Instant Story Cards The Concept The idea is simple. Draw four cards, one from each category deck: Hooks, Locations, Dangers & Complications, and Random Things. From those drawn cards are the basic concepts that will spark your imagination and from which you will build your story. Of course, you can draw more than one card from each deck if you wish or even ignore those that may not go well with the rest of the cards.Then simply flesh out your story using the suggestions from the cards you've drawn and your imagination. You don't even have to strictly follow what the cards say; if it inspires tangents or alterations, then the cards have done their job! The Decks There are four decks, each representing a component of the story you're going to create. Hooks A hook is the same as what launches an adventure module. Also called a "plot hook", it's what the story's about and serves as your players' introduction to the adventure and how they get involved. The Hook Card will give you the story idea. It also asks prompting questions to help you flesh out the story concept. Let's use an example: I drew the Something of Importance Was Stolen card . The card's prompting questions ask, "What is it? Royal jewels? A famous painting? Who stole it and why? What did they do with it?" So, let's say that a famous painting was stolen (the "What") by a thief (the "who"). Unbeknownst to the painting's owner, a treasure map was cleverly blended into the artwork (the "Why"). The thief kept it with her, intent on following its hidden directions (the "What did they do with it?"). Locations Every adventure needs a location and that's exactly what the cards of this deck provide. In keeping with the example in the Hooks section above, I drew the "Mysterious Ruins" card. I now know where the treasure is hidden and where the thief is headed with the stolen painting. Dangers & Complications Sometimes things will develop that will complicate things for the adventuring party or add an extra level of danger in achieving their goal. That's exactly what this deck introduces into your story. Proceeding with the example we've been using, I now draw the "Magic Dead Zone" card. Okay, so somewhere in the mysterious ruins is a zone that cancels out magic. Since making the entire dungeon crawl a dead zone would be no fun for players with magic items or who have magic using characters, perhaps I'll put the dead zone in a big encounter, or perhaps in certain areas that feature lesser encounters. Random Things Sometimes introducing a random element or encounter can add a little extra spice to the adventure and that's what this deck is for. Now, in our example, I drew the "Rare Creature Sighted!" card. Perfect! Perhaps that's what makes the ruins where the treasure lies mysterious...or more deadly. So, the four decks just gave me the foundation of a story. Now, all I have to do is flesh it out. So, here goes: Terendo, a patron of the adventurers, requests their aid. His beloved, if worthless, painting, "The Gnomish Mother" was stolen the night before. The adventurers must discover why anyone would take the trouble to steal a worthless piece of art, and who stole it. The thief, Enbarra, and her band of thieves are the culprits. The adventurers must track down the thieves and retrieve Terendo's painting. After finding the information they need, the adventurers must follow Enbarra's trail, which leads to the mysterious ruins of Castle Hamaris. 200 years ago, the castle was home to Hamaris Drar, an evil warlord who made a pact with demons for an orb of power. However, the orb turned out to be cursed. It actually drained both life and magic, killing Hamaris and sucking dry the places of power of his magic using minions...hence the magic dead zones. The castle fell to ruin. Over the centuries, the legendary monster, the Tober, made its lair within the ruins. A bout a decade ago, a powerful, greedy and quite paranoid noble, Setirel, became obsessed with the notion that everyone was after his wealth. Having learned of a secret entrance to the ruins of Haramis, he sent his most loyal retainers there with his treasure to hide it. He also sent along a gnomish artist, Grelo Whistledig, to make a map of the location. The clever gnome hid the map within the designs of a painting of his mother. Setirel then had all of the retainers who knew his treasure's location murdered. Grelo managed to escape and went into hiding. About three years ago, Setirel died of a disease. When Grelo heard this, he came out of hiding. Down on his luck, he sold the information about the treasure and the map's location to the thief, Enbarra. It took her that long to track down the current owner of The Gnomish Mother...Terendo, the adventurers' patron. So, the adventurers must contend with the dangers of Castle Hamaris, particularly areas of magic dead zones; the Tober; the cursed orb which still lies somewhere within; as well as confront Enbarra and her band of cutthroats. All of that from simply drawing four cards! I could've drawn more from one or more of the decks, but I'm happy with the results. Start Before you begin, make sure that you've read the READ FIRST: How to use card decks in Roll20 handout and that all four decks are showing on the right side of your screen. It's recommended that you set your zoom level to 40%. That will show the entire game board with all four spaces where the the cards that are drawn are placed. Using the Decks Starting with the Hooks deck, mouse over the deck and draw a card and place it in the Hooks space found on the game board. You can also choose to deal a card to yourself, take it from your hand and place it in the space as well (see the READ FIRST: How to use card decks in Roll20 handout). It doesn't matter which method you use. Do the same with the remaining three decks ( Locations, Dangers & Complications and Random Things ) for their respective spaces. You can then either zoom into get a better look at the cards (using the slider bar on the right of your screen or the MAGNIFYING GLASS icon in the middle of the left side nav bar), or, making sure that you have the roll20 feature SELECT/MOVE selected (found on the top of the left side nav bar), click on a card and press Z on your keyboard. That will cause the card to pop up on your screen in a larger size. That's it! Simple, right? Now go have fun and make some stories! Instant Story Cards Instant Story Cards © Patrick Von Raven 2018