A powerful rakshasa sorcerer has killed the king, improsioned the royal family, and dared any adventurers in the area to come up and kill it. Now, the party, knowing that there will be money to be made, decides to take him up on his offer. Now, everybody knows that a blessed crossbow bolt kills rakshasas instantly.
So do the rakshasas.
The party quickly finds themselves in over their heads, as the castle is now full of wind wall traps, illusion spells, cultists disguised as the sorcerer, and powerful guards and wards. Can the party actually catch the rakshasa off guard and shoot him down? Will they even be able to get out alive?
The royal zoo needs a swarm of rasts and you have "volunteered" to fetch them (alive and healthy of course).
Oh yes, you will need to do something about the druids, half of whom want you to kill the rasts before they infest the plane, and half of which want to kill you for taking the poor creatures from their home. (If you do nothing, they will combine and try to do both.)
An elderly, half-senile nobleman hasn't paid, much less fed, his servants for weeks. After a few weeks of stealing his possessions just so they can eat and refusing to serve the old man, his entire staff leaves and does not come back. The same day, all of the objects in the house (candelabras, clocks, dishes, wardrobes, etc.) animate and serve him.
The nobleman, having read too many fairy-tales as a child, believes that the servants were turned into objects for their wickedness and are serving penance by serving him. He publicizes the entire incident, and soon his family in their manors are sick of him being an embarassment. The family hires the party to debunk the tales of the old noble's inanimate servants, little realizing that a ravid has taken pity on the old man and has become very protective...
"Listen," the old sage started, "I shall tell you a true tale of the North. There lives a fantastic creature that guards the ancient polar gem mines. The remorhaz uses the great mines to attract its prey. Burrowing through ice and snow it swallows up the greedy in its maw."
"What's the polar gem mines?" one of the young adventurters asked.
"The richest gem mine known in the world," the sage answered. "But know this, it is the honey of the flycatcher. If you..."
"Let's go," one of the other adventurers interupted.
"Yeah, I know where some furs are we can wear," another adventurer offered.
"It eats men whole, young ones," the sage called after them. "Listen, I tell you listen..."
It was too late: the adventurers had left.
The local metropolis is preparing for its annual cooking competition. The theme this month is for the most creative and exotic meal with no magic involved in any way.
A local merchant with too much free time & excess wealth is looking to score popularity with the population by winning the contest. He has a meal that he is sure will win the contest, but it needs a roc egg as the ingredient.
He's looking for a few robust adventurers to go out and gather one for him from a nest in the nearby mountains.
The lovely princess has been kidnapped by the evil duke. His fortress cannot be assaulted by the king's forces -- it would be suicide. A prolonged siege is not an option due to magics available to the duke. What is called for is a light strike force to sneak into the castle and rescue the princess.
One of the duke's former men has given the location of a secret tunnelway into the fortress. The duke is unconcerned about assaults from the tunnels because of the numerous traps and an ancient roper he feeds down there.
An orc warlord has heard of the PCs' attempts to infiltrate his lair. He is canny enough to know of all the other orc heroes who have met their end at the hands of human and elf monsters, and he has a solution!
The orc dungeon is a typical one, with a minor exception: no metals. All orc weapons are made of laqured wood and do one die less damage (so a longsword would do 1d6). All armor is leather or hide. There are traps, but they consist of deadfalls or organic poisons. When the party gets to the heart of the dungeon, they discover why: The orc warlord has somehow managed to aquire four rust monsters! The battle will be an odd one as the party will be under the orc's hail of sling stones, while fending off the attention of the poor metal-starved beats!