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This is a part of “The Gamer Traveler’s“ St. Patrick’s Day One-Day Blog Carnival .
I usually find holidays in RPG worlds to be contrived. More often than not, they’re based off a real-world holiday with no real effort made to truly integrate it with the game world.
Sure, in winter they may come up with a story about some wizened, ancient old man who delivers presents and it becomes mildly plausible for the world, but more often than not, you end up with the World of Warcraft’s version of Christmas, the Feast of Winter Veil, which is just so contrived.
But I thought I might look at a holiday like St. Patrick’s Day and see what it might look like in a fantasy world, and adventuring hooks for the players to get involved in.
1. Long ago, the great hero of the kingdom single-handedly drove out all dragons from the land, leaving the land peaceful and harmonious. Now, every spring, the people celebrate the feast of Sir Patrick in gratitude for him driving out the serpents from the land. But now, rumor of an army of dragonborn, Yuan-ti and kobolds has decided to venture back into the land to take back what they believe was once theirs.
2. Every spring, the fey spirits begin acting up, pouring out of the Feywild, spreading rumor of great riches to any young and foolish hero who believes their lies about a quest to the end of the rainbow. What young heroes don’t know is that the “end of the rainbow” is a one-way portal to the Feywild, from which they’re unlikely to escape.
3. Every spring, to celebrate the new plant life and growth, the villages have enormous drinking contests, dying the ale they serve with green dyes to represent the new flora. But this year, it was discovered that a band of goblins has poisoned the dye which comes from one city. The heroes now must get to every village within a matter of days to keep the villagers from using the dye in the upcoming festival.
What do you all think? Something you can see yourself implementing?
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
