Sinister Locale – The Devils’ Carnival

There is an island, on which can be found a gigantic carnival, run by devils. Infernal sea creatures surround the island and attempting to land anywhere other than the docks would require a full on military assault. The devils who run the place will allow anyone entry for three days, in return for their soul. Payment isn’t required up front, but you have to sign a contract and are expected to turn it over at the end of the period.

The carnival itself is truly a magnificent affair; extraordinary rides, sumptuous all-you-can-eat buffets, magnificently comfy beds, even a brothel of shapechanging succubi, who can fulfil any fantasy you might have. Not only that, the island itself is magical and will almost immediately heal any illnesses or injuries, short of regrowing entire limbs. The majority of people who visit are usually facing imminent death and looking for one last fling.

At the end of the three days, some folk do just turn themselves over, though most either accidentally or deliberately lose track of time and simple carry on their revels until a pair of devils find them and collect payment. However, some people realise that signing over their soul was maybe not the greatest idea ever and try to run. The longer they stay past their allotted time, the more the carnival’s glamour fades; those who make it 24 hours past the deadline (not that many) quickly find the island is moving into creepy carnival territory. The only advantage this brings is that they start to see the service areas and such like, where they can more easily hide. Very few make it more than three days once their ticket is up, though it is not completely unknown.

Plot hooks:
1) For a light hearted action campaign, someone is unhappy with the operation (maybe a loved one lost their soul there) and hires the PCs as part of an all out assault on the island. This would involve lots of crazy set pieces, fighting devils on rollercoasters and whatnot.
2) For a more sinister campaign, the PCs are hired to exfiltrate someone who has gone in and is already past their “expiry date”. In order to get in themselves, the PCs have to sign away their own souls, so they’re going to need to find a way off the island for them and their target.
3) Possibly word is getting around that selling your soul isn’t worth it, so the devils offer a week of free entry for everyone. Of course, it’s not really free… the “sell your soul” part has just been hidden in the small print of a liability waiver for the crazier rides. All hell breaks loose (ha!) when a carnival full of tourists realises they’ve been duped and the PCs must find an escape route during the ensuing chaos.

Kradesh – The Forsaken City

Six or Seven years ago, I came across a thread on the WotC D&D forums with an idea for a city in a sealed valley, where it constantly rained and the water level kept rising. I contributed a couple of ideas of my own, but the thread petered out about after a dozen posted. I hope the guy got to run his campaign, as it was a neat idea.

The basic concept stayed with me and a few months ago, I started drafting the bare bones of a setting. I ditched the rain and had the water level rising as a result of a pair of waterfalls, but the constant building upwards stayed. I present the rough outline below, in a PDF document.

This could be inserted into a campaign as an interesting location, but if I was running it, I would want to make the entire campaign take place here. It’s large enough to have room for all sorts of adventures, but small enough to really make it a living location. I would have a map on a big A2 piece of paper and every location visited, would get added to the map, to be revisited in the future. Every NPC would be noted down as a future ally or adversary… hopefully the players would also start doing this themselves after a while. (“We need this translating… that scribe we met a few session back lives near here… let’s see if he can do it.”)

I hope you enjoy what I’ve come up with so far. Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.
PDF link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tcgj5uqe1m6we3/Kradesh%20-%20the%20Forsaken%20City.pdf?dl=0

Living tapestry

In a dungeon, the PCs encounter a gigantic tapestry that fills the entire wall of a room; the tapestry depicts some historical event that the PCs are actively interested in. The next time they see it, they can see that details have changed… things appear to have moved on slightly, as if the tapestry is very slowing going through the events that occurred. There should be some aspect of the scene that the PCs are interested in to keep them coming back; maybe they’re interested in who actually killed the king in the chaos of the battle or something.

While the events of the tapestry are unfolding, something else in the tapestry is also changing. A large dragon in the background is gradually approaching as the scenes move on. In fact, it looks like the dragon will reach the front of the tapestry, just as the crucial clue is revealed. What happens at that point is up to you…

Pregnant statue

The PCs encounter a statue of a naked woman in a “Birth of Venus” kind of pose (one hand covering crotch, one arm across breasts). The next time they see the statue, a difficult perception check will tell them that although the statue appears unchanged in terms of pose, it’s put on a little weight. Subsequent visits and increasingly easier perception checks will confirm that the statue appears to be pregnant.

If the statue is in a city where the PCs will pass it regularly over several months, the pregnancy could actually take a full nine months; if it is in a location that will only be used for a short time, the timeline could be compressed into weeks or even days.

What happens when the statue reaches full term is up to you. Maybe it gives birth to a monster or a magical item, or maybe it suddenly reverts to its original state and is just a weird magical clock or calendar.

Bonus idea: In light hearted campaigns, if the PCs figure out the statue’s “due date” and return on that date or just after, they could find that the statue is still pregnant, but for the first time, the face has changed and now carries an expression of extreme annoyance.

Clock room

In a dungeon, the players encounter a circular room with 12 evenly space doors; there is no floor to the room, but in the centre rises a single column and attached to the top of the column, in a horizontal plane are two clock arms. The minute hand is sufficiently long to reach the doorways and allow creatures to step onto it; the hour hand stops somewhat short of each door, though the distance might be jumpable. The column at the centre has enough room for maybe half a dozen creatures to stand, if they’ve got good balance and don’t mind getting fairly friendly with each other.

The clock is functional and moves as expected; each door is accessible via the minute hand once an hour, while the hour hand moves on at a rate of one door per hour. Obviously, this room functions best in a system that has a rough guide for tracking exploration time. You could decide somewhat arbitrarily where the hands will be each time the PCs encounter the room, but if the PCs have just missed a hand coming past, it’s probably better if you can legitimately say, “Well, you searched every room twice at ten minutes per search… the maths checks out.”

This room could be used in a couple of ways. It can simply be used to gradually access different areas of a dungeon, as the PCs have to wait for the hands to line up with certain doors (it would not be unreasonable to rule that staying more than a few minutes in the centre is all but impossible). It could also be used as a moment of tension if the PCs are being chased and need to hold off their pursuers long enough for the arm to rotate into position… or if the arm is already in position, to engage them at range, while waiting for it to move round to the next door.

Giant’s chessboard

The PCs find a room with a giant chessboard, as part of a larger complex. The pieces themselves are huge, towering above the PCs; there is plenty of space to move between them and out of the room on the other side.

On each return visit, the chess pieces have moved about and there are less of them (captured pieces simply disappear from the room). There are two main ways that this could play out…

1) The PCs are unable to move the pieces, either due to magic or because they are simply too big. The game plays out as the PCs repeatedly pass through, until the sixth or seventh visit, when they find one of the kings in checkmate. The mated king is lying on its side, revealing its base, where there is an inscription or a recess with an item or whatever.

2) The PCs can move the pieces, but only under chess rules… they can only move their colour; once they start to move a piece, they cannot move any others (pieces without legal moves are completely immovable); movement is weirdly based on intent, so the PCs find the pieces relatively easy to move, as long as they plan to move them to a legal space. The game still plays on in their absence, but any time they visit the room, they can make a move of their own.
There should be a purpose to this; maybe there is an unreachable hole in the ceiling, but if they can move one of the taller pieces under it (possibly the castles have internal staircases to the top), they could reach it. For bonus problem solving, their own castles are never in a good position to be pushed under, but they can tempt their opponent’s castle into the square, by providing a piece to be captured.

The Chasm

The PCs find a huge chasm, either outside or within an underground cave system. The chasm is too deep to see the bottom and wide enough to be uncrossable. On the opposite side is a great structure, built into a cliffside or cavern wall, with a single door.

The first time the PCs find the cavern, it is simply an impassable obstacle. Let them mess around a bit if they wish, but be fairly clear with them that there is no way that they’re just tossing a rope across or anything like that.
On recurring visits to the same area, they see that a bridge is starting to form from the opposite side of the chasm. This may be an obviously magical effect, with the bridge “growing” out of the rock, or there may be clear signs of more mundane construction work. However, the PCs never see any of the progress happening or anything moving on the other side; there is simply more bridge each time they visit.
The PCs can simply wait until the bridge is complete, so that they can cross over and see what is in the structure (this is a crude, but effective way to keep the PCs out of an area until they are high enough level to handle it). If the bridge is more of the constructed type, they may also take it upon themselves to stall the progress by setting fire to it or bombarding it with rocks or whatever (because they’re roleplayers). Let them do this, but each tactic only works once; the rebuilt sections will be fire-proofed, reinforced, etc.. and they will need to come up with a new plan each time.
Assuming that the bridge is allowed to eventually complete, it can play out as you prefer. There could be an epic battle as the PCs hold off hordes of enemies seeking to cross, or it could be played for laughs, with one lone guy crossing and getting extremely irate when he discovers that the PCs were the ones hindering his building efforts.

The Bone River

On first sight, this appears to be a normal river, following through the centre of a large room or cavern; it emerges from beneath one wall, flows through a trench in the floor and disappears into another wall. Although the river appears to behave like water, it is a dusky white colour. Anything dipped into it will come to no harm, though the strength of the current is immediately apparent. On closer examination (if the PCs fish some out with a bucket or their hands), the substance is not actually a liquid, but an incredibly fine particulate. The PCs should easily guess that it would be extremely difficult to swim in this river.

The first time the PCs see the river, it is at full height, pretty much filling the trench. A moderately hard perception check will spot a slight indentation in the wall of the trench at one point, but otherwise it is largely featureless.
On recurring visits to the room, the height of the river will have changed, seemingly at random. On any visit where the river is not at full height, a series of indentations in the wall of the trench are visible, forming a sort of ladder down into the trench. The PCs can also see the tunnels that the river emerges from and disappears into.
Eventually, either as a planned event or at random, the PCs will encounter the river when it is just a trickle and will be able to climb down to the bottom of the trench. Maybe there’s something on the bottom itself or maybe they can explore the now accessible tunnels at either end.

Group combat

Introduction: An abstract way of tracking combat… not sure how it would work in practicality, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Setting/System: The setting could be absolutely anything, as the combat is a completely abstracted diagram. System-wise, you wouldn’t want to play it with any system that was heavily grid or miniature based.

Description: The “map” just shows distinct groups of combatants. They are probably in different areas of a battlefield, in some vague sense… though I guess the fight could be taking place inside a computer, with digital combatants, in which case the map might actually be more literal

Mechanics: Combatants can occupy any of the seven areas in the diagram (they can’t sit outside it). It doesn’t matter where they are within each area, just which area they are in. Melee attacks may be made against any enemy in the same area, while ranged attacks may be made against enemies in adjacent areas as well (possibly taking attacks of opportunity from enemies in the same area if appropriate).

Encounter: The combat could be run simply as stated in the mechanics section, purely as a very simple abstract of a combat across three distinct areas (an adjacent forest, plain and lake, for example).
However, a fun variant would be to have each of the three circles provide some benefit to all creatures inside them. For example, any creature in one of the areas within circle A, gets +2 to attack rolls; any creature in an area within circle B, gets +4 to damage; any creature in one of the areas within circle C, gets two attacks per round. Obviously, any creature who is in one of the overlapping areas will gain the benefits from two, or even three circles.
This could provide some interesting tactical options, as the players might try to lure easily hit, but very tough enemies into the high damage zone; or they could lure swarms of small enemies into the two-attack zone.
It would also be tempting to try and occupy the central zone, to get two attacks per round at +2 to hit and +4 to damage. However, this cuts both ways, as enemies get the same bonuses, so are equally deadly in that middle area.

Tower Assault/Defence

Introduction: A map intended for a two stage combat; first the PCs must storm a defended position, then they must defend it themselves, to prevent it being retaken.

Setting/System: The setting is completely open; I had something WWII-ish in mind, but anything would work. System-wise, you’ll want miniature based combat for ease of visualisation, though it doesn’t need to be as strictly grid based as D&D or anything.

Description: The area has been ravaged by war, rubble and half demolished buildings are everywhere. The only structure still completely standing is a three storey tower in the centre (the squares marked with a T).

Mechanics: The walls drawn with two lines are relatively intact and completely block line of sight; combatants behind these walls cannot be targeted by those in the tower and cannot target them back. If a combatant is at the end of one of these walls, they can lean out to shoot the tower; the tower can shoot back in that instance, but at a significant penalty (three quarter cover or similar, if the system has something like that). The single line walls are lower and less substantial; they provide half cover to combatants hiding behind them.
The squares marked with an R are rubble and halve the movement of anyone trying to move through them. The squares marked G are poison gas (or something similar, dependent on the setting); these areas damage those who move through them without protection (magical or mundane), but also provide concealment from the tower. If you wish to mix things up a little, the gas could move with the wind, travelling a short distance each round in a random direction.

Encounter: The encounter has two stages. Firstly, the PCs attempt to storm the tower; this should be a really tough fight if the players are stupid, but a manageable one if the players are smart and use cover sensibly. Depending on the power level of the PCs, the defenders could either be armed with purely ranged weapons or they could also have indirect weapons, like mortars (these would allow the defenders to ignore cover and concealment, assuming they know where the PCs are hunkered down).
Once the PCs have taken the tower, the second stage is tougher, as they attempt to defend it against a larger force. This is much the same as the first stage, but in reverse; the difficulty of the fight is more dependent on how smart you play the enemy. You probably want to give the players some interesting tactical options for this half, so that they’re not just making a ranged attack roll each round. If there’s a short downtime between the two stages, you could allow them to set up booby traps with remote detonators. Alternatively, you could allow them to radio in a single airstrike at some point during the defence.

Final note: It is completely open as to why the PCs are so interested in capturing and securing the tower in the first place. Maybe it has important strategic value or maybe it is just the best defensible position when the PCs find themselves in the middle of a war.