I’m going to guess that I am the only person who has seen Infected Rain perform in four different countries, but they’ve been awesome in every one of them. The cool titles (and lyrics) help. This seed was inspired by the lyrics of the song Postmortem. It’s part 2, for whatever reason.
A pair of twins, one missing her right eye, approaches the characters. They look at one of the characters and say, “All those things you have don’t belong to you.”
Germinate
Next, we are going to germinate the seed with secrets. Some of these secrets might contradict each other. They do not all have to be used. Rather, they are to give a GM some ideas to work with. Anything highlighted in brackets is fair game to change…then again, it’s all fair game to change because you’re the GM.
- The twins are speaking to the party’s rogue and pointing to something that the rogue has kept hidden.
- The twins point to a magical weapon or other magic item previously acquired by the party.
- One of the twins exposes a tattoo that matches a unique feature of an item possessed by a party member.
- The twins continue to warn of a curse if the party does not put [treasure; a magic item; a book] back where they got it from.
- The twins then disappear only to leave behind a cackling voice.
- A party member realizes [now; later] that an item in their possession has gone missing.
- The twins offer to buy an item from the party at a price that seems too good to be true.
- The twins have already alerted city guards that they have been the victims of a theft, describing the party and some item that is in the party’s possession.
- A cloud of [dust; smoke; glitter; powder] surrounds the twins and the party.
Grow
This seed is built like a typical social encounter. The twins approach the party and have their say. The party responds. The GM should consider who the twins are in case combat ensues. The twins could be easily beaten or put up an unexpected challenge, depending on the approach of the GM. If others, such as the town guard, join the fray, things could get interesting.
A one-shot idea is to treat this as a fetch quest in reverse. The party acquired an item from a magic shop, but the twins convince them that the item needs to make its way back to where it came from in a dungeon not far from the town.
For an adventure within a larger quest, consider the twins somehow taking the item from the party or having the guards do the dirty work for them. The party could spend several sessions following leads figuring out who the twins are, what they want with the item, and where they went with it. Or the party could attempt to prove their innocence with the guards.
While this might be difficult to expand to a full campaign, it’s possible that the item that does not “belong” to the character has great significance.