Suggestions (some small, one bigger)
1. The Altar
In the most northern part of Jhelom (the woods) a strange altar appeared overnight and strange, evil looking guys wandering around it, humming a strange melody. The local magician is very concerned about this matter, because it is said, that those strangers come to the town during night and steal beloved pets of the citizens. Although this is nothing more but a rumor of some bored housewifes, he asks you to investigate this matter (as of course he has no time for this to do on his own).
Arriving at the altar the strangers get very angry, because you interrupted some strange ceremony. Forced to defend yourself you kill some of the strangers and of of them, probably the leader, is only holding one thing in his hand, a Note with only one Word: "Salvas"
You bring the note to the magician and he notices an evil necromantic aura of the scroll. He asks you to investigate further, finding out about what "Salvas" is about to mean.
In a library (In any town but Jhelom), between many dozens of books you find a note, directing to some books called "the forbidden chronicle", but no hints about their whereabouts are given.
You return to the magician. He tells you that "the forbidden chronicle" is a series of books lost long ago. It is said that they tell a part of history which was forgotten long ago. Only dark and evil things a known from this Age. It was dark, daemons and undead were ruling the world, mankind was enslaved. But he doesnt know any details, but maybe "Ambrak", an old heremit who is told to be able to see the future and the past, may help out, at least it is said that he has read every single book in this world and will probably know where to find clues aboutt he "forbidden chronicles". His whereabouts are unknown. The last thing he said was something like "I will go where the wind is talking to me"
In the windy mountains far north of britain you find him but it is very hard to get anything out of him, as the guy is completly crazed out. Only when you mention the "forbidden chronicle" he mumbles something about a hidden library which once existed in magincia, maybe some clues are to be found there.
You find a trade there who can offer you some old pages which are told to be ripped out of the "forbidden chronicles" but as this is a rare good you can not purchase them with money, but with another rare item he is interested in: a tome zalazar, an ancient necromancer who died hundreds of years ago, but not without giving away some of his secrets. This tome is said to be found in the yew crypts (somewhere in a chest).
Once you found the tome you feel a familiar aura, similar to the notes which started your journey.
With a bad feeling you hand over the tome and finally get some clues about "Salvas". Most of the pages are unreadable, but one tells about an ancient god of death, called Salvas, a Tyrant among gods who had fun in killing humans, to just resurrect them over and over again until they became restless shadows of themselves.
Returning to the magician he says what you already feared: Those strangers are trying to bring Salvas back to this world by performing an evil ritual of sacrifice. By killing them you only postponed the event. Salvas has probably resurrected them by now so they can fulfill their ritual. You have to stop them at any cost and destroy the altar. But how? Only by summoning "Ayraa" a goddess of life and light, once the only rival of Salvas and the only one who banished Salvas of this world. But the only way known to be able to summon her goes with great pain. You have to perform an act of pure evil against life itself. Doing this will call a Servant of Ayraa, usually invisible, who curses the evildoer with bad karma (literaly
) But you have to kill him, so calling for the eternal wrath of the goddess showing herself. Hopefully she wont turn you into a rat (she wont kill you because it is against her nature, but turn you into something to spread life in any way).
So you take the pack the magician gives you, with yet unknown content, and travel once again to the altar. The cultists are back, so you have to kill them once again. Then you open the pack and find... a cute, fluffy, nice, sweet kitten. But you have to save the world, so you let the kitten free and kill it. Charged with a spell of the magician you are able to see the servant of Ayraa who is quite upset by your doing. So you kill him aswell and get another big karma loss. But you finally got Ayraas attention and you feel her anger (hell knows what she is going to do with you) So you beg to her to take a look at the altar (Saying Altar or Salvas or something). She sees the evil happening there and that the return of Salvas is nearly there. She destroys the altar and knowing that you only did those evil things to get her attention she not only forgives you, but rewards you with a rare seed (some rare colored plant growing from it, not able to be cross pollinated or to produce seeds, but maybe some fruits which give some temporarily increased health gain rate.) Reporting to the magician he is rewards you further with some more or less common jung (Money, Scrolls, whatever)
The Daemon of the Pits
A noble warrior who has fought many duels in the Jhelom pits tells you a story about strange things sometimes going on in the Pits. It is told that during massive events the strongest warrior can be beaten by a weak farmer, if "the daemon of the pits" is with him. If you dont believe him you can challenge the warrior, who is like many times stronger and many times more skilled than you (so he says). In the pits you fight him and if you win (not to much of a thing) this proves his story. It is said that if you are blessed by the daemon you might be rewarded by himself if you beat him in a challenge. The warrior tells you a magic word which is told to start the challenge, but noone dared to say it yet within the pits.
You, a brave adventurer, speak the word in the middle of the pits. First nothing seems to happen, then suddenly the gates to exist the pits close, unable to be opened again (only passable as ghost). 2 Rats appear and attack you, you kill them, 3 slimes appear, you kill them (and so on and so on) until the daemon of the pit himself shows up. You beat him aswell and are rewarded. (Could be some nice gear, maybe even a bless gem for a weapon to newbie it, or whatever).
(Basically it is like a PVM-Event, every summon is a lil harder than the previous and after like endless stages you either die or win the challenge. It should vary a lil tho, so you can repeat it over and over, but have some different challenges in there + it should be really really really hard to beat it, best only with some friends)
The Majors Daughter
Nasty Pirates have kidnapped the majors daughter and brought her to buccaneers den (hiding her in the secret passages under the town). Get her back and be rewarded. (Basically like an escort quest)
The Cure
In the Jhelom cemetary a very unhealthy looking undead wanders around (yeh, even unhealthier than the normal undead look like... imagine it yourself). Getting hit by it (bitten or whatever) might infect you (chance 1:50 or so) with a disease, draining health and mana slowly out of you (basically natural regain rate is reduced to 0). So you have to find a cure. An old witch, living in Jhelom can help you to brew a cure, but she needs certain ingrediends, which are more or less common stuff you can find as loot on already existing monsters (examples: radioactive acid, tribal berry, bones... anything possible, could also vary a lil every time).
Once you get the stuff, she makes the brew curing you + a lil reward as you brought more than she needs (just some gold, maybe some reagents or pots)
Okay enough of the smaller ideas for now... now to a bigger one which will definitly need some work (Tho i might suggest Nujelm as a town of happening for this, as it has better places: Palace, library, jail, cemetary, inn and so on):
What you need? 1-2 Gamemasters and a lil bit of fun in roleplaying, theoratically replaceable by well trusted players who wants to get roleplay going a little. The idea is simple (We did this on our shard and it and even non-roleplayers showed up every now and then to participate)
Basically the gamemasters create some chars which they can take over, like a royal queen, a princess, some guards and of course an badass evildoer and his/her servants. Basically you need at least 2 people involved, one who plays on the good side and one on the bad. The story develops as the players react on the things to come.
What we had back than was the queen of nujelm whose brother did some evil things to kill her or to get the throne for himself. So basically you were able to decide on which side you want to fight (yes evil side was possible aswell, encouraging some pvp within the roleplaying, looting was disabled tho). It all started with the queen beeing captured by the evil brother, so players, accompanied by the princess arranging a rescue mission, had to free her. Until then not much was known about any side, so the players followed the princess. Successfully freeing the queen, she told them about her brother and his plans to rule the land with an iron fist. So what happened from then on were certain "quests" or orders given by both sides, either to kill one of the queens relatives or to find a secret hideout to disturb the plans. Basically this was ment for fun and action, most rarely about rewards and such. Players dedicated to be consequent roleplayers got more and more involved and became part of the ongoing storyline, finaly leading to them beeing the "creators" of the story (only works if some people join the bad guys of course).
As the shard went from sphere to runuo we had a complete wipe which was basically the final battle of the rp-story in which the bad side finally won (to cut a long story short). Basically you can do anything possible with only a bit of time. Basically you only need a few tools for this:
A gamemaster is best, but mainly needed to "create" the needed chars, either by modifying existing double accounts of players involved in the development of the quest or by creating npcs to be "controlled" (i dunno if there is something similar to .control in runuo?). Then you need a system to announce events (we attached it to the town criers or simply broadcasted something like "the queen of nujelm calls for the brave adventurers of britania for blahblah...".
Then you need the npc-players to be able to go invis, res, and heal themselves or even be invulnerable (or just invis and the leading gamemaster does the rest), mainly so they dont get accidentaly killed and looted. Of course skills, stats and appearance has to be given by a gamemaster who basically has to control that the player doesnt do any bad shit with the chars. The last thing youd need a gamemaster for is to create and place the needed items for the quests (which was basically just renaming/recoloring/placing basic objects - Later i scripted a tool which allowed us to make the items actually do certain things, basically programmed certain events into items and later chars, so players just had to trigger it).
Depending on the trust (and the powers given) players can run those quests more or less without gamemaster interference, if they plan it all properly.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it wasnt really, as we sticked to some minor basics like creating chars and modifying default items. The rest was done by the players really. All you´d need are some rules so non-rpers arent disturbing to much and looting is prohibited during those quests (as this really drains the fun out of every quest, especially if a main plot-character gets killed by a pk who is bored)
If you´d ask around (even with this currently low playerbase) I am sure you will find some players who would want to put some time and efford into such thing
Okay awaiting comments, if I shall throw in some more scripted quest ideas, or more of the rp stuff or just shut up
