D&D 5E Harry Potter School Quests

[Mistwell]

I have a homebrew setting called Mistwell University that I've run on and off for a decade or so now.

The school is for adventurers of all types, not just spellcasters. All students have an array of general courses, and then some class-specific courses (sort of like the college split between general courses and courses in your major).

Each student also has a work experience class, where they are required to complete a minor quest on a regular basis. That class is split into group work (adventuring party) and is either the same quest for the whole class, party-based quests, or open quests that any professor might need that qualifies for the work experience class.

In practice, while there is an underlying "A Story" that weaves itself in and out of various game sessions, many game sessions are one-off quests that can be completed in just that session or perhaps in two sessions.

I need some ideas for these one-off quests. Here is the sort of thing I am thinking of:

1. The herbalism professor needs some herbs that are only found locally n the Dark Forest, a region rife with dangerous creatures (any of a variety of monsters)

2. One of the wizarding professors needs some fur from a death-dog, found only in the Dark Forest.

3. The herbalism professor has a problem; a student accidentally released a store of arcana energy in her shrubs of wolfsbane, and now the shrubs have come alive. She needs someone to pacify the shrubs, without killing them (awakend shrubs monster and twig blight)

4. A student tried to cheat at wizards chess, and tried to animate the knights to move diagonally when his opponent wasn't looking. Unfortunately, the knights turned on him, and now he's being held at sword-point to play the role of one of the fallen pawns. Someone needs to destroy those knights, without harming the captured student. (animated armor monster)

5. The Beasts and Monsters professor has a problem; his pack of blink dogs have escaped and run up the mountain, and he needs someone to go up there and retrieve them. (any mountainous creatures)

6. Goblins have been breaking into the giant pumpkin patch, and the school gardener needs someone to help him chase them off. (goblins)

7. Harpies have been attacking the milk cows and carrying them off to their lair in the mountains. Someone needs to go up there and kill the filthy creatures. Perhaps the giant eagles can be persuaded to help. (harpies, giant eagles)

8. Something is spooking the school hippogriff flock. They've been flying off, kicking in outbuildings, and generally destroying things lately. Find out what it is and make it stop, and calm the hippogriffs down while you're at it. Hippogriffs, possibly undead)

9. A delegation of lizardfolk visited the school recently to open trade negotiations from a nearby swamp. They have asked that students visit their village to reciprocate, and the Bard professor needs a group to go out there and behave themselves while visiting the village. The village has a problem with some giant crocs and they could use a hand. (lizardfolk, giant swamp creatures like croc)

10. There's been in accident in the graveyards, and some necromantic energy caused some skeletons to rise. They're penned in the gated graveyard, but the Necromancy professor needs someone to go in there and deal with the problem. (skeletons, zombies)


Can anyone contribute some more ideas? They are starting at level 1, but I will need to keep up this sort of thing for probably the first 4 levels or so.

 

[pkt77242]

A thief has been stealing potions from the potions professor and they need to find out who is doing it and capture(or kill if you want) them.

The school wants to start raising giant eagles so they need to go find some giant eagle eggs and bring them back.

A professor wants a deceased wizards spellbook so they need to travel to the deceased wizards tower and retrieve it.

The school wants to send a delegation to the elves but they have to travel through some untamed lands.

An umber hulk has taken up residence in the dungeon and needs to be removed (or tamed).

A student attacked another student and then ran away. They need to bring the attacking student back to the school for a disciplinary hearing.

 

[Galendril]

Other Ideas

1. Student steals a dark lore book and accidentally opens a portal to another dimension releasing creatures and sucking some students/instructors to the other side.

2. A cockatrice is loose! Adventurers have to follow the trail of statuary to recapture it.

 

[MarkB]

Some joker put misdirection hexes on the doorways to three of the student dormitories, and now groups of younger students are wandering aimlessly through the combined catacombs / sewers / thieves' maze / secret passages / abandoned mines complex beneath the school. Someone needs to head down there with copies of the currently-mostly-accurate maps and set the students on the paths back up to the main school before they run into anything too terrible, while also figuring out the culprit behind the prank (undead, kobolds, traps, balrog).

 

[GameDoc]

Just want to say this is an awesome basis for a campaign.

 

[Mistwell]

Just want to say this is an awesome basis for a campaign.

Thanks!

The first time I ran it, we had a blast. I set the game up to deal with a fluctuating group of players. New players can just play another student at the school, absent players have their student stay at the university for that quest (or be off on a quest with another group for that session), and each quest takes one session (if possible).

I have a course list, a professor list, and a map of the University that players can see, along with a short student handbook. I based some professors on those I had in college and grad school, so I had a personality and accent/voice to draw on. I also use bits and pieces of the excellent Redhurst Academy of Magic d20 product by Matt Forbeck, which I note is now (mostly) free in PDF form. I highly recommend it, if nothing else for the good read it offers.

The first time, there was a "A plot" involving the sinister dealings of some mysterious frogmen than kept stealing things from the school and causing trouble. Eventually this led to the discovery of a plot by another nation to wage war on the nation the University was in, by means of some teleportation circles the frogmen installed (some of which were found at the school). The players took an artifact they had found at a haunted mansion (which was our Halloween episode), stole it from the school, and fled with it through the teleportation portal. There, in the heart of the enemy's mountain fortress, they tossed the artifact into the sacrificial volcano, unknowingly releasing the souls of the sacrifice victims to assault the enemy fortress. The party escaped by fleeing through a random portal, never to be heard from again at the school. But the war was ended just like that, leaving a fortress occupied only by the undead now, who are keeping to themselves. Those students are now legends at the school.

 

[Gilladian]

I once ran a one-off game with some non-dnd players, in which they were putative new students arriving at a magic school. They had all been invited to attend, but warned that when they arrived, they would have to take a "final entrance exam". The exam was reaching the school building. They started just outside school property, and a posted notice informed them that they had one hour to cross the school gardens and enter the building by any door or window they could reach.

The school had a high wall surrounding it, with no visible gate. Finding a way over the wall was task one. Getting through the garden (giant spiders, a scarecrow of sorts, quicksand off the path in the woods, and several other obstacles) was task two. Finding a way into the building was task three - obstacles included a pair of doors with riddling knockers, a mobile and sentient rosebush, and glass windows that healed themselves when broken.

I remember that they launched the halfling thief over the wall with such a good throwing roll that he went wayyyy too high and was nearly killed, they burned down a garden shed, avoided the quicksand by staying on the path, fed the spiders something laced with sleep drug made from berries they picked near the garden wall, and threatened to pee on the rosebush to make it behave. It was all hysterically funny, and a quite good game. I always wanted to do a follow-up with their first day of class.

 

[Unwise]

I would suggest that you really need to get some frat-house rivalry happening here.

- The week before the beginning of semester parade, house X has stolen house Ys banner, the PCs are being blamed for its loss and need to retrieve it.
- The house mascot has gone missing, a rival house has taken him and stashed him in a secret clubhouse in the Dark Wood.
- A student has stolen potion X, the PCs happen to know that it is a lot more powerful that people think, if a student tries to do a prank with it, something terrible could happen.
- Student get an obscure research project, the library is missing almost all the books on the topic. A student who works as a library assistant has stolen them and sold them off to a mysterious buyer. It was obscure and likely would have gone unnoticed. The problem is, the mysterious buy is actually a Voldemort style guy and the books have some hidden lore in secreted in them.

The trick with this style of plot is keeping things non-violent. The PCs can't exactly run a student through with a sword for having stolen their mascot. There is a lot of investigation to do to and a lot of it has to be done without getting the attention of the teachers.

 

[Mistwell]

I was reading the barkskin spell, which has an hour duration, can be cast by the druid on any willing target, and makes their AC minimum of 16.

I was wondering when that spell would be needed to cast on other people, or even the whole party. Give it only lasts an hour, and it's a second level spell slot, that seems unlikely.

But, then I got to thinking about this campaign. What if there was a forest the party needed to enter, and no metal was permitted in the forest by the druids? Suddenly, the barkskin spell for the whole party would be great!

So, what quest in the druid forest? What threat would they face?

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

TEN POINTS FOR GRIFFENDOR

So it's a general "adventure" school? Are their rogue and fighter instructors? Makes for fun dynamics.

Fingers, the Infiltrations teacher, gives the advanced class their midterm: they have to steal a certain object from the Abjuration professor's study. Meanwhile, the advanced Abjurations class has to find nonlethal ways to guard it.