4E Adventure Ideas.

[Gilead]

Forget all this complaining and nit-picking, let's come up with some cool adventure ideas for 4E, Here's mine:

The Hook: The Adventurers are hired by a respected noble who's been suffering attacks by bandits on his lands, they've been abducting and robbing his tax collectors, burning crops and causing wide spread mayhem and he'll pay handsomely if the group take care of them.

The Twist: The bandits aren't bandits at all, they're self styled 'freedom fighters', turns out the lord isn't quite as nice as he pretends to be, and he's been slowly taxing the life out of his peasants, leaving them poorer and hungrier every day. They've gotten sick of, and this is their way of fighting back. Do the PCs side with money and the law and bring them to justice, or do they help the rebels fight the tyranical noble and his guards, possibly at the cost of turning them in to outlaws? It's up to them.

[Xuincherguixe]

A beholder knight wants a piece of bread.

[Elixia]

im a 3.5 can i still take part? ;)
well with my montebank i would probably pose as a noble lady, rob the lord blind and split my winning 60/40 with the bandits

[Randel]

Due to the abundance of magical pollution that resulted from the empires fall and destroyed magical items, the local lord in conjunction with the mages guild is paying hansomly for broken magic items, the remains of polluted monsters, or just residuum.

Thus, the adventurers can search old battlefields and search out shards of ancient magitech machines, defeat monsters mutated by residuum poisoning and bring the corpses back. Search out old dungeon complexes, find the magic traps, disarm them, rip them out of the walls, and then sell the broken pieces to the mage guild.

The Twist: The mage guild is actually researching the old weapons magic, the pieces that they get intact are studied to make their own weapons and those that are broken are disenchanted into residuum to make their magic items. Monster corpses are similarly disenchanted and the mages are working on making an invincible army of monsters or constructs for the local lord.

The double twist: he intends to use the weapons and monsters to beat a Big Bad somewhere and is highly secretive about his motives. Nobody really pays attention to megalomaniac nobles with super-weapons since they happen all the time... but someone genuinely interested in wiping out a bad guy with an army is pretty rare. If the PCs get on his good side and show loyalty to him personally then he might let them in on his plan and even give them some powerful magic items to help collect more magitech or to fight the BBEG.

[Yakk]

The Serpent Hordes came from the west. It didn't seem like the end of the world at first -- just another bunch of barbarian tribes raiding the far provinces. Just another snake cult.

And yes, outposts at the fringe of the empire fell, and colonists pulled back. Nobles cried for help and aid defending themselves -- but when don't nobles whine about these things?

It wasn't until the entire 5th legion was slaughtered to a man that the Empire started getting worried. Taxes where increased to start paying for fortifications. Most where overrun before they where complete, and those that where finished before the Hordes arrived ... well, contact was lost with them.

The Armies of the East where reluctant to move -- they where, after all, guarding their own dominions against their own barbarians and already resentful of the increased taxes to pay for a war far away: the West should defend itself -- but eventually a half-hearted mobilization started.

It was too late. The Serpent Hordes started advancing quicker, and then the various bands converged and moved directly at the capital. What forces could be mobilized where brought forward to fight.

It had been said that the Empire was going soft, that the Legions where not what they where before. Too many barbarian tribes bought off instead of put down. Too many commissions bought instead of earned in battle. Too much reliance on the fleet to solve military problems.

The Legions fell, one after another. The city itself looked certain to fall. And scouts reported that less than 1 man in 5 of the enemy Horde had engaged the might of the Empire, while the rest was bypassing it heading into the fertile grainlands of the East.

The Emperor, may he live forever, was desperate. He entrusted his heir to the Legion of the Eagle to spirit him away. Using eldrich magics, the heir would be locked in time under a mountain, protected from enemy magic, until the Horde was defeated. The Legion would be his honor guard, oath-sworn to die if harm every befell the Heir.

If the war was one, the Heir would be revived. If the war was lost, the magics would protect the Heir until time passed, and the Heir could return, backed by the Legion, and rebuild the empire if need be.

Your group was a member of the Legion of the Eagle. Convicts, people who wanted to escape their past, slaves who would rather fight than toil for a master -- all with their past wiped clean, trained until they dropped, and turned into an elite force. The personal guard of the Emperor, Loyal to the death due to incentives, indoctrination and sorcery.

You where there when the Legions withdrew from the field of battle. You saw the outer defenses fail as you marched Northward to the Imperial Mountain. You marched into the hidden tomb, witnessed the rituals of sanctuary performed by blood-priests, the willing sacrifice of dozens of Imperial blood.

But something went wrong.

You woke up in the tomb, but the other vaults where all empty -- the Legion is missing, as is the Heir. The once fertile bright countryside on the slopes of the Imperial Mountain was blasted and bleak.

But your oath stone still pulses, and you can still draw breath. The Heir to the Empire is still alive, somewhere.

[Jarlax]

the last great human empire stood until a mere 100 years ago. intelligent and resourceful as a society they revered the raven queen (death) as their god. seeing their promise the raven queen blessed them with extended life to rival that of dwarves.

however the humans became greedy and set about to find a way to cheat death entirely and make themselves immortal. dabbling in the secrets of necromancy they found a ritual to grant the city eternal life. however at the peak of the ritual their betrayal was revealed to the raven queen. outraged she smote the cities inhabitants, revoking their longevity and wiping out most of the population in an instant. the ritual went wild without its casters to control it and devastated the city with necrotic energy, killing many of those still alive.

today the city remains, almost as it did 100 years ago. with pockets of remaining necrotic energy and many of the victims of the wild ritual being transformed into undead. making it dangerous to explore the city and protecting it from looters.

the place is basically like Prypiat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prypiat%2C_Ukraine) (some CoD4 people will have seen this firsthand in the campaign mode) which is unlivable after the Chernobyl disaster although you can still go on guided tours of the city with a guide who are aware of where the pockets of radiation remain.

[Gilead]

Awesome ideas guys, I especially love the pripyat one Jarlax.

Another one inspired by the World of Darkness setting, people have been starting to turn up dead in the town the party are staying in. They were all seen acting strangely before they were found dead with their brains completely removed, their skulls are intact and undamaged, and it seems like something just sucked the brain out, the local marshal fear an illithid incursion, and have set the PCs to investigate.

The twist: It's not an illithid, but a terrifying and cunning new kind of creature, it resembles a fist sized spider, and it crawls in to its victims ears at night, devours their brains and takes them over, controlling them from within their skulls. It gains some of their memories, but some get lost in the process, explaining why the victims were seen to be 'acting oddly'.

Outside a body, the creature is harmless enough to be crushed under a boot, inside a body, it has the same skills its victims had in life, maybe one or two more.

Whether the beast is trying to infiltrate a position of power or this form is actually just a larval stage so it can gestate in to something much bigger and scarier is up to the dm.