You finish pouring the elf’s blood in a circle in the prescribed way. “Hey Bolgir, are you sure we’re supposed to do it this way? Doesn’t this seem uh…. Somewhat uh… hellish to you?”
Your dwarven wizard pauses and looks at you and says, “Well, honestly yes, but this is what that cooky wizard, Kamere, said when we were at that council meeting. It’s even here on his shopping list he gave us.”
You smile. That parchment did indeed look like a shopping list.
Bolgir steps to the center of the bloody circle and looks toward the arch of uncut stones. He mutters a few words and smacks his hands together. The space under the arch splits as if reality itself were torn. The rift widens and soon you see a large figure step through. They had dark blood red garb trimmed with stark white fur. You hear a tremendous laugh, deep and imposing. You feel a gravity that accompanies those of great power. It’s then that you notice the scenery through the right behind the figure. You expected to see the bright colors of the Feywilds. Instead you see the dark hues of Shadowfell. You then notice the figures eyes glowing blood read.
“Bolgir, I think we’ve made a mistak….”
Instantly you are blasted with a wave of power as the red-clad figure blasts you and your companions and then bounds off towards the village.
You and your companions raise yourselves to your feet.
What would you like to do now?
Welcome back to the 24th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and I’m here to help you craft better stories for yourself and your friends as you DM a session of D&D 5e.
First of all, Merry Christmas! I sincerely hope that this holiday season sees you surrounded by loved ones and filled with joy.
Second, I’d like to invite you sign up for a monthly newsletter I am going be publishing starting in January. The newsletter will include updates from the H2BBDM team as well as bonus content, behind the scenes looks and access to Homebrew content created by me! A little teaser of what you might get this January is access to a new item I created called the Gym Bag. If you want to know what it does, sign up for the newsletter at :https://mailchi.mp/05e568274671/subscription-page
Thirdly, would you like to join a session of D&D with me? I’ll be your DM for a one-shot online. I’ll be looking for five people to sign up for a fun one-shot on a first-come-first-serve basis. How do you sign up you ask? Well sign up for the newsletter and then in January you’ll get the sign up link right to your inbox. I’ll tell you right now, I got a few interested people already so be quick or you lose your chance :)
Now, in honor of this festive season, here are 2 Christmas themed one-shot or side quest ideas for you to celebrate the season.
- The Search for the Prophesied Child
This one shot starts with your adventurers arriving in a foreign port after having been charged by a benevolent mage-king to find and bring special gifts to, a prophesied child of great power. The whole side-quest will take place in a kingdom that is at war with the Kingdom to which the benevolent mage-king belongs, therefore he needs adventurers to go incognito to find the child.
At the foreign port, along with any other tasks the adventurers want to handle, they must first find a guide to take them through the desert to the region that is prophesied as the site of the child’s birth. I would give them a couple options, each with consequences, for example. One group might find a desert guide name Yosran who is a large Dragonborne, but is secretly a spy for the malevolent kingdom. If the group travels with Yosran, there is a large chance that they will be stopped by enemy legionnaires.
The next challenge is for the group to travel through the desert. This will encompass survival checks, random encounters if you want, and possibly even some planned encounters such as fighting a cloud giant.
Finally the group will find the child, and in a true Christmas-3-kings-vibe, will present the gifts to the child and their parents.
The last challenge will be to help the child escape when it is found out that a large army of soldiers has been sent to kill the child. If it’s a one-shot, it might be cool to have the heroes give their lives fighting the army 300-Style so the babe and it’s parents can escape. I would plan another method for escape though because your players may not like that option. Having a diversion and a secret escape where the group only needs to content with a handful of soldiers is a great option too.
The end of the one-shot may feature the heroes returning to the mage-king brining the prophesied child and it’s parents to explore a bright new future, or something like that.
- Full of Christmas Fear
This Christmas one-shot is all about spreading Christmas cheer, until things go really wrong.
The group will start out being summoned by the council of one of the big cities. They appear and the council makes the case that things have been very dreary lately. The council has decided that they need to brighten the city’s spirit. To do this, they have decided to hire the adventuring group to summon a great fey spirit of immense power to bring cheer and joy to the city.
A wizard then gets up and explains how to summon the spirit. The wizard is incredibly old and misremembers many things. He eventually gives the group a list of things and says this is what you need. You also need to travel to a specific place (probably Christmas related) and perform a special ceremony. He then gives the group everything they need except for 2 things on the list. Each item can be harvested by enemies (for example, Hags hair from a hag, Ice Giant’s white hair, etc.). These become the encounters.
The group then makes their way to the ritual location where the enact the ritual. A red rift opens up letting in flurries of whimsical snow. Out steps a large red-clad individual who laughs a deep laugh. The group thinks it’s Santa Claus, that is until they peer past the individual into the realm behind him and see not the Feywild but Shadowfel. The Creature then sends blast of power at the party and then runs.
The group then can reexamine the note and realize that they misread the handwriting for one of the items. They’ve summoned a Shadow Claus instead of Santa Claus.
Now they just find him and destroy him before he possesses the children of a neighboring village.
Well there you have it, 2 Christmas themed one-shots of side-quests.
I hope they help make your season bright and life your spirits.
I want to say thank you for your support this year. Next year I look forward to helping you create ever better stories for you and your D&D sessions.
Don’t forget, if you want to play a one-shot with me, sign up for the newsletter and then use the link in the January Newsletter to sign up to play a one-shot with me.
I look forward to next week but until then, let’s go ahead and roll initiative.
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