The acolyte (Shadowdark), or priest acolyte (5e), is “a religious trainee who knows basic rites and rituals.” In Shadowdark, the acolyte can cast healing touch as a DC 11 wisdom spell. The priest acolyte has more spells to choose from in 5e, including radiant flame, light, and thaumaturgy at will. Once per day, the priest can cast either bless, healing word, or sanctuary.
In Shadowdark, an acolyte is lawful, while they are neutral in 5e. These seeds try to stick with that, though the first encounter seed envisions combat with something beyond acolytes, and the acolytes largely acting as support. This would obviously only be appropriate in specific circumstances. The rest of the seeds do not need to involve direct combat with the acolytes.
Encounter Seed: The characters find themselves in combat in a holy room with four acolytes, one at each corner, and some more serious foe in the middle of the room. Each acolyte’s prayer has a different effect. The one in the northwestern corner slows the party. The one in the northeastern corner heals the more serious foe each round. The one in the southwestern corner causes a blinding mist. The one in the southeastern corner causes the characters to save against fear. [Note: The creature in the middle and the actual mechanical effects of the acolytes’ prayers are flexible and can be adjusted to different rulesets.]
Encounter Seed: Two acolytes of different religions (or different orders of the same religion) get into a loud argument of faith on the street, drawing onlookers who think they might come to blows.
Encounter Seed: Three acolytes are searching for a holy relic rumored to be somewhere in a dungeon. They are wrong. Someone moved the relic many years ago, but the acolytes do not know this. If they come across the party, they want to know if the party saw it. They are not hostile, but they are desperate.
Adventure Seed: An acolyte of a local religion fears that the head priest of the order has poisoned worshippers during ceremonies. He does not know how or why, but he intends to investigate.
Adventure Seed: Three acolytes who worship the deity of truth have been tasked with delivering an important letter to a nearby kingdom. One of the acolytes reads the letter and realizes that delivering it is likely to lead to war. Failing to deliver it might get them ejected from the faith. The acolytes debate about their next steps.
Ridiculous Adventure Seed: An acolyte of the god of knowledge was tasked with cleaning part of the holy library. He “borrowed” a scroll from within the library that was intended to animate the broom and dustmop and make them do the cleaning while he read. Unfortunately, the spell went awry. Now, the library is dealing with an intelligent mop with a messiah complex.
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This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ legalcode.