Boccob's Blessed Blog

This week’s D&D Quest Ideas come from Don Caraco, of Philadelphia’s Drinks and Dragons. Don shares 20 D&D Monk quest hooks (plus a bonus hook).

1. On your masters’ deathbed he tells you of a brother that still lives deep in hostile territory in the frozen north, to complete your training you must seek him out.
2. You were placed as a bodyguard for a VIP at your temple, you failed and must prove that it was a set up by a jealous rival student to clear your name.
3. (Every 80s kids favorite) you are bullied by bigger older students of a monk school, saved by an old gardener/maintenance worker and trained in the ancient ways of Ki to teach them a lesson. PS, they are blonde, wealthy, jerks, and good-looking so you know they are bad guys.
4. Doing your chores one day you dig up an old amulet that is cursed with the spirit of a long-dead warrior. You put it on to admire yourself and are endowed with all the memories and skills of this warrior, what do you do now?
5. Having sworn to never use your skills again after a tragic accident, you retire to a simple the life in a small town, only to find that your old shogun will stop at nothing to get you back. If the shogun can’t have you, then no one can.
6. Having lost the use of your hands, you overhear a bard singing of a Dwarf blacksmith that has unlocked the secret of the Iron Fists, you believe that this is the key to get your self-worth back.
7. You are hired to protect an orphanage from a marauding horde of hyenas, and gnolls, led by a vrock. All your years of training have prepared you for this.
8. You stumble across a newborn baby floating down a river in a basket, with it is a pouch of 500 gold, and a note to please safeguard it till its 18th birthday; at that time, you are to see the child safely back to the kingdom to claim the child’s rightful place on the throne.
9. You are a noble that got mixed up in the wrong crowd and find yourself buried alive, in your desperation, you discover your Ki and escape your grave now free to do what you will and to extract your revenge.
10. Your family and village were raised in front of you by a warlord ransacking the countryside, you as a child then sold to slavery, as you grew you were trained to the art of hand to hand combat for others entertainment, now you are free what do you do?
11. Having had passed all the levels of your training you are now ready to train a new generation, on a trip to visit your family your ship is lost in a storm you wake up in a strange land.
12. All the leaders in the land have united against a shadowy threat forming and posed to take over the world, your destiny has been clear since your birth that you are the one to lead 4 great heroes to face and vanquish this evil.
13. Growing up as an orphan on the streets you would often beg across from a monastery, growing up watching them train you to find that you to have learned the ways of the monks.
14. You are part of a group of monks trained to protect and stop anyone from miss using an ancient portal, you discover there is a long-running plot almost ready to be completed be cultists that have infiltrated your order and seek to crack open this portal and unleash what is locked behind it.
15. You retire to watch over your children after the loss of your spouse, when a bested but not vanquished foe from your past rears its ugly head and kidnaps your children.
16. You live in a large lake town lead by a greedy Mayor, this person’s greed and lust for magic items has brought the eye and wrath of a group of Oni down upon your town and its children.
17. You have been sent a letter that your master has been slain by a master of a rival school, you are the only one left that can stop the takeover of your school now.
18. You have heard stories of a haunted Dojo in the swamps and that there are still many items of value left behind.
19. A local drug gang has noticed your lack of respect for the local law and their rules and has invited you to a meeting, having broken up several of the gangs’ past dealings this may be a trap under the guise of an olive branch.
20. Your sister has been commissioned to deliver ten barrels of rice wine the best in the land for the capitals winter fest, a rival maker will stop at nothing to stop the delivery and make her look bad.
21. A magic staff has been planted in a large rock at the center of the capital, it is said that the warrior that can pull the rad from its resting place will be the ruler.

Don Caraco born in Alaska in 1974, the year of the great RPG awakening. He grew up in South Carolina, and moved to Philadelphia for college, and still resides there today.  I am an artist, general contractor, renovator and restorer of a single family home, home inspector and as of December of 2016, founder of Phillys’ first open TTRPG group Drinks and Dragons.

I, with help from the community, run multiple adults-only open TTRPG game nights. At great Philadelphia pubs like The American Sardine Bar , the Black Cat Tavern on 12th, Bourbon and Branch, Thirsty Dice, and our newest event the Abbaye. We run games for all level of players as time allows for on both sides of the screen.

You can check us out on Facebook, email us at drinksanddragons215@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter. Thanks for letting me share these hooks! I hope they are useful. Ideas for the 20 plus hooks came from myself and from members of Philadelphia’s original open TTRPG night, Drinks and Dragons.

Read more about Drinks and Dragons:

Gaming Trend
EnWorld
Philly.com

Build your ninja crime-fighting team:
Sweet Ass Nunchucks (Do you even chuck brah?!)
Stabby Sais (cuz Raph was the best turtle)
Kickass Katana (B3 is not responsible for any stabbings)
The Bo Staff Beatdown