Adventure Hooks
Adventure Hooks
Adventure Hooks
Many of you may remember the post we did several months back entitled, 101 D&D Quests
Ideas, it has been one of the most popular articles on the blog and one of the most searched
terms by readers using search engines like google to find us (in fact if you google, D&D
Quest Ideas B3 is the second hit- woot!). So we turned out another 101 quests ideas usable
for any fantasy-themed RPG, but written with D&D and Pathfinder in mind. Enjoy! (And a
big thank you to Dave R. and Adam A. for submitting quest ideas)
1. A minotaur was victimized by a wizard, and now he will hire you to lead him through his
own labyrinth to his treasures.
2. A painter has been using magic to easily duplicate his own paintings to sell as originals. But
a fowl art critic with a penchant for theatrics is on to him and has sworn to reveal the secret
unless he is permitted to marry the artists only daughter. The artist hires you to eliminate the
critic who knows too much.
3. The sun set 26 hours ago. The world is in panic. The Drow are invading, and only the
heroes can stop them.
4. A madman who thinks he is a prophet is slaughtering the livestock of the local farmers in
the hopes that it will bring forth Ibanirox, the Night Eater, a long forgotten (and made up)
deity of immense power. The farmers offer the group 20 goldor three cows per adventurer.
5. A theatre director hires the party to keep his lead actor (who is marked for death by a crime
syndicate) alive long enough to perform in front of a powerful monarch. The assassins attempt
to make his death scene a real one.
6. A tribe of kobolds has taken up residence in the sewers and have been hunting dogs and
cats as food.
7. The pcs are sent after a powerful artifact/weapon that will make their patron unstoppable.
8. The pcs are hired by a Gensai sorceress to recover her mephit familiar from an enemy.
9. A mysterious stranger tips the PCs off to an assassination plot, even giving them detailed
plans stolen from the assassin. After the attempt the pcs are implicate and the detailed plans
found on their person or in their room.
10. Mind flayers are performing perverse rituals on local orc tribes and granting them
psionic abilities. The party must find and destroy them before psionic orcs destroy the
kingdom.
11. Ancient prophecies predict that a star will fall at a precise location on a certain day.
Whoever is first to grasp the star will receive a wish. Various dark factions camp and await the
coming of the star, intent on making their wish.
12. A devil/caster/demon/warlock has set a fire using hell fire and it can only be quenched by
the waters from a spring in Celestia
13. A Devil prince coerces you to sabotage the wedding of one of his political rivals.
14. A besieged city holds a tournament to mock their enemies. The King asks you to sneak
into the city and win the tournament to demoralize them.
15. A wizard believes he has discovered the location of the wreckage of a legendary
battleship, but so has his rival. You must recover the arcane weaponry from the wreck before
the opposing team does.
16. You are hired to perform a filibuster in the legislative body of a monstrous nation. It
proves dangerous.
17. An ancient and complex prison facility for extraplanar criminals is malfunctioning. The
party must repair it as a group of imps attempt to use the facility against them.
18. The party is sent to investigate the disappearance of a missionary cleric in a vast and dark
jungle. Investigation reveals that the cleric has instead been converted by the demonworshiping jungle people and now mobilizes them against his former mission.
19. Gnolls have dug up the severed head of a lich in the desert, and it has promised them great
power if they reunite him with his body.
20. A band of Drow (or similarly evil humanoids) comes to town claiming to be not evil and
seeking asylum.
21. ghostly dryads haunt the grove where their tree was destroyed and they can only be put to
rest if the grove is replanted.
22. A werewolf, seemingly immune to wolfsbane and silver terrorizes a village. He is in fact a
barghest.
23. A ruined tower is in fact a colossal animated object.
24. A yeth hound poses as a wounded blink dog.
25. The pcs seek an item buried within a grove sacred to a centaur tribe.
26. A delver tunneling under the city is causing earthquakes.
27. The characters are sent to a primitive island to retrieve an item/find a treasure/seek an npc.
The island is filled with dinosaurs, near-humanoids, and dire animals. As the pcs explore the
island they begin to devolve as do their animal companions, mounts,familiars, etc.
28. The mayor, sheriff, high priest, have been replaced by doppelgangers.
29. A white dragon is freezing ships and carrying them off to his glacial home.
30. A major port is now home to spawning dragon turtles.
31. Dryads have taken loggers hostage.
32. All news and shipments from a dwarven stronghold have stopped, the king frees a Duergar
attack.
33. Ettercaps have poisoned village children and carried them off, the pcs know they have a
limited window in which to rescue the children before they are eaten (as ettercaps like to let
their dinner hang and liquefy before eating).
34. Hippogriffs, run off their mountain roosts by a red dragon, have begun devouring cattle.
35. All the townspeople in a village have contracted lycanthropy and become were-moose at
the full moon. The group must discover that the alchemist upstream of the villages water
supply has been experimenting with dangerous chemicals to turn his beloved pet
albino moose, Alabaster, into a sentient best friend.
36. The pcs break a law in an unjust and evil land while doing something good, but are
latter pursued by a zelekhut for their actions.
37. The elementals that power a dwarven forge have broken free and must be captured
without harming them.
38. A thief tells the party about a dragon graveyard that contains the treasure of a dozen
hoards, but is haunted by ghostly-dragon guardians.
39. The pcs require the help of a lillend, but she refuses unless the partys bard can impress
her with his musical abilities.
40. Ice mephits have frozen the towns well.
41. Merfolk are waylaying ships from traveling over a sacred coral reef.
42. A gelatinous cube, used to eat waste, has escaped the sewer and must be lured back down.
43. Drunken satyrs have carried off a number of women from the village.
44. Will o the Wisps are luring people to their swamp.
45. All the animals in the village have collected on a hill nearby and refused to come down.
46. A splinter cult of Drow are kidnapping townspeople and sacrificing them to a powerful
aranea sorceress, they worship as an avatar of Loth.
47. The pcs hired by a local politician that fears he will be poisoned at an upcoming banquet.
48. Thieves have stolen dragon eggs and put the entire town in jeopardy as the angry mother
wreaks havoc.
49. The haunted forest is actually filled with awakened creatures.
50. A mages guild seeks thieves to steal an artifact that will hamper the use of magic. They
plan to use it do control all magic in the city.
51. A stray cat taken in by the pcs is the familiar of an enemy spell-caster.
52. Mongrelmen living under the city are demanding citizenship and full rights.
53. The local wizards college wants to hire the pcs to capture some new familiars.
54. A con artist posing as a priest is fleecing peasants.
55. The pcs must stop an angry mob from attacking a peaceful tribe of orcs.
56. A glacier has been discovered with an enormous, nightmarish creature inside and the ice is
beginning to melt.
57. The pcs are asked to serve as guardian to a young noble whose parents have been killed.
58. The pcs must smuggle a message into a besieged city.
59. A dying dragon holds a contest to give away pieces from its hoard.
60. Lizardman-half-Mindflayers are being spotted in the marshes outside town.
61. A vigilante is killing evil criminals in town. The party is hired to capture him, while the
people view him as a hero and champion of good despite his methods.
62. Something has driven all the game from the kings hunting grounds.
63. Prisoners are being sold to mindflayers.
64. Marble carved from a newfound quarry is animating.
65. The prison has been taken over by the prisoners.
66. When the well goes dry, the villagers discover a glowing portal to Sigil.
67. A wizard/engineer wants help capturing elementals to power airships.
68. A wizard polymorphed into a chimera is attacking caravans.
69. The pcs must acquire an artifact from the hoard of a fiendish-black dragon that resides in
the swamps of Othrys on the plane of Carceri.
70. People are disappearing and paintings of the missing are showing up in the
inn/temple/manor.
71. Fiendish weasels are terrorizing a farmers chicken coop. The family is on the edge of
hunger and ruin.
72. A group of wild elves hire the pcs to escort their clan to a new home in the Beastlands.
73. Something is causing the dead to rise from the local cemetery.
74. After a dark omen all cure spells function as inflict spells.
75. Wererats are stealing children and infecting them with lycanthropy.
76. After a Drow priestess is hanged, women in the city begin giving birth to spiders.
77. The pcs encounter a strange man on the road how casts a spell on them/gives them a
potion, shortly after they arrive in town to see (with their arcane sight) that half the town are
actually changelings.
78. A farmer finds a possessed tablet in his field and begins going on a killing rampage.
79. The citys most powerful adventurers return from questing in a temple of Tharzidun.
80. A child has been bitten by a rare spider, and the only antidote requires some of the spiders
venom.
81. A vampiric bard is dining on the finest artists in town.
82. A pc learns that his family lost a powerful legacy item to a dragon. The item is still in the
dragons hoard.
83. The party is left to raise a brood of silver dragon wyrmlings after their mother is slain.
84. A child is possessed by a demon and must be exorcised.
85. The pcs are shipwrecked and must build a raft to escape.
86. A child in the slums is spouting doomsday prophecies and is gathering a large following.
87. The pcs are drugged and forced into naval service by a violent press-gang.
88. The partys warriors are invited to participate in the alabaster cup (Com. Warrior).
89. The party is approached by an npc that claims to have detailed evidence of an
assassination plot. The npc even shows them plans that he stole from the assassin. After the
attempt is made, the pcs are framed and they detailed evidence is found in their
room at the inn.
90. An awaken golem is creating an army of warforged to wipe the lands free of living beings.
91. A barbarian horde threatens to invade unless someone can defeat their leader in single
combat.
92. The new mayor of a rural village is a Rakshasa.
93. A massive egg has appeared in the village square and cracks are forming.
94. Each night eerie organ music can be heard from the ruin manor on the hill; in the morning,
a townsperson is missing.
95. Lightning continues to strike the same gravestone every night for the last week.
96. A wizard, pretending to be goodly, hires the pcs to retrieve his stolen spell book from a
rival.
97. Cultists have obtained a scroll of Crushing Fist of Spite (BoVD) and intend on releasing it
on the countryside.
98. A party members soul has been purchased/stolen/bartered for, by Asmodeus and the party
must debate the Devil lord to get it back.
99. A gnoll army sweeps from the north, their leader wields what appears to be the Triple Flail
of Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls.
100. A Cauldron of Zombie Spewing (BoVD) has been unearthed in an ancient ruin by clerics
of Neurull.
101. A mad cleric has resurrected the stuffed monster in the partys favorite inn.