20 Urban Encounters

City Encounters

1.           Two nobles prepare to engage in a maiming duel.  One or both will offer the characters money to fight on their behalf.  Although these duels have been outlawed, the Raven can be easily induced to turn the other cheek.

2.           A piece of rubble falls from an overhanging wall or tower.  20% chance of landing on one of the characters.

3.           Rival gangs (two or more) are either seen or heard fighting in the back alleys.

4.           A pimp beats one of his or her whores on a side street.

5.           A quarrel between two men escalates and results in the overturning of a produce cart.  This is actually an elaborate ruse; a pickpocket lurks nearby and will attempt to steal something from one of the characters while they are distracted by the fight.

6.           A squad of Raven accosts the PCs and questions them.  They are either looking for a bribe or they suspect that the PCs perpetrated a recent crime.

7.           A fisherman has just been dragged from the river after losing a limb to a large eel.  He is bleeding out and begging for help.

8.           A mendicant scrawls obscenities with excrement and offers to divine the PCs’ futures for a few bronze eels.

9.           A shifty-looking fellow offers the PCs a powerful narcotic called Dream Lotus.   50% chance that it’s fake. 

10.         The PCs witness the assassination of a local crime boss.

11.         An assassin begins to stalk one of the players after mistaking him or her for someone else.

12.         A fire erupts from a nearby building in which people are trapped.  (2D6 rounds before the building collapses).

13.         A sickness breaks out in the poorer districts.  The dead are carted off by haggard-looking men in sackcloth.  Someone or some group is actually poisoning wells.

14.         The Day of Secrets.  A procession of priests of Groan garbed in ash-colored vestments asks the characters to write their secrets on paper and toss them in a burlap sack.  The secrets will be burned on a large pyre at the tolling of the last hour.  Unscrupulous priests blackmail those who are foolish enough to write their names on their confessions.

15.         A group of persistent beggars attempts to weasel money from the PCs.  They will retaliate if they’re ignored.

16.         Someone is seen putting up wanted posters which feature a rugged-looking warrior, allegedly a bandit, who hides in nearby caves.  If the PCs ask, the individual reveals that he is a member of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, and that he has too many contracts to handle on his own.  He will offer the PCs 500 eels to apprehend the brigand – alive or dead.

17.         The PCs see wanted signs which feature someone that closely resembles one of them.

18.         The PCs cross paths with an enemy, a former associate, or both.

19.         Men gather around a wooden trough in which two eels fight.  Bets are being accepted.  The PCs are welcome to wager on the eels.  The fight is fixed.  Perception roll to notice that one of the eels is blind. 

20.         People gather at the wharves and peer at a dismembered torso that floats in the water.  This is one of many such occurrences, and isn’t long before the dark, shimmering waters teem with the ridged fins of predatory eels and remains are devoured.