Orcs and taverns
By Davie Wong, Sports Editor
If you’ve ever wanted to get into tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), then you better get your hook right. What are RPG hooks? They are basic story lines, used in times when you need a jumping off point or inspiration to begin for the game. A situation is laid out, and you run with it however you’d like. These are meant to inspire ideas and are in no way locked-in details. To give you some ideas to for your next campaign, I’ll help by providing you with some basic hooks in this new column. Here’s a fun standard:
You and your companions sit at the table at the local tavern. What once was a bustling city bursting with coin and opportunity has now dwindled to a drawl flophouse. While others have grown content in getting fat on meat and wine, many have not. Adventurers and mercenaries seeking coin have since left the city, leaving an eerie, quiet feeling amongst the streets.
This is the topic of discussion amongst the tavern dwellers, including you and your companions as you take your morning meal. Halfway through, the sound of the castle bell tolls through the city. You count the rings. One. Two. Three… an attack!
The denizens of the tavern react in a variety of ways. Some are quick to panic, while others make for their arms with haste. You are part of the group that chooses the later. You and your companions arm yourselves and make your way out into the city.
Guards and soldiers rush through the streets, all moving towards—or away from—the Western Wall. Swept up in the rush of the remaining mercenaries pouring out into the streets, you and your companions find yourselves by the Western Gate before you know it. While the gate is closed, the devastation is obvious. Bodies litter the area. A token observation notes both humans and orcs among the bodies.
An orcish attack is not uncommon. Many orcish tribes roam the area around the city. But as the gates to the city open, you spot the cause behind the panic—Hill giants! A whole tribe of them, wreaking havoc with the orcs. Giants and orcs are both selfish creatures, so the two working together is unheard of. There is some greater power here. But there is little time to think on this. The gate opens and the charge begins.
