Night Shift: VSW Adventure Hooks

 This might be a short post, but I thought I'd just throw out a few adventure hook ideas for your NSVSW games. Enjoy, take them for what they are, flesh out and change as you like. Hopefully these can provide some inspiration when you've got a game to run and just can't come up with anything to go with. 

The adventures will be presented in a few sections: Hook, Mystery, Revelation, Climax, and Twist. At the end I'll include some suggested Night Worlds from those in our books, but really, these should be generic enough to work in just about any setting you like. 

I wish I was clever enough to come up with names for the sections that would work out to a cool acronym (like O.G.R.E.S.) but I've been in a creative wasteland lately. It's just been awhile and I owe you guys some playable and interesting content, so hopefully this can fill the gap. 

Artwork by Bradley McDevitt

Frame Job in Fae Town

Hook: A supernatural NPC that the player characters know (and who should be an ally or beloved on some level) is found at a murder scene, covered in the blood of the victim. The victim, in turn, is the head of some major supernatural agency that the NPC belongs to. They run to the PCs for help. 

Mystery: The NPC can't remember anything, but knows for sure that they're being setup and didn't actualy commit the murder. The mystery, then, becomes who set them up, and why are they being used as a scapegoat? 

Revelation: The frame job is because the NPC either has a great deal of power they don't know they have, they are prophesied to be a danger to some other major figure, or they are a threat of some sort to a conspiracy within the organization. The goal was to usurp control of the organization while eliminating this potential threat in one fell swoop. The new head of the organization was in fact the very one who orchestrated the frame job. 

Climax: A final confrontation with the upper echelons of the organization to prove the frame job, remove the usurper from power, and clear the name of their friend. 

Twist: The framed NPC ends up in control of the organization, but their own outrage over being framed may make things even worse for the PCs in the near future...

Suggested Nightworlds: City of the Twilight Queen, Nocturnumverse, Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Artwork by Bradley McDevitt

Shadow Wars

Hook: Two factions of vampire exist; demonic vampires and ensouled vampires, and they have had a cold war going on for centuries. Now, something has happened that threatens to erupt the cold war into a hot war, and as acts of gang violence between the two factions increase, so does the threat of the world at large learning about the supernatural world. 

Mystery: Someone clearly is orchestrating this war behind the scenes. Who is it, and what's their end game? The revelation of the supernatural world doesn't serve to benefit anyone. 

Revelation: Those behind the war are an ancient group of vampire and demon hunters, who have decided that the best way to win the war once and for all is to blow open the doors of secrecy and see a war erupt between humankind and the supernatural. 

Climax: The battle lines are drawn and the player characters have to determine where to throw their lot: will they take on the hunters and stop their plot? Will they join the plot and revel the supernatural? Will they choose one or more factions to support? Their choice certainly could affect the future. 

Twist: The twist depends on what side the heroes choose. If they choose the hunters, humanity loses the war, and the supernatural takes over the world. If they choose to keep the supernatural quiet, they are branded as Public Enemy #1 by the waking world as they are framed for murder when evidence of their activities surfaces, appropriately modified to make them look like mass murderers...

Alternate Idea: Instead of two factions of vampire, the war is between vampires and werewolves, light and dark fey, or any other two opposed supernatural factions. 

Suggested Night Worlds: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars (This could be a prelude to the Night of Blood); Nocturnumverse, Ordinary World

Art by Aaron Lee

Be Cruel to Your School

Hook: The characters are high school students who one by one discover they have supernatural powers of some sort, just as a series of disappearances and murders rock the school. 

Mystery: Who or what is committing the crimes, and does it have anything to do with the heroes suddenly learning about their own supernatural abilities? 

Revelation: The characters' discovery of their own powers is a complete coincidence; they are fey changelings, who come into thier true powers during adolescence. The killer is a shadow demon draining the life from students, all of whom have something in common. 

Climax: The heroes are the only hope for the school, as their powers give them a unique edge against the shadow demon. They must defeat it to return things to normal at school. 

Twist: The return to normal is a new normal - the arrival of the shadow demon heralded a supernatural incursion on the town and the player characters must now discover their individual fae origins, what types of creatures they are, and balance school with being champions and defenders of the town. 

Suggested Night Worlds: Generation HEX

Art by David Lewis Johnson

Book of Shadows

Hook: A traveling museum exhibit showcasing a new archaeological find from the Middle East has been vandalized. The only thing missing is a rare book that has yet to be translated. 

Mystery: What is the book? Why was it stolen and what does the thief want with it? 

Revelation: The book was stolen by a black market dealer in occult artifacts. It's a resurfaced version of an ancient book of shadows from a dark warlock who existed in a prehistoric, lost epoch of Earth's history.

Climax: The heroes must infiltrate the black market of occult artifacts, track down the tome, and defeat its purchaser to return the work to the museum from which it was stolen. 

Twist: The buyer was a power-mad kid who knew nothing of the occult, but wanted to visit horror on all their enemies. The kid made the mistake of trying to read the wrong passage, which translated itself because the book wants to be used. An ancient demon now walks the land, sowing chaos and destruction wherever it goes. 

Suggested Night Worlds: Nocturnumverse, Weirdly World News, Ordinary World, City of the Twilight Queen, Generation HEX

Art by Luigi Castellani

Incarnate

Hook: People all over the city are suddenly developing strange and unusual supernatural abilities. The abilities last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, but always end up sowing destruction when they manifest. Those who manifest the powers are left exhausted and sometimes even dead when they fade.

Mystery: Where are these powers coming from? Is there a common thread between those who gain the powers? Can they be stopped, and who or what is behind them? 

Revelation: The heroes track the manifestations to a new street drug made from the ashes and fluids of supernatural creatures. The drug provides a sense of euphoria and invincibility as well as manifesting the uncontrolled abilities of the creature from which it was made, but ends up devastating the bodily systems of the users. The more times one uses the drug, the greater chance death will result. The trail leads to a black market of supernatural farming: dealers who are capturing and vivisecting supernaturals to create the drug. 

Climax: The heroes infiltrate the ring and put an end to the black market...at least for now. 

Twist: One or more of the creatures rescued by the heroes declare war on humanity in vengeance for what was done to them. 

Suggested Night Worlds: Ordinary World, Nocturnumverse, Weirdly World News, Generation HEX

There you have it! A few quick adventure outlines for you to flesh out for those nights you need to throw something together quick. Please be kind and consider buying some of the art packs linked in this; the artists are fantastic and they deserve your support (and yes, I have purchased all of them). And as always, check out Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars and all our other great games, and please consider buying our product!