Christmas Inspired D&D Adventures Hooks
Christmas is right around the corner, and it's about time to have your Christmas inspired adventure with your party. Having a special holiday one-shot or a small detour from your usual campaign quests is great for bringing some comical relief for a year's worth of adventures or have something different. If you're still shopping for a new plot hook for Christmas, this is an article for you to get inspired. Oh and don't forget to bring some gifts for your players.
So let's begin!
The Dreaded Coral
Tana was the village bard. However, she was never good at it, and on Winters Day, she encountered a devil that promised her a golden voice for a horrible act she must commit. After the deed, her guilt ate her up, and her voice started to sound like dreadful screams. After she succumbed to her madness, she went on Winter Day into the woods and became a wailing banshee visiting the village every single year on Winter day.
The Revenge of the Druids
For some reason, the druids started to reanimate the cut-down Christmas Trees into atrocities near the village, which turned people into Christmas Trees. The party is tasked to find the feared Circle of the Grinch to bring them to justice. The Druids circle Elected a new Elder - Grinch Green, which sees this tradition of cutting down trees as a barbaric practice hurting the wildlife.
The Father Winters Special Helpers Squad
It's that time of year, Father Winter is again assessing most of the creatures in the world, and it seems that a Beholder was once in his life suitable for a present this year. This causes panic and disarray in the Father's Winters Headquarters. There is where you come in, a party of Special Helpers Present Delivery Team or S.H.P.D.
Imagine if Santa would have a special ops unit for Christmas. The Santa is an 80's action movie general with a cigar, looking way too seriously at this task. Rudolf doesn't go on a sled but operates a helicopter type of apparatus and talks like Helicopter Pilot.
Okay, but what's that? It's an ambush, and Red Rudolf is Down. Rudolf explodes into a rainbow. The party needs to survive and move towards the new extraction point, but Santa is held hostage by the same Beholder that has Hans Gruber's voice, and basically, this becomes Die Hard. It's ridiculous, I know.
Evil Frost Father
It seems that there are more and more incidents of missing elves in the town. Rumors have that a bearded red-eyed creature is grabbing them at night, eating all elven pastries, and drinking all of the elven vegan milk in the storage houses — the Noble Elven house Grinch'eal to find this horrid creature and deal with it.
Saving Winter Fest
A small town of mountain dwarfs is panicking - there will be no snow tomorrow on Winter Fest day. On this day, the dwarfs drink a lot of grog and climb into chimneys as a competitive sport where they need to plant their present. However, the dwarfs forecast that snow tomorrow's chances are almost zero to none, the party needs to find an artifact - Snowglobe that is a globe that you shake, and snow appears. The globe is believed to be guarded by the frost dragon because it makes it cold. After you resolve the quest, maybe a celebration occurs in which your party participates.
The Ghost with Matches
A ghost of a girl selling matches appears every year in the town square, this occurrence is strange and freaks out the local inhabitants, the local town elder decided to fix this problem, which is where the party comes in. Her father beat the girl and now wanders the streets as a ghost, trying to find moments of happiness. The party helps the girl go through the traumas, solve puzzles, resolve her conflict, find her skeleton, and bury her with her grandmother.
The Gingerbread House
The Kids wanted to celebrate their Christmas early, and they encountered the Gingerbread House. They are captive by a witch, that feeds them to prepare the Witch-Thanksgiving feast for her circle. The party must find this house and destroy it with its inhabitants. The gingerbread house becomes a Baba Yaga's Hut, the party deals with some witches, fun times, and two fat kids don't become a turkey like the equivalent to the witches banquet.
Heist: Klaus Bag of Holding
Your party is the most capable inter-planes thieves in the universe. The most elaborate Heists in the world like the Golden Goose Heist, Machanus "Codex of Laws" Heist, The Mammon Infernal Casino Heist all done by this crew, now the team has a chance of the lifetime, to steal the Bag of Klaus(Gnome Santa Claus figure) in his intricate "Sweet-shop" an ironclad factory where gingerbread monstrosities, Beholder inspired mechs to patrol the "Sweet-Shop" defenses.
Retrieve the Christmas Time-Stopper Controller
Santa is a Mage that holds a Time-Stopper Controller that freezes time when he wants. The precious controller is lost or even stolen! If they don't find this controller, Christmas is Ruined! By the end of this adventure, Santa decides not to deliver presents anymore and starts a Cult of Gift giving to replace him, but not the idea of gift-giving.
Santa's Special Evaluation Unit
So who do you know was good or bad this year? Well, that's a task of Santas special helpers Evaluation Unit with deals with shifty monstrosities, monsters, and other kinds of beings that celebrate Christmas. This one-shot could be pretty great, giving a year-long comedic brake on your main villains and monsters that party fought. It also provides opportunities to roleplay, and everything can turn into combat.
The Krampus Bargain Part I
Krampus appears and strikes a bargain for power with the party for magical items and abilities to capture Klaus from his Christmas lair. The party is cursed and gain some demonic powers. They fight nutcrackers, elves, and gingerbread men to get to Santa.
The Krampus Bargain Part II - Saving Santa, from hell.
Santa is captured. You didn't get any gifts. The world is in chaos. Santa was not only a simple gift giver but a link that holds the material world portal to hell. Kingdom Realm Alliance is in a panic since Krampus has Santa with all the children's gifts. This organization finds the Slayers(Cursed Party) that is the best chance for mankind to save Christmas since they can access hell. It's basically if Doom, in an 80's action movie fashion with cheesy one-liners and brainless fun.
Surviving Krampus, the Dreaded Night of Krampus
Your party members are prisoners at the Frost Point Prison Island, and tomorrow is the Dreaded Night of Krampus. Your party did something naughty (maybe something also related to winter holidays), and this night they will need to survive the onslaught of Krampus, all the undead in the island rise on this day (Ghouls, Ghasts, and other demonic entities) and feast on the flesh of the naughty ones in prison. Even the prison guards leave the island on the boat because survival is not that great.
The party needs to escape the prison fighting the Krampus legion, while side quests doing something good in the process. In the end, reach the prison gates, where Krampus appears, and you have a final battle. If the party loses to Krampus, he doesn't eat the ones that tried to do better.
The Magical Snow Globe
The party is stuck in a magical snowglobe. Inside of it, there is a castle with a mystery to solve to get out of the Snow globe. A big chunky red man is holding it on his belly, and it's sleeping on the rocking chair. You realize that if they don't wake up Santa, he will miss the Christmas Delivery night. They must escape this snowball at all costs.
Grinch Special Task: Eliminate Winter Holiday Bards
The Grinch decided that your party needs to eliminate famous winter bards that go into the inns to play their Christmas songs that the Grinch is sick of. And then decide which of the most annoying Christmas songs/artists you hate and get some Catharsis by the end of this session.
So did you find an adventure hook you going to use this year? Comment down below!
