Elven Plots
December 21st, 2010
Let me start off by wishing you a warm “Happy Holidays,” and then allow me to welcome you back to Grave Plots. As you know, Christmas is coming up and so we’ve designated this as Elf Week. And so without further ado, let’s get to those elf-themed plots.
Fun uses for elves in your game
Elves are often portrayed as the most fantastic and graceful of creatures in fantastic media and often fill special roles in those outlets. Well D&D adventures are no exception and elves have a few very specific roles that they alone really excel at, in case you’ve been missing out on all the fun you can have with elves in your game here are some handy ideas for making the elves in your game feel like something more than humans with +2 Dex.
1. Elves as sources of information about historical events.
Elves, and to a lesser extent, dwarves and gnomes, live substantially longer than humans do, making them ideal people to talk to about plot important historical events. People often forget that while human records from two hundred years ago may be patchy or outright non-existent, there’s a middle-aged elf out there who lived through such-and-such an event, and can probably tell you all about it. A visit to the one elf in town or to an elven scholar’s tower can be a great opportunity to tell fascinating stories about your campaign world’s past in a flavorful, but not over-the-top manner.
2. Elven outlooks
Again, elves live a long time, and so their outlooks on life can vary greatly, especially for older elves. After all, this might well be the second or third near apocalyptic experience in an elf’s lifetime, which might color how he or she responds to situations facing the PCs in a number of different ways. For instance, the elves might be very wry indeed with adventurers at their doorstep informing them the world is about to end. They might offer the PCs assistance in a very calm, carefree, matter of fact fashion; after all, heroes always seem to step up to solve these kinds of problems. Or they might offer up a great amount of aid and be more willing than others to assist the PCs: just because the rest of the world forgot about the last semi-millennial demon rising doesn’t mean the elves did, and as it was pretty bad last time they will happily tell the PCs all about it. These kinds of elven outlooks can be especially fun for PCs – what’s better than getting the chance to look the evil king of darkness in the eye and tell him that he isn’t half the evil king his grandfather was; or to stare down the abyssal horror from beyond time before calmly explaining to the rest of the group that, compared to the demon lord Uriax that ravaged the world 100 years ago, this thing isn’t so scary. Elven adventurers might see themselves as wardens, constantly vigilant against the many dark times that face the world; whatever the current crisis is, it’s just another day at work for these heroes, and when something is bad enough to get the elves’ hackles up, the rest of the world should know that things are bad – perhaps the worst they’ve ever been.
3. Funeral rites
Elves live a long time (I promise this will be the last time I say that!). In some settings, and in previous editions of D&D, left to their own devices, elves don’t die at all. This being the case, one could imagine that it would be a big deal when an elf does pass from the mortal realm. Thus as a DM looking for something interesting to do with elves, you should give some thoughts to their funeral rites. This should give you a fun chance to express your macabre side with some hauntingly dark and ethereal beauty surrounding a truly remarkable and uncommon event. Feel free to pull out all the stops and get downright poetic; after all these are the vaunted elfkind.
Ok, now really without further ado, here are some ideas for elf-related adventures.
A Night Among the Fair Folk
After a long and tiresome journey, the PCs have arrived at the gates of the wondrous city of Shardunel, inhabited by the greatest of high elven races. The elves of Shardunel open their gates for the PCs and let them inside that grand city for a moon festival. The festivities go on into the night, and while celebrating with the elves a number of attractive elven folk begin flirting with the PCs, using all of their otherworldly grace and charm to seduce them.
What the PCs don’t know is that the elves are hoping to trap them within the city, which carries within it a terrible curse: those who spend one night within its walls are trapped there for all eternity. The elves have no malicious goal, but simply are bored of spending their rather considerable lives without the excitement of new people. The PCs, being the first visitors to Shardunel in some time, have the misfortune of being the elves’ newest victims.
Should the PCs manage to leave Shardunel before daybreak all is well, and they should be able to move on with only a handful of memories about a pleasant stay with the elves. If the PCs were seduced into staying the night, however, they find themselves trapped in a beautiful elf city which has no way out, and to make matters worse, they are stuck with a friendly but horribly unhelpful elven population bent on increasing the length of their captivity. The elves’ chief concern seems to be in keeping the PCs’ minds off finding some way out of the city, offering them excitement, culture, and even love in order to distract them from finding a way out.
If the PCs are not dissuaded from trying to leave, after some months a way mysteriously opens in an unlikely place, leading out and into the streets of another grand elven city. This time, though, it is far from the civilized lands the PCs know and love. Now the PCs’ only obstacle to getting home is finding a way through the wilderness.
The Toymaker
You didn’t think I was going to let you get away without a Christmas-themed adventure did you?
In this plot an elven toymaker – let’s call him Claus – has created a massive stock of toys for delivery to all the children of a treacherous mountain valley. However, the toymaker Claus is not up to making the trek since the arrival of monsters in the valley, and has turned to the PCs for their help in making his deliveries. The PCs must hack through hordes of terrors and fiends of all shapes and sizes, hell-bent on making sure that the valley’s children have a miserable winter. With each successful delivery the PCs are rewarded with the smiles of children and a powerful warm feeling of knowing that they made the world a little brighter.
That’s it for this week’s Grave Plots everyone. I hope to see you all in the new year, and until then I would like to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.