Valentine's One Shot ideas?

[Karnitis]

My group does rotating one-shots each month and this is my turn to DM. It's not required, but since it will be the weekend after the 14th, I'd like to see it vaguely V-Day-themed. Problem is, I'm not so good at unique ideas.

1) The players return to their home town for the (Valentine's) Festival and find out half the spouses have gone missing. Standard cave crawl leads to some kind of charming demon who wants to build a harem (don't worry, all staying PG). Kill the baddy, save the day.

2) Players are wandering adventurers, stop in a small town where this curmudgeonly old man states his wife was abducted by this flying cupid and asks us to save her. When the party follows his direction, they find a griffin's lair. They kill it but find no trace of his wife. He explains he must have gotten it mixed up with this other flying beast. This happens 2-3 times before either the party realizes he's lying or another local exposes him; his wife ran off, and is unrelated. He is the mayor and had been collecting outrageous taxes for weeks to hire adventurers to kill the terrorizes creatures. Not sure if/how to tie in a BBEG.

The first one seems basic to me, and the second isn't strongly related to Valentines whatsoever. I'm open to submitted ideas from anyone, I want something they'll really enjoy.

[Man_Over_Game]

My group does rotating one-shots each month and this is my turn to DM. It's not required, but since it will be the weekend after the 14th, I'd like to see it vaguely V-Day-themed. Problem is, I'm not so good at unique ideas.

1) The players return to their home town for the (Valentine's) Festival and find out half the spouses have gone missing. Standard cave crawl leads to some kind of charming demon who wants to build a harem (don't worry, all staying PG). Kill the baddy, save the day.

2) Players are wandering adventurers, stop in a small town where this curmudgeonly old man states his wife was abducted by this flying cupid and asks us to save her. When the party follows his direction, they find a griffin's lair. They kill it but find no trace of his wife. He explains he must have gotten it mixed up with this other flying beast. This happens 2-3 times before either the party realizes he's lying or another local exposes him; his wife ran off, and is unrelated. He is the mayor and had been collecting outrageous taxes for weeks to hire adventurers to kill the terrorizes creatures. Not sure if/how to tie in a BBEG.

The first one seems basic to me, and the second isn't strongly related to Valentines whatsoever. I'm open to submitted ideas from anyone, I want something they'll really enjoy.

A succubus has captured everyone because she is lonely on Valentine's Day. However, her idea of a "good time" is to have everyone explore everything her "love dungeon" has to offer to "save the princess" (She's the princess). Have everything sound like it could be vaguely 'R' rated from her descriptions, but where she sees a relaxing room, they see that the floor is lava. Her "BFF Sorority Sister Sasha" is actually a Fire Elemental. She believes that exploring through her dungeon will prove how hard they want to earn her affection, when really they're just trying to survive through a minor hellscape.

[Spiritchaser]

It’s bitter singles night at one of the local taverns (a Valentine’s Day tradition)!

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, a trickster demon has decided that it would be entertaining to spike the ale with something a little magical.

The effects are purely psychological, and can be random or can simply amplify what the patrons are already feeling (tailor the random effects chart to the play group. There’s plenty of room here for comedy, tragedy or dark dark darkety dark social commentary. Remember this is bitter singles night)

If you choose to poison the players be careful... you need to avoid stealing their free will, though a random reaction chart can be ok with the right crowd.

sorting out the civil chaos that comes out of this could be fun, particularly if a Town official has fallen in love with... (insert someone/something inappropriate here)

[ruy343]

I wrote the following one-shot a long time ago, and have run the idea many times with low-level characters. Might fit, given the theme.

TL:DR - a young lady goes mad with grief after her "true love" dies from mundane causes. She makes a pact with a... your choice... and uncovers a ritual to revive her dead love. The ritual didn't work with other animal hearts... it has to be a human heart... And the PCs need to stop her.

This adventure is intended to last one night of play. There are 2-3 combat encounters, and a handful of skill usages that should enable most PCs to feel useful.

Characters enter a quaint village and stay the night. Village gossip centers around three things:

A troupe of performers passed this way a week ago, and people were suspicious of them. (This is irrelevant, but dilutes the important stuff)
There have been random attacks/disappearances in the night - a cow here, a dog there, and people swear they've seen skeletal shapes emerge from the graveyard on the same nights. Each time, strange footprints lead to the rocky, nearby hills. No one knows the cause. It's been a few days, so they're told that tracking them is unlikely. Maybe it was the performers who bewitched them?
There was a tragic accident a few days ago: the blacksmith's apprentice died of an infection after a horse kicked his leg. The broken bone was a compound fracture, and no one had the means to treat it properly around here.


In the middle of the night, the skeletons attack again. This time, there are 8 skeletons who assaulted the cottage of a farmer a few hundred yards away. A runner comes to wake the PCs, and they are called on to suit up and save the town. Upon arrival, the Skeletons have already taken the farmer's unconscious son up into the woods; the farmer and his wife are bloodied, but alive.

To make the scene a non-vanilla combat encounter, make saving the civilians a priority. The skeletons will do anything they can to slow the attacking PCs, including holding the farmers hostage or lighting the town on fire. Maybe have the house catch fire. Having a skeleton retreat away to the local graveyard to bury itself is good. Alternately, have a skeleton escape into the hills.

If the Skeletons succeed (or if the PCs let them go, and track them), they'll take the boy with them to an abandoned mine. We'll talk about this later.

A series of investigations can result. Investigating the graveyard indicates that necromantic magics were employed (duh). Inquiries might indicate that the most common visitor to the graveyard is a young lady (the villain), who visits the grave of the boy who died of the infection a few days ago. She hasn't seemed quite right since then. She lives with her mother alone, on the hill-side of town.

A visit to the young lady's home will turn up a few key pieces of evidence that PCs can search for:

Signs of a recent struggle between two adults of the same approximate size. Neither was very strong. One combatant dragged the other out of the house and toward the mountains.
In the daughter's room, journals and a crude map to indicate the location of an abandoned mine where she communes with her... patron... and where she has prepared some sort of ritual. Something something about only having a week to do it, and that it has to be a human...
A secret room under her bedroom with contains a series of tomes on the subject of necromancy, and may uncover the details of a ritual involving the taking of a still beating heart to revive a recently-dead human (is it a resurrection though? Or is it a way for her patron to enter this world through human sacrifice? Your call). A spellbook might be an appropriate treasure here.


They should glean from these clues that they need to get to the cave in the hills - and fast! The young lady will sacrifice her mother to resurrect her lover. Can they reach her in time?

Skill challenge type encounter about getting there quickly

The abandoned mine is comprised of a largely horizontal (slight uphill slope) shaft and two rooms. The first room is a combat encounter. A handful of skeletons will attack as the players enter by pushing a large rock-laden minecart at them. You can decide how much damage it deals and whether a strength check could be used to stop it :) . Maybe have a few archers suspended from the ceiling (because skeletons - why not?).

Once past the skeletons, they barge into the ritual chamber, where she's clearly in the middle of the ritual. Now it's time for you, as DM, to decide how the encounter goes. Will she succeed right as they enter, and they'll have to fight some demon-incarnate in the body of her lover? Will she be the spell-slinging final boss with a zombie cow and dog that attack at her command? And what do the PCs do with her? Is she really evil for doing anything she could to save the life of her lost lover?

I sincerely hope this helps!

[Misterwhisper]

A heartbroken loser has stolen a quiver of love arrows from Cupid, he kept one for himself and sold the rest on the black market.

Nobody would have noticed but one of the people is not a very good shot with a bow and missed the target and instead of hitting the noble knight, hit his horse. It did not end well and made a huge scene.

Now the group has to track down the missing arrows and cure the people already struck.

[DonEsteban]

Kobolds Ate My Valentine (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/111363/CUPID-MUST-DIE--Kobolds-Ate-My-Valentine) - hilarious

[Karnitis]

These are great and totally going to save my butt.

The succubus one sounds really open and, as all DM planning goes, I can easily +/- rooms as time allows.

My all-time favorite movie (tied w/ V for Vendetta, anyway) is Clue, and that sounds like it could be a good related one, as there is no doubt the trickster would hide as one of the patrons in the pub.

I really appreciate all the detail for your Lost Lover - great to pick up at a drop of a hat, and since most are skeletons, not too many notes.

DM intro: "So you enter the town and see a confused knight, an overly-excited horse, and a maiden about to be in a very compromising position..."

[ImproperJustice]

Steal from Quantam Leap:

Players are sent from a doomed future to make sure two people fall in love, so they will one day become legendary champions who save the world and found a benevolent empire that lasts for generations.

The wrinkle: They don’t know each other well, and don’t get along at first meeting. One of them has a rival suitor that is more attractive in some fashion but ultimately bad for them.

To make it more complicated: Another NPC group has been sent from the same doomed future who likes how things are and are actively working to prevent the couple from becoming one.
However, they can’t directly kill or harm either lovebird, because it will destabilize the timeline too much for their side to benefit.


How it plays: My wife ran this awhile back.
Minimal combat, a lot of role play, problem solving and creativity required. Your mileage may vary.

[Sigreid]

How about Cupid is incarnated and on the loose. Can the party evade his arrows and stop him before he causes too much strife in town?

[Mercurias]

The party is given a box of chocolates from a secret admirer. Two of the chocolates are spiked with a potion that causes the person who drinks them to fall deeply in love with the first person they see for one hour, at which point the curse resets and they find themselves in love with someone else. Chaos ensues, and the person who mailed the spiked chocolates will only provide the antidote if you bring them a dozen of a rare kind of rose that only grow in a magicked garden watched over by the city's royal guard.