Since I am in the middle of writing my M.A. thesis and I have not got much time lately for creating articles that would be of a satisfactory quality, I have decided to start a small series of posts in which I will give you several story seeds. These will not be fully prepared scenarios, just few sentences describing a particular problem in general. Whether you need a hook to start a campaign, a single scenario or a side quest, you can use these and develop them in a way you like. I will try to choose stories from different genres, and keep them as setting-free as I can, so you will be able to easily adjust them to your setting, whether it is heroic fantasy, horror, space opera or post-apocalypse. I hope you find these posts useful.
Unknown teenager
In the small town surrounded by farms people start disappearing. No one knows what is going on, except one of the farmers. This fellow has got a son who is unknown to the community, because he was born with mental illness/mutation (or whatever else that fits to your campaign) and the father hid him. Now the boy is sixteen and has started to kidnap and kill people. The old father, despite everything, loves the boy, and every time someone is murdered, he takes care of the body, that he buries somewhere on his farm. How long the father will be able to hide his son's deeds? Who will be caught, since all the evidence points the father? Will the old man's love to his child be that great to take the responsibility? And last but not least: will players' characters catch the right guy?
Sitting in a bar or an inn characters can see a boy who proposes to his beautiful girlfriend. She is clearly happy, however she seems to be a little worried too. A moment later a strange mist covers the whole room, no one can see anything, and when some people open the windows and the mist disappears, the beauty is missing. Guests sitting close to the entrance admit that they have heard opening and closing the door during this unfortunate event, and that is the beginning of the theory that the girl has been kidnapped. The truth, however, is much more complicated: the girl is a mutant/shape-shifter who has lived among the people for a very long time, but there are periods (night, for example) when she is unable to hide her true nature. If she marry the poor boy, there will be no possibility to keep him unaware of her condition during this time, and, having this in mind, she panicked, used her special powers/some kind of device and ran away.
Engagement
Sitting in a bar or an inn characters can see a boy who proposes to his beautiful girlfriend. She is clearly happy, however she seems to be a little worried too. A moment later a strange mist covers the whole room, no one can see anything, and when some people open the windows and the mist disappears, the beauty is missing. Guests sitting close to the entrance admit that they have heard opening and closing the door during this unfortunate event, and that is the beginning of the theory that the girl has been kidnapped. The truth, however, is much more complicated: the girl is a mutant/shape-shifter who has lived among the people for a very long time, but there are periods (night, for example) when she is unable to hide her true nature. If she marry the poor boy, there will be no possibility to keep him unaware of her condition during this time, and, having this in mind, she panicked, used her special powers/some kind of device and ran away.
