.101 Planar Adventure Ideas

By Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Colin McComb, and Ray Vallese

We say that the planes are full of possibilities. To celebrate this month's print release of the new planar sourcebook Beyond Countless Doorways, we decided to put our money where our mouths are. So here are 101 adventure hooks to jump-start your planar campaign. Some are stand-alone ideas, while others work with the planes of Beyond Countless Doorways.

1. Adventurers find a key that opens a planar portal in mid-air; once the door is opened, the Ten Courts of Hell have an entrance to the plane. Adventurers try to close the door (see "Ten Courts of Hell").

2. A civilized lizardfolk visits with a polite request for mammalian slaves to display in a circus (see "Lizard Kingdoms")

3. A band of planar mercenaries is recruiting new members from various planes.

4. A visiting planar scholar follows locals around taking notes on "native behavior". He won't leave and becomes incorporeal when threatened.

5. A plague of planar refugees arrives and creates a tent city in a local town.

6. An aasimar paladin or champion of light visits and demands that someone help him banish demons from a temple in the Nexus (see "Nexus").

7. A sailor of the Ethereal Sea is washed up in an inn. He is pursued by vengeful cultists for theft of a sacred idol of solid emerald.

8. Locals are stalked by planar cat people who haunt the night, stealing food, mounts, and treasure.

9. A recruiter for a successful privateer needs a druid or weather wizard for a raid; he does not mention that the ship is a flying boat on another plane (see "Uomo").

10. A flying pirate ship slips through a planar portal and crash lands (see "Venomheart").

11. A group of pilgrims seeks help getting to Mother Ocean (see "Uomo").

12. A group of evil psionicists approaches local mercenaries asking for help destroying a party of pilgrims to Mother Ocean (see "Uomo").

13. A talking horse claims to be from another plane, and that it can carry riders across planar boundaries. In fact, it is a trap, a shapeshifting yamado (see "The Ten Courts of Hell").

14. A hell judge wants to retire and sends a letter to a mortal for help (see "The Ten Courts of Hell").

15. A wizard's experiment goes horribly wrong, releasing elemental spirits and fiery salamanders throughout the land. To gather them up, someone must find or make a spirit bottle.

16. A trogolodyte planar merchant arrives with exotic metal goods and tall tales. He might be willing to hire some guards, cheap (see "Lizard Kingsdoms").

17. The inhabitant of a prison plane has escaped.

18. A rare planar conjunction is near, and adventurers from many planes are gathering at the Nexus to jump through a portal (see "Nexus").

19. A formian hive needs a new translator, as their old one has died. They kidnap someone from another plane and begin training him in their language.

20. A bottle washes up on the shore. Inside, a tiny figure moves and gestures for help. If released, it is a djinni lord who seeks to corrupt all those around himself -- and offers to take its rescuers with it to its elemental homeland.

21. A wayward meteor shivers Carrigmoor's dome (Carrigmoor).

22. A caravan is lost in the Underlands.

23. A group of mages called the Isolationists has been attempting to sever planar connections. What effect will this have?

24. Rumors of wars on peaceful planes come just as others spread rumors of peace on war-torn planes.

25. The dead have begun to walk in the land of Spring. (see "Faraenyl")

26. A mischievous mage opens a shifting portal to the various elemental planes, bringing floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and firestorms to the world.

27. Planar gates begin redirecting spontaneously -- even permanent links have gone awry.

28. Priests stop receiving communications from good-aligned deities. Has the plane been cut off from communication with the heavens?

29. An assassin has begun moving through parallel worlds, eliminating a powerful ruler in each, attempting to bring them all in line with a single, grand vision (see "Through the Looking Glass").

30. A god puts aside its divinity for a day -- and is promptly kidnapped.

31. A representative of the Ten Courts comes to Faraenyl to discuss a mutually satisfactory bargain with Winter. (see "Faraenyl", "Ten Courts of Hell").

32. Hide and Seek: Time freezes on a plane, except for a few select inhabitants -- and their enemies.

33. A plain-looking weapon surfaces, but suddenly the possessors are the focus of a planes-wide manhunt.

34. Cave-ins occur in the Underlands as a buried, sleeping creature wakes!

35. A world built on the tomb of an imprisoned archdevil slides toward Hell as the fiendish lord begins to break free.

36. A child priest, rumored to be an avatar of a god, slips away from the temple and beseeches anyone for help.

37. A mote of chaos escapes a laboratory in a city of perfect order; confusion (and hilarity) result.

38. A nation of good-aligned living dead comes under attack from an army of priests.

39. An elder being inadvertently opens an alien gate on a rural hamlet. Someone must close it without drawing the alien beasts' attention.

40. A demon is attempting to redirect the gate from Chaos to his home plane, so that the world will fall under demonic control. (see "Mountains of the Five Winds").

41. Local villagers kidnapped by grahlus slavers (see "Yragon").

42. Newly active volcano opens a planar rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire.

43. Mysterious gem that serves as keystone to emperor's tomb is actually an object of great power on their plane, say planar travelers.

44. Lawful good benevolent planar travelers are marooned on your plane; unfortunately for them, they look just like bugbears.

45. A local prince is tried in the Ten Courts of Hell and sentenced to the Hungry Prison (see "Ten Courts of Hell").

46. Only cure to plague ravishing the countryside is a plant that grows on Curnorost (see "Realm of Dead Angels").

47. Planar traveler returns from Kin-Li'in -- or is it actually his shadow-form creature (see "Burning Shadows of Kin-Li'in")?

48. Trio of quasits arrives on your campaign world as scouts for a potential invasion, but the right argument can convince them to recommend the demon army go elsewhere.

49. Hound archon appears and aids nearby town in time of peril but then requires heroes to accompany it to another plane in return.

50. Planar gate opens up and out pours a steady gout of water from the Elemental Plane of Water -- right inside the local lord's castle.

51. Interplanar merchant needs guards for a trip through a dangerous series conjunction (see page 15).

52. Plane-traveling showman appears, willing to pay huge sums for dangerous beasts for interplanar circus.

53. Sleep pirates appear to steal sleep from local lord's family (see "Venomheart").

54. The last line of an important prophecy can be found only in a specific tome in a library on a faraway plane.

55. Local wizard needs a party to obtain a rare spell from an arcane hermit on another plane.

56. Planar travelers arrive in a mining town seeking guides through the caverns to something called the Underlands.

57. A swarm of giant insects arrives to plague a town, followed closely by a flock of giant birds to eat them. What's next?

58. Well-known sorcerer's outsider patron wants her to come to his plane to serve in his court, but she doesn't want to go.

59. Planar traveler leaves a package at a local inn, saying someone will be along to pick it up. The package turns out to be an egg, which hatches before anyone comes to claim it.

60. Succubus in disguise introduces a new drug from another plane to locals.

61. Dormant bioleche contraptions suddenly start working again (see "Palpatur").

62. A swallowed legion of baatezu emerges from the groundflesh and assaults nearby cromungi (see "Palpatur").

63. A cromungus seemingly gains sentience and issues frightening prophecies (see "Palpatur").

64. All forms of weather become more random, wild, and deadly than usual (see "Palpatur").

65. Tiefling tribes choose sides in a brewing holy war over matters of faith (see "Palpatur").

66. The sentient plane finally awakens but now is demented and murderous (see "Palpatur").

67. The formians try to cover up the recent death of their queen so as not to embolden the aranea (see "Dendri").

68. Slaadi arrive through a crater lake portal to fight the formians in the name of chaos (see "Dendri").

69. Aranea elders seek an alliance with offworld driders who worship a spider queen god (see "Dendri").

70. Disgruntled shrubgoblins begin to turn against their formian masters (see "Dendri").

71. The formians finally invade the Murk (see "Dendri").

72. Treants throw a hive-city into chaos by animating its pronewood buildings (see "Dendri").

73. A half-human, half-lizard creature gains followers by calling for peace among the races (see "The Lizard Kingdoms").

74. The Second Court is thrown into turmoil when its Yama King goes missing (see "The Ten Courts of Hell").

75. A planar traveler converts to the worship of Mother Ocean and is compelled to found a new monastery (see "Ouno").

76. The town's "village idiot" discovers the hidden entrance to Prince Mazzarut's castle (see "The Maze").

77. Spontaneous alterations strike residents of the five cities (see "Mountains of the Five Winds").

78. The Summer King discovers the underground Grand Cycle of the Seasons, but he refuses to sacrifice himself afterward (see "Faraenyl").

79. House Cavendish plies mercenaries with mind-altering substances to get them to discover the secret documents of the Door Openers' Guild (see "Carrigmoor").

80. In a parallel world, sleepers can dream things into reality (see "Through the Looking Glass").

81. A purveyor of dichotomy championing the cause of cold is trying to gain a foothold in your plane, which has attracted a horde of fire creatures to battle his minions.

82. A child who is clearly planetouched arrives in town claiming to be the son (or daughter) of a leading citizen.

83. A "Planar Express" delivery courier is being chased by foes who mortally wound him before he can deliver his message. With his dying breath he asks some adventurers to bring it to their king to stave off interplanar war.

84. A planar conjunction causes strange weather on two different worlds.

85. A traveler from another plane asks for some guides to show him around as he gathers material for the book he is writing.

86. A strange being from another plane arrives in a local town and no one can speak its language. Furthermore, it seems immune to any spells that might help translate. It seems to have something urgent to say, however.

87. A purveyor of elemental air appears, seeking recruits to help her on this plane -- but would the plane really be better off if she gained control?

88. An earthquake frees a demon long held prisoner within a magical prison, and now it seeks vengeance.

89. An inmate in an asylum insists that the strange voices he hears actually belong to ethereal creatures only he can hear.

90. A craftsman of legendary repute is looking for help getting to the site of a forge needed to create his latest treasure. Unfortunately, the site is on an elemental plane of fire.

91. Angels come to the mortal world seeking volunteers to help them retrieve a stolen item from a plane from which their kind is eternally prohibited by a powerful spell.

92. A powerful lord goes to a parallel world and hires his enemies' parallel counterparts to hunt and slay them (see Through the Looking Glass).

93. A magical sending goes awry and the message goes to the wrong plane.

94. A golem guarding a powerful treasure is accidentally caught halfway through a planar portal. Now half the construct is on one plane, and half on another. It can still move around and take actions -- but only with half its body.

95. An entire temple disappears, stolen away by raiders on another plane using a magical device that rips chunks of other planes into theirs.

96. A paladin seeking atonement for a misdeed must travel into a hellish plane but seeks help finding a way to get there.

97. All contact (including the use of spells like summon monster) between one plane and all other planes ceases.

98. The king's champion, who has never lost a challenge, is rumored to actually be a devil in disguise.

99. A child, missing for over 30 years, reappears the at same age she was when she left, claiming to have been trapped in a dimension where time has no meaning.

100. Items made from a new, virtually magic-proof stone being to appear in the hands of various locals. Rumors of a merchant from another plane abound.

101. Strange music begins to spread throughout an entire plane, the source of which is a complete mystery.

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