(A mini plot, since your players will not follow the main one, that you can use to guide your players to follow the main one)
Poly-wrath
Description: The party antagonised/had a fight with/stole from an NPC, unfortunately for them, that NPC is not a god or the BBEG (those are common things for Adventurers), no that NPC is actually in a polyamorous relationship with A LOT of people, who all treat the NPC like a teddy bear, and when they hear how the players treated their favourite teddy bear, they will be sure to make them regret it.
Functionality: Maybe not all the partners are adventurers/warriors, so the majority of them will not directly attack the players (or maybe the NPC asked them not to and they reluctantly promised). Put them as the tavern’s owner, so the players will either prohibited to enter or would find their stay very uncomfortable (keep it fun tho, it needs to hurt the character not the player); or maybe one of them is a wagon driver and takes the players for a low price ( “A discount for the pretty lady” or “Because you’re a lot I’ll give you a discount” but in this last case be sure to give the players a chance to someone who doesn’t want to give them the discount and to someone who wants, aka the NPC’s partner) but instead of taking them where they wanted they “lost the way” or maybe leaves the party there after having sent camp for the night (maybe also giving the players only a short rest if you make that the Wagon driver offers to do the first round of guarding to “take care of the horses in the meantime”)
Inspiration: this meme of @retrogamingblog2 that my bf sent me ⬇️
Duck Of Inspiration
Description: An apparently normal duck, occasionally it glows of a very faint yellow light.
Functionality: Give to all the players in a 10ft, that are in good terms with the duck, the possibility to use +1 to +5 inspiration per long rest. A player can use +5 all in one roll, or two players can use +2 and then +3.
BUT
If someone uses the inspiration of the duck they will not be able to use it until the next long rest. If someone uses the inspiration point that the DM gave them and that sums up to more than a +1 inspiration used, they will be unable to use the Duck until the next long rest.
To be in good terms with the duck you need to feed it, play with it, take care of her, NEVER call her “Quack”, “Goose”, “Silly Goose”, “Duck”, “Chicken” or “Bird” and NEVER say to her to shut up or act angrily towards her if she quacks.
If you do one of those things, you roll a d20
15-20: the Duck will look at you angrily, quack loudly while glowing and you will be feeling uneasy for a minute
10-14: the Duck will quack, looking at you seriously while glowing of a faint orange, you’ll be unable to speak for a minute. If you have any inspiration points, you lose 1 of them
5-9: the Duck will quack quietly, looking at you with disdain while glowing orange, you’ll be blinded and mute for a minute. If you have any, you’ll lose 2 inspiration points.
2-4: the Duck looks at you in silence and glows red, you’ll be paralysed for a minute, uneasy for 5 minutes and take 3d4 of psychic damage. You’ll lose all your inspiration points given to you but the DM
1: the Duck eyes turn white, its feathers vibrate while turning of a pitch black, it opens its wings and beak, looking directly into your eyes. The duck glows purple, everything around you seems to tremble like in an earthquake and then you start vomiting blood losing 20 pure damage, you look at the Duck and for a second it seems to have horns and sharpened teeth inside it’s beak, what seems like blood comes down like tears from its eyes. Then everything turns black, and the next thing you realise after opening your eyes, is that you’ve been transformed into a duck (a chicken, if you’ve called her “Chicken”). No other players have seen past the black aura that surrounded the Duck and you while everything happened. Everyone need to roll an Intelligence roll (>5 to succeed) to understand that the Duck polymorphed you into a Duck/Chicken. You lose all your inspiration points and stay polymorphed for 2 hours or until the next rest. You can understand other Ducks while in this form, except The Duck.
Rolling lower than a 12 will make you unable to use the Duck again (don’t say it to your player until it tries to, to make it funnier) because you’ll be in bad terms with the Duck.
Say sorry to the Duck and take care of her and it will accept your apologies and after your next rest you’ll be able to use the Duck again.
Speak with animals will not work (and any other spell that need its target to be an animal) but will give you the faint sensation that you should make this Duck friend and follow you, for your own good.
P.S. Yes, The Duck is an eldritch abomination. If you want it can become a patron, but don’t make it that it’s a Dark creature polymorphed or trapped in the body of a Duck… make it that the Duck is its normal form.
Inspiration: The Duck above… wait I’ve gained inspiration from the duck of inspiration to make the duck of inspiration… it’s Duckception
Saw a post like this with negative outlook so I asked for it to be fixed
Description: A magic scroll that can store a spell of the owner’s choice (or can be changed once per king rest) that buffs the spell stored but debuffs all the similar ones that the owner casts (not counting those casted using items).
Functionality: Once per long rest the player chooses a spell to store in the scroll or decide if they’ll change the already stored spell or keep it. The spell stored gains a +(3+X) dices that the player can split into:
Damage roll
To hit roll
Other rolls
The X stands for the types of damage that the spell deals/protect/affects in any way. The addition of the 3+X dices can be done only after having rolled that, example:
Matt rolls to hit (4) so spends one of the (3+1) dices but fail again. Nothing happens anymore.
Liz rolls to hit (22) but still fails so she spends two of her (3+2) dices going up to 36, that hits. She then rolls for damage, doing a total of 25 fire damage and 15 necrotic damage. But since she has still 3 dices and REALLY wants the monster dead, she uses her 3 dices again, more on the fire damage because those are d8 while the necrotic uses d12, rolling 8 and 5 on the additional fire damage and 11 on the necrotic damage killing the beast.
In the next turn (or encounter) the player who has the scroll still has the maximum (3+X) dices, until the spell slots run out, the scroll will work.
BUT
If the stored spell deals fire damage, all the other fire damage-dealing spells (not magic items) will receive disadvantage in the damage rolls
This happens to all the types of damage that the stored spell deals.
That means that Matt’s psychic spell, even if it didn’t landed, and Liz fire/necrotic spell are the only ones that deal a noticeable amount of those types of damage.
If the spell doesn’t deal any damage nor affects any type of damage in particular the spell will be rejected by the scroll.
If the spell heals, it can be used. Use +(1+Z) where Z is the number of targets (you count too, even if it’s only a self spell, so the minimum is +2). But gives disadvantage to all the other healing spells.
Inspiration: the meme above (this is an old draft, I didn’t know yet that links were easier and I’ve already wrote too much to change it) thanks @catchymemes ❤️
Knock Knock it’s COMMUNISM. BITCHES.
Description: You (players) sad (capitalism) so you (players) spread happiness (communism)
Tip: Make one character the DnD version of fucking Karl Marx, it doesn’t matter the class or the race but make them a philosopher/writer that’s working on writing a book about their ideals, and during the campaign they could cite some passages (the player has to read the book)
Functionality: If the player reading the book (so Karl Marx) bought the actual Das Kapital they have disadvantage on all rolls involving the book, if they have it by some “other” ways they add a d8 to the rolls.
If the player doesn’t have Das Kapital, but another player does and they give it to the player, they will have advantage on the rolls involving the book.
Tip2: You could make that, one time for long/short rest, if the DnD Marx’s player uses the book the player who gave it to them will receive either 1 inspiration point or 2d12 Temporary HitPoints, or other shiny looking stuff
Characters:
Karl Marx (Mage, y’know, using the book for two uses? Paladin, finally the communist one?)
an ex underpaid server of an inn that quit to join them (very nice if the race of the character is one of the hated ones, or even better if they’re a half tiefling half elf, doubling the racism, to add a little bit of flavour to their backstory and to the setting) (class? Either Monk or Rogue. I mean, someone who gets attacked everyday for their race? 99% of the time that shit results into being able to punch back)
An ex knight who saw how corrupted the monarchy is and it’s tired of it (additional points if it’s the big bear of the group, tall, muscled and hairy and always ready to take a hit for Karl Marx) they are the first two of the group and known each other for a long time (maybe Karl was the mage of the king?)
A Druid who was stuck in their dog-cat-animal form/someone who was cursed to be polymorphed into a dog for the last 15 years, now that the witch who cursed them has been killed they are free but unable to afford anything because for all this time they obviously didn’t had a job, and their family thinks that they died long ago so they would never believe them to be the same person (maybe also because mow they have some dog-cat-animal facial traits? Not too weird but enough to not recognise your own child) and so they have no money, and were forced to live on the streets begging for some food and money.
Tip3: Maybe now they are Shifters (the race), or Tabaxi or they still randomly transform into that animal (roll a d100 every turn of combat and after doing something that the DM or them thinks is important, on a 10 (up to 30) or lower they transform into the animal they were polymorphed for 3d8 minutes (the d100 still needs to be rolled while they’re an animal, and if they roll a “turning into the animal” number, they roll the 3d8 again and add that to the total). Also they should be able to know the language of the animal that they were since they spent 15 years as one.
An artificer who is a genius but since their inventions are not enough “profitable” or “gives too much to the poor” and “damage the economy” as some rich ass bastards always say before scrapping the idea of founding their creations. They are sick of this and just want to create things to make life better for everyone, who cares about economy and money? They sure don’t!
A warlock who once was a healer in a temple, Ka’rl revealed them (since they couldn’t leave the temple for religious purposes) that those who couldn’t afford to be healed were left to die and that they healed only those who paid an invent price before even simply entering the temple. Due to the shock, they not only lost any faith in their cause (their religion didn’t involve a God or at least not an existing one) but their anger caught the attention of a Celestial Being with whom they made a pact with to make this nonsense stop. (Maybe make that the Celestial Being proved to have the power to do so by healing everyone in the entire city, since the warlock from now on should be filled with trust issues)
An earth genasi/elf ranger, that witnessed the exploitation of natural resources by the ruling class, that hurt not only the lower class but also animals and other creatures. They now seeks to reclaim the land for the people and help Ka’rl establish a society where nature and its resources are shared equally.
A Robin Hood parody, but who steals stuff instead of money (like food and other goods) because they were the accountant of a Duke and now how to fuck up economy (double points if they become best friend with the artificer and use their inventions to steal more stuff)
Inspiration: this (sad) meme ⬇️
Thanks to @guerrillatech (and to @wizard-kisser that always reblog good materials that I feed my brain with and doesn’t even know)
12ft Magic ladder
Description: A magic 12ft ladder that you can make appear from thin air when facing a 10ft or higher wall.
Functionality: You can roll a number of d4 equal to your level to make the ladder higher.
Inspiration: this meme ⬇️
Cozy
Description: For 6 turns, you make your target feel like they are in their bed with a hot blanket around them, making them feel so cozy that they don’t want to move or do anything that could make that feeling disappear.
Functionality: If your enemy fails a Constitution saving throw they lose half of their movement speed and have disadvantage to all their attacks or actions that require moving (ex: spells with a Somatic component) and will have to roll 1d20 to see if they feel like doing it (ex: before drinking a health potion). If somebody uses a sleep spell against that same target they’ll have disadvantage on the saving throw required to escape from it.
Inspiration: It’s me, I’m cozy.
God’s Plan
Plot: The party finds a quest to kill a God, that in the quest is described as useless and incapable, and as reward they could obtain the God’s powers and title (the quest is enchanted in a way that only those that have a non-Evil alignment can read it)
They found the God, VERY quickly and slowly realise that the deity is the one who wrote the quest, after falling in a deep depression due to the lack of followers. The party’s new objective will be to be the therapists of the God while spreading their name and doing good deeds in their honour, becoming the God’s first paladins after a long time of loneliness.
Inspiration: The meme above (thanks @jodetesuciaperra)