Odd Jobs is a series of short adventures prompts for my indie RPG Wyrd Street. You can incorporate these prompts into your Wyrd Street campaign or potentially adapt them to other RPG settings.

If you haven’t already tried Wyrd Street, don’t forget we have a free starter edition!

The Tarnished Ring:

From the job board in the Rose Garden common room:

“Need capable for investigators for personal matter. Discretion required. Compensation available.”-Shao Ping, proprietor, Happy Dumpling Tavern.

The Happy Dumpling is a cozy establishment on the banks of the River Skarflud, near the Quarantine. Inside, the air is warm and filled with the smell of delicious food. Shao Ping is a thin, nervous-looking man minding the bar. When the party approaches him, he asks them to join him in a back room, once again implying that his request of is of an embarrassingly personal nature.

Once within a quiet stormroom, and upon checking at the small windows to see that no one is listening outside, he explains that his request isn’t actually personal at all. He’s even been spreading the rumour among his customers that his wife has been seeing someone else to maintain his cover — in reality his wife is quite loyal and in on the deception.

The actual issue concerns the Azure Ring. Once a mercantile guild, the Ring has become a vigilante group protecting the Tiahnese minority within the city. The problem, as Ping explains, is that the particular Azure Ring group in his neighbourhood has taken it upon themselves to move from protection to “protection,” and Ping and his neighbours are on the verge of being bankrupted by their supposed saviours.

Ping is quite convinced that the leader of this extortion ring, a woman named Lu Chin, is doing so without the permission of the Ring’s leaders, and that they will crack down on her if proof of her crimes is presented, but Ping hasn’t the means to find it himself. Thus it falls to the party to stop Chin’s reign of terror, either by defeating her directly or by finding proof of her crimes to take to the Azure Ring.

Tips for running the adventure:

This adventure suits itself well to intrigue and stealth, but of course you can also take the direct route to dealing with the rogue vigilantes.

The Azure Ring are tougher than your average Greycap thugs, so this is an adventure best-suited for mid-level parties of roughly level 4-6, though it can be adjusted for levels beyond that range by adjusting the number and type of enemies fought.

You could even consider reskinning some other NPCs to help adjust the difficulty of any combat encounters. For an easier fight, reflavour some Greycap stat blocks as Azure Ring members, or for a high level adventure, do the same with agents of the Divine Legion.

Want more like this?

More adventures like this can be found in Wyrd Street’s Quicksilver War campaign, which includes five Jobs that can be run as part of its story arc or inserted into other campaigns. Available as part of the Wyrd Street complete bundle.

Odd Jobs is a series of short adventures prompts for my indie RPG Wyrd Street. You can incorporate these prompts into your Wyrd Street campaign or potentially adapt them to other RPG settings.

If you haven’t already tried Wyrd Street, don’t forget we have a free starter edition!

Dread Hunger:

From the job board in the Rose Garden common room:

“Seeking capable fighters and investigators for extremely dangerous mission. Innocent lives are at risk. Significant compensation available.”-Ten Obsidian Vulture, Grismal House, Wyrd Street.

There seems to be an unnatural chill in the air as the party departs the Rose Garden. Grismal House is just down the street. It’s a rambling old mansion of red brick, converted into an eccentric warren of tenements occupied by the local amateur practitioners of magic. Inside, the air is heavy with incense, and skulls, fetishes, and all manner of oddities decorate the maze-like interior.

Ten Obsidian Vulture is a short, middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair. The owner of Grismal House, he has great knowledge of the supernatural, especially its darker side.

He explains to the party that there has been a series of horrific murders among the city’s war refugees. Bodies have been found stripped of flesh, until little but bone remains. The Huskarls have turned a blind eye to this, as they have so many other goings-on in the slums, and people live in terror of the next attack.

Worse still, Ten suspects this is not the work of any ordinary killer. He recognizes the signs of a Wendigo, a dread spirit of hunger that often manifests among the hungry and desperate.

Wendigo can take on human form, and possess the bodies of ordinary folk, so the party must first find clues to identify the Wendigo’s false identity, then find a way to slay it. It will be a difficult and dangerous task, but unless the Wendigo is stopped, the body count will only continue to grow.

Tips for running the adventure:

Wendigo are extremely dangerous foes. This adventure is therefore best suited for parties of at least level seven or higher, and would still be a respectable challenge even at level ten.

Of course, with great challenge comes great reward. Ten would offer the party a significant sum of silver for such a task, perhaps in the range of 300-500 per party member. If the task is completed successfully, and particularly if the party has a high Renown score, Ten might even decide he can trust them with a magical artifact or two from his personal collection.

Alternatively, if your party is lower level, it could turn out Ten is wrong, and a Wendigo isn’t responsible for these grisly deaths. Of course, that does beg the question of what else could commit such abhorrent violence. Perhaps a pack of Feral Blood Dolls, or a Pain Demon…

Want more like this?

More adventures like this can be found in Wyrd Street’s Quicksilver War campaign, which includes five Jobs that can be run as part of its story arc or inserted into other campaigns. Available as part of the Wyrd Street complete bundle.