Just fishing for new ideas and interested in what some of your most memorable adventure hooks have been.
Aramil returns from speaking with the runner: "Hey, Corbin, remember that vampire from the Tower of Flames, the one that got away?"
Corbin: "Yeah, what about her?"
Aramil: "She's got your daughter."
Corbin: "..."
Aramil: "Corbin?"
Corbin: "Let's go."
That was the last of the convo from that pc, mostly because he died in the next fight. Yes, I know, this last line had nothing to do with hooks, but I thought it was interesting enough to add. And this was the first one to come to mind. I've got a few better ones.
I kicked off a campaign for level 10 PCs (which are over powered just a little bit because of races). The meet up where all the PCs meet each other was kinda weak, but I didn't really think that out.
The PCs would have to make listen and/or spot checks during the night at about 12:00 they would see the divine flashes of lightning and fire being cast by priests in the slums.
If they went to investigate then people called the "Divine Eyes" or sumthin like that would see them unless they went at night and succeeded at some ungodly high move silently and hide checks to get into the slums then they had to get passed the guards on the outside (They weren't actually supposed to get in).
Then they would go and investigate in the church of "Pelor" in the city. Which was actually a church to Imix. So then they found a huge underground complex under the church.
Thats how the campaign was kicked off. The it goes into a Red Hand of Doom type thing where they can either stop or help a war with intricate plot twists. I have a lot of it planed out but I have a hard time getting encounter, making treasure, and just all the mechanics in general but I have fun with it. I have this wierd habit of changing small things at random times when im working on it and I think it makes it really fun.
I once had to get some characters to move a day or two south of their current location, so some goblin minions of a necromancer stole the halfling's riding dog while they were haggling with a merchant. They all loved that dog.
I had a PC wake up in Hopeless, the gatetown to the Gray Waste, with no memory of who they were or why they were there, having only their clothes, a Baatorian greensteel sword, and a glowing gemstone embedded in their ankle (that did not detect as magical...).
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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AoW Spoiler
I modified the hook for HoHR. Rather than being sent to town by Alusten, the PC's got a knock on the door from the sheriff. It turned out there was a warrant for their arrest because Balabar Smenk had confessed to being an evil cultist and implicated the characters as his cohorts. The sheriff, being corrupt, attempted to get the PC's to bribe him, and the PC's, being PC's, refused to bribe him and (sigh) kidnapped him instead. Anyway, they eventually got to town and would have learned that the real Balabar Smenk was captured and that the fake one was the one confessing. The great part about this hook is that it set the players up to rescue Balabar.
Another good hook I used once in a spelljammer game was telling each PC that they each had a claim to a gold mine on a far off planet (some of them won it in a card game, others inherited, etc). The campaign then centered around them setting up a mine and dealing with the locals.
Eight years ago, one of my regulars brought a woman I didn't know to one of our sessions. She didn't even know D&D was a game. The others were all 3rd level, and the new woman had no clue how to play, so we cobbled together a 3rd-level paladin for her, whom she named Caitiri. I had the other PCs find Caitiri in an evil temple, petrified and covered in dust. When they had her turned back into flesh, she proved to have no memory at all. (This suited the new player, who had no idea what was going on, just dandy.) Caitiri's gear and insignia, however, matched that of knights who lived half a millennium ago.
Here's the hook.
That night, hanging on the wall of a treasure archive in the bowels of the evil temple, the party found an ancient, masterwork oil painting dated 500 years ago. It depicts an exceptionally handsome man in black attire emblazoned with evil holy symbols. His arm is draped possessively around a stunning woman in white armor gazing back up at him lovingly. The woman is, of course, the spitting image of Caitiri.
She was hooked. We've been playing that campaign for eight years. Caitiri has led the party to the Abyss, Hell, and a dozen other planes chasing clues, trying to find her forgotten paramour, who seems to still exist out there somewhere, and seems more and more to be the one at the heart of the principal evil plaguing the land. She's convinced that if she can find him, she can redeem him and convince him to become good.
Yeah. That'll happen.
Campaign plot hook.
I made a world, basically an island where one side was evil, one side was good.
One pc, was born on the evil side, he was a brother of a duke. At the beginning of the campaign the duke wanted his brothers wife, so he framed the PC and had him sent off to prison.
Another pc was born on the good side, he was a simple cleric in an attack into the evil side when an angel contacted him, and a few other pcs to go into a prison and rescue the pc that was born on the evil side.
So began a campaign full of prophecies, intrigue due to the fact that the pcs had different allegiances, revenge (the one pc eventually killed his duke brother). It was good.
I had one campaign start off with all my players being 0-level slaves on a slave ship. There's nothing like a common goal (escape) to bring people together.
I also started one campaign with the PC party waking up naked in the middle of standing stones with no memory of who or where they were.
I had one campaign start off in a fair, with games and challenges until a small army of giants and trolls came strolling by and forced everyone to work in the mines.
Then there was the military start, where everyone was a fighter in the militia...
...And the famous 'Let's-Band-Together-And-Escort-This Merchant-To-The-Next-Town' routine.
And many more...
Ultradan
A vampire lord - ruled a kingdom - very old - was tired of living but was so powerful that he couldn't die - sun/weapons (even slaying) caused pain but wouldn't kill him for good.
Recruited adventurers to find an artifact that would make a clean end to him. His servants (who actually governed the realm) however did not want the adventurers to succeed.
Two stand out for me, in particular:
The alternate earth campaign that began with the Great Fire of London, in September 1666. The characters are all out shopping or walking in the East End, when they hear a man calling for help, as his stall is on fire. After saving him (one of the PC's), they hear cries of dismay from another man, nearby. When they attempt save him from the flames, he confides in them that there are a secret network of governemt-made tunnels below London, and they must save his master, Isaac Newton and his work, from the fire.
and
A sinister twist on the old & hoary "meet in the tavern" hook. The characters, except for one, with whom I had met before to set some of the scene, are all traveling through a town called Valle Vere, and happen to "meet at the tavern" (imagine the groans and general chagrin). A man approaches them, but instead of offering them a job as they are all expecting, he extends a cryptic warning: "They come... You must flee before the hordes..."
Figuring they will leave in the morning anyway (and the guy seems kinda loony), perhaps even traveling together for safety, they are awoken in the night. A freak blizzard has descended, blanketing the town in snow, and the town is under assault by hordes of undead warriors.
The innkeeper's adopted son (the fifth PC) awakens and makes his way through the inn, meeting all the other PC's and battling undead, until they discover the innkeeper's dead body (cue dramatic music) and they all vow to get to the bottom of this attack, discover those behind it and avenge the death of Valis, the innkeep. Very iconic and not necessarily original, but they PC"s were still screaming "For Valis!" going into combat even at 15th level.
1. All of the group has po'd the authorities in their home empire, and got dropped off naked at the edge of a huge magical jungle and geased to keep going north. No gear, no spell books, nothing. Kind of fun having the group sit down and try to make spears and clubs.
2. Dying king wants artifact of his ancestor. Announces a Quest. PCs are responding to the quest for various reasons.
3. A monster invasion is due in the spring. Pcs must escort diplomats, and become so themsleves, in order to get the normallly uncooperative kingdoms to work together.
A friend of mine ran a game kind of like SG-1. It was cool for a while, but personalities kind of killed it for me.
Throughout their first levels adventures, PCs found various clues that local goblins (Yellow Moon tribe) were preparing an assault of their homebase. These Goblins finally attacked human settlements as they marched east. Then the PCs spied a goblinoid pow wow where a charismatic leader rises to unite 2 large tribes: one is the red hand and the other yellow moon. I got the idea from looking at the RHoD logo.
Afterward, the PCs encountered those goblins left behind. All those left behind were weak (not well equipped, low HD) and were easily dispatched. Next they go east and get into the Red Hand of Doom adventure where the experienced goblinoids went to.