Story seeds are a tool for taking players from your adventure's first act through to its epic encounter with the big bad. The adventures in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos brilliantly model story seeding—an important skill for new and experienced Dungeon Masters alike. Let’s take a look at how to get that climatic ending by examining the lessons from Strixhaven’s four adventures. Players, be warned, here be spoilers for the four adventures found in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos.

• What is story seeding?
• Welcome to Strixhaven: Story overview
• The seeds in ‘Campus Kerfuffle’
• Tracing the story seeds from kerfuffle to reckoning
• Tying it together

What is story seeding?

Story seeding is when the DM leaves a trail of breadcrumbs throughout the story, leading you from the initial plot hook through to the resolution at the end. It's the hints and clues as to the villain’s heinous plan. 

NPCs often serve as one familiar type of story seed. A DM may weave a thread throughout the story using NPCs. As a player, you might follow a gang of bandits to cultists to the cult’s leaders, all the way to an evil entity masquerading as a benevolent power in an effort to escape their eternal prison.

NPCs are not the only story seeds, however. Mundane objects, magic items, locations, organizations, creatures, and events can all function as story seeds.

Welcome to Strixhaven: Story overview

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos is a campaign sourcebook set in the magical school of Strixhaven. The book introduces different colleges the characters can join, and offers ways for them to develop relationships, work jobs, and take exams. But as their magical academic careers progress, so do they discover that there are dangers lurking on campus.

The sourcebook includes four adventures played out over the characters’ four years at the magical university:

• “Campus Kerfuffle”: A corrupted alchemical substance causes mayhem.
• “Hunt for Mage Tower”: Magical creatures behave oddly.
• “The Magister’s Masquerade”: An unearthed magical artifact spreads a curse.
• “A Reckoning in Ruins”: An evil mastermind attempts a life-draining ritual.

The story told throughout these four adventures brilliantly teaches Dungeon Masters how to plant and grow story seeds. Let’s take a closer look at how this book models using story seeds to connect seemingly unconnected adventures.

The seeds in ‘Campus Kerfuffle’

In year one’s “Campus Kerfuffle,” the player characters arrive on campus as fresh-faced 1st-level freshmen. The characters are innocently going through their basic college orientation when, suddenly, a wooden trunk decides it is finished holding LARP costumes. The trunk transforms into a mimic and attacks!

This combat is certainly a fun bit of action—who among us doesn’t want to have an ordinary orientation interrupted by an angry trunk? But it also introduces the players to the first important story seed: a mundane alchemical salve. Coating the trunk like a varnish, there’s nothing extraordinary about the salve except its proximity to unexplained chaos on campus. The plot thickens when the characters continue to encounter the salve at every weird occurrence. After the wooden trunks, it reappears when tiny pet frogs turn into giant berserk ones, a cauldron erupts angry steam, and a wooden owlbear prop turns menacing. This alchemical substance is present every single time.

What do we learn about story seeding from this tale of chaotic furniture?  

Recurrence, repetition, and redundancy 

First, we learn to plant our story seeds in batches, not singles. This is crucial in Dungeons & Dragons, because it’s really easy for players to miss a clue when the dice work against them. We’ve all been there, rolling a 1 on an important ability check! But if the characters fail when examining the mimic, all is not lost, because the adventure provides additional opportunities.

If you present just a single clue, there’s always a chance the players may not realize the clue is, indeed, a clue. As Ian Flemming wrote in the James Bond novel Goldfinger, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action." While the players may miss the importance the first time, after the second occurence, they’re ready for enemy action at the third encounter. Usually, I mean. This is D&D after all.

Seed first, water second 

The second lesson in the events of “Campus Kerfuffle” is planting story seeds before dispensing too much information. The adventure establishes the pattern of the mysterious mundane substance before the players know what is going on or what makes it special. However, since they have already decided this stuff is noteworthy, when characters are sent into Sedgemoor for an unrelated reason, they're ready to make the next connection. 

Sedgemoor is the swampy ground that surrounds the Witherbloom campus. It is a wild wetland swarming with creatures that also has valuable magical herbs. As it happens, the alchemical varnish is harvested from these grounds, and foul magic has recently begun corrupting the location. The corruption extends to the objects coated with the substance, causing those objects to go haywire! The characters also find a journal of Murgaxor, which outlines his sinister experiments for draining life from this swamp, foreshadowing the nefarious villain to be unveiled in later adventures.

Sometimes, DMs distribute information before players have recognized a pattern and become ready to fill the gaps in their information with new lore. When the players aren’t primed and ready for the lore, it can easily slide off their brains into the void, sorely disappointing the DM who has spent hours writing it. Holding onto that precious lore for just a little while longer can ensure your players know what to do with the new knowledge.

A sprinkle, not a deluge

Third, we learn to begin dropping story seeds early in the adventure, but with a light hand. At the conclusion of year one, players have unearthed the alchemical balm and connected it to Sedgemoor and someone named Murgaxor. All these are story seeds sown in the early levels while the characters are doing other things—like sneaking into a manor on a dare, because college kids will be college kids.

The story seeds are sprinkled throughout the adventure in such a way that ensures characters find them without overwhelming the rest of the story. This gives the players time to breathe and enjoy the unfolding story.

Tracing the story seeds from kerfuffle to reckoning 

As the adventure concludes year one, the characters have solved the main mystery at hand—why are these objects going berserk? They are, however, left with a number of strings left untied, story seeds planted for further adventures. Let’s take a quick, high-level overview of the remaining three years to see how these seeds are planted and what they grow into.

When the students return for year two in the adventure ”Hunt for Mage Tower,” a second substance begins reoccurring—this time, chitin. The chitin is usually stuck in a creature related to a location near Sedgemoor. Research unearths a book picturing mage hunters, grotesque creatures with spider-like legs and a chitinous shell, who dwell in the nearby swamp, drawn to the area by Murgaxor’s sinister experiments. 

In year three’s adventure, “The Magister’s Masquerade,” the story seeds shift slightly, focusing on a sinister magical artifact—a magical orb which spreads a curse. It was recently excavated by Dean Tullus in an archaeological expedition deep in Sedgemoor—the Ruins of Caerdoon. Students get sick throughout the year, all of whom eventually can be traced back to contact with this orb.

Investigations show a similar occurrence 200 years ago, and guess who was expelled back then? If you said Murgaxor, the author of the journal discovered in the first year, you would be correct! The orb also has a life-draining effect, similar to Murgaxor’s poetic rants in said journal. Ding! Ding! See those story seeds sprouting?

Finally, after an epic fight, year four rolls around. “A Reckoning In Ruins” begins with some crates disappearing a stone’s throw from Sedgemoor. One thing leads to another, and the characters, intent on tracking Murgaxor to his hideout, start their investigations at the orb’s excavation site. Finding additional evidence confirming their suspicions, the characters depart with the knowledge that Murgaxor is attempting a life-draining ritual. The adventure concludes with a big boss battle in Sedgemoor’s Ruins of Caerdoon, with the characters hopefully stopping the ritual.

Tying it together

All that said, what can we take away from this? We see the authors of this adventure plant seeds early on, which become crucial leads. A handful of story seeds repeat throughout the adventure with slight twists, ensuring the trail of seeds isn't too subtle. This is important because, unlike a novel, your players can easily miss your foreshadowing.

Secondly, the trail of seeds that threads the larger story together doesn't overwhelm the setting or the characters. It gently leads them as they meander through it. Lastly, the seeds are appropriate to the adventure's tier, with the thread tightening as tension rises. The early seeds are fun and mysterious, while the later seeds are filled with tension as the stakes increase. At that point, many of the previous seeds have sprouted and taken root, leading the players to the story's climactic conclusion.

Alyssa (@alyssavisscher) frequently rambles on Twitter about D&D. She especially enjoys analyzing its overall structure from a newbie perspective, bringing larger concepts to small, bite-sized pieces. She’s a parent of four, neurodivergent, disabled, and is impressively terrible at small talk.