Since I forgot to start at the start of October, I am running my GLoGtober out a week to catch the two posting slots I should have filled in the month itself. We return to the prompt from the list on GLoGtober '22: Under New Management from Phlox to talk about "Plot hooks drawn from PCs' families"
This is a list of hooks launched, resolved or ignored from running a noble house campaign. The house, the PC's family, has proved a rich vein of hooks - from the fun and frivolous to the worrisome. The mixing of family with rulership and personal possession of ancient halls and mysterious depths gives great fodder for adventure.
d10 Bigger, worrisome hooks
1. - grandfather the Duke seeks a battlefield death to speed them on their way to the afterlife. They are seriously ill but have been granted a short renewal of vitality and have embarked on an epic quest with it. The quest must succeed but noone but the Duke wants them to die doing it.
2. - After the Dukes death a successor must be chosen from his children. Their are a number of candidates, a number of whom have times to different PCs.
3. - A cousin wants to come on adventurers but is sadly out of their depth. They are partially shielded by a relatively competent retinue of companions but still have ambitions well above their capabilities and will need this to be demonstrated before they can be dissuaded from their ambitions. Doing this without getting them killed will be a challenge.
4. - A brother to a PC has turned up at the winter court with a princess of a cadet line of the royal house leading to significant concern from the representative of the royal house as to whether the most powerful duchy in the realm was seeking to align with a rival line to the crown and 'adjust' succession or even the current occupant of the throne.
5. - An ancient ancestor has had a vision and needs to be escorted to a place. They have significant oracular talents but are also fragile and have spent over a century in a monastery and have no independent survival skills.
6. - The family is in dissarray about what to do with the many challenges facing the court while no strong leader sits on the throne. Someone needs to investigate what is critical and then persuade their aunts and uncles as to what to do.
7. - An upcoming wedding has dragged the political concerns from the home realm of the 'in-law-to-be' to the PC's realm. Expect conspiracies, spies, shapeshifters and magical shenanigans.
8. - A guest to the great house has vanished and some of the older house staff think they may have somehow activited great-grandmothers extra-dimensional closet which access the fae realms, she being a fey. Someone has to figure out how they used to work and fish out the guest.
9. - An aunt writes, that her court has fallen to some manner of curse. She thinks it may be related to a great dragon that has started lairing in the nearby mountains and is malignly influencing all the dragon-blooded folk of the court but she needs trusted outsiders to help deal with it.
10. - Two senior members of the house have gone out of contact in the border war along the north. It is the depth of winter but someone needs to go find them or at least take charge of the forces in the north until they can be found.
Expanding to minor concerns:
11. - Great-grand uncle, a mighty wizard, is said to live here in the palace in an extradimensional tower. Their help is needed and someone has to figure out how to access their tower and get them a message without irritating them before the favour is asked.
12. - Twitchy brother comes to you for help, they want to avoid being dragooned into their siblings incessant social whirl and being sent on dogs-body errands. They need an excuse, a good one.
13. - You bossy cousins have scheduled you for their social events; this may well be very interesting but you now have no free time for the next week.
14. - Distant cousins from the wild outer reaches of the realm have arrived and you need to keep face in front of them and their rough-hewn ways. Tales of derring do, battlefield prowess and great legends will be needed.
15. - An in-law has become a minor student of magic but has taken it upon themselves to borrow a number of powerful items from the vaults. They need to be tracked down and both they and the items brought home safely before they get themselves killed or make a mess and blemish our name.
16. - The lady of the house has seen a great painting and decided they want it for their own collection, their draconic heritage manifesting as art collecting. Unfortunately this particular painting has been painted by fiends and is rumoured to entrap the minds of certain viewers. Only the players are in sufficiently good standing to dissuade the lady but even that may only be possible after at least an attempt to acquire it.
17. - While members of the house have been away at royal court, border wars and other affairs of state noone has stopped in on their home estates for some time, particularly the out-of-the-way ones. One of them has gone quite, someone needs to go up there and check all is well.
18. - One of the estates sits on a highly trafficked river and prospers with the extensive river trade. However evidence has come to light of a spy network establishing themselves there, noone else can be spared to go root this out.
19. - One of the younger scions of the house has a new paramour, they share an interest in the arcane. This needs to be investigated to check nothing too important or dangerous to the house is being discussed.
20. - A cadet branch of the house had reached out for help, someone is moving against them in the city where they reside and they have exhausted all their local options. They beg their distant, mighty cousins for aid.
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