EncounterSmith

Free resources

25 session-saving plot hooks.

Original story hooks, free to read and copy right now. No email required, no download gate, no form standing between you and the list.

  1. The village blacksmith has taken to sleeping in the forge, and the fire has not gone out in nine days.
  2. Somebody has been paying the ferryman in coins that are still warm.
  3. A wedding party arrived at the inn last night. Nobody in town is getting married.
  4. The orchard has fruited a month early, and the pickers refuse to touch the northern rows.
  5. A shepherd found his own name freshly carved into a milestone four valleys from home.
  6. For three nights the tide has gone out and not come back in.
  7. Every lock in the manor house was found open at dawn, including the ones without keys.
  8. A child has started drawing a building that nobody has built yet, from the inside.
  9. The old quarry has begun returning the stones that were taken from it.
  10. Two families arrived on the same day, each carrying the same deed to the same farm.
  11. A courier has been waiting at the crossroads for eleven days for a handover that keeps not happening.
  12. The town crier read out a death notice for a man standing in the crowd.
  13. Somebody is buying every mirror in the district, at twice what they are worth, no questions.
  14. A stag walked into the square, stood in the middle of it until dusk, and left.
  15. The miller can no longer count past seven, and neither can anyone who has eaten his bread.
  16. A door has appeared in the churchyard wall. It opens onto the other side of the churchyard wall.
  17. Three separate travellers have described the same dream, and one of them has never slept here.
  18. The hunting dogs will not go near the east wood, but the cats have started going in nightly.
  19. A retired soldier has begun repairing the town wall at his own expense, urgently, in secret.
  20. Bells were heard from the drowned village. The lake has not been drained in sixty years.
  21. The baker has been leaving a loaf on the same grave every morning since spring.
  22. A wagon rolled into town with its load intact, its lamp still lit, and nobody driving it.
  23. Every letter posted from this town last month arrived at the wrong address, all at the same house.
  24. The healer has stopped taking payment, which has frightened the town far more than her prices ever did.
  25. Somebody dug a well in the night, properly, with stonework, on land nobody owns.

These hooks are original to EncounterSmith and free to use in your own games. Please do not republish the list wholesale: commercial licensing is being prepared and is not in place yet.

Also free

The generators, in full.

Three tools, no account, no limits. Every result is yours to change and use.

  • NPC Generator

    A whole non-player character: name, role, first impression, mannerism, want, pressure, secret, connection to the story and a voice you can hold.

  • Encounter Generator

    A scene you can run: the situation, the objective, a complication, a terrain feature, an escalation, a non-combat approach, the reward, and what happens if the party walks away.

  • Tavern Generator

    A working establishment: name, atmosphere, proprietor, signature dish, memorable detail, current problem, rumour, an interesting patron and a hidden feature.

  • Tonight’s Spark

    A single original story hook on the home page, with a fresh one on every press and a copy button beside it.

Using them

Where these fit in a week of prep.

The tools are most useful in the gaps, not at the desk. Four moments where reaching for one saves an evening.

  1. Fifteen minutes before the session

    Forge one NPC and one encounter. Write the NPC’s want and the encounter’s objective on a card. That is the whole of your prep, and it will hold for an evening.

  2. When the party goes somewhere you had not planned

    Forge a tavern. Lead with the atmosphere, hand them the proprietor, and keep the current problem in reserve until somebody asks a question.

  3. When a session ends flat

    Take a spark, change one noun so it points at somebody the party already cares about, and open next session with it.

  4. Between campaigns

    Forge five NPCs and lock nothing. Keep the three that made you curious and throw the rest away. That is a cast.

Launch list

Hear when the next thing lands.

New free tools, new resources and the first adventure packs. One short email at a time, and nothing shared with anybody else.

Joining costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you would rather not, everything on this page stays free anyway.

The list is not open yet. No email provider is connected to this site, so nothing can be collected and nothing would be sent. Until it is, write to hello@encountersmith.com and you will be added by hand.

Getting more out of a hook

Point it at something they already care about.

A hook works when it is specific, strange, and attached to somebody your players already know. Take any line above and change one noun so it names a person, a village or an object that has already appeared in your campaign. That single edit turns a curiosity into a reason to travel.

You do not need to know the answer before you use one. Most of these are better if you find out at the same time as the table. Write down the question the hook raises, settle the answer between sessions, and let the players chase it in the meantime.

Want to suggest one? The contact address is open, and original entries do get added to the tables.