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Hello everyone,

This week's article is on adventure hooks. I've been writing an adventure using this method off and on for the past couple of weeks. Not that it's the first time I've used it, of course :P

What works best for you? When you go to the drawing board for plot twists to throw at your players, how do you "draw?" Or if you're a player, what was the most memorable adventure hook you've ever gotten? How did your character take to it?

The best adventure hook any of my characters has gotten is probably the martyr-save-the-world type. I'll elaborate.

In a home-brew system my character was an elf-like creature with a propensity toward nature and protecting it. While adventuring with some other characters he had dreams in which animate dead were speaking with him, but whenever he woke up he couldn't talk about the dreams. Eventually they not only encountered him in dreams but crossed over into 'reality' and the party had to fight an undead brute.

Eventually he got really concerned about the party (undead were tough in this game). Someone among the undead approached him and said they were going to come and kill the entire party if he didn't surrender a relic he possessed. The only other choice he had was to become an undead himself. Sacrificing everything he believed in, he decided to take the offer to not only save the party but also learn about them (through himself) and use their own might against them. Even if it meant that in order to destroy every last one he'd eventually have to be destroyed, himself.

This was... Five or so years ago. Definitely a memorable plot twist.