Post by hengest on Jan 12, 2022 11:18:43 GMT -5
I enjoyed using ironnerd 's Quick Adventure Generator at his BECMI forum, which you all should check out. This is what I came up with, same text pasted below. If you like it, maybe go check out becmidnd.proboards.com/ which is what helped me to generate it.
Rolled: 10 9 6
Get the spy from the wizard's laboratory before the villain can enact his plan.
Who is the spy? -- A noble but desperate woman transformed into a cute but dirty mouse.
Why is she in the laboratory? -- She was planted there to observe the wizard's work on planar portals. She has developed genuine affection for the wizard who is lonely and tells her all about his troubles (and a bit about his work).
What is the villain's plan? -- Details unknown, but the mouse-woman thinks it has something to do with exploiting the prototype portal-staff to create wormholes for local travel and resource extraction on this plane (planet), not actual planar travel.
Notes:
Questions for the ref:
Rolled: 10 9 6
Get the spy from the wizard's laboratory before the villain can enact his plan.
Who is the spy? -- A noble but desperate woman transformed into a cute but dirty mouse.
Why is she in the laboratory? -- She was planted there to observe the wizard's work on planar portals. She has developed genuine affection for the wizard who is lonely and tells her all about his troubles (and a bit about his work).
What is the villain's plan? -- Details unknown, but the mouse-woman thinks it has something to do with exploiting the prototype portal-staff to create wormholes for local travel and resource extraction on this plane (planet), not actual planar travel.
Notes:
- there are other mice in and around the laboratory, PCs may have difficulty learning which is the mouse they want
- the mouse-woman has a magical item hidden away somewhere that allows communication with the villain (identity unknown)
- the mouse does not know that the laboratory itself is a peninsula-plane, a product of earlier experiments. It may be entered and exited normally through the door, but egress through the windows will result in a (one-way? 1 in 3) trip to a random plane or microplane. That is, the laboratory "sticks out" of its home plane and nonstandard exits will result in travellers being shunted to another plane. Mouse-travel in and out of holes is safe.
- what the mouse is going to report is basically nothing, which will likely frustrate the villain into simply making a grab for the portal-staff.
Questions for the ref:
- How old is the woman? Is this her first time spying as a mouse?
- What situation caused her to take this job? Was she otherwise involved with the villain or the wizard?
- Does the wizard know or remember about the windows?
- What can one see through the windows?
- What is the mouse's relationship to the other mice?
- What is the wizard's purpose in conducting this research? Is he looking for something or someone?
- What is the status of knowledge of planes among other wizards?
- How experienced is the wizard? Archmage or bumbler or in between?
- What method is used in his research? Standard magic or some homebrew magic or nonmagical experiment?
- Who is the villain? What is the villain's real desire? What other plans, if any, does the villain have cooking?
- How experienced and inteligent is the villains?
- Is the mouse-woman's guess about the villain's desire correct? If so, does the makeup of the world even allow for such wormhole-transit?
- How do the PCs find out about any of this? Are they informed or hired by a third party? Do they know the villain through some other connection?
- Where is the mouse-woman's loyalty at present?
- Does the wizard know the mouse is a spy? If so, does he care?
- By what means will the villain grab for the portal-staff? Dismissal of the transformation magic at a distance with instructions to the mouse-woman to grab the staff and run if she changes back? Or by some active magical means? Or other?
- What other experiments go on here?
- What does this room look like? What does its appearance say about its purpose?
- The chinks in the stone walls allow one to peek "outside" a bit. What does one see when peeking through them? The same as through the windows or something else?
- What shape is the known world?
- What is visible in the sky at night?
- What is visible in the sky during the day?
The world has communication-at-a-distance magic and dismissal-at-a-distance magic, so there is good magical information transfer, but nothing or very little for teleporting matter great distances. The makeup of the world is uneven, causing the possibility of efficient magical transportation to be desirable. For example, one part of the known world is quite poor in mineral resources, while another part is quite rich in usable metals, and another area is rich in powerful and sometimes beautiful stones. Controlled and efficient magical or physical transportation could be exploited economically to gain wealth, although it would run up against a well-established traders' union.
Humans are known to have some families with "mercantile blood," they will buy and sell anything. These families are the core of the traders' union and generally humans are known for the most travel. It is the traders who provide a good amount of the contact between the metal-lands (largely dwarves) and the gem-lands (largely elves). The lands poor in metal and gems have much unusual natural magic that trained wizards cannot account for. No more is said of this magic at present, as only its visible effects can be described. These lands also have a non-PC race, the cythcynn.
The cythcynn look like Men but tend to have a pinkish-grey cast to their skin. The ages of individuals are somewhat fluid and seem to go back and forth (apparent aging or de-aging between encounters is common), although the children are truly children. They neither farm nor use magic of their own and most of their technology is extremely perishable: tools made directly from organic materials and so on. They seem oriented to people of other races in a strange way, sometimes offering objects to the back of a person or speaking while facing entirely away from a person. The cause of these unusual behaviors is unknown.
Strangers encountering cythcynn often report that the ones they meet remind them of someone and they cannot put their finger on it.
Humans are known to have some families with "mercantile blood," they will buy and sell anything. These families are the core of the traders' union and generally humans are known for the most travel. It is the traders who provide a good amount of the contact between the metal-lands (largely dwarves) and the gem-lands (largely elves). The lands poor in metal and gems have much unusual natural magic that trained wizards cannot account for. No more is said of this magic at present, as only its visible effects can be described. These lands also have a non-PC race, the cythcynn.
The cythcynn look like Men but tend to have a pinkish-grey cast to their skin. The ages of individuals are somewhat fluid and seem to go back and forth (apparent aging or de-aging between encounters is common), although the children are truly children. They neither farm nor use magic of their own and most of their technology is extremely perishable: tools made directly from organic materials and so on. They seem oriented to people of other races in a strange way, sometimes offering objects to the back of a person or speaking while facing entirely away from a person. The cause of these unusual behaviors is unknown.
Strangers encountering cythcynn often report that the ones they meet remind them of someone and they cannot put their finger on it.