I'm currently planning on running a circus or carnival themed one shot in the near future, and I'm looking for some ideas for what to include - creatures, performances, etc.
The basic premise that I've come up with is that a local druid approaches the party during the festivities and hires them to steal the captive creatures so that they can be released back into the wild. There will be twists and turns and chaos for sure - a nice change in tone from our normal Eberron campaign.
I'll probably have a couple of vendors, sideshows, and quick minigames for them to participate in during the day if they so choose, then the main event will be in the evening. The heist itself will likely take place during the show, as the druid believes there will be fewer people around (this may or may not be the case).
What sorts of zany, bizarre, or unique acts or creatures should I include?
There's Heckna! forthcoming from Hit Point Press. It's currently in late stage Kickstarter backing, but I think there's some playtest PDFs floating around. Hit Point Press's site is currently down but I've seen the PDFs there before. Anyway Heckna! is a morbid/twisted/arguably demonic circus campaign setting or supplement to existing campaigns. I haven't fully dived into it (waiting for the actual boxed set) but I've teased it in DitA as something that pops up near the Wandering Emporium but also near some of the battlefields for Infernal and Abyssal and third party to fifth column soldiers granted "leave" (how does leave work in the Blood War? Bargains). I think the aesthetic and spirit of Hecka could be adapted pretty well to Eberron, so if you have need for it right now, check out some of its promotional material for flavor/inspiration.
One thing that's spun out of my game are these vendors selling what are pronounced "spi-gars" or "spi-sauges" (working name, we just call them "those spider tube things.") This is kinda gross so under spoiler mask, but for potential flavor, arachnophobes don't click:
It's basically a section of a giant spider creature's intestine used as sausage casing and filled with tiny live spider creatures. They're consumed one of two ways: the vendor grills them up like a sausage and you eat them, though the movement in your gullet and belly let you know they weren't quite dead when the vendor handed it over to you. Or they're wrapped in an additional dried papery piece of spider creature intestine and smoked like a cigar, and in those instances you get to watch the tiny spiders glow coal hot and run around inside your cigar screaming as their life gives out. In fiendish realms these are a delicacy, but more "street food" than "fine dining." Mortals digesting or inhaling the bodies of creepy arachnid creatures experience a variety of positive, deleterious, and downright psychotic effects depending on story line or random table. Spy-gar vending can be rewarding work, live catching the spider creatures even more so though a lot more dangerous. Depending on what sort of FDA equivalent you got in your Eberron world, someone could be hawking these.
Brainstorm, so thanks for the topic: given the above, cotton candy, how do you think it's spun?
Games? Feats of strength, archery, throwing contests. You could do mini game or maybe adapt some of the gambling rules in Xanthar's, especially if you go with the adage that most carny games are sort of fixed.
Fortune Tellers that may put this presumed side quest to use dropping hints to the larger campaign.
Will you have a chase or confrontation in a hall of mirrors? Maybe with some magic in there.
Since there isn't really a distinction among performance, athletic or acrobatic specific feats, it's sort of hard to make use of real circus disciplines to create interesting NPCs. A lot of that will be handwavium.
Lol, I should have clarified better - the one-shot is not in Eberron; that's our current campaign (run by a different DM), and the one-shot would be a break from that. That way it gives the DM of our campaign a bit of extra prep time or a chance to cool it for a week, and I've been itching to run something anyway.
I'm not necessarily looking for something dark like Heckna!, mostly just zany and fun. Here are some of the ideas I've already come up with for it:
A food vendor that sells circus treats with minor buffs
A dunk tank that has a chance of dunking the player when they hit the target
A shell game run by an arcane trickster
Hadrosaurus rides, because what circus is complete without riding a large, exotic animal that probably doesn't want to be there?
A fortune teller that casts augury for a fee, fully aware of the potential for random readings (but she doesn't tell people that)
I think that's probably a decent list for the daytime festivities, tbh. I'm still not sure about what to do for the evening show, so any ideas you have are welcome!
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I'm currently planning on running a circus or carnival themed one shot in the near future, and I'm looking for some ideas for what to include - creatures, performances, etc.
The basic premise that I've come up with is that a local druid approaches the party during the festivities and hires them to steal the captive creatures so that they can be released back into the wild. There will be twists and turns and chaos for sure - a nice change in tone from our normal Eberron campaign.
I'll probably have a couple of vendors, sideshows, and quick minigames for them to participate in during the day if they so choose, then the main event will be in the evening. The heist itself will likely take place during the show, as the druid believes there will be fewer people around (this may or may not be the case).
What sorts of zany, bizarre, or unique acts or creatures should I include?
There's Heckna! forthcoming from Hit Point Press. It's currently in late stage Kickstarter backing, but I think there's some playtest PDFs floating around. Hit Point Press's site is currently down but I've seen the PDFs there before. Anyway Heckna! is a morbid/twisted/arguably demonic circus campaign setting or supplement to existing campaigns. I haven't fully dived into it (waiting for the actual boxed set) but I've teased it in DitA as something that pops up near the Wandering Emporium but also near some of the battlefields for Infernal and Abyssal and third party to fifth column soldiers granted "leave" (how does leave work in the Blood War? Bargains). I think the aesthetic and spirit of Hecka could be adapted pretty well to Eberron, so if you have need for it right now, check out some of its promotional material for flavor/inspiration.
One thing that's spun out of my game are these vendors selling what are pronounced "spi-gars" or "spi-sauges" (working name, we just call them "those spider tube things.") This is kinda gross so under spoiler mask, but for potential flavor, arachnophobes don't click:
It's basically a section of a giant spider creature's intestine used as sausage casing and filled with tiny live spider creatures. They're consumed one of two ways: the vendor grills them up like a sausage and you eat them, though the movement in your gullet and belly let you know they weren't quite dead when the vendor handed it over to you. Or they're wrapped in an additional dried papery piece of spider creature intestine and smoked like a cigar, and in those instances you get to watch the tiny spiders glow coal hot and run around inside your cigar screaming as their life gives out. In fiendish realms these are a delicacy, but more "street food" than "fine dining." Mortals digesting or inhaling the bodies of creepy arachnid creatures experience a variety of positive, deleterious, and downright psychotic effects depending on story line or random table. Spy-gar vending can be rewarding work, live catching the spider creatures even more so though a lot more dangerous. Depending on what sort of FDA equivalent you got in your Eberron world, someone could be hawking these.
Brainstorm, so thanks for the topic: given the above, cotton candy, how do you think it's spun?
Games? Feats of strength, archery, throwing contests. You could do mini game or maybe adapt some of the gambling rules in Xanthar's, especially if you go with the adage that most carny games are sort of fixed.
Fortune Tellers that may put this presumed side quest to use dropping hints to the larger campaign.
Will you have a chase or confrontation in a hall of mirrors? Maybe with some magic in there.
Since there isn't really a distinction among performance, athletic or acrobatic specific feats, it's sort of hard to make use of real circus disciplines to create interesting NPCs. A lot of that will be handwavium.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Lol, I should have clarified better - the one-shot is not in Eberron; that's our current campaign (run by a different DM), and the one-shot would be a break from that. That way it gives the DM of our campaign a bit of extra prep time or a chance to cool it for a week, and I've been itching to run something anyway.
I'm not necessarily looking for something dark like Heckna!, mostly just zany and fun. Here are some of the ideas I've already come up with for it:
I think that's probably a decent list for the daytime festivities, tbh. I'm still not sure about what to do for the evening show, so any ideas you have are welcome!