This post is the first one of a series I am going to make about adventures plots involving creatures from Dungeons and Dragons. It will work something like this: I will choose a creature from the D&D universe and try to write a few adventures plots that include them either as enemies, allies, patrons or whatever trying to vary as much as I can. Also, in those plots, I will try to put the creatures in different situations, trying to avoid the cliché ones they are used associated with, but I can’t promise I will be successful in doing that all the time.
The first creature to appear in our Monstrous Plots series is the Kobold. Kobolds are small reptilian creatures usually known to be cowards and cruel murderers at the same time. They live in barrows with mazelike tunnels filled with deadly traps they make to avoid intruders to find them and prisoners to flee. Know to be a race of surprisingly excellent miners, Kobolds are fond of gems and shinning objects, which some says that they received that from their dragons ancestors. Kobolds revere dragons as if they were gods, although most of these “gods” ignore them or simply eat them. Many towns have ignored kobolds for too long considering them just as an occasional annoyance to one day see their community overrun by these creatures, even being known by their cowardice kobolds can be surprisingly bold if they have a proper reason.
The Egg
A tribe of kobolds has recently found an egg they believe it to be a gift from their dragon gods. The prophet of the group said it is the champion that will lead their race to the glory and respect they deserve. To please their future champion the tribe has been kidnapping local villagers to sacrifice to their dragon gods. That leaves a good way to pull the adventurers to this plot, they can be attacked by the kobolds or they can witness a kidnap attempt and, hopefully, stop it. Another way to hook the heroes to the plot is to have a friend or relative being kidnapped and someone contacting the heroes to help find them, or they could just stumble on the kobolds when they are exploring some dungeon, cave or ruin. The development of this plot could go to many directions. The adventures could simply find the kobold’s lair and destroy the egg before it hatch, or they could arrive just at the time it is hatching. At this point there is an opportunity to put a twist in the plot. The creature that comes out of the egg could really be the champion that the Kobolds were expecting or it could be something completely different. It could be an egg of an aberrant creature prone to devour everything and everyone, or maybe a demon infused creature, or something funny, terrifying or whatever you would think could create a surprise for the party. The creature could become a recurring enemy in your heroic tier adventures or just a strange creature for your party to fight.
The Scale’s Plague
A small town had a kobold infestation a couple of decades ago and recruited a group of adventurers to wipe the nasty creatures of their surroundings. And they did exactly that, but one of the kobolds survived, and now he wants vengeance. That kobold grew to become an impressive sorcerer and a madman obsessed with finding a way to make the responsible for his tribe doom pay. On his researches he discovered a ritual that would unleash a plague that could kill a human in a couple of weeks, and at this time he decided it was time to repay the assassins of his kin. He convinced a small group of kobolds from the tribe he had joined to go back with him to execute his plan. The small town has reported the first cases just recently and a few have already died. Their skin turns to scales slowly until they almost look like reptilian humanoids before they die. The heroes can become involved when they discover one of their relatives or friends becomes infected or they arrive at the town and see many places in quarantine and corpses stacking somewhere while people runs to them asking for help. If investigated they discover that the first ones to appear with the plague were the copper miners (the mine is near the kobolds lair and was there that the kobolds unleashed the plague). The mine has been abandoned because the people believe it to be from where the plague came. Once the adventurers decided to go there they see it has been taken by kobolds and they are not happy to see the heroes. Fighting their way through the kobold’s lair they discover that the Sorcerer that unleashed the plague has fallen victim to his on trick. He has contracted the plague as others kobolds that have already died, he was hiding their corpses so the tribe, that now considers him a hero, would not find out. Here the kobold sorcerer could supplicate for the PCs help or he could refuse to and accept to die for his vengeance to be fulfilled. The PCs can search his possessions and discover where he found the ritual to create the plague and try to find a way to cure it and purify the mines, this could lead to a skill challenge or to a whole new adventure.
The Dark Kobold
A few years ago a strange kobold was born. He had utterly dark scales and lidless eyes, although he could see without a problem. Some considered it a bad omen from the dragon gods, but other saw in him a sign of power. He developed great skills as a priest of the dragon gods and dark magic. That’s when the tribe split in two, one following the now charismatic dark priest and the other saying he was tinkering with powers that should not be dealt with. The dark priest’s group decided to leave the tribe and start a new one, the kobold promised to his followers that they all would become powerful and he is, and they would be known as the “Dark Kobolds”. They seized a ruin near a small town to their own and began the preparatives to their ascension as the powerful kobolds they would become. They started capturing townsfolk to sacrifice during the ritual of their ascension. The heroes could get involved by being attacked by the kidnappers, by seeing an attack, by having a loved one kidnapped, by desperate townsfolk asking for help or even by the elders of the tribe that saw the dark kobold as a bad omen. He discovered what the dark priest is trying to do, and what he really is, a shadow entity trapped in a kobolds body, he is not trying to make the kobolds more powerful, but only himself. He will use the life energy of them and their prisoners to make him free and transform him in a creature of great powers. Will the heroes save the kobolds or just the prisoners?
In the Sewers
In a small city, a group of kobolds lives in the sewers. They have learned to live without drawing attention from the people above them, they survive on cultivated fungus and rejects, insects and rats on the sewers, only occasionally stealing something from a storehouse or other building on the city above. But that changed a few days ago. A small group of evil gnomes discovered about the kobolds and decided to play a lethal prank. They would kill people of the city and blame it on the kobolds. They used illusions to appear as kobolds to assassin people of the city and ran to the sewers before disappearing. The city then started a witch hunt against the kobolds, who are entirely unaware of this. At first if attacked the kobolds will be completely unprepared, but they will get ready for attacks once they realized they are being hunted down. Their lair is rigged with traps (as any kobold lair) and they will defend it as much as they can. If confronted about the murders they swear they did not do it. In fact they will say they saw other creatures in the sewers and might help the heroes find the gnomes who killed the victims. Or, if the players are just in for a hack and slash the gnomes could go free unharmed and decide to play other pranks on the players in future adventurers.
Seeking for Power
A powerful sorcerer found a tribe of kobolds and convinced them that he was an envoy of their dragon gods. The sorcerer is in fact looking for an ancient object he believes to be on the ruins beneath a city. He moves the kobolds in through the sewers and they begin searching for where it could be. One night the adventurers see a band of kobolds getting out of a building carrying some kind of parchment looking excited, the kobolds see them too, and freeze. If a combat starts the heroes might collect half of a map. The city guards know that the kobolds are looking for something, they just don’t know what. The heroes might try to follow the map to where it leads and the kobolds would try to steal the map from them, or maybe the adventure turns into a race to see which group gets to the object first (the half of the map the adventurers got has one of the entrances to the ruins the object is located but the kobolds have the other half with another entrance). The ruins where the object is held could be filled with traps, undeads, constructs, aberrant creatures or anything you want to throw on them. The kobolds might get there first or right at the same time as the adventurers, or maybe even a third group got there first before everyone and now has the possession of the item. The object could be a tome with powerful rituals, a magic item, or a key to some other place. Alternatively it could all be a set up by an ancient trapped evil who just wanted unwitting creatures to free him, and now the heroes and the kobolds might have to ally to defeat it.
Running from the Caves
Recently kobolds have been raiding farms, caravans and storehouses around a town more often than usual. The raids rarely have any dead victims, the kobolds just take what they want and leave. When confronted the kobolds become violent, but at the same time they seem strangely scared. The tribe is actually fleeing from the caves they lived in and taking everything they can to survive the hunt for another lair, they’ve lost many tribe’s member and supplies. Their miners dig too deep and released a terrible monster from its prison. The heroes might witness one of the kobolds raid and realize that they are acting strangely. They might be asked by the townsfolk to get rid of the kobolds and once they find their old lair discover it taken by some nasty creatures and corpses of kobolds everywhere. Seeing the heroes in combat might even make some desperate kobold ask for their help. The creature in their lair might be one of a kind or just the beginning of an upcoming invasion.
Tribes War
A small town is caught up in the middle of a war between goblins and kobolds. Both groups have recently been raiding the town for supplies since they are run low on food. Each side has a reason for the conflict and might ask for the help of the PCs if they realize they could be a serious threat. The kobolds say they are just defending their territory, there were there first and the goblins are going to attack the humans after they are done with the kobolds. The goblins, on the other hand, say they have been hunting down the kobolds because they stole something from their king, and they want it back. The kobolds in fact have stolen a scepter from the goblin’s king and they believe it to be a magic scepter capable of transforming them in dragons, they just didn’t figure out how yet. The PCs may witness a confrontation between the two races or a raid in the town. One of their loved ones may have been killed in one of those races, or one of the groups might propose a deal with the characters to eliminate the other.
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