25 Wood Elf City Adventure Seeds

We’re back again today with 25 more adventure seeds for your D&D game, this time taking a look at what goes on in the cities of those aloof Wood Elves. Much like my Dwarven City adventure seeds, I make a few assumptions about the city, such as:

• It is ruled by a king and/or queen,
• The city is integrated into a large forest,
• Buildings exist both on the ground and in the trees, and
• There is a sizable clearing nearby that the city has access to and uses for various purposes.

As last time, it should be easy to adapt most of the seeds if one of the above assumptions isn’t true in your game world.

1. The birds the elves use to deliver messages across the city have slowly been losing the color in their bright, beautiful feathers, and the birds themselves appear to be growing sluggish.
2. The vintner has created a new wine that everyone is clamoring over! However, the queen is inexplicably paranoid about the new drink.
3. The streams and rivers that run through the forest near the city have started to turn purple, and nearby vegetation are now becoming purple themselves.
4. Will-o’-wisps have been reported to be seen in the city late at night by several children, but the elders just think the children are playing games or are seeing fireflies.
5. A thick fog rolled in a few weeks ago and still has not dissipated. Furthermore, several people who have gone into the forest to try and figure out what is happening haven’t returned.
6. The normally peaceful centaur have become aggressive towards the elves who hunt and forage for the city, not through violence by through mockery and threats. This shift coincided with the changing of seasons, though it has never happened in the past.
7. Last week was a festival in the wood elf city, and during it all the druids turned into animals. However, now a week later, they either won’t or can’t turn back and are exhibiting more animal behaviours.
8. After a magical experiment went awry, the local squirrels have gained the ability to blink in and out of existence. They also seem to have gotten smarter, using this new ability to steal food and work together.
9. Spring is in the air! That means it’s the time of year when the dryads come out and play friendly tricks on the elves… or at least it usually is, where are the dryads?
10. After it’s realized that a prominent elf in the city has gone missing, they searched his treetop home for clues. They found a hole into the tree which is apparently hollow and leads deep underground.
11. A half-elf has appeared in the city as an emissary for a nearby human tribe who wish to join the wood elves. The elves soundly reject the idea, but the half-elf isn’t taking no for an answer.
12. The queen has come down with a sickness that the priests and druids have not seen before, though have heard of it through legend. The problem is the rare herbs needed to supposedly treat it are believed to grow in the area that trolls have taken over in recent years.
13. Usually it’s no big deal when the clouds of smoke from a nearby volcano drift over the forest, but today they started raining droplets of lava all over the city!
14. An elvish botanist recently returned from a trip to a dwarf city, planting new flowers with petals that resemble gems. Things don’t go well when animals try and eat them.
15. Someone has been setting up pit traps covered with leaves around the city, and the guards have not been able to find out who. It was all more a minor convenience than anything, except this latest pit had spikes at the bottom, killing the elf who fell in.
16. Unbeknownst to the elves, a new species of butterfly has invaded the forest and is releasing a toxin that is causing the entire city to descend into madness. Just last night several hunters attacked their own druids who had shapeshifted, killing them even after they shapeshifted back.
17. A young tailor who stayed up late during a full moon saw another elf turn into a werewolf. When he brought this to the guard’s attention, he was informed the elf was a druid and probably caught a glimpse mid-transformation.
18. A dark aura has risen over the nearby lake, turning the ground swampy. A scouting party ran into some lizardfolk, including a shaman performing a ritual to transform the forest into swamp. Oddly, the lizardfolk were friendly to the elves when they met.
19. Tension has arisen in the city between those who would disclose the location of their somewhat hidden city to increase trade and exports and those who want to become even more hidden at the expense of affording some luxuries.
20. A treant has traveled from a faraway forest to make this one their new home. The only problem is they want to plant themselves in the city square and now refuses to unroot themselves.
21. An avatar of the deity of nature appeared in the city yesterday before burning down the home of an elvish family with holy fire before disappearing with no explanation. The family survived, but lost everything they had.
22. After meeting a half-orc during his youth, an elvish blacksmith has recently been making battleaxes to practice with. This is looked down up and viewed as a waste of city resources as the blacksmith should be making swords for the city guard. He still secretly continues to produce them, and has a small following of elves who are also curious.
23. One of the few forest gnomes who is welcomed and lives in the city has recently befriended a few too many snakes, and has woken up to his home being covered with the scaly beasts. He doesn’t want to see them hurt, but the elves are threatening to evict him and kill the snakes if he can’t get them to leave himself.
24. Unlike his stoic parents, the prince of the city enjoys wine and partying a little too much, and has caused some damages to homes during his latest outing. Of course, he is not responsible for the damages, which is causing those who have sustained damage to demand recourse from the royal family.
25. For the past month, the city has slowly been moving through the forest- or rather the forest has been moving around the city almost like a river flowing around rocks. At the current rate, the trees will have shifted completely away from the city in less than a few weeks, leaving the city exposed!

And that’s it! If you have any suggestions or requests for which adventure seed list we should do next, let us know in the comments, on our Twitter, or on our Facebook! These lists don’t have to be race and/or city related- tell us what you think would make a great list!