Greetings! Book Gnome here with another odd idea for your role-playing game sessions. I read a lot of strange series and books, many of which might not be as familiar to your adventuring groups you play with. Over the years of running and prepping game sessions I have borrowed bits and pieces of stories to help breathe life into my adventures.
My First entry on this idea was about the Last Unicorn and Legend.
But what other stories can we use as adventure hooks or even entire campaigns. I read a lot of manga, which is helpful since many of the gamers I have played with stay more with the medieval fantasy tropes and stories. Here are some ideas based on a few of my favorites
Ancient Magus bride: a sorcerer or warlock in your group could be new to their powers and while learning how to harness them strange mages appear and try to kidnap them, wanting to use them for an arcane experiment. This could be as simple as seeing wanted posters in a few of the local magic shops for the character or possibly even being tailed by bounty hunters or mages. It can even lead to a longer campaign goal of overthrowing the group doing the experiments or exposing them to the local government.
The original story has the character meeting legendary fey and dragons, folklore and mythological figures, and magical monsters while learning about the world around her. Bad mages come after her but between her and her betrothed’s powers they must save each other and the good monsters around them. Alias would make a good warlock patron for Chise.
Attack on Titan: the dangers of life outside the walls of cities are a normal thing in fantasy settings, but when giant feral titans of giants roam the landscape eating people, it is up to heroes to step in. You can run an entire campaign where the world is overrun by feral giants that are potentially controlled by some outside force, or the way I ran it for a one shot. For my one shot the group was stationed at a frozen outpost where wave after wave of undead giants had been attacking the walls. The group was dispatched to find the necromancer responsible for the attacks and stop them. It was a very short adventure with multiple combats, intimidating magical monsters, and a showdown with an evil knight and his necromancer master.
Attack on Titan resembled many of the fears with zombie movies, but amped up with giant sized threats. With creatures like ogres and giants your world will have dedicated monster hunting teams that regularly are called upon to clear out areas so others can travel safely between lands. Or possible find out an enemy nation could be behind the rise of these monsters and must put them to the sword. The idea of giant walled protecting the last remnants of society is as bleak as it is awesome.
Berserk: Berserk covers many themes that are not appropriate for most game groups, but there are some things to pull for adventures. An up-and-coming group of mercenaries is recruiting warriors, healers, and mages for help in fighting for different lords. Their charismatic leader seems driven to climb higher, no matter the risk involved. This can lead to more warfare style games for the first part of the campaign until a potential betrayal breaks the story into a new phase, where after calamity the survivors pick themselves up and carry on living, now with their own goal of overthrowing their leader they fought so hard for. I love in the manga how the Fantasia Arc had more monsters and magic that the adaptations have not gotten to. Magical Apocalypses are something I need to talk about more but watch for that later. I would stray away from giving a player the ability to become a giant man killing monster as a low-level boon but it would be cool to have them play the long con and betray their party after all their adventures.
Black Butler: a very involved warlock patron protects his charge until their deal can be completed. Things get complicated, very complicated. I have even based one of the major NPC characters in my world in a similar situation, with potential disastrous results. The series does a great job incorporating other monstrous storylines within its chapters, from Zombie Titanic, to werewolves, to a music star cult with a blood type obsession, there is a lot going on that all tracks back to a hidden past. The series does a great job tying everything together, even if it feels unrelated, back to the main plot. I enjoy Ciel bringing his noble background to the forefront of many of his dealings with the threats ever facing him and his battle for revenge.
If your player is playing a warlock or has attachment to the lower planes, or even a noble this is a great series to draw inspiration from. Maybe a fiend saved the warlock and granted them powers to fulfill a plot point important to the fiend. Think of what kind of favors and missions the patron might have for their warlock lackey. Possibly your character is a noble trying to bring their household back from ruin
Black Clover: numerous magical guilds work under the Wizard King to keep the kingdom safe from external and internal threats. Constant threats from neighboring kingdoms blind the guilds to the growing corruption within. Each magic user has a magical Grimoire that they gain their magic from similar to a wizard using a spell book or arcane focus in many of the gaming traditions.
The guilds are a great way of creating rivals for your players characters, gives them a place to recover after adventures, and potentially someone to call for backup when things get a bit out of hand. I enjoy the simplicity of the kingdom names, Clover, Spade, Heart, and Diamond after reading so many series with long complicated names for everything.
As a recap:
We have a few great examples of warlock patrons and goals we can set for both the player as well as the entire party around them. we have an entire warfare campaign we can set up around mercenary bands as well as guilds in your world. We also have a world where giants run rampant eating away at society and groups of warriors that can fight them.
