3.5 brainstormin

[Cowboy_ninja]

i need some help with the story line for an adventure im planning. i have an adventure planned but the story is missing some key elements.

i need a reason for a cove of swamp druids and elves to blow off their duties.

story goes that a fairly large town has a treaty with the locals of the neighboring swamp. Town wont rob the swamp of its resources and rare wild life, and the druids, elves, sylvans, etc. will enforce safe passage for the town locals and keep the wild life in check.

PC's are hired to investigate because the druids are blowing off their duties.

why?

also if i could get a complete list of D&D books that have lists of ideas ( like one of those radom encounters charts) that would be great.

thanks in advance!

[BRC]

Somthing is killing the druids.

Somebody from the town is poaching in the swamp, so the druids assume the bargain is off.

A new radical Druid has taken over the local circle and has decided to let the creatures from the swamp destroy the town, which he see's as Unnatural.
For some reason the monster population has swelled and the druid's can't contain it.
There has been a Schism between two different groups of druids, they are too busy fighting it out to uphold the deal.

[RTGoodman]

I'll have to think a bit for the first part, but for the second part, here's a list of books I can think of that have "100 Adventure Ideas" or whatever charts in them.

-DMG
-The Environment series (Frostburn, etc.) may have some - I know each of them have like 20 pages of random encounter tables, so they might have adventure ideas.
-Complete Warrior has random tables for mission, complications and I think a couple of other things, but most of them are war-themed.
-Complete Scoundrel has a chart of 100 Scoundrel Challenges, and I think (without having the books to look at) that the rest of the "second" Complete series (Complete Champion and Complete Mage) may have the same.


Also, if you'd like you can check the Swampgas Project thread and see if that inspires you. There might even be some things in there that you can use to find an answer to your first question. It's not particularly organized yet, so you'll have to dig through all 15 or so pages, but you might find some stuff of interest.

[Cowboy_ninja]

Somthing is killing the druids.

Somebody from the town is poaching in the swamp, so the druids assume the bargain is off.

A new radical Druid has taken over the local circle and has decided to let the creatures from the swamp destroy the town, which he see's as Unnatural.
For some reason the monster population has swelled and the druid's can't contain it.
There has been a Schism between two different groups of druids, they are too busy fighting it out to uphold the deal.

loose the paoching, radical new druid leader, and anything else that creates hostilities between the druids and the town.

Druids fighting each other im not liking either nor the something killing druids. my PC's are too low in level to be dealing with something that grand.

something the PC's can solve. i have some swamp encounters (bog imps) but i need something with a story.

im kinda liking the animal population swell, but keep the ideas coming.

thanks

[BRC]

The Poaching dosn't neccessarily cause a rift between the town and the Druids. Most of the townfolk don't know about the poachers, and once the PC's uncover them the townsfolk come down HARD on the poachers. The Druids (who don't have much contact with the town) Didn't know this until afterwords and don't blame the entire town for the actions of a few outlaws.

[Triaxx]

Or perhaps it's an enemy, a dragon, or some spell caster posing as townsfolk to weaken and isolate the town prior to attack or take over.

[afroakuma]

How about a trickling off of said rare wildlife?

If the druid circle becomes aware of a missing unicorn (or what have you) they might spend some efforts on finding out what happened to it.

Alternately, the druids could be moving to a holy site to participate in a grand council, perhaps to promote one of their own.

Perhaps a malevolent fey has mind-jiggered some druids, the sylvans go searching for their caretakers, etc. Even one astray druid could shift nature's balance enough that the others would need to head off.

How about: something has affected a druidic treant, and the feedback into the natural world has thrown several creatures in tune with nature out of whack.

[Keld Denar]

One night, the townsfolk gather in front of the tavern to watch a meteor storm. Everyone oohs and ahs about how wonderful and rare it is, and drinks a lot. One of the meteors touches down in a remote part of the swamp (very very small meteor, actually happens on earth from time to time). The cosmic radiation from the meteor is affecting the local wildlife in minor ways. Then, slap the pseudonatural template (Complete Arcane) on a bunch of animals from squirrels to boars to crocodiles and have a ball. Druids are busy containing the mutated animals. Maybe the PCs venture to the center of this corruption and discover the source of this contamination and recover a very small amount of star metal, or other rare element, except by the time the PCs recover it, its experienced several half-life decays and the radiation given off is non-lifethreatening. They are then tasked by the druids to carry the metal to a group of dwarves in the hills outside of swamp to have them analyze it.

Long story short, party melee dude gets a cheapo star metal weapon (essentially adamantine that also hurts undeaders) with a nice flavor to it.

Will something like this work? Easiest thing to do is slap on a template on the typical animals and vermin already in the MM. Psudonatural is a low bonus one that is kind of unique for most people who haven't experienced it, and pretty easy to explain (rapid mutations caused by exposure to radiation from a substance outside of the natural world).

[TheThan]

I like the poachers idea myself. However I needs expanding a bit. The PCs should have to convince the druids (as druids tend to be rather stubborn) that it was an isolated incident and that only a few townsfolk were involved. Then maybe the druids could hire the PCs to catch the rest of the poaching and smuggling operation and turn them in to either the druids or the lawful authority.
Thusly protecting a swamp, a village and upholding the law. all in a day's work for a group of adventurers.

[Dr Bwaa]

I like lussmanj's idea. Pseudonatural creatures are awesome.

Other thoughts that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• The druids, or a cult therein, have started demon(or whatever) worship.
• There's an outbreak of much worse within the swamp, and the animals that are "not being kept under control" are actually just fleeing into the village from whatever monstrosity is hunting them all.
• Oooo, undead! spooooky! (as in, some outside necromancer just moved in and the druids are tied up wondering why all their bunnies are turning into vampires).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'd say a group of Bog Imps from Heroes of Horror are to blame. Depending on the party's level you could advanc them to 12HD at CR 8. It would be a substantial increase to the DCs of their special abilities, plus you could put +2 points onto their Cha. That could lead to investigating where they came from, which could open up a lengthy adventure.

[erikun]

Here's a couple of thoughts. There similar to what has already been said, though. Feel free to combine a few, as the more complex problems are a lot more satisfying to solve.

Something elsewhere in the world have caused most of the druids/elves to leave the swamp, and the remaining druids/elves aren't able to watch over the townsfolk 24/7 to ensure their safety. After the party learns what's going on, they need to setup some way for the townsfolk to be safe (such as working out an escort route with the druids/elves) and then be off to whatever is plaguing the world.

The newest high-ranking druid in the area is a NE gnoll. His hunt-or-be-hunted attitude has broken the allegiance with the elves, and he's pretty lax on protecting the townsfolk from wilderness beasts. The party needs to kill off the gnoll druid (he wouldn't have it any other way), but they'll need to talk about it with the elves first. If they just charge in and attack, both the druids and elves will assume it's an assault by the town, and will break ties.

Some 3rd party has moved in, and is killing off the wildlife. It could be a necromancer, a poacher, a band of thieves simply defending themselves, or even the mayor's son who thinks that "killing a few of the more dangerous monsters won't harm anything." Obviously, the party needs to both stop whoever is doing the killings and assure the druids/elves that it wasn't attached to the village.

[Cowboy_ninja]

I'd say a group of Bog Imps from Heroes of Horror are to blame. Depending on the party's level you could advanc them to 12HD at CR 8. It would be a substantial increase to the DCs of their special abilities, plus you could put +2 points onto their Cha. That could lead to investigating where they came from, which could open up a lengthy adventure.

thats so funny i was totally thinking about using bog imps.

im really liking that meteor thing to.

and someone was mentioning something along the lines of the druids and swamp folk being fewer in number. i'd like to explore that. why would the more powerful druids and swamp folk leave. possibly leaving lazy NE gnolls the opening to take control during a meteor storm....

[Keld Denar]

If you want something similar to the meteor thing, without the meteor, you could have something like this:

Many thousands of years ago, a teaming civilization lived in these swamps (they weren't swamps then, but rich fertile fields). The people worshipped a sun god (Ur-Pelor) and were happy and content. Then, undead started plagueing the land, and things looked dire. The high priests of Ur-Pelor got together and constructed a device, a powerful artifact dedicated to light and positive energy, to rid the region of undead. Well, one of the priests misdrew one of the lines of one of the symbols of power ment to contain the massive energies produced by the artifact. Thus contaminated, the power of the artifact continued to swell, becoming unstable and self-propagating. The resulting blast leveled the entire civiliation, including the undead threat, and tore a rift open between the Prime and the Positive Energy Plane. Centuries have past and the area has become a swamp. The rift's leaking energies have stimulated growth of natural creatures, augementing them and possibly mutating them, thus you have templated animals and possibly even anthropomorphic animals (from Savage Species) running around, causing a ruckus and distracting the druids.

And I'm spent...

[AslanCross]

An Aboleth, dwelling in the murky subterranean tunnels beneath the swamp, is dominating the druids. (Or the druids consider it such a great threat that they're prioritizing dealing with the Aboleth and its minions.)

The fey are messing around with the druids, and a Gray Jester (Heroes of Horror) is turning the druids into Bleak Ones, which are essentially non-undead zombies.

The radical druid who's had enough of civilization also works, and if it's a high-level enough campaign he could make use of the Scouring Constructs in Monster Manual V. Druids building constructs?! CR 18 ones, at that.

[streakster]

The druids are, unfortunately, under attack from flying crocodiles.

[Rei_Jin]

I was thinking that they were undertaking a ritual that they've done every year to ensure the fertility of the surrounding land, wherein they smoke various plants and ingest various liquids, leaving them in a trance like state and granting them extra connection with nature. Unfortunately, someone spiked the wine (or equivalent) and they're all lying comatose, stuck in the spirit world and unable to contact anyone and ask for help.

The PCs find the comatose druids, find the poisoned drink, search around for clues that eventually lead them to a disgruntled man in town who wants to discredit the druids and have them run off their land so that he can do X with the land that they're on.