So I am starting a campaign that is centered around a temple/monastery. My plan is to have my players have a long difficult journey to the monastery since it is secluded. Then ultimately have them run and do tasks for the monks. But I hit a wall thinking on a few tasks that the monks would have them do. Can I get some help, please?
We kicked off a campaign a while back that had a remote temple / monastery that a monk in the party was heading to. He thought he was just going to a tournament... but it turns out the tournament feeds very dark things down below and was run by Yuan-Ti with an entirely separate underground system. You could put in place all kinds of things in the undergrounds below a temple. It works really well if everyone around thinks they are benevolent when they have a dark sinister side and are totally self-serving. Even the Dark Knight found this out the hard way (if you want to take your temple to the highest mountains with ninja).
A book/movie that immediately springs to mind for me is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose - which is a murder mystery in a monastery. Pretty decent older movie. You could absolutely rip off the plot be inspired by that story.
It's not really a fetch style quest that the Monks could give the Party, but it is an adventure that you could completely use in that scenario.
Another Monk related adventure movie that you might be able to leverage is The Golden Child.
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We kicked off a campaign a while back that had a remote temple / monastery that a monk in the party was heading to. He thought he was just going to a tournament... but it turns out the tournament feeds very dark things down below and was run by Yuan-Ti with an entirely separate underground system. You could put in place all kinds of things in the undergrounds below a temple. It works really well if everyone around thinks they are benevolent when they have a dark sinister side and are totally self-serving. Even the Dark Knight found this out the hard way (if you want to take your temple to the highest mountains with ninja).
I was thinking about doing this. I was gonna have the party fetch "lost artifacts" to make the BBEG stronger.
A book/movie that immediately springs to mind for me is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose - which is a murder mystery in a monastery. Pretty decent older movie. You could absolutely rip off the plot be inspired by that story.
It's not really a fetch style quest that the Monks could give the Party, but it is an adventure that you could completely use in that scenario.
Another Monk related adventure movie that you might be able to leverage is The Golden Child.
I will check out that movie. I had a thought about the golden child movie.
And of course, I got caught up in past memories and forgot the "Tasks at hand" portion... Hmm...
Gathering components for a ritual would work well. Especially if some of the ingredients were a bit questionable. And difficult. Basilisk blood is difficult. The egg of a sentient species would be very questionable. The more questions they have, the more they are likely to investigate the darker secrets.
Having the PCs collect condemned criminals and bringing them back to the temple would raise eyebrows and possibly make them question what was going on. Doesn't mean it is illegal if it is part of the system of law that the monks work with... and maybe they are only going to have them train to become servants or break rocks or build a new wing for the temple... but it gives them others to find out information from about how they are treated, etc.
Name of the Rose and Golden Child both have interesting ways to adapt the story. I also like the Yuan-Ti Reversal... talk about a long game... perhaps some Celestial being was buried alive below the monastery and the Yuan-Ti found him and he has been giving them visions and is considered some kind of prophet from a bygone era. Yeah... I like the possibilities of double play here...
I haven an interesting idea that may involve a lot of work on your part: Evil monk takes over monastery, embraces long forgotten School of Chaos. What is the School of Chaos> That is for me to know, and you to make up.
I’m not sure what you’ve fully envisioned- whether the monastery is powerful or in decay- but if it’s at all the later I think an interesting idea could be that the monastery has a dungeon/sub basement where monks in the past imprisoned a monster or magic item of great danger & evil. But centuries later the monks are a shell of what their power once was and they’re barely containing this thing anymore.
It’s an old fantasy/comic trope but it works- a la Night's Watch in GoT, Gondor in LoTR, and even croc from the Arkham asylum game.
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So I am starting a campaign that is centered around a temple/monastery. My plan is to have my players have a long difficult journey to the monastery since it is secluded. Then ultimately have them run and do tasks for the monks. But I hit a wall thinking on a few tasks that the monks would have them do. Can I get some help, please?
We kicked off a campaign a while back that had a remote temple / monastery that a monk in the party was heading to. He thought he was just going to a tournament... but it turns out the tournament feeds very dark things down below and was run by Yuan-Ti with an entirely separate underground system. You could put in place all kinds of things in the undergrounds below a temple. It works really well if everyone around thinks they are benevolent when they have a dark sinister side and are totally self-serving. Even the Dark Knight found this out the hard way (if you want to take your temple to the highest mountains with ninja).
A book/movie that immediately springs to mind for me is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose - which is a murder mystery in a monastery. Pretty decent older movie. You could absolutely
rip off the plotbe inspired by that story.It's not really a fetch style quest that the Monks could give the Party, but it is an adventure that you could completely use in that scenario.
Another Monk related adventure movie that you might be able to leverage is The Golden Child.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
We kicked off a campaign a while back that had a remote temple / monastery that a monk in the party was heading to. He thought he was just going to a tournament... but it turns out the tournament feeds very dark things down below and was run by Yuan-Ti with an entirely separate underground system. You could put in place all kinds of things in the undergrounds below a temple. It works really well if everyone around thinks they are benevolent when they have a dark sinister side and are totally self-serving. Even the Dark Knight found this out the hard way (if you want to take your temple to the highest mountains with ninja).
I was thinking about doing this. I was gonna have the party fetch "lost artifacts" to make the BBEG stronger.
I will check out that movie. I had a thought about the golden child movie.
And of course, I got caught up in past memories and forgot the "Tasks at hand" portion... Hmm...
Gathering components for a ritual would work well. Especially if some of the ingredients were a bit questionable. And difficult. Basilisk blood is difficult. The egg of a sentient species would be very questionable. The more questions they have, the more they are likely to investigate the darker secrets.
Having the PCs collect condemned criminals and bringing them back to the temple would raise eyebrows and possibly make them question what was going on. Doesn't mean it is illegal if it is part of the system of law that the monks work with... and maybe they are only going to have them train to become servants or break rocks or build a new wing for the temple... but it gives them others to find out information from about how they are treated, etc.
Name of the Rose and Golden Child both have interesting ways to adapt the story. I also like the Yuan-Ti Reversal... talk about a long game... perhaps some Celestial being was buried alive below the monastery and the Yuan-Ti found him and he has been giving them visions and is considered some kind of prophet from a bygone era. Yeah... I like the possibilities of double play here...
I haven an interesting idea that may involve a lot of work on your part: Evil monk takes over monastery, embraces long forgotten School of Chaos. What is the School of Chaos> That is for me to know, and you to make up.
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I’m not sure what you’ve fully envisioned- whether the monastery is powerful or in decay- but if it’s at all the later I think an interesting idea could be that the monastery has a dungeon/sub basement where monks in the past imprisoned a monster or magic item of great danger & evil. But centuries later the monks are a shell of what their power once was and they’re barely containing this thing anymore.
It’s an old fantasy/comic trope but it works- a la Night's Watch in GoT, Gondor in LoTR, and even croc from the Arkham asylum game.