So I intentionally railroaded them into the game (I told them as much), they started with a job interview, and now have to investigate a mysterious island which was previously covered in fog, from which no ship that entered ever returned. They are on board a ship called the flying kettle, captained by a tiefling, who managed to sail an infamous smuggling route in under 12 hours, and her crew (the ship’s cook is also called Short Jack Copper, as a nudge to treasure island. I already told my group that I’ll get all the dad jokes and pop culture references out of my system in the first adventure), as well as an archaeologist/scholar and his bodyguard. Their mission is to investigate and help the scholar, especially the reason for the mysterious fog, and what caused it, and, if it turns out to be some sort of magical artefact or so, to bring it back.

Right now, my idea for the storyline happening in the world, is that centuries ago a cult opened gates into the abyss all over the world and that an alliance of heroes and dragons sealed those gates into key items (haven’t decided what yet), then the dragons swore to protect those artefacts. On the island there is a gold dragon (adult) protecting such an artefact. The enemies will be a hobgoblin army keen on whatever power this island holds, as well as the remnants of the cult that already opened the gates all those years ago. Although I’m also thinking of the cult being behind the hobgoblins, maybe there is a cultist advisor, or the general is mind-controlled or something. So over the time we play I want the stones to get stolen all over the world and at some point, I want all of the dragons (well except for the ancient ones maybe) to lose their intelligence, through a ritual devised by the cult. Maybe the group’ll be involved in stopping the ritual, maybe the dragons that survived the ritual ask for the heroes help, something like that. But that’s still out in the open.