My campaigns tend to be lower magic and "grittier" feel than most, so maybe things like this aren't your style. If you are into things like this, here are two ideas that I had after just thumbing through Gaz1 ...
Justin Karameikos was sheared in 996 and pretty much disappeared for a few years. All that the Gaz says is that he was aboard a merchant ship, which makes sense. What if he actually spent part of that time on a pirate ship? Maybe the first ship he set out on was sacked by pirates and he was taken prisoner. He suffered under the pirates until their leader, being an above-average intelligence pirate, realized his mathematical and merchantile abilities and he helped them "launder" and sell their stolen cargo in exchange for some of the treasure and his life. What if, to take this further, he and a female pirate became lovers in that time and split up when she left to take a better role on a different, more aggressive pirate ship that wouldn't have taken on an "accountant" like him. Now, she's the captain of her own ship but she takes off a few months a year from pirating to go to Specularum to see Justin. Perhaps one day down the road she decides to retire and be with him. Now the Duke's eldest son is dating an ex-pirate captain. It's only a matter of time before SOMEONE figures our her past.
The first NPC that many of us came across was Aleena. Remember her from the Basic set? Looking at her profile in Gaz1 we see that her parents died from disease a few years ago and she came to live with her uncle in Karameikos where she joined the Order of the Griffon at a very young age. She's also fairly high level for a 22 year old. Maybe there's a secret in all that? Perhaps there was an older, experienced fighter in the Order of the Griffon that met her when she was young and her parents were alive and visiting Threshold. He conceived of an illicit passion for Aleena at the time and when she was 15 or 16 he murdered her parents, making it appear to be disease. He "happened" to be in Thyatis at the time and offered to take her to Threshold to live with her uncle and helped make the arrangements.
When she became a cleric, he helped her get into the Order of the Griffon, of which he was also a member and very soon thereafter became her mentor ... and eventually her lover in secret. He's been getting farther from the path of good and at one point one of his friends started to suspect the secret relationship. Aleena's patron killed his friend and then Aleena confronted him and said she was leaving him while they were at a deserted shrine in the wilderness. In a jealous rage he attacked her, saying that if he couldn't have her, no one would. He nearly killed her but at the end he couldn't and dropped his weapon. Being scared and near death, Aleena killed him and hid the body. She couldn't ever talk about it with anyone for many reasons.
Maybe the PCs come across Aleena's patron's diary while looking for clues to an unrelated adventure and start tracking down things that lead them to Aleena. They don't have the whole picture, but they know enough that Aleena is worried about them and silently tries to frustrate their investigation (the PCs are not after her, but she doesn't know that and is trying to protect her secret). So Aleena could become a secret enemy of the PCs in a way.
These are just some ideas that I had. I haven't DMed for a while and so I've just go these plot ideas rolling around in my head.
My campaigns tend to be lower magic and "grittier" feel than most, so maybe things like this aren't your style. If you are into things like this, here are two ideas that I had after just thumbing through Gaz1 ...
My campaigns sound much like yours, lower (but somewhat more powerful and unique) magic with a grittier flavour. I am certainly into "things like this" and have been thinking about it since you posted (cool ideas, btw). I have come to realize I don't have hardly any dark secrets going on IMC at the moment. Thanks for getting me thinking about them!
My campaigns sound much like yours, lower (but somewhat more powerful and unique) magic with a grittier flavour. I am certainly into "things like this" and have been thinking about it since you posted (cool ideas, btw). I have come to realize I don't have hardly any dark secrets going on IMC at the moment. Thanks for getting me thinking about them!
There was a good article in the old "Dungeoncraft" section of Dragon magazine where the author basically said that anytime you create something, it should have a secret. You should literally open a gazetteer to a random page and start making up secrets for the characters and places there.
I constantly do this. If anyone wants me to post more, I will, but there didn't seem to be a huge amount of interest in this. I recognize that most DnD campaigns tend to be simpler ones, especially in a setting like Mystara ... but they don't all have to be that way. Three dimensional characters are legal
There was a good article in the old "Dungeoncraft" section of Dragon magazine where the author basically said that anytime you create something, it should have a secret. You should literally open a gazetteer to a random page and start making up secrets for the characters and places there.
I think I remember that article; probably still have it here somewhere. I haven't used the NPCs from the gazetteers much in my current campaign (and it's well over a year real time since we started). There are plenty of secrets that the PCs don't know about, but not the "dark secrets" of "good guys". I'm thinking, as the party starts getting involved in more adventures of international importance, these kinds of secrets will become more significant.
And btw, just because there's a lack of replies, don't think that those on this forum are not reading the posts.
Actually, there was a "dark secret" exposed IMC just in today's session. It was discovered that the cousin of two of the PCs was in league with a major orc clan in trollheim, in western Vestland. It culminated in a PPK (partial party kill) battle against a group of 50 orcs. We lost two PCs and an NPC out of a total of 11 characters. Mind you, I don't just have the level 1 warrior orcs from the MM, but an assortment of levels.
There was a good article in the old "Dungeoncraft" section of Dragon magazine where the author basically said that anytime you create something, it should have a secret. You should literally open a gazetteer to a random page and start making up secrets for the characters and places there.
Nice idea :D
If anyone wants me to post more, I will, but there didn't seem to be a huge amount of interest in this.
I'm sorry I haven't replied and complimented you on this idea until now. For the past few months I have been trying to do somewhat the same in this forum: getting people to share bits of inspiration from their campaigns. I have done it with the "Treasure Chest of Mystara Ideas" thread, the "Mystara NPCs" thread, the "Have heroes, need quests" thread and even the "Inns and taverns of the Known World" thread contain some bits of intrigue and secrets meant as inspiration for other readers' campaigns.
I would really like to read more of your secrets
and also hope to publish more material like this when I get around to making a Hear-Say campaign newsletter like the one e.g. Hugin writes.:-) Jesper