It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these adventure hook posts, so I thought it might be good time to make another one. These are just the basic starts of plot hooks that you can drop into almost any 1879 campaign, and fill in the gaps yourself to create an adventure. For these particular ones, I’m going to focus mostly on plots that would start in the Gruv. If you missed the previous one, check it out here.
21. The players catch wind of a strange story: Over the course of the past year, several people have gone missing mysteriously in various parts of London. The victims have all been young teens, both male and female, of varying social backgrounds but all having personalities where they tend to keep to themselves. Exactly one day after the anniversary of the first disappearance, a young Soho boy named Charles Baker, an elderly man came wandering into Fort Alice bearing the same name. The resemblance to the disappearance victim was uncanny, albeit with about 60 years of age added, and the man had no recollection of being brought into the Gruv, or anything really about himself other than his name. Since then, three more elders have shown up under similar circumstances, all exactly one day after the anniversary of the disappearance.
22. The players stop for a rest at an inn while passing through a small trading town in the Gruv. The inn is something of a hunting lodge, with the walls and floors adorned with taxidermied trophies of various odd and exotic beasts that have been felled by game hunters. As the players are resting, they hear an ear piercing shriek as one of the heads mounted on the wall is reanimated and screams in pain. Like a wave, more and more of the heads start animating and acting similarly – and the pattern seems to be moving toward a full size mordslanger.
23. A mountain mining community has a set of mines that were abandoned when the rock was determined to be unstable, with their operations having since moved on to other areas. Three days ago, miners reported hearing the voice of a child coming from the mines calling out for help. None of the children in the town have been reported missing. A team has gone in to investigate each day, with none of the members having yet returned. The party is hired by the mine owner to investigate.
24. On their way into a town that the party has never visited before, they find wanted posters displaying their names and likenesses. The posters list their crimes as thievery, arson, and murder, and that they’re wanted dead or alive.
25. While walking through unknown territory, the party are ambushed by a tribe of Saurids, demanding payment for crossing through their lands. Before payment, negotiations, or combat can get under way, however, a Saurid ancestral spirit manifests out of an amulet worn by their leader and stands between the two groups, yelling at the Saurids, “Get your tails out of your ears, you dolts! Don’t you remember the stories? Can’t you see it’s THEM?!” Inexplicably, the spirit is understood by everyone present as if speaking in their native language.
26. A field report from the front lines comes in; one of the forward outposts on the Samsut battle lines had a recent engagement where they were able to drive the Samsut back. While disposing of the dead to prevent them from being raised again, one of the soldiers came across an accidental discovery, where they were able to get one of the heads of the Samsut zombies speaking while they are in close proximity. When they get more than about five yards away, the head goes dormant. The head is speaking in ancient Babylonian, and they can only pick out a few words, but it seems to be responding intelligently to questions and willing to give them intel. The party is hired on as mercenaries to escort a linguist and a mage to the front lines to investigate.
27. The party comes across a battered and beaten military expedition on the side of a rail line. From their report, their train was ambushed by Saurid forces. However, these were different from the usual ambushers; the Saurids used illusion magic to make the engineer believe the rail line was blocked with boulders, and when the train was brought to a halt they used some sort of primitive gas grenades that temporarily paralyzed everyone on board, but apparently would not affect them. They killed 75% of the soldiers and crew outright, with the rest being severely beaten, and all the bodies piled up at the sides of the rails. Most curious of all, they then proceeded to operate the engine and drive it away – no idea where they obtained the know-how to do so or where they might be headed.
28. The party is hired on to provide private security for some tense business negotiations between two rivaling new logging companies in the Gruv, with both sides having agreed to hire them on as a neutral third party. Part way through the negotiations, everyone in the room aside from the party falls dead almost simultaneously – the only initial sign of trauma is that they all have tears of blood coming from their eyes. The players are going to have to figure this one out quick, as both companies are looking at them as the primary suspects for killing their representatives.
29. In the town of Alice, there’s an old machinist who owns what is essentially a junk yard, taking in all sorts of devices that are broken but not quite in bad enough shape to simply be sent to the smelter’s yard, and he tries to assemble them into usable equipment once again. Recently, he’s been reporting items from his stock going missing over the past few weeks. The officials haven’t taken much notice, as he has a history of giving false reports and they suspect he’s starting to go senile. Last night, an enormous amalgamation of various pieces of equipment rose up like a giant automaton, smashed its way through town and made off into the wilderness. The party is hired to investigate and track down who is responsible.
30. The party comes across a small town in the middle of a valley in territory that is heavily infested with shardraqx. Surprisingly, the town is untouched, and none of the citizens have reported so much as a sighting of one within 5 miles of the town. At night, the party hears a mysterious violin playing echoing off of the valley walls, though none of the town’s citizens seem to be able to hear it.