Welcome to "Dark Cities", a collection of over 100 plothooks and storyseeds for RPGs!





"Cities are beacons of civilization and order. But sometimes the strongest light casts the darkest shadows."

This book contains dozens and dozens of scenarios and scenario ideas for adventures in urban settings, suited for nearly all imaginable kinds of fantasy RPGs. If your game has settlements of any significant size, you will be able to run these scenarios!

Our plothooks and storyseeds (around half a page in length each) are ideas: a collection of political intrigues, murder mysteries, criminal undertakings, the plans of secret cults, supernatural powers unleashed and much much more. A few adventures are straightforward, but many come with a twist, designed to lead to more trouble and more action for your average adventuring party!

Each adventure introduces the basic story: a villain's plan, the most important NPCs and how things might develop once our heroes become involved.



Use these scenarios as they are written, or let them inspire you and grow your own, custom adventure from the sprouting seed of our story!

Most of the scenarios are written with a medieval-ish fantasy setting in mind, but are easily adaptable to ancient, victorian or even more modern urban settings.



Each adventure seed is focused on one or more of the four large categories of RPG scenarios: exploration, diplomacy, investigation and combat.

Many adventures are designed for mid level characters, but you can find quite a few for rising heroes or legendary champions in this collection as well.



Urban adventures, with the intrigues of criminals and nobles alike, are especially well suited for investigative adventures. In this collection you will also find a short guide with the most important tips on running such adventures.



Last but not least: we have included a list of 20 short encounters that can be used in any urban area and are especially well suited to be thrown into your campaign as a bit of a distraction, a small tidbit of interest that gives your player characters a little room to breathe...but at the same time holds the potential for much more!





"Dark Cities" is the first of ten booklets in our "The Thousand Trails" series. Each book focuses on a specific adventure environment, and gives you over 100 adventure ideas to play...and trails to follow.

Three more books in the same series have been released:

"Edge of the Wilds" focuses on rural areas, where wilderness and civilization battle for dominance.

"Ocean's Call" gives you adventures in fishing villages and harbours, on rivers, islands and the mighty ocean itself.

"Realm of Leaves" speaks of adventures in the depths of ancient forests, from sweltering jungles to snow-covered boreal woods.





In the meantime you can check out "Invisible Hands", a book about factions of all kinds. It entails not only a thorough guide on how (and why!) to create factions in your games but also holds twenty fully fleshed-out factions of different kinds that you can directly put into your RPG setting!