Today’s Hook: Monster/Magic Item grab bag Talk about getting into your character… On this very special “double sized” episode, the Adventure Hook guys take the premise of using random charts to structure an adventure, and go totally crazy with it to actually create the background of the character that Rob will be playing in the new actual-play 2nd Edition D&D Dark Sun campaign series that Aaron will be running soon… and which will (once again) be created in collaboration with Red Moon Roleplaying! From random encounter charts, to old skool magic item tables… from wild talent lists to simple flips of a coin, the Adventure Hook guys take inspiratiuon from all manner of random material, and weave it together with the anthropological, near-exhaustive Dark Sun source material to shape the details of the brutal background of Rob’s mantis-man telepath PC, the Thri-kreen Psionicist: Mma'ak-qhari of the Kanoko• Pack.  And of course, what character creation for an Aaron game would be complete with first consulting his infamous Dark Secrets table..? Racial memory, past-lives, cycles of reincarnation, and even memories of a hellish afterlife are just a few of the esoteric concepts Aaron and Rob visit as they create this uniquely Dark Sun character… while simultaneously exploring the setting he was born into. Aaron provides listeners with another gazetteer-level dissertation on Athas, the world of Dark Sun, and exuberantly expounds upon the various progressive ideas (climate change, social justice, gender identity, and more) that from its inception were thematically intrinsic to this rather avant-garde little RPG setting from the early 90’s.  Also this time, not only are Aaron’s Star Trek references totally on point, but you’ll get to see how they merge with a Star Wars one Rob makes later to create one super cool concept for a player character indeed (let’s just say we see how the Thri-kreen are kinda like Klingons + Jedi). Anyway, Rob offers up all sorts of interesting fill-in-the-blanks in need of answers to round his mantis-man’s background out, but for those truly “in the know” fans of the setting, the guys also answer perhaps the most burning question of all… Has Mma’ak ever tasted elf flesh? Plus!: Enjoy listening to the guys as they continually struggle to pronounce the word “chatkcha”…   LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon)  Red Moon Roleplaying (two-time ENnie winner for best actual-play podcast) Dark Sun Boxed Set (2e) (on DriveThruRPG) Thri-Kreen of Athas (2e) (on DriveThruRPG) The Art of Gerald Brom (Official Webpage) IGN’s Best Comic Book Series of the Year (on IGN.com) John Constantine: Hellblazer (2019-) #1 of 12  (on Kindle & comiXology) Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA) (Aaron & Rob’s alma mater) Mad Max: Fury Road (on Amazon) Clovis Culture (on Wikipedia) To Baator & Back (Adventure Hook’s collaboration with Red Moon Roleplaying) Cania – the 8th level of the Nine Hells… actually (on the Forgotten Realms wiki) Dungeon Master’s Guide (2e) (on DriveThruRPG) Sven-Ole Thorsen (on Wikipedia) Episode 2: An Item Coveted By All (on Patreon) Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Adventure Meme Ominous Intro 8-Bit Dungeon Boss Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode!   Also you can use the hashtag #Critfail to instead give us your worst ideas which will occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! And please consider supporting Adventure Hook on Patreon where you can gain access to our entire back catalog of episodes and special releases! Blackspire RPG Campaign (Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Adventure Hook

Ep 45: Born Under a Dark Sun - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: A new power enhancing (instantly level 20 for a minute) drug has made its way into the streets and is causing people to rampage and then drop dead...(Rhys Brown on Facebook) Talk about having drug problems… On this very special Halloween episode, the Adventure Hook guys endeavor to make your darkest dreams of running a game based on horror movie tropes into a waking nightmare by enlisting the aid of horror GM extraordinaire Mattiaz Fredricksson (of the Red Moon Roleplaying podcast) to bring his particularly dark imagination fully to bear upon this creepiest of RPG hooks… And it should come as little surprise that things almost immediately take a turn towards the Cthulhu Mythos! From a secure military installation working on a secret project to harness the powers of “The Color” (Out of Space?) to an MK Ultra style program utilizing a variation of Dr. Herbert West’s eerie supernatural drug which transform its users into invincible undead slasher maniacs and sets them on a rampaging kill-spree massacre… there is nowhere you can run to… nowhere to hide from all the varied (and vicious) scenarios your co-hosts and their special guest manage to conjure up for you… again and again! And like many horror stories (and most Lovecraftian ones) there’s no guarantee you’ll survive this night of horrors all the way to the end… certainly not before the greatest mystery of them all is solved: What’s inside Area 52?!!! Plus!: Rob give a quick dissertation on the mysterious concepts surrounding the mystically fatal Climaxtus drug created by the Aeonuian people of the Reliquum setting. Banter Topic: to kick this show off, the Adventure Hook guys welcome Mattiaz Fredricksson by talking a bit of shop about all things gaming related (but of course, especially Lovecraft) before diving into this episode’s super spooky hook… LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon) Red Moon Roleplaying (two-time ENnie winner for best actual-play podcast) Descent into Avernus (on Amazon) KULT: Divinty Lost (on Amazon) Scion: Demigod (on Kickstarter) Call of Cthulhu (Swedish translation) KULT, an Echo of the Past (the Jim Morison episode) Project MK Ultra (on Wikipedia) Operation Paperclip (on Wikipedia) Halloween III (on Amazon) Hack/Slash comic by Tim Seeley (on Amazon) Delta Green (on DriveThru RPG) Reanimator (on Amazon) Call of Cthulhu 7e (on DriveThru RPG) The Monsters are Due on Maple Street - Twilight Zone Episode (on Netflix) Night of the Comet (on Amazon) Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead (on Amazon) Super 8 (on Amazon) Jacob’s Ladder (on Amazon) Universal Soldier (on Amazon) Stranger Things (on Netflix) The Color Out of Space (on Amazon) Edward Scissorhands (on Amazon) Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Supernatural 8-Bit Dungeon Level Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode! Also you can use the hashtag #Critfail to instead give us your worst ideas which will occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! And please consider supporting Adventure Hook on Patreon where you can gain access to our entire back catalog of episodes and special releases! Blackspire RPG Campaign (Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Episode 44: The Power Enhancing Drug (aka: “The United States of Cthulhu”) - Adventure Hook

A long hiatus and there's reason to believe Maybe this season will be better than the last I can't remember the last hook that you read as you were leavin' Now the shows go by so fast.   Yes, Rob and I had to take quite a hiatus this years.  But we're back and ready to get back down to business! Story business!

Episode 43: We’re Back! - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: An amateur wizard experimenting with planar travel in his house inadvertently damages the boundaries between planes, causing various other planes to begin intruding into our own. (Craig A. Butler). Talk about having boundary issues… This episode, the Adventure Hook guys take a number of different approaches when brainstorming up various explorations for this classic conundrum of the fantasy world… that is, pesky invading entities from other dimensions! But… who is truly invading who? From the City of Sigil, the 16 Gate Towns of the Outlands, and the weirdest spot in the Astral Plane imaginable, to the Rivers of the Dead, the Mists of Ravenloft, and (naturally) all the way to the Miskatonic Valley of Massachusetts… there is no realm in all the multiverse immune to the visitations of your co-hosts’ imaginations! Rob looks to Golemoro’s Mansion and the Cult of the Machine God from his Blackspire homebrew setting to draw inspiration for a “Macrocosm Manor”… a home whose attic may stretch into Heaven, but whose basement may lead all the way to Hell… and denizens of both places may find themselves in other rooms where they surely do not belong...  And later he imagines a Planescape version of the Homo Signorum for the Dungeons and Dragons universe, and the whats (and whos) of its “true” composition might just make all the whys in your mind shatter to bits like so many false idols… Meanwhile Aaron puts his own powerful faith into various products of the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu Mythos(which spreads like a pandemic throughout the show), and ultimately results in him leaning heavily into possibly his most pervasive pop culture reference to date! And no… it’s not Star Trek (though there’s that too), for this time his inspiration is something even more mind-boggling… possibly one of the schlockiest B-movie horror films ever made… But you’ll just have to listen for yourself to get to the good stuff..! Plus… the guys give an insightful dissertation on their conceptualizations of the Secret Math, and Rob lets slip a major secret of the Blackspire world..! Banter Topic: to kick this show off, the Adventure Hook guys first have lots to share concerning Vampire the Masquerade, not the least of which are the two of them reminiscing about their college days spent playing games set in a World of Darkness version of the city of Baltimore.  Aaron talks about his new #vtm cover work before sharing his game-changing advice for online gaming to help Rob prepare for some upcoming sessions he plans to run for Blackspire. They also discuss how gaming in the age of Coronavirus totally doesn’t have to be limited to just RPGs, and they float a few other options you may wish to consider, including a game that Rob’s wife Jenny recently invented that you can easily play with your other quarantined friends (totally free) called Mixtape ©! And while it turns out that sometimes it’s just better to actually socialize with your gaming buddies rather than just play a game together, this episode Adventure Hook still attempts to bridge the gap of social distance by teasing a new opportunity that’s being offering solely to Patreon supporters… a chance to game online together with the Adventure Hook guys! Visit:  ***TBD:  Adventure Hook Calls You to Adventure… with Us! on Patreon for details! HASHTAGS #vampire #vampirethemasquerade #vtm #worldofdarkness #vamily #mixtape #alonetogether #thestuff #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeons #dnd5e #podcast #dndpodcast #podernfamily #rpg #roleplaying #roleplayinggame #dndcharacter #rpgs #rpggames #tabletop #tabletopgames #tabletopgaming #tabletopgame #ttrpg #gaming #Combopod #gamer #gamers #ravenloft #pathfinder  #planescape #d20 #fantasy #dungeonmaster #DM #GM #gamemaster #FirstTimeDM #FirstTimeGM #Cthulhu #callofcthulhu #Lovecraft #Lovecraftian #GeekCulture #PopCulture #hellblazer #storytelling #worldbuilding #rpgmaker #RPGHook #writingforgames #amwriting #plot #plot...

Adventure Hook Ep 42: Planar Intrusions - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: The party awakens from a dream that starts coming true, but everyone’s dream ended differently. (Game Hook #403 by Critical Dice on Instagram) What’s that? Rob finally starts winning initiative again and we suddenly get treated to yetanotherepisode about dreams? Who knew restoring the Rightful Order to the Universe would carry such consequences..? Or bring forth such a treasure of a #newadventurehook! For not only did the Adventure Hook guys have this über-interesting idea to work with, but this episode sports a number of firsts, included the first really-and-truly start-to-finish fleshed out beats of a complete adventure… as well as featuring the brand new resource it was created with… Introducing: “The Plot Device”! And this episode the guys use its skeleton of a mind-map in all sorts of different ways… from the simple beats of an old skool Five-Room Dungeon, to plotting out an epic adventure of various storylines all running parallel, or even imagining multiple possible timelines and how they might conflict (or overlap), this simple flow-chart-of-choice may be just the mandala to inspire (and help flesh out) your next sci-fi game, existential human drama, or interactive RPG bedtime story..! For this episode relied heavily on speculative science fiction to imagine up a number of First Contact scenarios, and an alien invitation for Humanity to join an intergalactic federation that might just be a little too good to be true… especially for certain psychic player characters… Is mankind now suddenly rocketing into a futuristic utopia… or an impending genocide? Or more chillingly… could it somehow be headed towards both at the same time..? From your favorite traditional tabletop system, to a simple story-based game of 100 Plot Points, Rob shows how anyone can use the game mechanic of the Prisoner’s Dilemma to navigate players through the various choices framed by the Plot Device… and which can also terminate “prematurely” for those who wind up choosing martyrdom (or villainy)… while Aaron reviews some of the more interesting mechanics worth considering from the Numenera RPG system, particularly the use of the clever “GM Intrusion” to reveal either a Danger, Boon, or Secret (all in a dream of course) from any of the beats of the Device. Plus..! This episode Aaron fails his saving throw against Storytelling Juice and finally admits his deep love of making pop-culture references (really leaning into it this show)… which again naturally includes his profound fondness of all things Star Trek! Bonus XP if you can count the number of times kool-aid gets mentioned… Banter Topic: at the behest of Adventure Hook’s newest Patreon supporter, this episode the guys revisit the 5-Room Dungeon idea imagined by JohnnFour (of roleplayingtips.com) they’d explored back in Season 1… and this time really expand on it by showing how this concept also parallels a number of other very important storytelling ideas… including the beats of an action sequence from a screenwriter’s perspective, the Cambellian Hero’s Journey, and even a slice from the Zodiac itself! All this in the valiant pursuit of actually creating a much, much more concise storyline this time around… (I know, I know) but regardless of how it all started, this coupled with the episode’s Hook (plus the need for a certain ten year old’s bedtime lights-out to come at a reasonable hour) was what actually inspired the entire Plot Device resource in the first place… and by the time you’ve finished listening to the episode you too may have your own rewarding ideas of how best to bring out the “role” in your players’ roleplaying… HASHTAGS #plotdevice #5RoomDungeon #bedtimestory #bedtimestories #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeons #dnd5e #podcast #dndpodcast #podernfamily #rpg #roleplaying #roleplayinggame #dndcharacter #rpgs #rpggames #tabletop #tabletopgames #tabletopgaming #tabletopgame #ttrpg #gaming #Combopod #gamer #gamers #ra...

Episode 41: The Dream That Came True - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: The sleeping dragon god is going insane, and projecting his/her dreams into all of his/her clerics. (by Bert Schmid @cubfinder) Dreams? Madness? Religion? Dragons??? It’s like this idea was tailor made for the Adventure Hook guys… Now, while you could arguably say many of the #newadventurehook ideas are actually exactly that, this pitch was again totally just right up their alley. So, while it would seem to be just the sort of story idea that lends itself to the Lovecraftian, the guys (admittedly additionally) first veer their imaginations off into some other much more uncommon territory indeed… By dreaming of Cockaigne..! If you’re unfamiliar with this rather obscure bit of medieval conceptualization, fear not..! For this episode you’ll be treated to a not-so-brief briefing on some the principle ideas surrounding this rather anarchist peasant fantasy.  From an earthly paradise populated by roasted fauna keen on their own consumption, or literal rivers flowing with wine, to the pilgrim hobo’s sacred mountain of rock candy, this episode these childish musings (and much more) can all be made manifest by the chaotic wild magic of various somnambulant dragon-clergy..! And madness is the key to your understanding here… for from Bahamut and Tiamat, Paladine and Takhisis, Chronepsis (the Dragon God of Fate) to Nidhög himself, and even  worse… Rob and Aaron imagine up some dragon gods and then (naturally) lift a little from Lovecraft and so manage to tie all this craziness together with some of the wider concepts of the Cthulhu Mythos..! Careful what you wish for, though… for the dreams of Cockaigne will literally begin to spoil, bringing a whole new meaning to a “Feast of Fools” as (amidst the post-apocalyptic swarms of ravenous zombified roast animals) the dragon god’s new hive-minded prophets’ de-evolution in their deity’s image will also change your very ideas of what a dragon’s hoard truly can  be… Dragons  are  the ultimate hoarders after all… So open those newly reptilian eyes of yours and come along with the Adventure Hook guys (as well as the rest of those “walkin’ around” clerics) for a serious exploration of the otherwise absurdist realm of Cockaigne… and hopefully you won’t have to eat through a mile of custard to join them first… Banter Topic:  this episode the Adventure Hook guys serve up some more  Writing Advice for Game Masters, this time paying particular attention to the importance of structuring everything that you create centered around your player characters’  choices… And from first time Game Masters to veterans of countless RPG scenarios, there is still certain to be some bit of advice dispensed this episode to help any one of them hone their craft for this still  relatively  new art form of “collaborative storytelling”… and become the type of GM your players will honestly thank you for... Plus..! Enjoy hearing the guys unpack why the series finale of Game of Thrones likely felt so unsatisfying to viewers.  Hint: it’s got something to do with the banter topic… And for the record… the name of the other fruit tree treant (besides the lemon tree Sourlips) in Rob’s Blackspire setting is the apple tree called: “Ol’ Johnny Applecore”. Plus FYI, Rob’s also the one who actually came up with the name of Aaron’s folk hero character “Jack Shingleshoes “… :P HASHTAGS #hellblazer #cockaigne #DreamingofCockaigne #storytelling #worldbuilding #rpgmaker #writingforgames #planescape #chronepsis #bahamut #tiamat #paladine #takhisis #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeons #dnd5e #podcast #dndpodcast #podernfamily #rpg #roleplaying #roleplayinggame #dndcharacter #rpgs #rpggames #tabletop #tabletopgames #tabletopgaming #tabletopgame #ttrpg #gaming #Combopod #gamer #gamers #ravenloft #pathfinder #callofcthulhu #d20 #fantasy #dungeonmaster #DM #GM #gamemaster #Cthulhu #Lovecraft #Lovecraftian #GeekCulture #PopCulture #magick #BlackspireRPG #newadventurehook LINKS

Episode 40: The Sleeping Dragon God - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: (Critical Fail!) An army of orcs and goblins invade! Oh muh Gerd!!! The Dice Gods must not be pleased with Aaron’s ten-in-a-row streak of winning initiative, for they punished him at the end of last show with Adventure Hook’s historic second Critical Fail episode..! Burdened with the tired trope of the invading humanoid army, the guys breathe new life into this been there, done that idea… By setting the scenario in ancient Rome..? Putting a fresh spin on this backbone for a classic campaign scenario, the Adventure Hook guys invite you to a magical fey-touched version of Romano-Britain, where the clashes of culture can get downright monstrous… literally as well as figuratively… From imagining threatening tribes of blue-faced pixie Picts, goblin Caledonian wolf-riders, and even frost giant barbarians straight from Jötunheim… to the second generation half-orc soldiers stationed in defense of the Roman Empire against these mobs of Scot gobs… things are assuredly going to get terribly messy before the guys finish unpacking this particular setting. And for the first time, the focus of this episode is really about developing a particular setting, as Aaron goes “all gazetteer” once again, and from books and research to his personal experiences visiting the site, gives the GM every detail one could possibly need to start building a campaign setting centered around the historic Hadrian’s Wall. From its construction in 122 AD all the way to its abandonment some three centuries later… Rise, Hegemony, and Fall; there is no end of historical sources (including otherhistoric walls) to inspire this setting… and which also could wind up providing some very challenging role-playing exercises indeed… Like imagining soon-to-be Emperor Constantine as a half-orc Briton serving his 25 years as a Roman legionnaire for instance..! If you’re reading the show notes before listening to this episode - trust us - that sentence will make total sense by the end… so long as you don’t wind up getting just as lost as the fabled 9th Legion along the way... So keep a tight grip on your diploma if you think it’ll grant you safe passage, just know that in the Feywild, all roads lead awayfrom Rome… Banter Topic: knowing what everyone was in for this episode, the Adventure Hook guys first spend some time discussing historically themed RPGs.  From using history as just the kernel of inspiration for your own “Game of Thrones-style” fantasy setting, to attempting to keep a fastidious adherence to a real piece of historical fiction, there are all sorts of ways to think about using elements of history for gaming purposes… and the guys certainly share a few. Rob even reviews the concept of “Anachronistic Verisimilitude” as it relates to the exploration of the more historically challenging issues of class, race, and gender… as well conversely utilizing certain settings (like 5E Forgotten Realms) which allow for other (arguably much more progressive) societal behaviors in regards to what would traditionally be considered LGBTQ issues (in the real world anyway)… And then later, Aaron gets really bent out of shape over arguments concerning “reality” in D&D in the first place, and treats the listener to some of the more Ptolemaic concepts which serve as the skeleton for the Spelljammer setting and are anything but grounded in our concepts of Reality… LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon) Birdoswald Roman Fort Picts (on Wikipedia) Missing 9th Legion (on BBC.com) Maus (on Amazon) Brazil (on Amazon) Subutai - Genghis Khan’s #1 general (on Wikipedia) English Heritage Guidebooks Osprey Publishing Guidebook: Hadrian’s Wall Stranger Things Boxed Set (on Amazon) Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Adventure Meme 8-Bit Dungeon Boss

Episode 39: Crit Fail! The Orc Horde Invasion - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: The strange folk who live in a mirror realm under the pond have been trying to coax surface-dwellers to visit. Every visitor has returned so far, but some return changed. (by Varnished Truths  @varnished_truth) One episode into Season Three, and while Foresight may be 2020, already the guys just can’t seem to help falling back into their old habits, can they..? As once again they put a Lovecraftian spin on this#newadventurehook idea to ultimately take things to their mostsquamous conclusions… Just not right away… Because throughout this entire episode your intrepid hosts give you the listener a full-on mental download of all matter of frighteningly useful bits of lore, certain to make your loved ones suspect you’ve been replaced by the fairies… or worse… Rob takes you back and forth along many mysterious paths of actual fairy folklore… as well as the fates that befall such unfortunate humans so “taken away” (and include a few of his own concepts around even more “Laws of the Fae”) to inspire the most authentic aspects of a changeling invasion that a dedicated DM could hope to hear… while Aaron gives a gazetteer-level ecology lesson on Lovecraft’s hideous race of Deep Ones (as well as a host of other Cthulhuian entities) all terrifying enough to paralyze an entire colony of Flumphs… no matter how those flatulent fungal spaghetti monsters are reskinned (or just plain skinned...). It might be fairy glamour that causes you to mistake the places of the Strange Folk’s “Mirror Realm” for the fabled kingdom of Tír na nÓg… or it could be the memory-warping machinations of some eldritch entity hell-bent on unleashing its army of doppelgangers upon an unsuspecting waterside town to finally stir up a mystery demanding of your keen detective work… either way, telling the difference is half the battle, and half the fun… Whether envisioning eerie hypnotic jewels recovered from the dire oysters that only the most adventurous pearl diver dare seek… which are also somehow transforming the nearby Irish fishing village into a new “Innsmouth-like” community, or simply learning the ins and outs of changeling detection from the local Fairy Doctor… the guys have got just the right tools for your ever maddening Game Master’s imagination. Just don’t blame us if you get alf-shot the next time you go outside and carelessly “chase away the elves”… Blame Tolkien… and the Victorians, naturally… At least you’ll still likely fair better than poor Bridget Cleary did when she was asked for the last time: “Are you a witch? Are you a fairy? Are you the wife of Michael Cleary?” Plus, this episode you’ll receive an answer once and for all what exactly Cold Iron actually is…from a folklorist’s perspective, anyway! Banter Topic:  well, not a topic so much this time as an animated discussion concerning the new Netflix series The Witcher… and a few other shows not unlike it they guys have seen. Also, Rob explains why he has the coolest sister in the world when he reveals the Christmas gift that she gave him this year… one which will be certain to make even the most hardcore of Lovecraft fan envious. HASHTAGS #fairy #fairies #faeries #fairyland #fairylore #coldiron #fairydoctor  #deepones #Dagon #Nodens #Lovecraft #Lovecraftian #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeons #dnd5e #podcast #dndpodcast #podernfamily #rpg #roleplaying #roleplayinggame #dndcharacter #rpgs #rpggames #tabletop #tabletopgames #tabletopgaming #tabletopgame #ttrpg #gaming #Combopod #gamer #gamers #ravenloft #pathfinder #callofcthulhu #d20 #fantasy #dungeonmaster #DM #GM #gamemaster #Cthulhu #GeekCulture #PopCulture #magick #BlackspireRPG #newadventurehook LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon) Legend of the Seeker (on Amazon Video) The Witcher (on Netflix) The Witcher Boxed Set (on Amazon) The Expanse (on Amazon Video) John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (on Netflix) Scythe Board Game (on Amazon)

Episode 38: The Strange Folk - Adventure Hook

Today's Hook: A seamstress once sewed with such passion that her enchanted works became heirlooms that passed down their blessing (or curses) to the families that inherit them. Many covet them (submitted by Jenny Randle) Merry Christmas and Happy Yule! Going home for Christmas can be stressful enough without the added pressures of great great great grandma's cursed Advent Calendar! At least it'll distract from Uncle Joe's annual political tirades.  Will your overly large family discover the spirit of generosity this season or become consumed by greed as mysterious gifts are bestowed from The Yuletide Heirloom? Banter topic: chit chattin' and catchin' up Notes and Links: Betty's Tearoom Christmas Dislpay  Victorian Farm Christmas Special  Voldemort's Grave in Greyfriar's Cemetery   William McGonagall: the worst writer in the English Language    Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Adventure Meme 8-Bit Dungeon Boss Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode!   Also you can give us your worst #Critfail ideas to occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! Blackspire RPG Campaign (Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Episode 37: The Yuletide Heirloom - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: A shock melting of a glacier sends the party riding a flood wave into an ancient ruin. (by Hjalmar Nordén of @RedMoon_RPG) This episode of Adventure Hook will be of little surprise to those familiar with past shows, as the guys waste no time showing their love of Lovecraft by combining the themes of the Cthulhu Mythos with those of a much less existential threat:  Climate change… Whether envisioning a secret corporate artic drilling facility built on behalf of Arkham Oil to extract some ancient eldritch goo from beneath a newly melted ice shelf… or a post-apocalyptic solarpunk sea/state-walled world where the risen oceans are now fraught with unimaginable dangers for the burgeoning ship-city societies… Aaron and Rob still rarely stray far from the corrupting influences of the Great Old Ones when crafting the details of this episode. In all honesty, both Cthulhu and out of control climate change are ultimately about the slow creep of impending inescapable doom… but of the two, global warming remains far and away the more terrifying… And during one of his many tangents, Aaron regales us with the tale of a daring sea adventure he once undertook with his father which earned them both bonus XP as well as a treasure drop of four fresh lobsters! Banter Topic:  This question was submitted by Patreon supporter Craig Butler who asks:  Hey guys, I've been starting to use the Alphabet of Desire in my own writings and adventures and I'm curious if you have any thoughts or theory on how each point on the holy hexagram relates to the two points it has no natural relationship with? For example Desire is opposite Fear and natural allies with Death and Love; but is there anything general you can say about Desire's relationships with Hate and Life? Or are those interactions just totally based on circumstances? Man, what a great question! And one that took some thinking about, both from a writer’s and from an occultist’s perspective... And so naturally, true to form the Adventure Hook guys did a bit of unpacking on both fronts… so please enjoy yet another installment of Lessons from the Holy Hexagram!  LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon) NYCC 2019: DC – House of Horrors Panel Recap (on Horror DNA.com) John Constantine: Hellblazer #1 by Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell  (SEP190456 releases Nov 27th from DC Comics: Black Label) Episode 17: A Very Lovecraft Christmas (with Chris Lackey of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast) Episode 13: Bad Wizard in A Scary Tower (2018 Halloween episode with Tim Seeley) Episodes that feature the Holy Hexagram heavily: Episode 26: Burn Down City Hall Episode 27: The Glowing Rock Episode 28: Dead or Alive Blackspire Season 0: To Baator and Back – Episode One:  Paradise Lost & Found Scientists Will Deliberately Encase Their Ship In Arctic Sea Ice (on NPR.com) The Terror and the Erebus (on Wikipedia) The Thing (on Amazon) The Stuff (on Amazon) The Tunguska Event (on Wikipedia) Event Horizon (on Amazon) The Keystone XL Pipeline (do your own research on this, berk!) The Road (on Amazon) Birdbox (on NetFlix) At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft (on Amazon) Episode 8: The Impossible Location Episode 20: Save the Wizard’s Familiar Tales from the Yawning Portal (on Amazon) 315 billion-tonne iceberg breaks off Antarctica (on BBC News) Episode 29: Full Disclosure (for more conspiracy theories around Antarctica) Iron Sky (on Amazon) Episode 18: Some Mystical Thing (for more on Yig) The Willows by Algernon Blackwood (on Amazon) Challengers of the Unknown (on Wikipedia) Pulp Cthulhu RPG 7th Edition (on DriveThru RPG) Brazil (on Amazon) Ready Player One (on Amazon) The Doldrums (on Wikipedia) The Essex (not ‘The Exeter’) which inspired Moby Dick (on Wikipedia)  Solarpunk (on Wikipedia)

Episode 36: The Melting - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: You are pursuing a vigilante who is killing city guards. The guards all have the same tattoo. (Game Hook #326 by Critical Dice on Instagram) Admittedly, most Adventure Hook episodes are kind of Halloween episodes. Nevertheless… this time it’s actuallyHalloween! So let’s get right to the spooky… The Adventure Hook guys start this holiday episode off with some delightfully campy old skool slasher mayhem and follow that up with a dose of some secret society creepy criminal cultish chaos… and then skip right past all that stuff and go darker than ever before by delving into some seriously real concepts of horror. A few of them end up becoming so intense that the guys end up needing a pallet cleanser, and so circle back around again to a much safer (yet still quite spooooky) Trick-or-Treat scenario for a charming Halloween themed game… again, at least to start with! Yet long after the episode ends… those horrors imagined in the town of South Alem will likely linger on with the listener still… Did Adventure Hook finally go too far this time? For some people, it’s quite possible. Whether it’s a True Detective inspired Southern Gothic-style the Crucible meets Cthulhu or an 80’s satanic panic kids on bikes-style Willy Wonka meets Halloween III, you’re in for the most nightmarish of mashup episodes imaginable. But, then again… too much additional explanation here simply risks spoiling the show. Banter Topic:  Our favorite holiday is here once more, and to celebrate the spookiest of days we skip right past the stacks of pennies and raisin boxes of bantering, and crunch right through such superficial candy coatings to get right to the teeth-rottenly sweet nougaty center of the Adventure Hook show… story development. LINKS Adventure Hook (on Patreon) Night of the Living Dead (on Amazon) The Monster Club (on Amazon) The Whisperer in Darkness by H.P. Lovecraft (on Amazon) The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft (on Amazon) Kids on Bikes RPG  (on Kickstarter… sorry Aaron, someone else already had this idea) Lovecraft Country: A Novel (on Amazon) The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts by Arthur Miller (on Amazon) Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and Sam Keith (on Amazon) True Detective Season 1 (on Amazon Prime) Angel Heart (on Amazon) Halloween III: Season of the Witch (on Amazon) Milton Hershey (on Wikipedia) Ol’ Man Campbell Preserves (art) Black Hole by Charles Burns (on Amazon) Stranger Things (on Netflix) Something Wicked this Way Comes (on Amazon) Stranger Things Boxed Set (on Amazon) Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Come Play with Me The House of Leaves Adventure Meme 8-Bit Dungeon Boss Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode! Also you can give us your worst #Critfail ideas to occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! And please consider supporting Adventure Hook on Patreon where you can now gain exclusive access to our back catalog of episodes. Blackspire RPG Campaign (Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Episode 35: Unhappy Halloween - Adventure Hook

Today's Hook: The tomb of a local hero has been looted but no one knows what was taken. submitted by: Craig Butler In this episode we toy with four ideas. There is a lich desperate to find its lost phylactery in the guts of a dead thief, a bone fragment stolen from a hero's body with nefarious plans for resurrection and the theft of a powerful apparatus which can sow destruction across the countryside.   Ultimately, though, we focused on the shattered life of a lowly yeoman who was enchanted to serve a powerful warrior by that most infamous of magic items - The Deck of many Things! The hero now lies dead and with magic beginning to unravel can Yeoman Joe rebuild not only his lost life but the fractured remains of his mind.   Banter Topic:  We rewind to Episode 33 and add another layer to the Kids on Bikes Notes: Turns out there actually is a "Kids on Bike" rpg damnit.  Here's a link: Kids on Bikes  Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com made available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Adventure Meme 8-Bit Dungeon Boss Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode!   Also you can give us your worst #Critfail ideas to occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! And please consider supporting Adventure Hook on Patreon where you can now gain exclusive access to our back catalog of episodes, which include past episodes of Legend Lore (featuring our personal RPG campaigns the Ills of Illipur and Blackspire) Blackspire RPG Campaign(Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Episode 34: The Looted Tomb - Adventure Hook

Today’s Hook: A visitor claiming to be a historian from the future is here to observe the great heroes that helped shape his civilization. Details surrounding the PCs’ demise are the parts he’s hoping to gain historical clarification on What would you do if you absolutely idolized your older brother… but he suddenly vanished and now you and your friends are the only people who can even remember he ever existed? If it was a brotherly love, like that of Boromir and Faramir… you’d totally freak out, right? And that’s not even the half of it, as this week the Adventure Hook guys use the powers of time travel to turn back the clock to that most eerie and mysterious age… the 1980s! And of course your two GMs bring a few Lovecraftian concepts along for good measure. Hide that “Cthulhu shit” you learned at Miskatonic University in your Trapper-Keeper… because things are about to get weird… like, totally Eighties weird… Childhood friends united by their shared “lack of experiences” must use various different forms of time travel to unravel (or perhaps re-knit together) the tangles of their fractured memories…  From a Carter family heirloom with unlimited Astral potential, to a consciousness projecting temporal drug, to good ol’ fashioned Hypnosis… all may be needed by our band of nerds to keep the Silver Man, the Man in the Brown Van, and the Man in the Round Room each from staying one step ahead of those pesky 5thdimensional “time wolves”. Which begs the question… what’s the angle of creating a room with no angles? Does that all sound batshit crazy to you? Then you must be reading the show notes before listening to the show, because believe us that all completely and totally makes perfect sense by the end of the episode. Especially if you consider the Mandela Effect we discuss in Episode 29: Full Disclosure… Plus… please enjoy Aaron reminiscing about the halcyon days of his youth, where once (during one of those long 80’s summers) he tried to incite his own Satanic Panic upon his sleepy, unsuspecting neighborhood. And later, Rob reminds Aaron for the umpteenth time he doesn’t actually watch Star Trek… but based on his latest Discovery Season 2 spoilers (warning!) he probably should… Unless you aren’t actually reading the show notes first… in which case that Spoiler Warning isn’t much help… Banter Topic:  Adventure Hook is switching to an archival model on Patreon, and the guys talk about those details a wee bit (including some of their favorite past projects) before also discussing the comics professional’s perspective on Aaron’s new Hellblazer #1 issue landing the cover of Previews! LINKS Adventure Hook(on Patreon) To Baator & Back - with Red Moon Roleplaying(on YouTube) Red Moon Roleplaying(ENnie Award Winning Podcast) Diamond Comics Distributors(publisher of the Previews catalog) The Hound of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long(on Amazon) Tales from the Loop: Horror Movie Mayhem(on Red Moon Roleplaying) Tales from the Loop RPG  (from Modiphius Entertainment) Kids on Bikes RPG  (on Kickstarter… sorry Aaron, someone else already had this idea) Star Trek TNG (S5E9) A Matter of Time(on NetFlix) The Outsiders(on Amazon) What became of the Silver Key indeed?(on the H.P. Lovecraft wiki) Adventure Zone: Campaign 3is Powered by the Apocalypse The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath(on Amazon) This episode features music (track: “Main Title”) from the enhanced soundtrack of the classic video game Planescape: Torment created by Black Isle Studios(music composed by Mark Morgan) and provided courtesy of the fine folks at Beamdog.  Visit Beamdog.com to access digital downloads of more classic RPG video games, remastered gaming soundtracks, and other great roleplaying resources! Also be sure to visit the label Cryo Chamberfor more dark ambient. Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.

Episode 33: The Historian from the Future - Adventure Hook

Today's Hook: Your crazy ex is in town looking for an adventuring group to rescue their current significant other Hellblazer ends up being a pretty big influence on this episode.  So yeah, that means demon babies and fairies.  This is a good one for all you Planescapers out there. Banter Topic: NO BANTER! we get right to it today. Music by Kevin MacLeod ofIncompetech.commade available for use under the Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License. Adventure Meme 8-Bit Dungeon Level Be sure to submit your own Adventure Hook ideas using the hashtag #newadventurehook and they could end up the topic of a future episode! Also you can give us your worst #Critfail ideas to occupy a place on our dreaded Critical Failure Chart... Can we design a great adventure around a terrible hook? Try us! We love a challenge! And please consider supporting Adventure Hook on Patreon where you can now gain exclusive access to the monthly private online Ravenloft “master classes” that Aaron and Rob host. An absolute must for the serious (or aspiring) Curse of Strahd game master! You can even watch the first two hour episode for free first before deciding if the Realm of Terror Redux classes are right for you. Legend Lore: The Realm of Terror Redux Class 1(FREE!!! on YouTube) Blackspire RPG Campaign (Rob’s actual-play podcast)

Episode 32: The Ex - Adventure Hook

A podcast about role-playing games, storytelling, and the art of GMing

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Adventure Hook

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