101 D&D Quest Ideas

  1. News spreads that a dragon was slain while away from his cave, a search for its unguarded hoard is underway
  2. A thief has stolen a powerful item from a lich and then joins the party for protection
  3. A wizard/collector wants a live troll to study
  4. Rat catchers are going missing under the city and a plague is spreading in their absence
  5. A local caster has summoned a creature that they cannot contain and it is destroying the area
  6. A charismatic charlatan claims (and has proof) to be the cousin/brother/son of one of the PCs
  7. A wandering merchant trades a pc for their magic item for a fake he claims is more powerful
  8. Shipments from a nearby mine have stopped when the PCs investigate they find the miners crazed and covered with red welts apparently from exposure to a new element they uncovered
  9. A white dragon is driving monsters from the north into the southern lands
  10. A planar rift has formed and outsiders are seeping through
  11. A powerful noble/wizard is hosting a masquerade ball where the guests are polymorphed into monster as their costume, but an actual monster attends to kill the noble/wizard
  12. A sorcerer has died of old age, strange things are creeping out of his tower as his spells, and dweomers break down
  13. A map has been found that leads to parts of an artifact that once reassembled, will summon a fiendish kraken
  14. The dead are rising as zombies one hour after their death
  15. Slavers are capturing peasants and merchants on the highway and selling them to mindflayers
  16. A shop/traveling merchant sells pets/familiars that are actually polymorphed people
  17. The PC’s are sent to find a hermit that lives on the “moving island”, a zircon/dragon turtle
  18. A traveling circus/faire comes to town and completely vanishes in the morning with several children
  19. An Ur priest cult is killing all the divine casters in the area
  20. Water drawn from a certain well is animating into water elementals/mephits
  21. An evil druid has taken up residence in the sewers and is waging a guerilla war on civilization
  22. Anyone who reads a cursed book, brought into town by an adventuring party, dies after reading it
  23. A killer is leaving rare flowers in the mouths of his victims
  24. A member of a planar cartographical society offers the PCs membership into the elite group if they can complete a scavenger hunt that leads them across several planes in one day
  25. A mysterious helmed/hooded/masked figure has forged an impressive army by bringing tribes of kobolds, goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins under one banner. The leader is actually a cleric disheartened by the lack of faith and respect of his flock and means to increase belief and prayer for his deity by leading an army of wolves against his flockHave you see D&D vs Rick & Morty?
  26. The owner of a failing inn claims to have the entrance to a mysterious dungeon in his cellar hoping that the ruse will draw business from adventurers
  27. A pack of displacer beasts/displacer beast lord is preying on farm animals and farmers alike
  28. Two rival gangs are actually devils and demons fighting a Blood War battle on the city streets
  29. The daughter/apprentice of a caster that polymorphed himself into a golden cup and placed himself in the hoard of a green dragon in an attempt to learn more about dragons, but it has been weeks and he has not come home contacts the PCs
  30. Reports that a gold dragon is ravaging the countryside turn out to be true. The dragon, sick with a rare disease, has gone mad and must be stopped
  31. Grave robbers working for a necromancer are running out of graves and start looking for easy prey
  32. A “red” dragon demanding tributes from a village is actually an especially greedy copper dragon
  33. A killer is released from prison and the father of one of his victims stages a similar murder in the hopes of framing him
  34. A traveling “holy man” is selling relics that disappear in the morning
  35. The new judge is in fact a devil hoping to harvest souls for not guilty verdicts
  36. A logging camped is being haunted by the ghost of a treant/forest haunt and his dryad followers
  37. A band of fey has been stealing wine from a rural tavern
  38. A good and helpful aranea has been captured and tried for murder while the true culprit is a drider that resides close by
  39. A college that teaches science over magic opens and arcane casters start going missing
  40. Drug-related deaths lead the PCs to an evil alchemist
  41. The PCs are hired to retrieve a meteor, but find it is being worshipped by a tribe of goblins/orcs/lizardmen etc.
  42. Several women in the area are pregnant under strange circumstances, an incubus is to blame
  43. An artifact is needed to avert a major catastrophe; its last known owner was Levistus the arch devil trapped within a glacier
  44. The PCs must find a rare herb only known to grow within Gith monasteries
  45. The PCs visit a strange village where all the people are simulacrums, an ancient wizards mark is seen everywhere
  46. The PCs are sent to a distant land to find an NPC that it turns out has been dead for 20 years
  47. The PCs must help a conflicted Erinyes to the Cradle of Creation (phb2) to be reborn into a non-evil body
  48. A map leading to the legendary Shield of Praetor has been found, it states that the shield is in the cave of a dracolich. The map was sent by the dracolich’s minions in the hopes of freeing their master who is sealed magically into his cave
  49. A local orphanage is actually run by a demonic cultist that sacrifices the weak children and raises the strong ones to be followers
  50. A powerful artifact that will allow teleportation through the layers of the abyss/hells has been uncovered and a race to claim it has begun. The PCs must beat the groups of devils and demons that see the artifact as a powerful tool to end the Blood War

    Grab a copy of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

  51. An overmatched Marut seeks assistance with a powerful lich/vampire/mummy
  52. Rumors of “The most powerful sword” lead the PCs to an evil, intelligent, dancing sword that can animate other weapons to fight for it
  53. The PCs are sent to a battlefield to retrieve a family heirloom from a missing soldier where a necromancer and his corpse collector golem are raising the fallen as undead
  54. A cult of Tiamat have discovered a spell that ages living creatures and they are trying to use it on dragon eggs to raise powerful allies
  55. The PCs are sent to deal with a raiding ogre that turns out to be a gnome illusionist
  56. The PCs are looking for an arrow used to slay a dragon a hundred years earlier, but when they pull the arrow from the dragon’s skeleton, it animates and attacks
  57. The PCs need the help/information of a treant that will only add them if they agree to be shrunk down to clear out an infestation of insects that invaded his roots
  58. The PCs are invited to a Three Dragon Ante tourney, either as guards, VIPs, or to play
  59. A lawful good lich (Monsters of Faerun) seeks the PCs to protect him from a zealous paladin on a quest to rid the world of undead
  60. Thieves have plundered a tomb and until his golden burial mask is returned, a ghost/ghast/specter will continue to kill innocent people
  61. A group of fire giants has taken up residence in an inactive volcano, their activity threatens to awaken the volcano and cause widespread devastation
  62. A grandmotherly, if slightly senile, NPC asks the players to rid her attic of rats. The rats are in fact a group of thieves trying to open a magical doorway left by the wizard that previously owned the home
  63. A monster seen roaming close to town is actually a cursed person and not evil
  64. The PCs find a genie in a bottle, but the genie agrees to help/grant wishes/serve only after the players travel to the City of Brass and save someone the genie cares about
  65. The PCs find a wounded angel that is being hunted by powerful outsiders
  66. A newly discovered dungeon is actually a complex trap to harvest souls/magic/life energy
  67. The PCs must break an innocent man from a complex magical prison
  68. Murders attributed to a small girl are being done by her doll, a slaymate (libris motris)
  69. An ancient beholder has gone mad and his destroying the Underdark, driving monsters to the surface
  70. A gnome settlement has been overrun by Drow displacing hundreds of citizens
  71. A mad wizard has been selling potions that have poisonous/odd effects
  72. Mind flayers are draining people of their quintessence in hopes of using the substance to return to the far realm from which aberrations came
  73. A spelljammer has crashed in a remote forest/jungle and the inhabitants seek materials to repair their helm
  74. A foreign diplomat seeks the party’s monk to protect him on a mission to a country/city where magic and weapons are not allowed
  75. The tarrasque is wreaking havoc on the countryside and the party (lvl 10ish) must slow it down until the champions (20th) can arrive, but the tarrasque is actually a simulacrum (cr 10) sent by an outsider/caster/etc. and not the real thing
  76. Cultist seek a tablet that depicts a ritual that will summon a Fist of Spite (BoVD)
  77. The party must save an NPC from the stomach demiplane of Dalmosh (MM5)
  78. The guild master of the cooper’s guild wants to discredit the owner of a local winery with whom he has had an argument by poisoning his barrels
  79. A local sage/astronomer is convinced that a massive meteor is going to strike the kingdom/city/town
  80. The normally-inert gargoyles atop the temple/castle/mansion have animated and started attacking people who approach the building
  81. A group of bulettes is keeping anyone from entering or leaving the city/town/inn
  82. A doppelganger/changeling serial killer claims the identity of their most recent victim for one week before killing again
  83. A gnome settlement has been overrun by fiendish duergar led by a demon
  84. PCs seek out a powerful dwarven, smith who traded his soul to Asmodeus for unearthly crafting abilities. Before the smith will help the PCs, they must reclaim his soul from the arch devil
  85. The players find/are sent to a city that reflects the entire multiverse scaled down with a neutral inn in the center run by a power caster
  86. The PCs search for a legendary library that when found, has no books only the corpses of long-dead sages and librarian clerics that use speak with dead to obtain the knowledge
  87. The PCs need a party member/NPC raised from the dead but the only cleric powerful enough to do so has recently been turned by a vampire he was hunting
  88. The PCs find/buy/are given a strange bag of holding that has a small pocket dimension inside it where a frightened caster hides. He/she created the bag to hide in and saw that it ended up in the PCs hands to keep it safe
  89. The PCs seek an answer/information from a forgotten bard. When they find him, he is a ghost and he will only help them if they give him peace by finishing his final poem/song/movement
  90. A chaotic good horselord (CAd) has led all the horses in the region/city/town away into the hills to freedom
  91. The huntsman of a local lord/mayor has kidnapped the NPC’s daughter, and only a highly trained tracker can follow the trail and find the girl
  92. An aged and grizzled warrior is going town to town offering his magic sword/shield/armor to any fighter that can best him in honorable combat
  93. After returning from a diplomatic journey, the noble/diplomat/prince/queen is acting strangely. The PCs are asked to look into it only to find that the NPC is a doppelganger/changeling/simulacrum/charmed/possessed
  94. A pair of ethereal filchers are stealing all the curative magic in the area/city/town
  95. The answer/riddle/name/code that the PCs require is etched onto the helm of a massive golem that paces a deadly dungeon
  96. Monthly full moon attacks are blamed on a good lycan, and are actually being carried out by a pack of Moon Rats (MM2)
  97. Summoned Thoqqua threaten to compromise the structural integrity of the city/town/inn/dungeon/ as they melt tunnels through the ground below
  98. Centaur knights (phb2) are running any humanoid from their forest
  99. The PCs are sought by the patrons of a desert land where a despotic temple of cleric charges impossibly high rates for fresh water to people not of their faith
  100. A temple has hired a large number of bards for a festival where music is to be played from sun up until sundown, the only problem is that no one recalls the obscure holiday because it is a ruse to mask the sound of tomb robbers breaking into sealed vaults below the church
  101. A xenophobic elvish lord has begun to arrest non-elves after his daughter eloped with a human

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101 D&D Quest Ideas

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47 Responses to “101 D&D Quest Ideas”

  1. woah!
    that’s some list.

    I would change #83 to read:
    “A demonic plane has been overrun by fiendish Gnomes.”

  2. I think its a quirky idea to have a wizard studying Dragons by polymorphing himself into a gold cup. Too bad that pesky hobbit grabbed him when things were finally getting interesting.

  3. […] of you may remember the post we did several months back entitled, “101 D&D Quests Ideas”, it has been one of the most popular articles on the blog and one of the most searched terms by […]

  4. agnosticpriest Says:

    I’ve seen similar lists that are too vague or just simply bad. This is actually a really good list. The ideas are complex enough to provide unique encounters, but simple enough to allow customization and be applied to most any setting. I will definitely be using some of these for my campaign.

  5. i would like to thank you for coming up with these ideas. it has been very helpfull. i especially liked #86. i been trying to figure out ideas for a desert campaign n that fit right in. thanx a lot.

  6. King Kong Says:

    This might sound silly but does PC stand for Personal Character.

  7. […] 101 D&D Quest Ideas and it’s follow-up, Another 101 D&D Quest Ideas […]

  8. […] 101 D&D Quest Ideas and it’s follow-up, Another 101 D&D Quest Ideas […]

  9. Kitsune Rogue Says:

    btw great page man…

  10. Mr. McSwordsman Says:

    Impressive. Never been on your blog before, but will definitely browse the rest of it after reading this. The Masquerade idea is really good for my players.

  11. […] 101 D&D Quest Ideas and Another 101 D&D Quest Ideas […]

  12. using all your D&D ideas and adding them with my own to create the ultimate D&D adventure each idea will count as 1 session

  13. […] Now that you have some sweet 3D terrain, do you need some D&D quest ideas? […]

  14. […] Interested? Do you have some great D&D quest ideas? Please e-mail us at boccobsblog@gmail.com. Be sure to browse some of our past articles to get an ideas of our voice. Start with – our 101 D&D Quest Ideas. […]

  15. […] some great D&D quest ideas? And be sure to check out our […]

  16. Thanks for all of the great ideas, these have been a real help.

  17. I think I’m going to model a campaign around #86. It’s so delightfully creepy

  18. […] the meantime, check out our D&D Quest Ideas, or visit Limitless Adventures for some affordable 5e […]

  19. do you think you can make ideas for future D @ D

  20. Thank you for the list!

    There’s a nice sliding scale present regarding how “epic” a plot is.

  21. […] more ideas? See 101 D&D Quest Ideas & Another 101 Quest […]

  22. Thank you for the follow on my Multi screen blog. These would also be good use for writers as inspiration or even nanowrimo sprints!

  23. Reblogged this on Miss Musings and commented:
    No only good ideas for Dungeons and Dragons players but exercises for writers (or sprints for Nanowrimo) as well

  24. sniparsexe Says:

    Wow! That’s really good. Thank’s for the ideas man. Definitely gonna use it. The Tarrasque one was great 😀

  25. I loved the ideas I also had a really dum and fun quest that involved a stick and golblins my players loves it but they thought the reward wasn’t good enough even though they got a NPC to join them UNGRATEFUL SCUM

  26. 84 doesn’t make sense. If the dwarf wanted supernatural smithing abilities, why would he want the characters to retrieve it. Wouldn’t he lose those abilities if he got his soul back?

    • Didn’t word that quite right. But still. Wouldn’t returning his soul restore his humanity and lose his supernatural skills?

      • Assume that even though the PCs have the soul, something (a ritual, etc) will be required to bind it back to his body. Helping the PCs is his last supernatural act. Having lived for years without a soul, he has decided that would rather go to the halls of his fathers. Call it buyer’s remorse 😉

  27. Uber213 Says:

    My guy still reading and writing comments since 2011 good on you!

  28. ChickenSandwich Says:

    I’m soooooo gonna use this as reference for a comic series I’m making, I’ll definitely make sure to credit this website. Thanks!!

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