Ahhh the News. Second only to the mighty Wikipedia when it comes to being the Best RPG Supplement ever. There’s usually at least one story from the News Channels which would make a great kick-off point for a role-playing scenario. Today the ever-loving BBC has provided us with not one, but three!
In “Viking hoard reveals its story” we have one awesome photo of a real honest-to-betsy Treasure Parcel tied up with a story of the first King of all Britain, fleeing monarchy and the shifting fortunes of religion. C’mon – what GM couldn’t make a scenario out of that?!
Then there’s “King’s letter reveals epic voyage” which discloses a previously unknown merchant-explorer of the New World, William Weston, from 1499. The article includes this snippet:
This never happened and the letter might have been lost forever had it not been for a bizarre request by Dr Ruddock in her will to destroy all of her research notes.
I smell Cthulhu mythos at the turn of the century and mysteries about the founding of America best left untold! Oh yeah.
Finally, there’s “Australia discovers new dinosaur” – and who doesn’t love a new dinosaur story. Best of all, it features dinos called Matilda, Clancy, Banjo and Zac thereby proving that Aussie Archaeologists all graduated from the Walt Disney School of Archeology. And more power them!
So, I throw open the floor; which of those three news stories could you pick up and run with as a GM. And what would you do? Bonus points will be awarded for linking all three together………..
For a D&D scenario:
In a typical dungeon delve, the party disocvers a strange thing: altars and holy symbols of Kord and an hence-unknown god of peace named Petrus are next to each other. After some investigation in the nearby town, the two discover that there were some missionaries from a far off land who tried to convert the people to Petrus some time ago. They considered Kord to be a heathen for supporting battle and wanted to convert to the god of peace and pacisfism.
But something happened to those clerics and the people don’t seem to want to talk about them. In fact, they’re embarrassed to find that the party found the connection. But an old man who used to be a servant in the court reveals that he overheard the king talking about trying to find out where the Clerics came from and to find out if their nation might be a military threat. He doesn’t know what came of that or why the clerics disappeared.
The new king doesn’t know anything about this and has no clue why anybody would bother pursuing old “legends” (as these stories of the clerics have become), but the court historian pulls them aside afterwards and shows them a letter from the old king about how he commissioned an exploring party of adventurers to travel to the lands of the West where the clerics came from. There is no reference to their return.
When the party travels to the lands (first by sailing a great deal), they discover untamed lands. Surely the clerics of Petrus couldn’t have come from here, could they? There are primitive tribes who might help, but their main concern is to survive the giant lizards (i.e. dinosaurs) who are constantly attacking their villages.
And from there, you can take it in whatever direction you want. Perhaps these primitive tribes are the refugees of a great kingdom attacked by dinosaurs. Perhaps the great kingdom is still there under siege fro these terrible beings. Maybe the Clerics deliberately deceived the King and his people and didn’t actually come from Western lands. Or maybe the clerics *are* the dinosaurs and were looking for new grounds for invasion and didn’t want Kord to get in the way, so they tried to the people to Petrus who doesn’t exist or is too much of a pacifist to get involved. Possibilities abound!
Excellent! You win a no-prize!