My players (you know who you are) keep out please.
I'm creating a new adventure site for my homebrew:
Felder’s knot is an area of thick woods, generally considered Forest terrain, but riddled with shallow bogs, peat mounds and occasional natural hazards. It is located roughly 15 miles south of Staghorn Reach along the Sengir Road to the south. The area is fed by three major streams though many other minor creeks and pools crisscross the Knot. During the Wilding the already old growth was expanded to gargantuan size. It is well known that a towering stand of Bloodoak dominates the western edge of Felder’s Knot which in turn conceals a ruined tower. Locals refer to this as Woodspire.
One approach from the southeast is ringed by weeping willows around the banks of one of the streams called the Gavrille. One willow, taller and tinted with a slightly golden hue covers a hillock at the water’s edge, the gangly roots bulging from the soil and reaching down like a gnarled hand warding the rise. This is referred to as Perrinock’s Bower and is a minor shrine to Erastil. The other 2 streams, the Yalkrille and the Huhln, wind through the wood like snakes from the south and feed into the central region.
To the south the forest thickens and becomes nearly impassable, save to the wisest of hunters. The darkened fastness is perpetually cool and shadowed, even in high-summer. Frost is well known to linger year round here and snow rarely melts completely. It is feared by even the most logical residents of Staghorn Reach that this region is the demesne of the Winter Queen, though few even know who that is.
The forest thins the further north one travels in Felder’s Knot. Indeed brave woodcutters have actually hauled valuable lumber from the place, though Bloodfang Spiders keep them from delving too deeply. This area also borders the Ghostwood Bogs. The central and northern expanse of Felder’s Knot are riddled with fissures, folds and caves where runoff from the former marsh have settled for the last century.
Caves of erosion carve deep into the limestone bedrock that are centuries old. When the Wilding hit this place it made some of these unstable. Standing groundwater just under the soil level sits in the upper reaches of these caverns, further degrading them. It is surmised that collapses are common here.
Population
No civilized folk dwell in Felder’s Knot any longer. It is an established fact of local knowledge that when the Vulghridden were driven from Staghorn Reach during the Wilding they made their way here and settled in the caves. Still other creatures however such as magical beasts and great, vile vermin make their home in Felder’s Knot preying upon one another as well as the natural creatures who dwell here.
Natural lore indicates that the fey abandoned this place to the darker members of their kin at the height of the wilding, such as mites and redcaps. What’s worse, Saranite doctrine declares Felder’s Knot VERBOTTEN as the restless dead lie in ill-made graves. They are the remains of the villagers of the Knot, those who didn’t reject their god but instead despaired and prayed to the uncaring waters for deliverance. It is said that they lurk in the fetid bogs, waiting to drown others to ease their own sorrow.
Over the years some foolhardy dungeoneers have delved the caverns and returned with mineral wealth and fine tales. However local dungeon lore holds that at the deepest depths are truly inhuman monsters; aberrations and horrors that dwell in such places. It is feared by many and confirmed by man’s tales that these disparate creatures have an accord with one another; an uneasy peace that keeps them from murdering one another whole cloth. Thankfully for the folk of Staghorn Reach, this also keeps them in check from rising up against humanity as well.
The history is that hundreds of years ago it was a village on a site where a marsh had been drained. To maintain their new "dry" lifestyle villagers honored Gozreh; part of honoring him was to let the wilds in and around the village grow. The village was in harmony with water and nature.
There is a global event in my world, called the Wilding. Nature got supercharged and the wilds ate civilization in many areas. The village of Felder's Knot was one of them. The village had already messed w/the water table, then came this upheaval, and in the end on the site of the former village is thick forest, bogs and caves.
I'm asking: what should the hook to this place be? There's a bunch of humanoids here and that's cool, but what makes this place any different than, say, the caves of chaos?
So... nothing?
The most straightforward option, imo, is to have a long-forgotten record referencing the village, be it a book, trade documents, etc, to be uncovered somewhere else. This record contains information that hints/indicates/states that there was something in the village that people would want (such as a powerful magic item) before the wilds overtook it. The party, one way or another, has access to this record (perhaps they were the ones who found it), and elects to set off to find this something that the record refers to.
Thanks NM; that's EXACTLY the kind of thing I was groping for. Currently in the plotline one of the PCs has a background partially plagiarizing the show Supernatural. His father was a hunter of evil fey and kept a journal w/all his secrets. The greatest of all those secrets is the whereabouts of a direct link to the First World.
The PCs desire the journal b/cause they also desire the portal. I'm going to have a villain they're chasing HAVE the journal, and then the journal will give them the portal's location. It won't be IN Felder's Knot mind you, but rather something IN the town needs to be recovered in order to activate said portal.
Make sure the journal also has clues about the villain, for later. ( I'm assuming the villain escapes, of course)
So buried somewhere below Felder's Knot will be a McGuffin. Said item was an artifact utilized by the former town and was originally dedicated to Gozreh. The town worshipped this god in thanks/fear of his/her power to defend them from seasonal floods that would've otherwise overwhelmed the settlement.
Still figuring out what the McGuffin is. It's influence however is legendary. Though surrounding lands don't understand it, they know that Felder's Knot is plagued by random, vicious storms that are local only to that area.
So the players might be tromping through the woods at Felder's Knot when suddenly a torrential rain swells up out of a nearly-cloudless sky. The end quest in the little mini-campaign involving the Knot then is to find the McGuffin, make it safe to transport somehow, and then get it where it needs to be for opening the portal.