Would Like Help With Fleshing Out 5e Adventure Hook

[TitaniumStar]

Hi everyone!
I'm not quite sure if this is the right place for this, but I had a vision for an opening scene for a game and wanted to see if we could turn it into an actual 5e session or campaign to play.

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So it's pretty broad, but here it is:

The PCs are traveling through a desert and are hungry, lost, and broke. When night arrives they see a village/town that is full of people who are celebrating a festival and partying. The PCs are warmly welcomed and asked to join in the party. They drink, dance, meet people, and are able to sleep inside one of the residents homes to rest.

When the PCs awake, the village is empty. There is not a single soul in the house they are in, or anywhere. There are still some of the belongings laying around of the people they had met that night.

Now I don't know what kind of condition I want the villagers belongings to be like in the morning, but I want to make it obvious that they need to take some certain items before they leave the town because I want the villager who the item belonged to, to manifest at night and explained that something or someone has done this to them. The manifested person would have to be outside of the village to remember that this is a problem since every night they manifest in their home village they party and act like nothing is wrong. So at that point they plead to the PCs for help.
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That's all I got so far. So I am asking for help from the community to help me brainstorm some ideas to make this more and have some reasoning for doing stuff in this story. I haven't done much DMing, but love the times I do, and would love to make a homebrew campaign or session.

Thanks ahead of time!

[EileenProphetofIstus]

What level were you thinking that this would be for?

I would make the villagers be ghosts and they are reliving the same fateful night over and over, yet they are searching for strangers to bring an end to this repeated night madness.

- This would require you to determine what or whom attacks the village after their celebration is over for the night.

- I would also consider changing the town to an oasis, using tents instead of buildings.

- The ghosts could have been gypsies during their lifetime. They may be warriors that have been waging battle with a monster or another group of people.

- Decide what the villagers (ghosts) are celebrating. Did they think they just vanquished a monster that has been plaguing them, only to discover that their celebration is a bit early and that the creature or persons returned to take the people at night?

- Were the people taken by force, magically controlled to appear to leave willingly?

- Where were they taken?

- Instead of being taken somewhere perhaps the entire community leaped to their deaths over a nearby cliff or walked out into the ocean to mass drown themselves. Using these ideas one needs to develop why.

Here's another entirely different possibility.

The entire thing could be a set up by a monster in order to lure the PCs to its lair. It may use mind controlling magic on the villagers, illusions, or the villagers could be working for the monster. You may decide the monster is instead a evil wizard attempting to get the PCs to do something for him or her.

I wouldn't have it as simple as "Here's a quest." The monster or wizard needs these particular characters for a reason. Perhaps some sorted detail from the PCs past is relevant here.

Another possibility is that the land is under a curse which causes real people to repeat the same night over and over again. You would still have to determine where the people go and what or who takes them.

Just a few ideas.

[TitaniumStar]

Oh! I never thought that the villagers could be working for the monster/Bad Guy. That is a cool idea. I more imagine a monster instead of a person behind the scenes.

When I was telling my husband about this idea he brought up the 'living the night over and over' thing too. He said there was a movie called 'Groundhogs Day' that was like that (though we both had never seen it) and thought that would be neat. To have the PCs get to the Oasis in the morning, go about their day there, and at night, during the festival everyone is attacked and killed. Then the PCs wake up in the morning and find that none of that had happened yet, but everyone else was doing the same thing they did the day they were killed. So the PCs have to relive the same day over and over pulling together more clues into how they can change the day so that they can kill the beast and stop the timeloop.

I would like to start the session at level 1. I may change my mind if anyone has any cool ideas for monsters at higher levels that would be awesome for this scenario.

I guess with the types of encounters they have I would have to determine how long I want the session to run. I need to think a little more on that. (I haven't quite learned how to make adventures that fit nicely in a 4-6 hour time-slot. lol)

I appreciate your input EileenProphetofIstus! You really got my gears rolling. If anyone else has anything to add or comment on, go ahead! If you'd like to take the ideas and make them your own, let me know how it goes! I will try to update every now and then on what I come up with and how the sessions go.

[SmiloDan]

1. Go watch Groundhog's Day NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Do you want the PCs to party, wake up amongst the ruins of the party, pick up some equipment, then have one or more "ghosts" manifest the following night from the equipment?

I would use the Trinket list as inspiration for stuff the PCs might pick up, plus some survival-type gear: tents, water jugs, umbrella, blankets, foodstuffs, coconuts, etc.

I also like the oasis and tents idea more than the town idea.

Do you have Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press? It has some fun desert creatures and illusion generating monsters.

Also, lamia.

EDIT:

What level are the PCs? And how many?

RE-EDIT:

1st level. :-)