Guys I’m sweating, we got to talking about sticks and now all of a sudden I’m DMing a one shot about sticks. The problem is I need ideas for the plot of it. We know vaguely all the PC’s will be stick lovers of some sort (an example being a beaver with a wooden spear or a monk with the bowstaff), but I’m not sure what to have them do. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Well, I WOOD help you, but I'll be DAMMED if I know anything about that, just STICK to it and I'm sure you will FIGURE something out, just make sure to LOG any ideas you come up with.
Can it only be sticks? Because trees are, of course, the source of sticks, so they could be saving a tree. Maybe a dryad needs help or her tree protected.
They are on a quest to find the oldest, primary tree. Legend speaks of a golden tree said to be the tree of all trees. Some say it was a conifer with yellow needs that shine like gold each sunrise. Fallen branched from this tree are said to retain the magic of this tree and have been used throughout time as the handles and hilts god weapons. What most don't know is that the weapons of the gods are powered by the magic of the wood, not the iron, bronze and steel.
To find the tree the character have to seek out an expert about the world to figure out which forests can even still have a primary tree of that age. After all, those forests would have had to have survived glaciers, hurricanes, wild fires, dust storms, etc.
When the players find the expert they will learn that one area of the world has been protected from natural disasters, it is in a cold norther area where two mountain ranges come together. However, there is a conflict breaking out and kingdoms are deforesting primary trees to use for the masts of warships. The expert may also share that if the agents of these kingdoms discover the first tree they may cut it down to create a magical warship.
Insert a skill challenge for the players to navigate to the area successfully.
The players can have opportunities to meet different agents in the field that confirm they are looking for the first tree to make a warship.
An additional skill challenge can be inserted to make sure the agents can't track them or include a chase using the chase mechanics for the players to escape the agents.
Include a fight for a warden of the tree. A druid or paladin or ranger that devotes their life to protecting the tree. They are dying and need the help of the party. You may start this encounter as a fight and have the NPC shout things during the combat such as, "No one may hard the golden needle!" and let the players put two and two together to figure out they can try to convince the warden they mean to harm.
You can come up with an appropriate solution such as moving the tree by awakening it or fighting the agents of the kingdoms so that they can't report back about the tree, disguising it, etc.
The tree itself grows in a ravine of an oxbow. The massive height of the tree is that it starts at the bottom of the shear ravine and grows 300 feet upward. From above the ravine it seems smaller than other trees in the oxbow.
The players can each find a shed branch to season as make a magic item from.
Combats can primarily come from the agents of the kingdoms. Imagine three kingdoms and place a theme to each. The minions are lumberjacks and jills. For example each kingdom might be about arcane magic use, the second kingdom are engineers and have clockworks and golems and the third kingdom is based on beauty so all soldiers are prime physical specimens decked head to toe in full plate, shields and resistances to things like fire so that they bodies are not marred by combat.
An ancient forest that lies amongst the borderlands of three great kingdoms has been infected with an evil force - blights and cursed plants are moving out from the forest, spreading foul infections and plague amongst people, plant and livestock. As the death toll rises and the sages are at a loss to explain what is happening, fearing for their own safety and the safety of the lands/realms beyond one of the kingdoms is amassing a force to raze the forest to the ground. Another kingdom, a nation of elves other nature related races/peoples believes the matter must be properly investigated; the forest protected and saved not destroyed. Meanwhile the last of the three kingdoms sees the onslaught as a divine judgement and is determined to let nature take its course, whatever the result may be. As such they have placed an army around the forest and will not let either of the other nations approach.
Against this backdrop, an Archdruid who is familiar to or who knows of the party reaches out to them and asks them to sneak into the forest, past all the dangers that now lurk there and find the source of the corruption and hopefully destroy it, before this ancient and important forest is lost to the world forever.
(My personal suggestion for the source of the corruption would be a gulthias tree - perhaps modified depending on the level of the party. You could provide a magical guardian like a golden dragon that has been corrupted or bound in some way, a cult of effectively eco-terrorists who are trying to protect nature in a very poison ivy style, fey spirits who seek to dominate the material plane by weakening the strength of the humanoid of realms or whatever else suits your face)
How about Poohsticks? Its form a Winnie the Pooh story. Each player stands on the upstream side of a bridge and they simultaeously drop their chosen stick into the stream and run to the other side of the bridge, the the player whose stick comes out from the under the bridge first is the winner (and there is a real world championship of this as well).
So to D&D this a bit:
The bridge, as well as several others further downstream, are ruled over by Winnie the Troll (or Pooh Troll if you want ot be a little juvenile about it) and anyone wanting to pass over the river must pay a "Troll Toll" which usually consists of paying a single gold piece but recently the river, which runs through a steep gorge, has dried up and Winnie and her clan of trolls have blockaded each bridge until the water returns, this has prevented people from crossing and long queues have built up as the steep gorge makes it impossible to get across. Rather than fight the entire clan of trolls, who view the taking of bridge tolls as a sacred duty, the party should agree to go up stream and try find out what has stopped the water. Insert any random encounters you want but eventually the party find the river has been damned by a Necromancer who has raised a horde of Zombie Beavers. Battle ensues, the dam is broken and the water released but sweeps the party downstream, insert skill challenges as the party have to avoid debris in the water, being dashed against rocks etc. As they approach the first bridge Winnie, her trolls and the essembled travellers see the party approaching in the stream and start loudly cheering as they are swept forward and start placing bets. Winnie shouts out tot he party that the first of them to clear the 3rd bridge will be given a greet prize. This now becomes a PvP situation where the party can use skill challenges and any class abilities they may have to try and be the first person to clear the 3rd bridge. As the party travel downstream the throngs of trolls and travellers follow them along the edge of the gorge.
Twig Blightsare basically just evil walking stick monsters. You also might want to give Vine Blights, Needle Blights, Awakened Trees, Shambling Mounds and a bunch of other monsters like that a look. You can always just make a few modifications and reflavor any monsters that don't fit the exact theme you are going for.
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Guys I’m sweating, we got to talking about sticks and now all of a sudden I’m DMing a one shot about sticks. The problem is I need ideas for the plot of it. We know vaguely all the PC’s will be stick lovers of some sort (an example being a beaver with a wooden spear or a monk with the bowstaff), but I’m not sure what to have them do. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Well, I WOOD help you, but I'll be DAMMED if I know anything about that, just STICK to it and I'm sure you will FIGURE something out, just make sure to LOG any ideas you come up with.
NOOOOO
Can it only be sticks? Because trees are, of course, the source of sticks, so they could be saving a tree. Maybe a dryad needs help or her tree protected.
They could maybe go on a quest to procure some sacred wood from a sacred tree in a sacred grove for a Druid or something.
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They are on a quest to find the oldest, primary tree. Legend speaks of a golden tree said to be the tree of all trees. Some say it was a conifer with yellow needs that shine like gold each sunrise. Fallen branched from this tree are said to retain the magic of this tree and have been used throughout time as the handles and hilts god weapons. What most don't know is that the weapons of the gods are powered by the magic of the wood, not the iron, bronze and steel.
To find the tree the character have to seek out an expert about the world to figure out which forests can even still have a primary tree of that age. After all, those forests would have had to have survived glaciers, hurricanes, wild fires, dust storms, etc.
When the players find the expert they will learn that one area of the world has been protected from natural disasters, it is in a cold norther area where two mountain ranges come together. However, there is a conflict breaking out and kingdoms are deforesting primary trees to use for the masts of warships. The expert may also share that if the agents of these kingdoms discover the first tree they may cut it down to create a magical warship.
Insert a skill challenge for the players to navigate to the area successfully.
The players can have opportunities to meet different agents in the field that confirm they are looking for the first tree to make a warship.
An additional skill challenge can be inserted to make sure the agents can't track them or include a chase using the chase mechanics for the players to escape the agents.
Include a fight for a warden of the tree. A druid or paladin or ranger that devotes their life to protecting the tree. They are dying and need the help of the party. You may start this encounter as a fight and have the NPC shout things during the combat such as, "No one may hard the golden needle!" and let the players put two and two together to figure out they can try to convince the warden they mean to harm.
You can come up with an appropriate solution such as moving the tree by awakening it or fighting the agents of the kingdoms so that they can't report back about the tree, disguising it, etc.
The tree itself grows in a ravine of an oxbow. The massive height of the tree is that it starts at the bottom of the shear ravine and grows 300 feet upward. From above the ravine it seems smaller than other trees in the oxbow.
The players can each find a shed branch to season as make a magic item from.
Combats can primarily come from the agents of the kingdoms. Imagine three kingdoms and place a theme to each. The minions are lumberjacks and jills. For example each kingdom might be about arcane magic use, the second kingdom are engineers and have clockworks and golems and the third kingdom is based on beauty so all soldiers are prime physical specimens decked head to toe in full plate, shields and resistances to things like fire so that they bodies are not marred by combat.
Hope it helps.
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An ancient forest that lies amongst the borderlands of three great kingdoms has been infected with an evil force - blights and cursed plants are moving out from the forest, spreading foul infections and plague amongst people, plant and livestock. As the death toll rises and the sages are at a loss to explain what is happening, fearing for their own safety and the safety of the lands/realms beyond one of the kingdoms is amassing a force to raze the forest to the ground. Another kingdom, a nation of elves other nature related races/peoples believes the matter must be properly investigated; the forest protected and saved not destroyed. Meanwhile the last of the three kingdoms sees the onslaught as a divine judgement and is determined to let nature take its course, whatever the result may be. As such they have placed an army around the forest and will not let either of the other nations approach.
Against this backdrop, an Archdruid who is familiar to or who knows of the party reaches out to them and asks them to sneak into the forest, past all the dangers that now lurk there and find the source of the corruption and hopefully destroy it, before this ancient and important forest is lost to the world forever.
(My personal suggestion for the source of the corruption would be a gulthias tree - perhaps modified depending on the level of the party. You could provide a magical guardian like a golden dragon that has been corrupted or bound in some way, a cult of effectively eco-terrorists who are trying to protect nature in a very poison ivy style, fey spirits who seek to dominate the material plane by weakening the strength of the humanoid of realms or whatever else suits your face)
Hopefully, this is useful for you. Best of luck.
How about Poohsticks? Its form a Winnie the Pooh story. Each player stands on the upstream side of a bridge and they simultaeously drop their chosen stick into the stream and run to the other side of the bridge, the the player whose stick comes out from the under the bridge first is the winner (and there is a real world championship of this as well).
So to D&D this a bit:
The bridge, as well as several others further downstream, are ruled over by Winnie the Troll (or Pooh Troll if you want ot be a little juvenile about it) and anyone wanting to pass over the river must pay a "Troll Toll" which usually consists of paying a single gold piece but recently the river, which runs through a steep gorge, has dried up and Winnie and her clan of trolls have blockaded each bridge until the water returns, this has prevented people from crossing and long queues have built up as the steep gorge makes it impossible to get across. Rather than fight the entire clan of trolls, who view the taking of bridge tolls as a sacred duty, the party should agree to go up stream and try find out what has stopped the water. Insert any random encounters you want but eventually the party find the river has been damned by a Necromancer who has raised a horde of Zombie Beavers. Battle ensues, the dam is broken and the water released but sweeps the party downstream, insert skill challenges as the party have to avoid debris in the water, being dashed against rocks etc. As they approach the first bridge Winnie, her trolls and the essembled travellers see the party approaching in the stream and start loudly cheering as they are swept forward and start placing bets. Winnie shouts out tot he party that the first of them to clear the 3rd bridge will be given a greet prize. This now becomes a PvP situation where the party can use skill challenges and any class abilities they may have to try and be the first person to clear the 3rd bridge. As the party travel downstream the throngs of trolls and travellers follow them along the edge of the gorge.
Twig Blights are basically just evil walking stick monsters. You also might want to give Vine Blights, Needle Blights, Awakened Trees, Shambling Mounds and a bunch of other monsters like that a look. You can always just make a few modifications and reflavor any monsters that don't fit the exact theme you are going for.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.