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Need a bunch of Eberron adventure ideas, and need them fast? Looking for the perfect hook to your campaign's next chapter, but don't have the seconds to commit to reading an entire paragraph of text? Well don't blink, frantic DM, because today's long-on-variety, short-on-attention-span edition of Steal This Hook! is about to turn on the juice. Sit back and let the Eberron one-liners flow: Today's theme is mini-hook madness. Enjoy.
1. A scandal in the Eldeen Gatekeeper community involving a half-burnt, bark-bound tome requires a consultation with the greatpine Oalian.
2. Prince Ryger of Lhazaar hires the PCs to investigate the mysterious mist of the Gray Tide, which the prince's advisors believe may be a manifest zone of an unknown plane.
3. A loremaster's research seems to indicate that one of the PCs plays a crucial role in the draconic Prophecy.
4. A black-striped clawfoot dinosaur recently ate a halfling patrolman -- along with his unique and important bejeweled key.
5. A patron offers this advice to a PC in need of moral guidance: Travel to the Seven Caves in Darguun, avoid the goblinoids and wyverns, and meditate among the swirling dragonmarks of the caves until an omen appears.
6. The Breland crown sponsors a fencing and archery tournament with the hidden agenda of rooting out a famous thief.
7. A changeling is unjustly burned at the stake in a Thrane village, sparking a revolt of a surprising number of changeling residents.
8. A mysterious cult of chaos-worshipers conspires to destroy an ancient dimensional seal in the Shadow Marches, threatening to unlock a manifest zone tied to the chaotic plane of Kythri.
9. An avalanche uncovers the ruins of a dead civilization of giants in Frostfell -- and awakens their elemental minions.
10. The PCs receive information that a disguised rakshasa will attend the coronation ceremony of a prince in Aundair.
11. The bones of a lich come up at auction in Sharn, and a shadowy agent hires the PCs to bid on his organization's behalf -- but the agent is found dead after they win the remains, and many factions turn their eyes to the heroes.
12. One of the PCs finds out that her heritage links her to the family of a pre-Galifar king, and that only one rival duke stands between her and a fortune in lands and title.
13. The Marguul league of bugbear tribes sends a force of guerrilla warriors to threaten towns in eastern Zilargo -- but a scholar in Zalanberg suspects their efforts are meant only to distract from a more serious threat to come.
14. A well-disguised warforged serial killer lurks somewhere in bustling Korranberg.
15. After a House Kundarak noble is found with a blade slipped between his ribs, a dwarven banker's union in Korunda Gate blames House Sivis and vows revenge.
16. A Last War historical society discovers that a thirty-year-old mission undertaken by Breland troops came back missing a vital wartime artifact.
17. Unknown to the heroes, powerful forces including agents of the Chamber, the Aurum, and King Kaius conspire to get the party on board an ill-fated ship to Xen'drik.
18. A woman needs help getting her cat down out of the branches of a treant.
19. The captain of a small town's constabulary needs help locating the artificer who must be behind a rash of attacks and thefts perpetrated in the town by wordless homunculi.
20. A beholder's minions, posing as the assistants of a Sharn artificer, hire the party to locate components for a horrific eldritch device.
21. Morgrave University has contracts with the PCs and another party of adventurers to recover a cherished relic from a Q'barra ruin -- the race is on, and the winner gets an even bigger contract.
22. The City Watch is hiring anyone who can catch gangs of airborne gladiators who fight over Sharn's rooftops on flying carpets and spider eaters.
23. A squad of thieves uses circles of sound (Eberron Campaign Setting, page 271) to coordinate an especially well-orchestrated hit-and-run mugging on the heroes, making off with a cherished magic weapon.
24. When three of the Church of the Silver Flame faithful go missing on separate pilgrimages to Flamekeep, a fourth pilgrim hires the PCs to protect him on his journey.
25. A Karrnath businessman has purchased a tract of farmland believed to be haunted, and he is hiring brave souls to investigate; he doesn't tell them that he knows most of the ghosts personally.
26. A case of mistaken identity lands one of the PCs in deep trouble with the Karrnath authorities; a changeling or doppelganger may be responsible for the mix-up.
27. An elven couple goes missing near the entrance of a dungeon infested with living spells.
28. A Gatekeeper initiate summons the heroes to the Shadow Marches to investigate a mining operation that is channeling dragonshards to an unknown partner.
29. A PC discovers that a lost relic belonging to her family is on sale at a New Cyre marketplace, and the party traces it back to Ikar the Black's unscrupulous salvage gang (Eberron Campaign Setting, page 189).
30. The PCs receive word that a medusa assassin has stowed away on board an airship on its way to Sharn.
31. A shifter child begins seeing visions and speaking in an unknown tongue after nearby trees and crops become stricken with a mysterious withering disease.
32. The heroes track a rogue's associates to Festering Holt in the Demon Wastes and discover an underground slave trade stealing humanoids from Eldeen.
33. A legend of a woodland witch who grants wishes kindles interest in one area of the Eldeen Reaches.
34. A cabal of worshipers of the Mockery infiltrate a mountain outpost in the Mror Holds, then betray and conquer it, sending mock communiqués to a second, nearby outpost.
35. The PCs are hired to uncover a smuggling ring led by a greedy mind flayer and to locate a precious locket belonging to Zil royalty.
36. A warforged with silver tracery (Races of Eberron, page 120) seeks adventurers to help him defeat an unusually well-equipped pack of werewolves.
37. Ancient orc cave markings indicate the coming of an astrological event that may awaken a slumbering evil.
38. An undying councilor awakens from its plane-roaming slumber with prophetic knowledge about a lost vault where several couatls are imprisoned.
39. An apparently sincere rakshasa approaches the PCs, claiming the need for redemption for his past deeds.
40. The heroes chase a symbiont-grafted miscreant across Breland, Thrane, and into the decayless wilds of the Mournland, hoping to learn the dark secret only he knows.
41. A blackguard constructs a massive chessboard in his lair, and then he collects prisoners from Thrane to act as his living chess pieces.
42. The signet ring of a House Deneith warmaiden has become possessed by a fiend (Eberron Campaign Setting, page 100) who is intent on discovering secrets of the Defenders Guild.
43. The adventurers must foil a Dreaming Dark plot to destroy the enchantments that hold aloft the floating towers of Arcanix.
44. An artificer needs protection for his shipment of soarwood over a dangerous mountain pass.
45. A bard appears out of thin air, wounded and haggard, in the center of a small town, claiming to have been transported from a brutal land full of vicious monsters; he asks for help before he is transported back again.
46. A cultist of Vol secretly charms a Sharn street-gang leader, changing the gang's agenda from vandalism and petty theft to one of kidnapping and secret blood rituals.
47. The heroes need information from fire giant Gorodan Ashlord (Eberron Campaign Setting, page 166) before they can begin a relic-hunting expedition to Xen'drik.
48. The party is aboard a lightning rail train that whizzes by its first stop; they realize the braking mechanism has been sabotaged and that entering the next station at that speed will cause a deadly crash.
49. An adept who does missionary work in the dangerous Mournland sends a letter professing his capture by the Lord of Blades.
50. Three divisive brothers choose different faiths -- one the Church of the Silver Flame, one the Order of the Emerald Claw, one the Cult of the Dragon Below -- and each causes turmoil among his peers by plotting to convert the others.
About the Author
Doug Beyer spent a lot of time getting philosophy degrees until he figured out that he should just move to Seattle and become a web developer for Wizards of the Coast. Now he spends his days working on games and his evenings playing them. Doug uses the time normally allotted for sleeping to lurk on the Wizards.com message boards as his alter ego, WotC_Doog.
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