) and bring one home for dinner!

4) Munity on the High Seas

The crew is becoming restless. They feel that the run of bad luck means the captain has found disfavor with the god of the oceans. They plan to mutiny! The party must decide who's side they are on and resolve the situation one way or the other.

5) Accidental Immigration

Of course...a storm comes along and blows them ashore on the strange, new continent. The surviving crew and passengers build a palisades out of the wreckage of the ship and nearby trees. Now it is up to the party to discover where they are and how to get back in contact with the one civilized city somewhere on the continent.

This could lead to a hex crawl going from levels 2-x or could just be a delay where the PCs hold off native wildlife/humanoids until rescue arrives.

[ChelseaNH]

First adventure should be how the group came together and the begging of an adventure
A small town friends ,the tavern ,tournament each brought together by same letter by unknown person who they finally meet or not. Etc


We're just starting Princes of the Apocalypse. I have the characters arriving from Triboar from various directions, about to join a cavern heading south to Waterdeep. To kick things off and give the players a chance to test drive their characters, I have fire cultists using fire snakes to try to burn down the inn. (The fire snake eggs are packed in casks filled with straw and lined with pitch, so they burn free when hatched and scamper off to wreak havoc. Plus a few cultists waiting around to watch the place burn.)

[Lycanthrope13]

My most memorable starter had the party waking up, chained and stripped of our gear on a ship. The only thing we had in common was staying at "Moon" inns (Silver Moon, Scarlet Moon, Shining Moon, etc). The inns turned out to be a front for an illegal slaving ring. They drugged lone transients who wouldn't be missed and sold them to a pirate who ferried them to a slave market on another continent.

We had to work together to escape, earn enough to get home, and gather evidence to bust the slavers. After seven months of side quests, the group eventually broke up without ever resolving the original plot.

[Hrugner]

The players have been mindless undead for a very long time and part of a massive army of other mindless undead. While laying a decades long siege in the ruined outskirts of a once thriving metropolis, a powerful holy relic is activated immediately resurrecting all the undead. The party, now hundreds of years past their remembered world knew each other and were conquered together long ago. Now they need to escape this sprawling ruined city dodging various hostile factions of the resurrected as well as members of the sieged city military and monstrous remnants of their own army.

Start the game with a short dungeon in a generic necromancers stronghold. TPK them with an unexpectedly powerful necromancer. Then just have them become suddenly aware again right as they're resurrected. It should have a nice D&D style post apocalypse feel with the slow realization that this city is their own.