A holiday themed adventure

[ironkid]

I want to make a christmas-themed adventure, placed in a pretty much average D&D setting. Right now I'm drawing a blanck on what to do tho - the only things I know is that it should be self contained, and include some gifts for the players (or lumps of coal if they've been naughty), any ideas or inspiration would be very welcome!

[stoutstien]

Are you looking for suggestions for a Christmas themed one shot or a one shot that has a Christmas setting?

[ironkid]

A chistmas themed one shot :-)

[Enceladus]

I once did something like this as a one-shot for my real life group.

The scenario played out that a wizard was in search for eternal life. Though the usual methods like being a Lich was something he didn't want to do. Wanted to be immortal and still enjoy the pleasures of the living. He came across a tome that was a travel guide of sorts to various planes but mentioned in it was an obscure passage about Earth. The chronicler did mention Santa Clause and that peaked the wizard's attention. He concluded that this individual was a powerful wizard to be able to live for 2000+ years and also to be able to travel all over the world in a night. Thus he tirelessly labored to travel to Earth but his preparations required him to steal some precious items to open a portal. The party, who were regional heroes at this point (level 12) were requested by local leaders and the magical guilds to help find the missing items along with discovering what the wizard's plot entailed.

In the end, the wizard manage to travel to Earth and captured Santa Clause to force the secret of immortality out of him. The rescue was a typical storming the castle/dungeon where the North Pole was akin to Santa using a permanent Demiplane spell. Several key Christmas characters did help the party along the way (Rudolph, Christmas Elves, etc.). By the end, the wizard was captured and taken back to the players home world where the party introduced the idea of Christmas to it. Given my group, there were some comical shenanigans like Santa's bag of toys was mistakenly switched out for a Bag of Devouring, and one player managed to use an awakened small Douglas Fir tree with the Enlarge/Reduce spell to make a mobile Christmas Tree for the party's loot.

So hopefully that gives you something as a starting point.

[Unoriginal]

I want to make a christmas-themed adventure, placed in a pretty much average D&D setting. Right now I'm drawing a blanck on what to do tho - the only things I know is that it should be self contained, and include some gifts for the players (or lumps of coal if they've been naughty), any ideas or inspiration would be very welcome!

Tons of cultures have winter solstice traditions about spirits, demons and other entities showing up to cause mischief or punish misbehaving mortals. Krampus, the Yule Lads, Mari Lywd, and many others.

You could have an one-shot where the PCs have to defend an innocent who's been cursed by an evil cleric into being the target of all those beings at once, from the moment the sun is set until it rises again, during the longest night of the year.

[Dork_Forge]

One of my favourite Christmas ones hits to run goes like this:

Santa is in the Santasleep recovering power between holidays, he requires magical cookies to awaken.

However, they have been stolen by Krampus and his legion of stale Gingerbread men. Go to a couple locations following cookie crumbs before the final showdown.

[Zeb_by_Proxy]

I played in one this year that was quite fun: the Grinch has stolen the "Spirit of Christmas". The people of Whoville have hired you to ascend his mountain, enter his cave and rescue the "Spirit of Christmas" (a dryad that inhabits the town Christmas tree). A few Christmassy puzzles to solve within the cave before the final showdown.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Do a Die Hard. Have your players be meeting an NPC to celebrate the winter solstice in an isolated castle somewhere, and in the midst of the celebrations, have a group of highly coordinated bandits and criminals break in to take over and hold the party guests for ransom. Now your group gets to fight or sneak through small groups of baddies as they make their way room by room to the king's chambers where the head criminal lies in wait. Fun situations include dealing with hostage situations, partygoers trying to fight back on their own, bad guys breaking into the castle treasury to make off with loot, maybe even making your way into the castle dungeon to free some prisoners to help or make their way through some secret passages.

I did this once as a one shot for the holidays and it worked very well. Most of the bad guys were elvish sorcerers with a selection of ice magic, to fit the holiday theming, and I found about five different covers of Last Christmas to play to really get them in the holiday spirit and fit each situation. It took two or three different covers before they realized what I was doing.