Random encounters / events lead to interesting situations

[bluesguy]

Looking for some advice, I need to provide some context first:

 

Sometimes I like to run a single session that is purely a series of 'random' events/encounters.  I wrote 'random' because I do use a tool to generate the random events/encounters and then I collect up the best ones and put them in a list.  Based on what the characters do will drive what happens.  That is what happened on Sunday. 

 

The party is traveling up a river towards the frontier.  Along the way they encountered a huge thunderstorm and a F5 tornado (Random).  The captain of the boat (PC) has luck so no one hurt and boat survived intact.  The next day they encountered a fog and they noticed animals where fleeing the fog (Random).  That night they encountered another boat and that crew had captured a bird which had a few feathers that were neon blue in color (Random).  Sitting around the campfire a couple of the players realize there was a falling star that hit in the area 50 or 75 years ago.  Two characters are very curious so they use skills to take a guess where the falling star probably hit.  They headed off in that direction.  Along they way they noticed more and more animals, plants and the very ground turned to the color of neon blue.  The lucky character and good skill rolls got them close enough to see an unusual land formation in the form of a mesa (Random).  They climbed up and found a weird biosphere and a bunch of blue stones.  All the plants were blue in color. One of the players accidentally bumped his arm against a plant and spores from the plant sprayed his arm and his arm turned blue.  

 

At this point the mage determined the blue stones have alteration magic associated with it.

 

Ok so here where I need advice:

• The party took about 30 lbs of stones with them.
• The stones are in fact magic.
• I really haven't decided what can be done with the stones

 

Here are a few things I have thought about:

• Stones (prepared/ground up) and put into a liquid can be used to color anything neon blue.  Permanently or temporary...
• Stones combined with other magic can be used to alter an item to contain the magic that was cast on the item.  In my campaign world there is only one group of mages who can create magic items by working with other mages.  The blue stones bypass the need for the mage who creates magic items.
• Stones add some kind of power when added to a an item
• Stones do nothing

 

Thank you

[death tribble]

I would not go with option 4 unless the players get greedy or stupid.

The second or third options are probably the best once a lot of study has been done.

The main thing is turning things blue. Whatever else happens this is what sticks out and may stop it being overused. So you have a weapon which gives you extra power but it turns the user blue which is why most people won't touch it. There can be a society who hates that colour or some sort of beast that hunts those with that colour.

That is what comes to mind. A beacon to hunters/monsters for those who are blue. That is because I am a meanie.  

[Duke Bushido]

I love option 2 as the start to a really long story arc.  Imagine the troubles, offers, and assassination attempts when word leaks out that the players have the only known means of defeating the current monopoly on magic items-- both from prospective clients and from those looking to preserve the monopoly. 

 

When I say I love it, though, I mean "l love it for story-driven players."  Combat-centric players will love it as a means to draw many fresh challenges to them, sure, but from a story perspective, it could be lots of fun (and lots of work for you, I'm afraid).   Less-involved players or those looking for a lighter game can enjoy it perhaps as a get-rich quick scheme or a novel way to get attention for a bit before passing the whole problem off on someone else.

 

If your players are more casual or not as in love with playing a really complex story (and there's nothing wrong with that; we all have fun in our own way), then what brings equal pleasure to my mind is option 5:

 

The stones are definitely magic.  They turn thing blue.  Anyone who successfully enchants a stone or uses a stone in an enchantment or magics at all, with a stone,  will now and forever have magic with blue special effects.  Anyone using the stones as jewelry will eventually turn blue.  Temporary, but exposure makes it permanent.  As an odd kick, perhaps being blue adds a luck die or small boon to the person's charismatic appeal (or Comeliness stat, if you're using it), just because that would be odd enough to keep them guessing. 

 

Of course, this leads back to a tie-in to your setting: these are enchanted items.  Only one group of high-hats can enchant items.  Where did these come from?  Is there a second group of enchanters?  Is this the source of power for the current group, who are desperate to conceal that their "enchantment magic" Is little more than common alchemy?  (though that one should run in the background, off and on, throughout the campaign, as such a discovery early on would surely have important ramifications throughout your world!) 

 

Were the explosion and the creation of the stones some kind of magic-gone-wrong experiment on the part of the enchanters?  A clue, perhaps, to their intentions to create mountain-sized golem to do their bidding?  Perhaps the stones are blue because the enchanters have leached some sort of life force out of them, and the stone's only "magic" is some sort of spiritual void that must be filled--perhaps everything that they turn blue has in fact been drained of a tiny bit of spiritual energy so some natural balance can be preserved.  It seems enchanting objects has an ugly, secret down side. 

 

Sorry.  I really enjoy potential story hooks. 

 

But you can also stick with "yep.  They magically turn things blue.  Period.". If that works for you. 

 

 

For what it's worth, I've nearly sworn off random events.  (I haven't, but I'm disgusted enough to.). Just had a Hunted show up in the last session, and in the process of resolving it, the players kept ahead about six months worth of game sessions.  All that work and prep--  wasted.  Gah! 

 

Still, I had to let them do it; I was so impressed by what they were doing, it would have been tantamount to punishing them to force it back onto the tracks, ya know? 

 

Anyway, let us know what you decide. 

 

 

[EDITed lightly for the astounding number of typographical errors resulting from not having a proper keyboard.  I'm not entirely my autocorrect even speaks the same language I do]

[Ninja-Bear]

Perhaps they summon Smurfs? Or can cure a certain male issue?

[bluesguy]

@death tribble and @Duke Bushido

 

I love your suggestions.  The players are very role playing and story oriented.  They like complicated plots.   The campaign has an overall campaign arc, this event was just a random event.  Based on some of your suggestions I can see how I can weave this into the main plot line.

 

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

For what it's worth, I've nearly sworn off random events.  (I haven't, but I'm disgusted enough to.). Just had a Hunted show up in the last session, and in the process of resolving it, the players kept ahead about six months worth of game sessions.  All that work and prep--  wasted.  Gah!

 

I should have been more clear about the random events.  What I do is before a session I will generate a bunch of random events and then pick out some of which are interesting and see what happens.  I use random event sessions for travel between places.  My world is huge and travel time is measured in weeks (and months).  Something needs to happen along the way.

 

I tend to create an overall campaign plot with plot points/places/events/people and I let the players find their way through the campaign.  It is never a straight line.

 

8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Perhaps they summon Smurfs? Or can cure a certain male issue?

No Smurfs (Die Smurfs Die!)... Some of players were part of the group that generated these quotes.  Look at bullets 9 & 10 in the list. 

[Chris Goodwin]

It doesn't just turn them blue.  Turning blue is a side effect of whatever else the stones do...

[bluesguy]

4 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

It doesn't just turn them blue.  Turning blue is a side effect of whatever else the stones do...

Oh I wasn't going to have it turn them blue.  Although some spores from a plant growing in the soil where the rocks were found turned one PCs arm blue. 

 

So yes a side effect of using an item made from the stones should turn the user (or a part of them that comes in contact with the item during use) starts to turn blue..

[mallet]

Is neon blue a color no one in this campaign world has even seen before? 

 

If so, the very fact that these stones can be ground up, mixed with water, and used to turn something neon blue could be worth tons of money. 

 

Very wealthy nobels and priests, etc. would pay a fortune for clothing with colors that no one else in the world has seen or owned before. Could become a major status symbol of the very rich. Just like historically when new fabrics, dyes, etc... made their way to Western Europe for the first time. 

 

Not as adventurous as other possible storylines, but interesting in a non-traditional fantasy role playing way. 

 

Merchants, craftsmen, Nobles, crime groups, etc... trying to steal the stones because of how valuable they are. Probably even worth them trying to kill the PC’s for. 

 

Then if if it is discovered that the dyed clothing is also now magical it would make them even more valuable. Maybe clothing dyed with the stones offer protection vs magic, or alternately boost alteration magic spells? 

 

A secret group of mages who all want to have robes dyed with the blue stones. And are willing to kill to get them. 

[Chris Goodwin]

On 9/6/2018 at 8:27 PM, bluesguy said:

Oh I wasn't going to have it turn them blue.  Although some spores from a plant growing in the soil where the rocks were found turned one PCs arm blue. 

 

So yes a side effect of using an item made from the stones should turn the user (or a part of them that comes in contact with the item during use) starts to turn blue..

 

I was thinking something like magical radiation, with short or long term side effects.  Whatever those side effects are, they aren't necessarily helpful or even benign.  

 

What was the falling star?  "Just" a meteorite, or some kind of entity?  (Or some kind of entity was inside it, either for its own protection, or as a prison of some kind, protecting the world from whatever it is.) 

 

Does the blue magic attract something?  More of whatever potential entity may have been inside the falling star.  Or more falling stars of the same (or a similar, or an opposite) type.  

[bluesguy]

Yes neon blues is a color that people only see in the night sky (the campaign is called Nyonia - The Celestial Jewels) and for all practical purposes a small celestial jewel fell from the sky (see background for the campaign website).

 

Some things I have decided:

• It will take time and effort to figure out the full potential of the stones
• Simple uses include grinding up the stones and mixing the powder with water to make a blue neon dye which will dye just about anything
• It is possible to use the stones (after a lot of time, effort, and expense) to magic items.  A finely crafted item is made with either the blue stone powder mixed in with the base material.  Then a mage takes the time to cast the appropriate spell on the item.  One spell per stone.  After a week of casting the spell (pretty much all day long), the spell is bound to the item.  Probably make the caster roll spell research every day and for every -2 they make their roll by the item gets an additional charge.  In my world items recharge very slowly (1 charge per day).  So if someone wants an item with multiple spells they would probably want to have multiple stones attached/embedded into the item and each stone could have a different spells cast.
• The meteorite is not a living entity.
• The side effect of using such items case a slow change in skin tone until you look like the Beast from the X-Men

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

So far, so awesome!