u/FanFourStick

Idk why I just started thinking this and I might be off and misremembering......but was anyone else's childhood orange?

I know that sounds weird but I remember the world being a lot more orange than it is now.

That's it. That's the whole post.

This also turned out longer than expected so I'm sorry but I hope you read it because my players had an incredible time and couldn't stop telling me how cool this whole event and encounter was. My players rock! Thanks in advance!

I'm DMing a new game set in a weird forest that has pockets on feywild randomly throughout it. My players are currently traversing it to make an important delivery to a nobleman at the capital....they get lost and nuttiness ensues..green hags with seeds infused with enlarge/reduce spell that she feeds to her pet racoon army to make them huge..a treant who is stuck under a bunch of boulders that fell from the mountain above and requires assistance...a group of walking mushrooms just minding their own business crossing the path...some weird stuff.

But my absolute favorite thing I've had them encounter was a seemingly harmless man on the road with a broken wagon wheel who desperately needs to return to his village to bring needed supplies. They help him and as a thank you he offers to bring them to his village for a nice meal, drink and a nice place to sleep. They accept and ride with him to his village.

Welcome to Angel's Grove (anyone else a MMPR fan? the 's was an unnecessary decision for sure but I liked it)

When they get to the village they help unpack the wagon and head to the small village tavern and have a few drinks before being told of a festival to celebrate the supplies getting in safely and for a bountiful harvest. They choose to join in on the festivities and drink and dance around the bonfire all night.

Later that night the rogue notices something, the man who brought them into town slips away from the rest of the villagers at the bonfire.... suspicious she follows him. Turns out he was heading to a pond behind the tavern to take a nice dip in the water. They rogue watches his sillhouette in the moon light get undressed.....then turns into a giant rat and get in the water. WERERAT!

The rogue confronts him by tossing a rock into the water and hitting him with it. He gets out of the water, hisses and runs off. One of the other party members, a monk, is there with her and tries to grab the giant rat as it slips out of her hand and continues running. The rat then turns back into a man and buck naked runs back towards all the other villagers pleading for help.

When he gets to them he is wrapped in a blanket and tells the other villagers that he was attacked...them all the others glare at the rogue and monk (the ranger is passed out drunk and the sorcerer had no idea what happened and was just vibing at the bonfire) and as they glare their eyes turn bright red.

The rogue and monk IMMEDIATELY throw their hands up and are like "my bad" little do they expect their eyes go back to normal and take a sigh of relief. The man they chased explains to them that 200 years ago their ancestors settled here in fear of persecution. They built Angel's Grove for Wererats who need a place to stay and want to start over. They mean no harm....but he also adds that their meeting was no accident.

Not only did he go to the nearest city to resupply but he also went looking for champions.

For the past few weeks, every other night or so a child from the village goes missing. On those same nights and eerily haunting song is heard through the village, but it also causes all the adults to be frozen in place, paralyzed until the music stops but by then it's too late, the child and whoever took them has vanished. They ask the party to find the missing children and stop the music.

That night they set up a plan. The 3 remaining children in this small village are all taken to the stock room and watched carefully by the monk and one of the villages strongest citizens (that's specifically who they asked for to help them) they also give everyone in town some pieces of candle wax to put in their ears and then they wait.....for hours....nothing....then suddenly it happens. The music starts but what's weird is they can hear it even with plugged ears.

The villagers are frozen again but the players are not effected. One of the wererat children manage to slip out of a small crack in the back of the storeroom walls and starts mindlessly following the music.

The ranger watches from a distance and follows the child as the others try to tie down the other two children and snap everyone else out of their trance. The ranger discovers the child walk into a black void in the thick forest and uses detect magic and the black void becomes as bright as a sun......so of course he decides to follow the child inside...but inside there's nothing, blackness, a void. (Darkness spell)

He hears a creepy laugh echoing from everywhere around him and then shot out of the void and right into the monk who has made their way to the ranger...the ranger CRASHES into the monk and tells her what happened. They get the party together and head in..the monk has the spell firebolt and wanted to know if she used it to light a torch would that count as magical fire and work inside this darkness spell....the answer is no but the idea was good I allowed it because I am a firm believer of "The Rule of Cool" fight me.

As their making their way through they see a tall and slender sillhouette of a man from the torchlight. He has a wide scarecrow hat with a patchwork outfit on while he creepily plays his flute with his long salad fingers (old internet reference) as the get closer they can see his face looks like it's a stretched out face put on as a mask and just keeps repeating "Rodents" in a disgusted grainy tone.

The battle is long and brutal and when the piper was at half health I had them summon a swarm of rats to help him....my players scrambled. This guy was refusing to go down and he's hit them with magic that absorbs their life force and replenishes his....then when he gets down to 20 health he has an ability that allows him to essentially skip his turn while taking the dodge action has he starts playing his flute faster and faster to the build up of his next turn.....which I'm surprised he made it to and then released a giant BOOM from his flute and theonl took 3d6+6 psychic damage and was knocked prone. The rogue then (and I'm quoting them here) Naruto runs towards The Piper and goes to slice at their neck with their rapier. Nat 20. The Piper goes down. The rogue said she wanted to decapitate him and raise his head up like a trophy so she does and then the body and head of The Piper poof away into smoke and then another bigger puff of smoke happens in front of them and all the kids have magically returned and reunite with their parents.

The village gifts them a small hut in the village to stay in whenever they need and a wagon to continue their journey. They tell them no one will forget this story.

They take a long rest, supply up and head out the next morning off to the next adventure. Farewell Angel's Grove.

TLDR: Party runs into a village of wererats who in a twist need their help to find their missing children. Turns out the culprit was a fey piper. The party defeats The Piper and are haled as heroes.

This also turned out longer than expected so I'm sorry but I hope you read it because my players had an incredible time and couldn't stop telling me how cool this whole event and encounter was. My players rock! Thanks in advance!

I'm DMing a new game set in a weird forest that has pockets on feywild randomly throughout it. My players are currently traversing it to make an important delivery to a nobleman at the capital....they get lost and nuttiness ensues..green hags with seeds infused with enlarge/reduce spell that she feeds to her pet racoon army to make them huge..a treant who is stuck under a bunch of boulders that fell from the mountain above and requires assistance...a group of walking mushrooms just minding their own business crossing the path...some weird stuff.

But my absolute favorite thing I've had them encounter was a seemingly harmless man on the road with a broken wagon wheel who desperately needs to return to his village to bring needed supplies. They help him and as a thank you he offers to bring them to his village for a nice meal, drink and a nice place to sleep. They accept and ride with him to his village.

Welcome to Angel's Grove (anyone else a MMPR fan? the 's was an unnecessary decision for sure but I liked it)

When they get to the village they help unpack the wagon and head to the small village tavern and have a few drinks before being told of a festival to celebrate the supplies getting in safely and for a bountiful harvest. They choose to join in on the festivities and drink and dance around the bonfire all night.

Later that night the rogue notices something, the man who brought them into town slips away from the rest of the villagers at the bonfire.... suspicious she follows him. Turns out he was heading to a pond behind the tavern to take a nice dip in the water. They rogue watches his sillhouette in the moon light get undressed.....then turns into a giant rat and get in the water. WERERAT!

The rogue confronts him by tossing a rock into the water and hitting him with it. He gets out of the water, hisses and runs off. One of the other party members, a monk, is there with her and tries to grab the giant rat as it slips out of her hand and continues running. The rat then turns back into a man and buck naked runs back towards all the other villagers pleading for help.

When he gets to them he is wrapped in a blanket and tells the other villagers that he was attacked...them all the others glare at the rogue and monk (the ranger is passed out drunk and the sorcerer had no idea what happened and was just vibing at the bonfire) and as they glare their eyes turn bright red.

The rogue and monk IMMEDIATELY throw their hands up and are like "my bad" little do they expect their eyes go back to normal and take a sigh of relief. The man they chased explains to them that 200 years ago their ancestors settled here in fear of persecution. They built Angel's Grove for Wererats who need a place to stay and want to start over. They mean no harm....but he also adds that their meeting was no accident.

Not only did he go to the nearest city to resupply but he also went looking for champions.

For the past few weeks, every other night or so a child from the village goes missing. On those same nights and eerily haunting song is heard through the village, but it also causes all the adults to be frozen in place, paralyzed until the music stops but by then it's too late, the child and whoever took them has vanished. They ask the party to find the missing children and stop the music.

That night they set up a plan. The 3 remaining children in this small village are all taken to the stock room and watched carefully by the monk and one of the villages strongest citizens (that's specifically who they asked for to help them) they also give everyone in town some pieces of candle wax to put in their ears and then they wait.....for hours....nothing....then suddenly it happens. The music starts but what's weird is they can hear it even with plugged ears.

The villagers are frozen again but the players are not effected. One of the wererat children manage to slip out of a small crack in the back of the storeroom walls and starts mindlessly following the music.

The ranger watches from a distance and follows the child as the others try to tie down the other two children and snap everyone else out of their trance. The ranger discovers the child walk into a black void in the thick forest and uses detect magic and the black void becomes as bright as a sun......so of course he decides to follow the child inside...but inside there's nothing, blackness, a void. (Darkness spell)

He hears a creepy laugh echoing from everywhere around him and then shot out of the void and right into the monk who has made their way to the ranger...the ranger CRASHES into the monk and tells her what happened. They get the party together and head in..the monk has the spell firebolt and wanted to know if she used it to light a torch would that count as magical fire and work inside this darkness spell....the answer is no but the idea was good I allowed it because I am a firm believer of "The Rule of Cool" fight me.

As their making their way through they see a tall and slender sillhouette of a man from the torchlight. He has a wide scarecrow hat with a patchwork outfit on while he creepily plays his flute with his long salad fingers (old internet reference) as the get closer they can see his face looks like it's a stretched out face put on as a mask and just keeps repeating "Rodents" in a disgusted grainy tone.

The battle is long and brutal and when the piper was at half health I had them summon a swarm of rats to help him....my players scrambled. This guy was refusing to go down and he's hit them with magic that absorbs their life force and replenishes his....then when he gets down to 20 health he has an ability that allows him to essentially skip his turn while taking the dodge action has he starts playing his flute faster and faster to the build up of his next turn.....which I'm surprised he made it to and then released a giant BOOM from his flute and theonl took 3d6+6 psychic damage and was knocked prone. The rogue then (and I'm quoting them here) Naruto runs towards The Piper and goes to slice at their neck with their rapier. Nat 20. The Piper goes down. The rogue said she wanted to decapitate him and raise his head up like a trophy so she does and then the body and head of The Piper poof away into smoke and then another bigger puff of smoke happens in front of them and all the kids have magically returned and reunite with their parents.

The village gifts them a small hut in the village to stay in whenever they need and a wagon to continue their journey. They tell them no one will forget this story.

They take a long rest, supply up and head out the next morning off to the next adventure. Farewell Angel's Grove.

TLDR: Party runs into a village of wererats who in a twist need their help to find their missing children. Turns out the culprit was a fey piper. The party defeats The Piper and are hailed as heroes.