Well, I’m wrapping up the Geology column and I figure it’s time to supply a bunch of adventure stuff for all your GM-ing needs. Special thanks to a friend, Dave Bessler for throwing me some suggestions here.

Horror/Creepy

For horror games, geology can be used to discover new things in a planet, new chemicals that get rid of horrific monsters, or perhaps to create them.

Ancient/Medieval: A local alchemist is very close to discovering a way to bring forth the angels and obtain everlasting immortality. He makes his own substitutions and uses a variety of chemicals (perhaps he even sent the Characters to go get them). This spell doesn’t call angels, however; the alchemist is following an ancient spell book a little too closely and has just enough potential to be bait for the demon creature waiting on the other side of the veil. The player characters can either meet up with the alchemist before he’s completed the spell or days/weeks after, the entire town quiet and ruined, a demon using what remains of the townspeople for its amusement.

Victorian/Steampunk: A horrific earthquake rocks Turkey, exposing an ancient well with odd symbols all around it underneath an old library. The well appears bottomless, the smooth stones worn—scratch marks near the top look too much like claw marks. Whether the well is a pathway to an ancient underground city or the lair of a hungry monster is entirely up to you.

Modern Day/Future: A group of wealthy fortune hunters successfully convince the Columbian government to allow them to drain Lake Guatavita in search of the city of El Dorado. Legend states the king called El Dorado, or “Golden One,” would cover himself with gold dust, row out to the middle of the lake and throw piles of golden objects into the lake every year. The legends are proven true; unfortunately this was all to placate a bunch of dragonic creatures that eat everyone when they are disturbed and then continue on a destructive path throughout South America and beyond.

Super-hero/High Fantasy

Greedy villains wanting to rule the world could attempt to create shortcuts to fame and fortune using minerals and chemistry.

Medieval: A meteor of high iron content has landed somewhere in the forest. It has been prophesized that the person who wields a sword forged of this “star” medal will be ruler. If it falls into the wrong hands, the world will be destroyed. The player characters can either be hired by a dubious count or knight to return the meteor, or sent to stop another from getting it first.

Victorian/Steampunk: A black imp-monster abruptly runs through a local town square prompting shots from a local policeman. The monster is shot in the hip and captured. The officials are horrified to discover the monster is in actuality a seven-year old child, barely able to speak, severe emaciated, and so black with dirt and coal that the stains do not wash from the skin. It turns out the child is one of hundreds of kidnapped child slaves now being used to extract coal for a villain to power his deadly machine that will destroy the city/world.

Modern Day: A geode is found and brought in to be studied. Opening it within a sealed environment, it is discovered to be filled with an unidentified green liquid. This stuff is deadly to carbon-based lifeforms, however, turning them into mutated green monsters. The superheroes/magicians have to find ways to prevent the destruction of the world from this threat.

Detective

Rocks can cause things, fix things and make things. Might as well make them the leading evidence in a crime.

Medieval: The good King and his lady fall ill and it seems that they will pass at any time. Healers and physicians can only stave off the worst of their symptoms, which include balding, open sores, and vomiting. Turns out that the bad guy is their son-turned-alchemist, who finds a substance in the earth that causes sickness and death in its presence (irradiated substances). He has placed it in their room in an iron statue.

Victorian/Steampunk: Bodies are found skinned and the investigators are unable to determine what weapon would used that could be so sharp. Everything from aliens to new steam-generated lasers are believed possible, but it turns out that a group of Aztec descendents are responsible, using obsidian blades.

Modern Day: Ritual killings in Europe have the local authorities concerned. The bodies are covered with strange painted markings. Forensics reveal that the many of the colors used are from ground minerals hardly ever used any more now that there are less expensive replacements. The studies lead the characters to Italy, to a sect that has several members also involved in renovating several ancient frescoes of the Roman Gods. Whether or not these sacrifices appease the Roman gods is entirely a GM-thing. It may be fun getting the player characters to replicate the colors and designs to join in one of their meetings.

Here’re the Credits to another column down the tubes.

Thanks Everyone!

Special thanks to Shannon Appelcline for letting me do columns on RPG.net and Skotos for hosting. Thanks to all the people who keep reading them. Suggestions will always be considered should someone have an idea for continued research I can do articles about.