Idea: The characters in your Call of Cthulhu campaign can shift between the high-powered pulp game and the basic rules, by drinking a glass of orange juice with or without pulp.
Need to activate your narrative archetype abilities? Pulp! Need to make sure that the mad science actually works like regular science? Regular rules!
I'm bored of elemental giants. Use environmental giants instead.
Environmental Giants all start out the same, but their bodies take up the features of the place they live in. They become a reflection of their domain.
Giant takes up residence in the cliffs of dover? Not a stone giant. No, that's specifically The Giant of Dover. Its body is made of chalk. It can create dust clouds of chalk with its breath, its shoulders are padded with tufts of short grasses and blackberry bushes.
Giant takes up residence in the ruins of a highway during an apocalypse? That's the I-95 Giant. It has rebar spines along its back, skin of pavement and concrete, and wears wrecked cars as armor.
And to make this idea more dynamic, the giant's form changes as the ecosystem changes. A river gets diverted away from a Giant's domain? Then the Giant dries up along with its land. Now the Giant has an incentive to protect its dominion, and a weakness that its enemies can exploit.
Is it the real environment or the perceived environment that determines the giant’s appearance?
Idea: The giant of the Lunai Steppe was always rather aloof and placid, striding across his home with rippling grassy hair and sometimes allowing herds of sheep to shelter near his craggy stone feet in the cold wind. But last year, explorers from the city discovered that the empty hills contained a wealth of oil, and already half a dozen mechanical pumps are dotted throughout the steppe. The workers are earning more than they ever did herding sheep, but it’s a fraction of the profits that the pump owners are making.
And the giant? The giant is wounded, leaking black blood from his neck and legs. He restlessly paces around the growing havens of industry, and there are reports that he attacked a supply caravan. The giant was never greedy before, but could the discovery of riches make him want his own share?
Lately I've been really interested in the Cthulhu Invictus setting, where players take on the role of investigators in the Roman Empire, struggling against the primordial horrors and newborn cults of the world. I feel like on the one hand, going farther into the past takes away some of the feeling of "these are just ordinary people thrown into an extraordinary situation". But on the other hand, what a fun opportunity to research ancient Rome and find the balance of realism that works for you! Want to introduce the NPC Pliny the Elder as an optimistic writer of fiction? You can!
I think one very cool campaign idea would be a series of mysteries set in and around the tourist town of Pompeii. You could have a few connected and unconnected plots - a cult of Venus turns out to be sacrificing youths to Dagon and Hydra down by the waterfront, a souvenir industry develops focused on volcanic stones and people who buy them end up cursed with nightmares, a dimensional shambler is used as a weapon by two rival sorcerers. Throw in a mundane blackmail case too, as a red herring. Things begin to escalate, the ground trembles and several mad street prophets foretell the end of the world. Another cult? Is it the Cthonians returning to destroy the investigators' home? Or perhaps Vesuvius has a connection to the imprisoned god Ghatanothoa, who will purge all of the Mediterranean in a fiery cataclysm if it awakens...
Campaign Idea: The renowned general and dictator Julius Caesar has shown signs that he is preparing to remove the Senate and become king of Rome.
The PCs, clients or friends and allies of Caesar, are in Rome for the feast of Lupercalia in mid-February. They watch him putting on a show of “will I take this crown, or not?” with Mark Antony, and have a chance to decide how they feel about it when Cassius Longinus approaches them to subtly ask them if they still believe in the republic. This potentially splits the party, and offers two paths forward.
Any of them who are loyal to Caesar will meet the seer Spurinna, who makes predictions with eerie accuracy. Spurinna claims (in private conversations with the investigators) that he is a sorcerer from the future, and that with their help the upcoming assassination of Caesar can be prevented. But they’ll have to be cautious. Any unnecessary disruption of the timeline could draw the attention of monsters that he calls “lupi temporae” the wolves of time.
Meanwhile, if anyone joins the conspirators, they learn that there are two factions: the populares want to keep Caesar’s reforms and leave most of his supporters alone, while the optimates want a return to the old ways. And they’re willing to do some dark deeds to accomplish it - Cimber and Aquila ask for the investigators to help them gather supplies for a ritual that they think will elevate Caesar’s murder to a magical sacrifice and give them untold power.
It all comes to a collision on the Ides of March! Will geometrical hounds devour the Roman Senate? Will the timeline be thrown into chaos? Will Cimber and Aquila get phenomenal cosmic powers? Will the PCs turn on each other for political reasons before they lose all their Sanity?
New D&D party - True Crime podcasters who are trying to make episodes on the various Dark Lords
“We’re here interviewing the people of Falkovnia, who seem to have only great things to say about their ruler. So, friends, who do you think burned down the Mistral farmhouse with the Mistral family locked inside? A freak gust of wind you say…”
Idea: be the first people in Ravenloft to invent Chicago style citation format! Wait.
Idea: a Ravenloft Domain of Dread based on the gangsters of 1920s Chicago!
Idea: a Pathfinder adventure where the endgame involves an attempt to control the three-headed nightmare dragon Lord Varklops! This evil kaiju loves to spread devastation and mayhem, and has a unique ability to kill other kaiju (which are normally only driven away or put to sleep if defeated). But what if we stretched the limits of that power a bit further? Could Varklops be a weapon against a powerful lich like Tar-Baphon? Maybe a pawn of Baba Yaga in a surprise attack against Old-Mage Jatembe? Could he even destroy… a god?
The PCs will have to confront or join forces with the organization responsible for luring Varklops to his target. Perhaps they have promised him a worthy opponent and a vulnerable city to burn, or maybe they seek to control the beast with a rare ritual or broken artifact. Regardless, even if they have good intentions in the long run, their methods are sure to cause chaos and ruin for many - something the heroes will need to prevent, or carry on their consciences.
Big reveal of the campaign!
Halflings aren't short, they're just far away.
They’re called halflings because of Zeno’s paradox: as you approach, you have to move half the distance toward them before you reach them, then half the remaining distance again, and so on an infinite number of times. It’s impossible to approach a halfling for any reason, making them immune to melee attacks.
Some believe that this space-defying ability is due to the efforts of two legendary halflings, who spent a great deal of time with a corrupting magical artifact before destroying it.
english people know what stonehenge was for. they just wont tell us so that we have to come to their wet little country
Idea: run a whole campaign investigating Scooby-Doo level villains of the week who are all trying to promote or destroy tourist attractions.
The game should be something fairly hardcore, like Dark Heresy or Call of Cthulhu. Imagine characters disrupting horrific rituals that are just meant to make the World’s Largest Ball of Yarn even larger.
In this week’s Mörk Borg campaign, the scoundrels and dungeon crawlers must bypass the many fiendish traps and guardians of… the Shuffleboard Hall of Fame.
Rumor has it that when great players of the game finally shuffle off their mortal coil, their souls are bound into cursed ceramic discs in this museum’s exhibits. The curator, a major nerd but an adept warlock, believes (correctly) that a haunted hall of heroes will draw more visitors and enhance the prestige of shuffleboard. But the PCs are hired by the legendary shuffler Chasley Triangle to infiltrate and destroy the Hall of Fame before it claims her soul!
Face deadly challenges like: The slippery floor! The demons with electrifying claw stick things! The eerie zone of negative ten points! And the warlock’s unerring aim with sliding discs that inflict various horrible curses!
The drider is a mutated elf from a fantasy world, transformed to have the lower body of a monstrous spider. They tend to gather in small, competitive packs to share their hunts and retain a sense of community.
The metalmark moth is an insect from the real world, which mimics a jumping spider by having leg-like patterns on its wings. By appearing as a predator, it avoids being eaten by other insects or arachnids.
Idea: There is a species in the Underdark that has the torso of a drow and the lower body of a metalmark moth. This is almost unknown to scholars, but we’ll call it the Mortalmark because that sounds kind of cool. Mortalmarks are not cursed or mutated elves, they evolved from a species of giant moths that grew humanoid limbs and became intelligent after centuries of living near the drow.
These creatures are rare, because they live their lives as mimics. They might see a dozen driders in a year (apart from their group) and one in twenty is another mortalmark. With their special wing markings, patterned to fool darkvision, they can maintain their disguise more easily in the winding caves and tend to avoid larger settlements.
When encountered alone, a mortalmark will usually try to negotiate. They feed on ambient magic and small amounts of life energy, so usually they are not aggressive. However, if they are part of a drider pack they will fight fiercely to maintain their position, and some adventurers have been surprised by a mortalmark doing an impossible flying leap at them or lashing out to drain their strength with a proboscis.
Mortalmark (creature 6) Large beast, mortalmark
Perception +13
Skills Acrobatics +14 , Athletics +11 , Deception +14 (+10 to Impersonate a drider), Occultism +12 , Stealth +16 , Survival +13
Str +3, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +3, Wis +3, Cha +4
Flying Leap [[R]]
When the mortalmark sees another creature Stride closer to it, as a reaction it may Leap 15 feet in any direction.
AC 25; Fort +12, Ref +14, Will +15
HP 90 ; Resistances poison 5; Weaknesses cold 5
Speed 30 feet, climb 20 feet, fly 30 feet
Melee [[A]] lance +15 (deadly 1d8, jousting 1d6, reach), Damage 1d8+9
Melee [[A]] proboscis +15, Damage 1d4+9 piercing plus weakening wound
Innate Occult Spells DC 21; 4th Hallucinatory Terrain; 3rd Hypnotic Pattern, Moth’s Supper; 2nd Blur, Darkness (at will); 1st Ventriloquism (at will); Cantrips (3rd) Daze, Dancing Lights Constant Undetectable Alignment
Weakening Wound (poison)
When a creature takes damage from a mortalmark's Proboscis attack, they must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 22). On a failure, they become enfeebled 1 and on a critical failure they become enfeebled 2. This lasts 24 hours or until they regain hit points from the Treat Wounds ability. Enfeebled creatures do not need to save again, but they take an additional 2d8 damage from the attack.
twilight but instead of vampires there are giant, talking human-sized ticks.
their war with the werewolves is more justified
Once thought to be flesh-warped Tzimisce, the bizarre coterie known as the Cullens are actually Malkavians under the influence of a fae curse. They feed on drama and irony almost as much as they need blood to survive, and they can sometimes cloak their appearance with a shiny illusion that doesn’t quite fit the hard chitin of their bodies.
What kind of werewolf is Jacob? And how much is Edward controlled by the entropic spirits of the World of Darkness?
When regenerating body parts, roll on the reincarnation table
Idea: play a character with the head of a dragonborn, the left arm of a dwarf, the right arm and leg of an elf, and the left leg of a bugbear. You’re not really sure what you were to begin with - those druids really were quite enthusiastic with their spells, and you might even have some pieces mixed up with other victims of the Vorpal Vigilante who struck the city last year.
There’s a neighborhood near the river where a few dozen reincarnated and regenerated people live, no longer quite at home among their former species but creating their own unique community. Others resent the changes that this life-saving magic gave them, and search for ways to undo them or even act against the druid coven.
Citing concerns of "sustainable research" and "ethics", a small faction of Yithian cone-folk from two hundred million years ago have developed a better method of learning the lore of humanity. Instead of sending one Yithian mind into the future (our present), they send a small group, targeting an existing network of friends and allies for the mental swap. This allows them to support each other in their studies, and ensures that the human minds in their time can rely on each other as well and hopefully stay sane longer.
Idea: Your group of investigators wake up one day in a quiet and mostly empty hospital. The doctors tell them they were found lost in the woods, and want to "check their memory" to understand what happened. This is Yithian illusion at work, and it flickers from time to time revealing a misty red sky, lichen covered rocks, and the towering primordial forms of the doctors, their friends... themselves? Once they realize some of what's going on, they might try to escape - leave that part on a cliffhanger, and have the players take on the roles of the Yithian agents in their bodies, trying to rapidly acquire knowledge of capitalism, human communication, and driving a car so they can protect an ancient vault that they built millions of years ago!
*looking at someone clearly killed by a huge club*
Hmm.... detecting faint traces of ogre magic here....
Idea: play a wizard/barbarian who spent several years living with a group of ogres to learn their magic. Sometimes they use metaphors or quotes that they learned in their Giant immersion experience.
“Magic is like an onion”
Monster of the Week Idea: There's a new social media trend where people pretend to summon their favorite character (using a candle, a bell, and a drawing of the character). It's usually a silly video - "hey, Shadow the Hedgehog, get out of my garage!" or an excuse to show off your drawing skills - "I accidentally summoned Elphaba in this elaborate and detailed medieval armor!"
However, there's something sinister going on. Some youths are disappearing after they film their videos, other people are reporting burglaries or property damage caused by a strangely dressed... gang? A sorcerer created this trend, passed on a real ritual to influencers, and is waiting to reap the rewards. If you perform the ritual with a normal candle and bell, it doesn't work, but if you use the components she's selling to selected individuals, it creates a kind of tulpa or dream creature and brings it to life! The sorcerer needs people with a strong concept of characters, because they're planning to control powerful dreams and use them as an army...
Can the PCs deal with the assortment of fictional beasts and blorbos that are running around town? Will they be brave enough to attempt the ritual for themselves?
In the Alien RPG, ideally you want to mirror the tense and high-stakes tone of the movies by killing off characters over time. Yeah, you’ll probably start by having the aliens get an NPC doctor or friendly marine (keep the annoying company agent alive as long as possible so they can mess things up for everyone else). But there’s no drama without a player character death. There can’t be a Final Girl if there’s a half dozen people alive to celebrate at the end!
Idea: when a PC dies, have them take over an antagonistic NPC or even a set of monsters! You can give them control of the xenomorph born from their old character, and have them pass you notes to decide when and where it shows up again. Then in combat you can give them the table of monster abilities and have them do all the work of describing how it attacks! It’s a win/win!
Thinking about a fun idea I had for spelljammer -
Ossuaries.
Huge balls of animated skeletons created by some long forgotten necromantic reason that now tumble aimlessly through space like asteroids.
Anything that is unfortunate enough to get in the way of an ossuary ends up having it slam into them. If it's a ship then it takes damage and the ossuary is broken apart and splits with skeletons tumbling away into space.
However many of these skeletons will cling to whatever they've hit and climb aboard to attack the crew/inhabitants - often grabbing people and dragging them away and into space where their corpse will decay and their bones animated into the new ossuary.
When you’re a space lich, your time is fairly unlimited… but your resources are not. Creating the necrotic seed of an Ossuary is a great way to collect material for a skeletal army or even a vast bony spaceship! The nefarious necromancers behind this cosmic hazard will launch a half-dozen animated skulls into the void, then relax for a few centuries. The ossuaries grow, feeding on carrion and space flotsam or killing the living, and when they reach critical mass they return to their creator.
Idea: A huge ossuary in the form of an octopus has become trapped in an asteroid cave. Thanks to some insider information, you know it was created by the archmage Cerelon Silverspine, a famously greedy and decadent lich. If you free this monster, and give it a few dozen more skeletons without being added to the collection, then the ossuary will lead you right to Cerelon’s Argent Mansion and the treasures within. Of course, you’ll need a way to track the thing, and/or prevent it from consuming your bones.
*looking at someone clearly killed by a huge club*
Hmm.... detecting faint traces of ogre magic here....
Idea: play a wizard/barbarian who spent several years living with a group of ogres to learn their magic. Sometimes they use metaphors or quotes that they learned in their Giant immersion experience.
“Magic is like an onion”
*looking at someone clearly killed by a huge club*
Hmm.... detecting faint traces of ogre magic here....
Idea: play a wizard/barbarian who spent several years living with a group of ogres to learn their magic. Sometimes they use metaphors or quotes that they learned in their Giant immersion experience.
