Christmas Campaign ideas.

[clash]

I am looking for an idea for a one off campaign that's is fun, interesting and fits the theme of Christmas and can be played to completion in about 2-3 hours.

The character are around third level and the campaign take place within a large city setting.

As part of this, I am looking for some type of Christmas mini games that could be incorporated into this. Love to hear your ideas.

[MrFahrenheit]

I am looking for an idea for a one off campaign that's is fun, interesting and fits the theme of Christmas and can be played to completion in about 2-3 hours.

The character are around third level and the campaign take place within a large city setting.

As part of this, I am looking for some type of Christmas mini games that could be incorporated into this. Love to hear your ideas.

The night before Christmas, a gang of thieves ran amok in the sleeping village (a city environment may be too large for a one-off with that short length of time), stealing all the gifts, and even, somehow, the towering pine tree ornamented in the center. The only clues that were left behind were some footprints and a festive hat with green hair in it, likely fallen off the perpetrator's head during the tree heist.

[Ninja_Prawn]

*shameless self promotion*

Middle Finger of Vecna (see sig) is releasing a major package of Winter-themed homebrew tomorrow tomorrow. It might contain some things to inspire you!

[Ghost Nappa]

An elderly woman has been found dead on the edge of town by blunt force trauma to her skull after a snowy night. Upon discovery, there are no footprints or marks in the snow near her body but a stampede of hoof-prints on her back. There are no buildings close enough for an attacker to have fallen on to her and a heavily scented beverage has escaped her hands and paints the snow.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I like the Grinch idea also. You can disguise him a bit more....maybe make him an evil shopkeeper who does or does not sell toys.

Or perhaps a sweat shop owner who hates letting his employees off for the day.

You can also let the actions of the players go towards if he is "rehabilitated" or fights to the death.

If the players are not taking the bait throw in a visit from the "ghost of Christmas whatever" to the players of your choice in the middle of a rest.

[tieren]

The party has been hired by the Burgermeister Meisterburger to stop an elf spy from over the nearby mountains who has been sneaking into the towns homes at night and smuggling illegal contraband to the towns children.

Bonus points if you can enlist the help of the Winter Warlock.

[Joe the Rat]

Is his brother the Summer Sorcerer?

I've got one word for you. Baphomet Krampus.

[tieren]

Is his brother the Summer Sorcerer?


No, but alternatively you could be pressed into service by a nature spirit who wants your help settling a conflict between the Frost Giants and Fire Giants nearby which would allow her to grant a dying girl's wish for snow on Christmas.

[MrFahrenheit]

Another idea: an overgrown, overweight, older drunken dwarf is crashing his flying sled into houses and stealing food. He's leaving behind funnily-dressed fey in his wake, and is guarded by werereindeer.

[Alcibiades]

If you're interested in an evil campaign, consider pulling some inspiration from Penny Arcade's storyline The Vault of Winter (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/12/07/the-vault-of-winter-part-one). Perhaps replace the 'Woman' with an evil child sorceress or something similar.
(bonus points for including Krampus somewhere)

[Falcon X]

I once ran a game that could be adapted, if you so desire.

It was based on the idea of Tarrasquemas (http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5789941/), a running joke in D&D circles for a while. I used the petit terrasque from Dragon Magazine #329 and the actual tarasque (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque) from mythological lore.
In mine, it was a small, sub-arctic fishing village named Tarrascu. Easily adapted to a larger place. I started it out with a modified Night Before Christmas poem. The players were level 0 peasants (It was a "intro to D&D" game).

A giant beast is roaming around the countryside attacking people, the peasants are terrified and the little militia available is already engaging the beast, but you are called in for reinforcements. Getting there, you fall in to the squad tactics under a commander. You quickly see that the beast heals as quickly as it is injured.
The beast rampages out into the wild, and the squad begins hunting it. The players have several options:
1. Follow the hunt. If so, a sidequest should present itself. In mine, the PCS fell through the ground into an underground chamber where I gave foreshadowing for upcoming adventures, and they found a magic item to help defeat the beast.
2. Find help. There were gypsies with magic, evil elementalists, and a larger city nearby, all of which could bring aid in obout 5 days travel.
3. Classic solution 1. Drop hints that this is a creature that divine nature. The party finds the one, apprentice cleric in town and help her perform a ritual to debuff the beast.
4. Classic solution 2. Like in the story on wikipedia, you decide to set up a trap. Hints should be dropped that the town has dynamite or other things. Or stick to the religious aspect and lure it into a prayer circle, idk.

When the beast is dead, lots of jewels are found in the belly of the beast, enough to make the town rich. Thus, the first Terrasquemas came about.

[clash]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I am thinking I might go with the grinch idea or the ghosts of Christmas idea if I could figure out how to make it work. Any ideas for a good Christmas minigame to include in one of those?

[Nicodiemus]

There was an episode of The Big Bang Theory centered around a Holiday themed D&D game. They had to crack a code and the answer was a string of numbers that corresponded to handbells used to play a carol. There were also obscure references to Good King Wenceslaus (sp?) among other things. It all centered around Santa having been abducted from the North Pole and being locked in a dungeon for some odd reason.

[indrabar]

This involves a LOT of player backstory, and maybe can't be used, but it was christmas themed, part of a series where each adventure was going to revolve around a different fairy-tale or them - so I thought I'd share.
First off, the DM really set the stage. We played at night, by candle-light, with hot cider and and toddies, and there were a lot of extra details I won't mention cause the post would go on forever, but lemme just say the whole thing was very well done. Meebo, if you're out there - *toast*

I once played in a one-shot Christmas adventure - my dex-fighter was headed home to her village after 4-5ish years abroad seeing the world, but she still had a couple more days travel before she got home, so she had stopped for the night where the half-orc warlock and the elven bard worked as cook and, well, bard, respectively. The wizard was also a guest at the inn. It was an unusually cold night, and when I went up to my room for the night, my PC's NPC brother was huddled in the corner, clutching his side where he'd been stabbed. I spent all night watching him and getting the bard to try and help heal him, but it was no luck and he was getting worse and worse. In between incoherent ramblings, my brother kept going on and on about how the village had been attacked, he was a coward and had run, it was only chance he had found me.... etc and etc. I started to get really antsy about what I would find back at the village.

As midnight approached, my brother was near to dying, when all of a sudden he sat up in bed and looked my PC in the eyes and said "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake." I shot the DM a look of "really? Santa?" and the DM just chuckled. There was a noise on the roof, and my PC's brother screamed and took off running down the hall. Me and the bard had to follow him, because ice was creeping down the hallways, coating everything and freezing anyone still in the inn's bedrooms solid. We made it down to the main room of the inn, where the half-orc was still up, working on cooking the stew for the next day's meal. PC's brother was standing in front of the fire trying desperately to get warm and was a babbling, incoherent mess.

Roll for initiative. Horrible gremlin-elves start pouring down the staircase, down the chimney, through the front door. We all use the inn's tables and benches to try and set up barricades, but we are getting swarmed badly. The wizard was there too - he had stayed late in the common room to read some scrolls, and there were three town guard NPCs who had just finished their shift and had been drinking a pint when all this started happening. So we're all battling the gremlin-elves, about to be overwhelmed, when HE walked in the front door of the inn. It was santa himself - only 9 feet tall, carrying a huge claymore and looking really grim.

This is where all the PC backstory comes in, cause this is the moment when I realized why we were under attack. My character was the only daughter of the village chieftain - a village where all the women are sorcerers and all the men were barbarians, to over-generalize, and my character had neither magical ability or barbarian rage, so I'd left to 'find myself.' Only problem was, I'd left without daddy's permission, as he had considered me 'defenseless' and whatnot and so refused my leaving.

Well, since I had left without dad's permission, and because I hadn't gotten married (which was the only other use for a woman, especially a woman without magic in this horrible backwater village) I was still considered by the village to be a child, even though my fighter was like, 24 or something. I was a child, to santa. A stupid child. So, I suddenly had a crazy idea of how to stop the whole attack and save everyone, since I saw we were about to be murdered by santa, but i didn't want to commit to it just yet, so I sat there biting my nails while santa casually batted aside the attacks from the town guard NPCs and the half-orc crazily blasted gremlins left and right. The wizard was frantically casting too, and the bard was freaking out and trying to just find a place to run to.

This was a stupid inn, with no back door, and we were well and truly trapped (turns out later there was a secret backdoor out of the kitchen, but we didn't know that at the time). Santa took a swipe at the half-orc and instantly dropped him from full health to 1 HP, and it was my turn. My fighter turns and yells at the three NPC guards fighting with us - "Are any of you single?"

The bard instantly starts telling me that this is no time to start picking up men and the wizard just throws back his head and laughs. The half-orc is lying on the floor bleeding, moaning about how this was a really bad time for pick-up lines. The DM is looking at me really carefully.

The first guard to answer says he's married, so I point my spear at the next - it's a kid, maybe, MAYBE 17, and he's blushing through his stammered 'y-y-yes'.

So I swing my spear and throw another gremlin back, and then yell across the fight at the kid guard "Will you marry me?"

Of course NPC guard thinks, crazy warrior woman asking me for marriage in the middle of a deadly battle, adrenaline, whatnot - of course he says yes. I yell back "And I marry you!" So I roll for athletics and run and jump across the room, tackle him, and start the most intense make-out session ever. By the laws of our village, which only stated that each party must declare before witnesses that they are married, we were now married. I was no longer a child, santa could no longer punish me for being 'naughty' and 'running away from home,' so he slings his claymore back over his shoulder and turns and leaves, and all the gremlins turned and left as well.

The bard was jubilant and instantly started playing a wedding march on her harp while the half-orc yelled for someone to please heal him, and I sat up and went to go make sure the wizard was ok (he had gotten stabbed or something, I forget). I turn back around to get the name of my new husband (and secretly wondering how the heck I'm going to keep playing in this campaign with a husband) when my brother, who everyone except the DM had forgotten about, comes up and slits new husband's throat from behind. Apparently that wound we couldn't heal was some sort of ice-wight spell thing and he was now a horrible ice creature. I'm sitting there in shock, but the half-orc, who had finally been healed, came up and smashed him with his meat cleaver, and my brother shattered into a milliion shards of ice. I was still in shock, so they dragged me out of the inn and the bard set the whole inn on fire, cause she was afraid of the shards reforming or something. The fire spread and the rest of the town guard was called and we were all put under arrest for setting the town on fire and .... yeah.

But, as silly and weird and VERY specific as it was, it was christmas themed, and we had a blast.