24 Campaign and Adventure Hooks

The following is a list of hooks that you can use to set the stage at the start of a campaign. It is a living document that shall be expanded as I develop new ideas.

1. You have all been separately hired by a local noble as bodyguards for an event. Enjoy the event and the inevitable attempt at his life.
1. The event isn't quite what you expected.
1. They're summoning a demon through ritual sacrifice!
2. They're perverse, hedonistic monsters!
3. It's a child's birthday party!
4. It's a violent/illicit sporting event!
2. The noble is not what they seem.
1. They're the villain!
2. They're an infant.
3. They're a purse dog.
4. They're a polymorphed dragon.
5. They're a succubus/incubus.
3. Someone at the party tries to hire the party to kill the noble.
4. The assassination attempt is a distraction for the real goal.
5. The assassination attempt is a major terrorist attack.
6. They actually try to kidnap the noble.
7. The assassination happens off screen. Now it's a whodunnit!
2. You are all passengers aboard a ship sailing to a major port city to seek your fortunes. Three guesses how smoothly the ride goes!!
1. Storm. Put them in any crazy place you like.
2. Pirates attack! Arr!
3. Mutiny! Oh no!
4. Sea monster!
5. The ship you're on? Yeah. They're pirates. Now you are too.
6. Your country is at war... and you've attracted enemy naval attention.
7. You accidentally sail into the plane of water.
8. The players own the boat, the horizon is theirs to own.
3. You have all been mysteriously named the beneficiaries of a stranger noble's estate. You have all replied to the summons to his mansion to hear the reading of the will.
1. The mansion is haunted, you have to spend one night blah blah blah
2. There are direct blood relatives who are furious that they lost their inheritance to a bunch of weirdo strangers.
3. You have inherited his riches- and with it, his problems.
4. None of you know how you got here. You are each inside a crystal glass coffin inside a wizard's laboratory in a dungeon.
1. You are all clones gone wrong. Your evil original twins are out there somewhere!
2. You have been captured and experimented upon. Strange traits manifest.
3. Your escape has destabilized a magic ritual that threatens to end the world!
5. You are all dead. You are meeting for the first time on one of the upper planes before a god of good. You have each been chosen by that god to become its agents on the material plane in a bid to defeat a terrible threat against all of reality. To each of you, regardless of your past alignment, the god offers one thing: a second chance at life.
1. Could be ran immediately after a TPK to start a new campaign in the future.
2. The god that chose you is secretly EEEEVIIIIILLL.
3. Trying to thwart the apocalypse actually kicks it off!
6. Everyone pass your character sheet to the left. You each wake up in each others' bodies.
1. It's a curse!
2. It's an apocalyptic event- it has affected EVERYONE IN EXISTENCE.
3. This is the beginning of a prophecy.
7. You are all in line to become professional adventurers in the Emperor's official Adventurers Guild. After passing your specialized tests, you become officially licensed. The guild bands you each together as an adventuring party and assigns you a dispatcher.
1. The guild is corrupt.
2. The dispatcher is insane.
3. You often wind up in direct conflict with other recurring adventuring parties.
8. You are all in jail together. In-character, tell each other the story of how you got there.
9. A major festival has attracted everyone within 20 miles to the city. Enjoy the totally normal fair at which absolutely nothing mysterious, surprising, or violent will occur.
1. Something mysterious, surprising, or violent happens! Duh!
10. You've all been captured as slaves. Now what?
1. The slavers are planning to sell you.
2. The slavers put you to work.
3. The slavers need you as sacrifices. Or maybe food.
4. Someone comes to break you free!
11. You are all contestants at a gladiatorial arena. Maybe you want to be. Maybe you're forced to be. One way or another, you are.
1. You have to fight as a group against increasingly deadly odds!
2. Oh no, you have to fight as individuals and might even face each other!
12. You're all in a bar. Something unexpected happens. Yawn.
13. You all wake up naked in a single bed together, heads throbbing with a hangover, with no recollection of last night.
14. You are working together as adventurers for hire. You are standing before the job board together.
15. You are all new members of a travelling circus show. What is your performance?
16. You are currently employed as caravan guards.
17. The fate method: Write a 3 sentence story about your most formative event. Pass it to the left. Write a sentence about how you were involved in this other person's story. Write a 3 sentence story about your background. Pass it to the left. Write a sentence about how you were involved in this person's story. Finally, write a 3 sentence story about your class history. Pass it to a random person who hasn't written in your story yet. Write a single sentence about how you were involved in this person's story. Everyone hand your stories to the DM. DM, make a story.
18. You are all in a dungeon room that you have worked together to barricade. A monster is slowly smashing the door open.
19. You were all trained by the same master-mentor long ago. His funeral is your reunion.
20. You are not ordinary people. Through magical experimentation, special talents are unlocked. Your dedicated school of adventuring trained you in your class. You are professional monster hunters. They call you wit- adventurers.
21. The last thing you remember, you were playing Dungeons & Dragons with your friends in some spare time. Now you find yourself awakening, early morning, around a campfire at the base of a great oak tree. Your body isn't the one you remember, and you are surrounded by strange people who are also just waking up.
22. You all have a shared dream which reveals itself to be a prophecy of some terrible catastrophe that only you can thwart! Now you must find each other!
23. You are each in serious debt to a local crime boss. You've been kidnapped and brought before him in his lair. You are to pay back your combined debts by doing him one simple favor...
24. You have joined the army. You are put together as a squad of cadets in boot camp.
1. The country goes to war! Boot camp's over early, pansies!
2. It's a violent version of Harry Potter.
3. You get stationed at a border camp and deal with crazy threats!