I’m having my hunters join a secret organization, but I want them to have to go through initiation, which partially involves collecting ingredients for the initation, but I’m stumped thinking of ingredients. The campaign takes place in Michigan. Thoughts?
I’m having my hunters join a secret organization, but I want them to have to go through initiation, which partially…
I’m having my hunters join a secret organization, but I want them to have to go through initiation, which partially…
Michigan apparently has cougars. Hunting them is probably no picnic. Some sort of human something-or-other is always good conversation fodder. Or you could just make some mystical stuff. Like a Brownie colony you have to find and raid.
In Norse mythology, Gleipnir (Old Norse “open one”) is the binding that holds the mighty wolf Fenrir (as attested in chapter 34 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning). The Gods had attempted to bind Fenrir twice before with huge chains of metal, but Fenrir was able to break free both times. Therefore, they commissioned the dwarves to forge a chain that was impossible to break. To create a chain to achieve the impossible, the dwarves fashioned the chain out of six supposedly impossible things:
The sound of a cat’s footfall
The beard of a woman
The roots of a mountain
The sinews of a bear
The breath of a fish
The spittle of a bird
Mark Tygart yoooo this is awesome. if i can figure this out and turn it into some kind of riddle that’d be mindblowing.
What are the core values of the secret organization?
Are they the sort of organization that would make initiates raise a puppy and then ask them to kill it to prove their unquestioning loyalty to the cause?
Are they the sort that would ask them to do some despicable act, like slaughter unicorns or something like that, only to have it turn out to have been a morality test?
Are they dark cultists devoted to evil powers who are using their initiates to collect ingredients for a sinister summoning ritual?
Are they like the mean parents who ask their naughty children to go fetch their own switch to be beaten with?
Does the initiation ritual connect them to the supernatural, making them stronger, and more able to detect the supernatural forces, at the risk of their own corruption?
A gear from a never ceasing clock, a fish that never tasted water, A ray of Moonlight, A clap of thunder, A moment of Sadness
just create a list of evocative sounding items, half the fun is the players figuring out what they are and how to find them.
In the first dragon age they had to collect darkspawn blood and drink it to be initiated into the wardens. They weren’t told they had to drink it until after. Something like this could be cool… Items from monsters for a potion? I recall a kids movie that required the tooth of a vampire, among other things. 🙂
perhaps mundane items of historical significance? Someone important’s pen, or pipe. The chair that Alistair Crawly sat in when he wrote a book. Themed to the goals or ideas of the organization. Make it stuff the organization wants or values, so they are using the new hunters for their own ends. Maybe something is not what it seems, or gets them in trouble.