Zarban

Come up with better ways to give players adventure hooks than a bulletin board with wanted posters like in a cowboy movie.

Scatter these around your map and even around various areas in a city. It will make the places seem vibrant and alive.

1. Gauldron’s Map

Among the documents recovered in treasure hoard is a vellum map of a strange place–now in ruins–that reveals the location of a secret vault. The dungeon under Cappice Keep, where the Scriven Sorcerers once met, seems a dangerous place. But perhaps this map prepared by the sorceress Gauldron Darksigil will tempt bold adventurers.

The map has information more pertinent to the sorcerers than to looters, but the hint about the secret vault and cryptic clue about how to access it should be enough.

2. Maccenna The Storyteller

A popular figure in a local tavern is Maccenna, a hearty older woman with many tales of her bardic adventures in wilderness and foreign ports. She still keeps her ear to the ground for interesting tales brought back by others.

In exchange for the heroes’ own tales of their exploits, she will share one of her own that suggests there is a treasure to be had, a mystery to be solved, or a menace to be slain in some dark corner of the shire.

3. Golyer the Potion-brewer

Golyer is a pleasant dwarven brewer of strange concoctions–more medicines than magical potions, to be sure–but is always in need of some strange plant or exotic creature’s body part. Rumor has it he’s been known to purchase a magical item of other sorts as well, and that he offers them to lords and nobles who secretly seek his more exotic wares.

Golyer will only be interested in minor enchanted items. Powerful items are too valuable–and therefore dangerous–for him to deal in. He’s more interested in monster body parts and is willing to pay.

4. Henrik the Bailiff

Henrik runs a clean operation and always seems to know what’s happening all over the city, whether it’s building construction or trouble with trade. He has the ear of the baron, the sheriff, and the judge, as well as the aldermen on the city council and can regularly be found surveying shipping activity at the docks.

Henrik knows a rumor or two about jobs adventurers could do, such as escorting a trade caravan on a dangerous route, finding a missing trader and his wagon full of rich goods, or taking care of some troublesome ogre or troll for a reward by the merchants guild.

5. The Whispering Pools

Hidden deep in the enchanted Fae Arbor woodlands fraught with danger, are certain dark, still pools. As a blue moon‘s light reflects upon them, the pools unveil secrets in soft whispers, revealing the destined path to those who listen with open hearts. What treasures like within the earth; what dangers lurk in ruined places; and what knowledge beyond that of mortal men awaits discovery in strange lands may all be revealed.

The whispers of the pools are often cryptic and sometimes taunting. The pools will ask what the heroes seek and can magically divine where it can be had. But the answers may be disappointing, as powerful magic items are usually in the possession of powerful NPCs–some of them heroic and pure of heart and others too powerful and influential to confront or else deep in very dangerous pits of chaos.

6. The Monster of Thrayun

Deep in the ruins of the old fortress of the knightly Order of Thrayun is a strange, misshapen creature who promises knowledge in exchange for a certain treasure: the Seal of Ansara. Go and bring back what it wants, and it will tell you where to find the thing you seek.

It has a name: Glissara, for it was once Dame Glissara, fallen champion of the order, cursed to dwell here as a monster–and not to reveal herself–until the Seal of Ansara was returned to its rightful place in the fortress of Thrayun. But released, she will transform into her beautiful original form before, at last, dying.

7. The Diadem of Olghin

This diadem of the sage-king of antiquity is set with an enchanted stone that gives the wearer insight into past times and visions of past events. The apparitions of lost eras are both illuminating and dizzying, and wearing the diadem soon leaves the user weak, confused, and prone to hallucination. But the knowledge gained can be invaluable: locations of fallen fortresses, secrets of hidden hoards, passwords and clues to antique mysteries…. perhaps even enough to draw a crude map.

8. Hepsilar’s Tome of Mysteries

This century-old leather-bound book contains insights and lore about the locations of certain treasures left behind by folk fleeing catastrophes, about the creatures lurking in the depths of cavernous pits, and about the arcane and puzzling protections that guard lost items of power.

This one tome might point the way to a dozen treasures and mysteries, but the descriptions are sketchy and sometimes obscured by a riddle, cipher, or antique language, as Hepsilar was loath to reveal secrets to the impetuous or unserious. Also, all information found should be checked with a living sage, as some of the secrets (1 on a d6) have since been revealed by others and the treasures recovered.

9. Douglaff the Sage

Douglaff is a thoughtful, if eccentric, halfling scholar of myth and magic with black hair and piercing blue eyes. He answers the heroes’ questions about their recent treasure finds but then props up his slippers and mentions an idea they might pursue based on something he came across in his research….

A vintage librum of lore and tradition talks of fine goods and furnishings in a ship called the White Gullwing. Twice a year, with the lowest tides, a wreck by that name lies uncovered on the sand below a cliff not far from the city harbor. It was always thought to be an ordinary trader of little account to warrant the peril inherent in reaching and exploring it, but its name is the same as the rich ship in the lore….

10. Crocolis the Ill-Favored

A dwarf born with dwarfism, Crocolis is a tiny, scheming wretch who nevertheless has risen to head a syndicate of thieves and spies. On some chance occasion, the heroes overhear him talk to his cronies of pursuing a particular treasure thought to lie in dangerous place not so far away.

Overcome with greed and overloud with drink, he orders his fellow blackguards to ready provisions and arms to set out in seven days, all the while waving about a map or document or other clue he says is all they need to claim glory.

11. Suchal the Royal Pursuivant

Suchal Dinfana is an official of the Royal College of Arms. He seeks a particular item on behalf of the king himself which the heroes may have encountered on a previous adventure. His questions are sharp and specific.

When the heroes’ answers suggest they have not encountered the unnamed object, the official will suggest that pursuing the answers to his questions might bring them great favor and reward with the king. He will not say exactly what the object is or why it is important, but it must have something to do with the work of the Royal College of Arms.

12. Averbert’s Traveling Company

Isomart Averbert is a round-faced cleric of the heroes’ own religion who approaches the heroes with a proposal: they combine forces to confront the old peril that has plagued this vicinity for too long.

Perhaps it is a pair of bulettes or an infestation of undead. Regardless, Isomart’s adventurers will pursue one strategy while the heroes pursue another, hoping to meet in the middle. The ATC has a good reputation and only fair intentions, but there is surely some variable no one has taken into account.

13. A Public Cry for Heroes

A town crier makes a formal announcement of a prize for the return of a relic or artifact to the city’s cathedral. The arch-bishop has authorized the local bishop to offer such a prize to any who recover the item. It is believed the item lies in a ruins not far from the city, the exact location of which is generally known to locals but rarely visited due to the perils it harbors.

The bishop can provide a map of the place as it once was, altho the accuracy cannot be guaranteed, as changes may have been made between the creation of the map and the site’s destruction. At least two other companies of adventurers show interest, the Marvallian Mercenaries and Galdor’s Gallant Fellows.