30 Legendary Antidotes/Cures III
PCs often end up with curses, sometimes serious ones. Or perhaps a great noble offers a reward to the PCs if they will cure his or her illness or curse before it proves fatal. Here are thirty cures that might be needed.
1-Rare Coral
The cure is a branch of a certain coral found in Banhoesea Bay, near where the huge and sentient Kraken Big Red sleeps. The PCs can either try and buy the coral from Big Red, do something for him in exchange, or try and steal it. But trying to steal from a Kraken of this size is like trying to steal from the treasure hoard of a full grown dragon.
2-Rare Ashes
The cure is a kind of ash, but not just any ash-the ash must come from an Urn Beast, a type of undead only encountered when someone who deeply feared and hated the idea of having their body cremated, suffers that fate after death. The PCs must pour holy water over the fire fearing spirit, whilst avoiding it's attempts to burn or, worse still, possess them. Urn Beasts themselves are not one of the more common types of Undead.
3-Rescue the Daughter
The cure is known by Amber Fyre, a witch skilled in the healing arts. However, due to a certain resemblance to the deceased Princess Chrysta of Vallermoore, she was kidnapped on the orders of one Dracia Eldren and is being trained in a secret Princess Training School to become the new daughter of Queen Yocasta. Male PCs might have to dress up as girls to gain entry to the Training School to rescue Amber, and there is the extra complication that by the time they get to her, she might in fact enjoy her new life and not want to be rescued, in which case the PCs will need to outright kidnap her.
4-Snake Venom
The otherwise deadly venom of a snake found only on the Bonewater Isle is the cure that is needed and the PCs must travel there, avoid getting shipwrecked on the dangerous rocks around the island, and risk encounters with the pirates and the lifeforms and wildlife.
5-Golem Moss
A piece of Golem Moss is the cure, but it is guarded by a tribe of Golems who will not want to part with any of it and are formidable fighters.
6-Brave the Pass
There is a bush that grows halfway through the Ghost Wail Pass, with berries that contain the cure. The pass is safe enough by day and is often used, but the bush is small and hard to find, and you don't want to be there once the sun sets out of sight and the many restless undead raise themselves and start searching for victims.
7-Dances With Orcs
An amulet of delicately carved sard holds the cure, but it is around the neck of the well guarded and formidable Orc Princess Helen of Grond. The PCs must either persuade the Princess to give up her amulet somehow, or try to somehow steal it from a Princess at the centre of an Orc Royal Court. Neither will be an easy option.
8-Under the Sea
The cure is a few scales scraped from a tentacle of one of the beautiful females of The Surash. Using magic or tech to get under the water, the PCs must either persuade or force one of these to give up a few of her glittering scales. Even the very light wound this would cause might attract sharks, so the Surash females won't just willingly let the PCs do this unless they do something in return or have trade goods to offer.
9-Swampy
The PCs must enter the Purvis Swamp and risk attacks from mosquitos, alligators and the Sproggans who live there to catch a certain kind of insect who when crushed and prepared by a healer contains the cure. It is not a pleasant place to be for most races.
10-Defuse the Bomb
The PCs must with great care defuse a rare T/S Bomb as the dust contains the cure, but failure here might blow them up or at the very least change their gender.
11-The One Ring
To gain the cure, the PCs need to buy or steal a Ring of Pang from someone. (See 7 Rings for details.]
12-Elven Groves
The PCs must sneak into the forests of some rather xenophobic Wood Elves to steal the cure, which is some seeds from a Sparrow Oak without getting caught.
13-Far over the misty mountains cold
The PCs must make a long and dangerous quest into the mountains of Valersund, as the cure is a twig from The Tree of Bone. It will not be easy in the least, as they must fight off the warped population, the undead, and the Tree itself. Failure will mean a fate worse then death.
14-If you go down to the woods today
To find the cure, the PCs must enter the Limberlost, where they must cut down a certain type of tree and cut small logs from it. This will bring negative attention down on them from the Green Men and the Forestals, and there is a danger of getting lost as well.
15-Face the Monroi
You must face and defeat one of The Monroi in combat and remove his antennae to get the cure. To avoid serious legal trouble and a posse hunting you down that may or may not decide to take you alive, you should make a challenge in an arena that has been set up so that the Monroi can mature without having to carry out random murders to do so.
16-Steal the eggs
A rare Sunfire Laerti has a nest at the top of a huge oak tree. Merely getting up the tree will be hard, and the Sunfire if it catches you will fight to the death to stop you taking the eggs which contain the cure.
17-Enter the Land of Geysers
Dodging rangers, unstable ground that could plunge them into boiling water , and the Geyser Ghosts the PCs must find the water in a forbidden pool of the Sorcery Springs Geyser Basin to get the cure. It will not be an easy quest to complete.
18-Acquire Lord Pavisfacio's orb
The cure is a magical orb held by The Dunshar named Lord Pavisfacio , a noble and a potent sorcerer of renown with plenty of servants, some of who make very efficient bodyguards. Stealing it will be very hard, but he will give it to them if they will kidnap Yana the Dancer and bring her to him.
19-Sneak onto the Train
The cure is a rare medicine that is held within the medical chest of Queen Eleanor V's Royal War Train and the Queen will not give or sell it to the PCs. They must sneak aboard the train somehow, steal the cure and get off the train without being caught. Stealing Royal property counts as High Treason.
20-Rob the Barrow
The PCs must travel to a royal barrow, kill the Barrow Dragon inside and find it's hidden hoard of gemstones. One of these is the cure, but the others are all Gems of the Underworld and will make things much worse, so be careful to pick the right Gem. If the PCs give in to the normal urge to just loot the hoard the cursed gems will cause them serious trouble later on.
21-Face the Gang
The gemstone which when crushed and drank contains the cure is round the neck of the leader of a band of Ko Girls, who are potent fighters. The PCs must either fight them to get the necklace, steal it somehow, or do something very important for the gang. The leader won't just hand it over, as it is a family heirloom dating back from before The Resource Wars. If the PCs just decide to fight, the Ko Girls are much more dangerous then they look, plus there is the risk of law enforcement finding out and sending a Wojek or two after the PCs for fighting in public.
22-Enter the Desert
The cure is contained in a crystal that lies within The Diamond Desert. By day baking hot and by night freezing cold, scorpions, Sand Wyrms and Earth Elementals make this a perilous place.
23-Within another Realm
The cure can only be found on one day of the year, within one of the Barrows of The First Men. Whatever the quest will be to gain it, it will be hard.
24-25 Horses
The PCs must sneak into the Palace Grounds without getting caught by the frequent patrols of royal guards and go to a chessboard in the garden, where they must solve the puzzle of 25 Horses. When the puzzle is successfully completed, one of the chessboard squares will open up, revealing a potion that is the cure.
25-Enter the Castle
The cure is a potion surrounded by other Flawed Potions within the depths of the cursed Castle Kaukenn. First the PCs must preform a magical rite to enter the Abyssal Realms, then face the undead, booby traps and other dangers within the castle. The potion is the phylactery where the soul of Haukagaron is held, so there is no way the lich will let the PCs take it away.
26-The Hive
The PCs must scrap off a small piece of a hive belonging to the Zosim to gain the cure. These mighty wasps, two to three feet long, are not likely to allow the PCs to damage the hive without a fight. Perhaps a deal could be done with their Queen, but this brings it's own risks.
27-Prison Break
A prisoner knows where the cure is to be found, but he is imprisoned for murder within The Paul and Peter Fortress and awaiting execution. If he dies the secret of the cure's location will die with him, so the PCs must somehow bust him out of there. The walls and gates of the fortress are thick and strong, and more then 30 Prison Guards guard the luckless convicts to prevent escapes.
28-Find the Treasure
In the otherwise emptyTreasure House is an overlooked jewel that contains the cure, but the place is haunted by Tokolutes, a spirit of greast rage and great power, that the PCs must defeat first.
29-Boom!
The cure is to gather a number of BOOM-puffs without getting exploded in doing so. Sleeping magic or just digging out enough turf around them could work. They are in the private garden of a local noble who won't want them taken away and has several hounds with him.
30-Running out of Time
The PCs must get some Time Wine from a Priest of Mathom, the God of Delays, it being the cure. But whilst the Priest is friendly enough, all manner of things will get in their way, and they must get the cure back in time before whoever they are trying to heal expires from the disease or curse that the cure is needed for.
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? Responses (3)
I happen to like these kind of Grand Tour submissions as they do a good job of digging out other excellent content on this site. A good list Cheka!
On one hand, I like how you linked submissions about locations, NPCs, and creatures that may have a cure. I also like the fact that you incorporated a challenge into obtaining the cures.
Alas, some of these seem forced/random (e.g., all those where an NPC that has the cure could have been any other NPC.
Furthermore, the submission does not focus upon the cures themselves at all. There's so much more to cures, and I'd highlight three aspects:
- side effects and consequences
- peculiar pharmacodynamics
- cost
E.g., a hand replacement ay come from a shapeshifter, and your hand will shift whenever the original creature does.
E.g., the thing does cure you, but to do so, it drags you through an unsavoury portion of the dreamlands - or de-ages you to a child, and you regain your age over a month.
E.g., the life tonic actually is just a spell that siphons life from others around you.
That could make another submission by itself. :)
