Pre-Idea Caveat: I haven’t been following Critical Role for a while, there’s simply too much rpg content to consume it all. If this is already canon, feel free to disregard.

Idea: Run a campaign in the Exandria setting, with plenty of references and cool unique missions in the complex landscape of Taldorei. One mission, which you might place in the path of the party or use when they go to seek out some canon characters, involves the mighty heroes of Vox Mechania! They are a loose band of adventurers and ruffians who cause chaos but often inadvertently save the day, and they get a lot of respect and free drinks for the deeds of unrelated heroes Vox Machina.

Grogg, a dwarf alchemist who brews ales of giant strength. Keylift, a cunning lockpicker and master of disguise. Vexarica the inventor and her robot bear Gizmo. Scanland, the wise and watchful ranger. Halberd, a fighter devoted to Sarenrae. Peredur Frankenstein Wolfgang Cartography the Fourth, a wizard who creates huge explosions. Some say there’s another member, but he’s invisible?

Can the PCs stop these second-rate scoundrels from riding on stolen glory? Are they destined to be a recurring problem, or will they unite against a greater threat? And is there a reason why this unlikely team was assembled?

Pathfinder Background: Final Girl

This isn’t your first time being part of a group. You once had some friends or close colleagues, and were unlucky enough to stumble across the hunting ground of a terrible supernatural threat. Whatever you were before, that experience changed you into a survivor. But there are undoubtedly lasting scars and consequences beyond just the loss of your former group. Will you be the last member of your party alive this time? What are you willing to do to ensure that?

Choose two attribute boosts. One must be to Constitution or Intelligence, and the other is a free boost.

You’re trained in Athletics and Haunt Lore. You gain the Diehard general feat.

Strange is the night where black stars rise/and strange moons circle through the skies/but stranger still is THE INCREDIBLE DEALS AT CRAZY NED’S AUTO WORLD!!! GET A 1923 DODGE 116 WITH NO DOWN PAYMENT!!!

Play a business owner in Call of Cthulhu! Can you keep your sanity intact and still turn a profit? More importantly, can you use any of your new perspective on the world to improve your situation? Steal that alien frost gun and sell the coldest drinks in town! Get your competitors caught up in the hunt for fish people!

Idea: whenever your PC summons a creature, it is the same creature. Hear me out.

In a demiplane beyond time, there is a formless monster called, for lack of a better name, the Panterath. It hungers for experience, substance and reality. And a few unlucky spellcasters are susceptible to the influence of this creature.

If you are bonded to the Panterath, when you cast a spell or use an item that conjures up an ally, it is a facet of the monster’s intelligence. Your summoned elementals or demonic minions are absorbing knowledge of your combat style, your personality, and your companions. And one day, when you cast Summon Monster VII to get a Celestial Dire Crocodile, it will instead summon… you. A perfect (well, a little better than perfect) replica that can fully and permanently appreciate being alive and real.

This could work as a Witch or Warlock patron (I’d recommend keeping its goals secret from the player, and making a scary mission out of “where are these clones of me coming from?”)

Superhero (or villain) Ideas for your next Mutants & Masterminds game

Captain Subterrane, immune to damage from magma (not lava) and vastly enhanced strength/agility while underground

Roadrage, capable of driving cars remotely. They can control one vehicle at a 100 mile range and multiple vehicles within a mile or two.

The Mothematician, who uses probability to predict the future by watching lepidopterae. Each flap of a butterfly’s wing tells them about threats and important events.

Alpaca 2.0, a cybernetically enhanced camelid that can scale any vertical surface, speak two dozen languages, and shoot lightning from their mouth.

Call of Cthulhu idea: Vengeance of the Wolf

The investigators hear about sightings of a werewolf, or some monstrous hound from local legend. People have been chased across the misty hills or seen the beast’s baleful eyes watching from the forest shadows. One of the town’s prominent citizens was found bitten to death in his own bedroom!

As they compare stories and search fruitlessly for evidence, the PCs begin to realize that all the sightings end the same way: “and then I must have got home and gone to sleep, because all I remember is waking up the next morning.” All the deaths, and there will be more deaths, take place in the victim’s bed or somewhere else where they fell asleep. It seems that someone is picking out the wicked, the proud, and the deceitful citizens and entering their dreams as a wolf to kill them.

The Dreamlands are a difficult place to navigate. Fortunately, some clues lead our investigators to a hideout used by this vigilante, where they left a copy of their spell. The PCs will have to enter this bizarre dimension of concepts and feelings to confront the murderer directly, with their own powers! And what are the lasting implications of having access to the local dreamscape?

Encounter Idea:

The party hears bellowing and crashing from around the next bend in the road, and discovers Arnst the fire giant in some serious trouble. His enormous wagon has tipped over, spilling barrels of coal, mithril ingots, and giant-sized hammers and tongs into the ditch. And his triceratops, which had been pulling the cart, is frantically running off through the hills after treading on a nest of bees.

If the party tries to help Arnst, he will be grouchy but willing to reward them with a finely crafted ring (a bracelet for Medium characters). If they’re particularly effective at helping, he offers to forge them a magical shield when he stops for the night. On the other hand, they could steal some valuable materials and potentially make a dangerous enemy…

“Hey so why are lamias sometimes described as people with the lower body of a lion, and other times as someone with the lower body of a snake?”

Well, you see, lions and snakes are the same creature. This fascinating magical beast can change between a mammal and a reptile form, but only when unobserved. And lamias, as beings with traits of a lion-snake, can also shift their shape. Scholars only found out the secret, in fact, when Doctor Eälvesir met the same lamia in both forms.

Idea: several murders have taken place in locked rooms, the victims apparently bitten and clawed by a powerful beast. The murderer has a trained lion-snake that crawls in through the pipes to attack, and they’re eliminating rival business owners with this foolproof method. How can the PCs stop a creature that can hide in plain sight as a harmless green mamba one day, and become a terrifying lion the next day?

Character Idea: A paleontologist who studies and really appreciates the extinct and ancient creatures of the world! They search for fossils, write essays, and hypothesize about the behavior of the life forms that once roamed the lands.

Now, in many of your adventure rpg settings (Faerun, Golarion, Dungeon World) dinosaurs are not extinct, but can be found as household pets or inhabitants of an underground jungle somewhere. In fact, creatures from the “dawn of time” quite frequently still roam the lands where your adventures take place. So what do you study? Insect evolution.

Really boring bug adaptations might be the only evolutionary science you can pursue in a fantasy world without running into “a god created this monster” or “a wizard invented that species”. Make your DM come up with new flies on the fly!

Item Idea: Colanders of Collusion

Forged in the political crucible of the Lion Queen’s royal kitchens, these enchanted cooking utensils allowed aspiring sous-spies and poisoners to conspire and plot. When the death of the Lord Patissiere caused a terrible revolution, many relics of this era were lost.

When you wear one part of a matched Colanders of Collusion set (on your head, of course) you are protected from attempts to read your mind. You can also remove the Colander and manipulate it to make the holes light up in various patterns. This allows you to send coded messages to whoever has the matching Colander!

Idea: Never be afraid to reverse engineer stuff when you are building a world.

The culinary tradition of barbecue in Tephra originated at Barbic University, an orcish hall of learning in the hills of the Shielded Lands. Though the main topics of study are astronomy, geomancy and biology, the students and faculty developed a reputation for the quality of their smoked and grilled meat, carefully selected from the herds owned by the college. Now, several hundred years since the University was founded, there is a food science program that has produced many of the finest chefs on the continent. And “Barbic U” style food has a reputation for being the perfect meal for the end of a hard day’s work.

Familiar Idea

Hellbender - A massive salamander from the infernal realms, this amphibian is well-adapted to the toxic caves and silt beneath the River Styx. However, it's quite happy to live in cooler waters on the Material Plane! Feed it once a week with a few crayfish, worms, or fragments of souls, and its orange and black colors will stay shiny and lustrous. Hellbenders can see even in magical darkness, and also have a unique ability to "bend" space as they swim or crawl, making it impossible to target them with attacks of opportunity. As familiars, they tend to be loyal and placid.

Item Idea

Phoenix Focus: this smooth amber hemisphere contains a tiny flame in the shape of a bird -burning, but unmoving for eternity. This magical creature was fossilized at the moment of rebirth, and contains an immense amount of fiery energy.

You can activate the Phoenix Focus to cast the Light spell at will, the Sunlight spell thrice per day, and the Fire Shield spell once per day. As a special one-time use (which consumes the item) you can raise the save DC of a fire spell you cast by 5, double its duration, and add 10 to one damage roll of the spell. This makes your magic flare with white-hot intensity, and the newborn phoenix is released to fly away into the world.