Holiday One Shot ideas?

[Temperjoke]

Heya! I figured since it's that time of year, those who are gaming with family or still able to have their regular game might want something holiday themed. What are your ideas? How would you stat Santa Claus? A Circle of Land (Arctic) druid? An Ancients Paladin? A Divination Wizard? Are his reindeer Awakened? Also welcome are stories from your past holiday-themed games!

[Foxhound438]

Give santa the stat block of the champion in Volo's. Then kill him and take his stuff!

[Falcon X]

I celebrate Tarrasquemas with my players.

I originally designed this as a tutorial for level 0 characters, but it can easily be adapted. It is based more off the Tarrasque from classic myths and used the Petit Tarrrasque from some Dragon Magazine article.
- open with a mock of Night Before Christmas
- You are in an arctic fishing village named Tarraskya. A large beast is attacking. You are called in to help fight it alongside the other fishermen.
- You all face the beast, but it always regenerates damage. It is a stalemate. It runs from you.
- several side missions can happen, but ultimately you need to do something to enable the local cleric to debuff it.
- When you kill the beast, you find valuable gemstones in its belly.
- The Village uses the gems to fund major renovations to it, until it is a center of trade.
- The beast is named the Tarrasque after the Village. The first Tarrasquemas is born.

Little did the Village know that the real Tarrasque was out there, and it did see them when they were sleeping....

[Lockwolfe]

Not sure if this will help at all, but...
One of my players is currently playing a racist human fighter (the rest of the party happens to be made up of a fire genasi, water genasi, goliath, and a tabaxi) so we're going to play a short non-canonical adventure in which she is visited by the spirits of past, present, and future a la Christmas Carol. The DM can be switched to whomever whenever, and the whole thing is improvised. It might be awful, and its probably going to be short, so we're going to jump back into the main campaign whenever that ends.

[Quoxis]

Have Santa Senn'ta be an archfey/archdemon waging war on the respective archfey/archdemon of ice. The characters get temporary warlock powers and the promise of tons of magical "gifts" in return for them fighting for him, and after defeating the current leader Senn'ta gives them random useless junk with more or less powerful enchantments (socks that let the wearer fly, a wooden rocking horse that on command transforms into a draft horse, sweets that grant temporary hit bonuses or charm immunity, stuff like that).

[the_brazenburn]

All of my players will take on the roles of iconic D&D villains (right now we have Asmodeus, Orcus, Vecna, and Undecided) and spend two hours beating the crud out of each other. The winner will be permitted to take on the reigning champion: Santa Claws.

I've got him statted out as a solar angel with ten levels of Arctic Druid.

[Asmotherion]

I wouldn't go and call him Santa directly, ranther than a "Red robbed Wizard, Cleric of a good Deity who lives far in the North".

Alter the Lore a bit too, make it more adult perhaps. He provides food for the poor, and gifts to the good hearted people in one country during the winter Solace Festivities, in order to bring Joy.

If you want, you can have a hord of Demons attack his house when the players arrive, and they need to protect it form casualties. Then, deliver some food to a village; on the road, they are attacked by Ice Wolves... Focus more on the RP than the actual encounters. From that point on I think you'll get inspiration for a good climatic Battle, and finally either a Dramatic or Happy End.

[nickl_2000]

All of my players will take on the roles of iconic D&D villains (right now we have Asmodeus, Orcus, Vecna, and Undecided) and spend two hours beating the crud out of each other. The winner will be permitted to take on the reigning champion: Santa Claws.

I've got him statted out as a solar angel with ten levels of Arctic Druid.

but what will the players who lost during that battle? Wouldn't that be boring? Maybe you can give control to certain battlefield traps to the other players so they have something to do.

[Sigreid]

The Yule Cat is on a rampage, attacking people who were not given new clothes for the winter holiday.

I didn't make that up, the Icelanders did.

[N810]

Have fun fighting the Krumpus (sp?).

[clash]

I ran a fun Christmas one shot having to do with scrooge and the three ghosts.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2011/12/30/christmas-eve-dd

[Easy_Lee]

Xanathar with a Christmas hat, giving presents to all the good adventurer girls and boys. And to the murderhobos he gives not coal, but eye lasers.

I think that fits the lore.

[LordEntrails]

An old lady is found dead in the street. She had hoof-prints on her forehead. And incriminating Claus marks on her back.

[krugaan]

An old lady is found dead in the street. She had hoof-prints on her forehead. And incriminating Claus marks on her back.

I had to admit, I lolled at this one.

[PopeLinus1]

Santa should be weak, but with a lot of overpowered magical items... If your playing a good party and have to fight him than make the party choose between looting Santa’s bag of presents... or giving them to all the good little children. Than if they give them away, santa’s Ghost comes back and rewards them for their heroics.

[Quoxis]

An old lady is found dead in the street. She had hoof-prints on her forehead. And incriminating Claus marks on her back.

Now where have i heard about this... (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MgIwLeASnkw)

[Demonslayer666]

Have the Krampus steal away some (not so) bad kids!

[Waterdeep Merch]

Had a new DM a week and a half ago have us attend a yuletide party in a rather tall manor building. We very quickly realized we were in the middle of D&Die Hard.

The DM did this knowing that our extraordinarily amoral characters (pretty much all ex-super villains that are now neutral rather than evil) would likely pull a reverse con and replace Gruber as the bad guys (we killed him when he first arrived, then took his place). Which we absolutely did, before turning on the rest of the terrorists and making ourselves out to be heroes and earning the rewards instead of stealing them. All the witnesses to our scam wound up dead.

I think he had a Bruce Willis character in there, too. I *believe* that's who that guy was that we smoked at the beginning to cover our tracks.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

All of my players will take on the roles of iconic D&D villains (right now we have Asmodeus, Orcus, Vecna, and Undecided) and spend two hours beating the crud out of each other. The winner will be permitted to take on the reigning champion: Santa Claws.

I've got him statted out as a solar angel with ten levels of Arctic Druid.

Hey I thought we were going to steal presents not kill each other... at least not until we steal the presents.

also a cool idea is you have to invade the north pole and kill the impostor Santa and save the real one

[Lawful Good]

Last year, my group ran Happy Holidays, a level 20 one shot I found online. Everyone made edgelords, which clashed delightfully with the adventure. I'm actually looking for another one for this year, so if anybody finds a Christmas level 20 oneshot (niche, I know)...:smallwink:

Eh, I'll just steal the Tarrasquemas idea. My players will have no idea.


The Yule Cat is on a rampage, attacking people who were not given new clothes for the winter holiday.

I didn't make that up, the Icelanders did.

I actually found a 5e one shot about this on the internet yesterday...huh

http://www.ultanya.com/2014/12/the-yule-cat.html

[krugaan]

A Christmas delivery run might be fun.

Come across a fat elf laying in a field somewhere, waylaid by ... monsters. His sled is nearby, and his ... restated nightmares are harnessed to it. He begs you to deliver a present (macguffin) to a good little boy (fledgling demigod). Disappears when the party accepts, but the sled and rein ... nightmares follow your commands.

Can have an aerial battle on the sled against bad little boys (demons), a fight at the house (temple) against the Grinch (natch), and the little boy in the manger gives you a boon as a Christmas present.

Could also have to sneak into different houses and leave gifts without getting caught afterwards as a side quest!

[Temperjoke]

Ooh, what about having to save Santa from an evil skeleton bard and his army of zombies, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, flesh golem girls, and various other monsters who are dressed in a nightmarish version of christmas clothes?

[krugaan]

Ooh, what about having to save Santa from an evil skeleton bard and his army of zombies, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, flesh golem girls, and various other monsters who are dressed in a nightmarish version of christmas clothes?

Hah, that sounds cool. Hell just pick any Christmas movie and you could refluff in dnd terms.

Home Alone: protect the keep against invading bandit clan!

Miracle on 32nd street: uh ... protect the courtroom against ... evil lawyers!

It's a Wonderful Life: ... stop the ... uh. Hmm.

[Temperjoke]

Hah, that sounds cool. Hell just pick any Christmas movie and you could refluff in dnd terms.

Home Alone: protect the keep against invading bandit clan!

Miracle on 32nd street: uh ... protect the courtroom against ... evil lawyers!

It's a Wonderful Life: ... stop the ... uh. Hmm.

Miracle on 32nd street would be a social type of one shot, with fact-finding, legal shenanigans, attempting to catch the bad guys in the act, etc., making sure Santa makes it to the parade. Or it could be twisted so that the party is hired to prove that the "Santa" is actually using magic to help promote your employer's rival.