This is just the idea of an adventure, lets keep game mechanics away this time.

It would be a smaller scenario, which fits into a larger campaign, but I need a lot of ideas about it, because I lack them and I experienced that many good GMs here can give great ideas to write a scenario.

The place of the scenario is a misty, creepy marsh where the party finds a huge crystal. There is a necromancer apprentice's soul imprisoned into it, and they want information from him. But the necro says that long time ago he had been killed in this marsh and he want his body back again. But he need his body and some stuff for the ritual, which he can make through the resonance of the crystal, he merely needs assistance to it.

There should be several items to collect in the marsh to bring the ritual together. This would be a thinking, logic scenario, but there could be ugly undead and alike in it, to make the characters' life hard, but I do not plan it as a fighting scenario at all.

So here are some of my basic ideas what would I like, but even them needs more details and ideas.

First they had to search for some items (like body parts of the necro, or canoptic jars or rings or something like that, that are vital for the ritual), which are lost on a pond-land inside the marsh. There are dozens of ponds around, the dry walkways amongst them forms a strange maze. The items are lost somewhere in some of the ponds, but there would be no sense searching them all, since there are so many of them. But there are strange ghostly marshlights around, which would somehow indicate the way (like burning with different color? moving around in different order? etc. need ideas! ).

Also there could be something like, they have to find the body of the necro, but do some serious stiching on it, to prepare it for the ritual and alike... maybe there could be some puzzle related to this also...

Also they could search for other items and set up the ritual and etc...

So I'm awaiting great ideas to form this scenario! Anyone up to help?

I'm floundering a little, due to the basic premise of the scenario ... helping a necromancer to be reborn. Why would the players want to do this? Are they being tricked into it, in some way? There may be more of a scenario in that deception, than in the item hunt.

But for challenges to complete the ritual ... maybe the ritual requires a "shrine" in the middle of the swamp. Let the players try to work out how to get an altar stone, and small chapel transported and build into the middle of a swamp Or jerry build from something they can find there.

I think it would be intersting to have the ritual require the co-operation of someone who should be opposed to the ritual i.e. a Priest of Morr or similar. So the players would have to devise some deception or similar to gain that assistance.

I know I'm not helping with the 'swamp item hunt' idea here, but maybe something will strike me later.

I'm also wondering why the PCs would want to get involved in necromancy. What happens if they refuse to help, or even destroy the crystal?

Lets say that they are facing an even greater evil, and they can only destroy him, with the information from the necro acolyte. Nice dillema though

Are you familiar with Something Rotten In Kislev? It has a similar theme. Necromancy or Chaos? Which is worse? Players don't really have a real choice there. Personally I think it'd be nice to give them a choice and play up that choice as much as possible. Of course that would mean they could decide not to help your necromancer. On the other hand, that would give you plenty of excuse to swamp them in dire consequences, right?

As for a puzzle in the swamp maze, I don't have any direct ideas yet. The big questions here is: how did the stuff they need to collect get spread like that? Just by accident/randomly? Then it's hard to give them good puzzle hints. Did the person who killed him write something down somewhere? Are there animals/goblins/whatever in the area that could have messed with it? Or is there something magical about the place? A spirit that manifests through swamp lights and other phenomena perhaps?

It is in Sylvania in a kinda cursed part of it. The necro was the apprentice of a greater necromancer and the party is looking for his tower to defeat him and save a particular Sigmarite priest's soul. Only the apprentice knows the location of the tower.

Long ago they fought against a warlock who plagued the land and in the war did the apprentice die... since that the land is cursed. So anything is possible I prefer more undeadish/horrorish creatures than goblins and such... there could be plenty spirits and phenomena yes.

I was thinking about, that at some part of the marsh could be filled with gases and the characters couldn't enter, but there would be a heap of rotting bodies nearby and a few mannikins prepared, and with the mannikins they would be able to control some zombies and navigate with them through the mist to obtain the items laying there. Also there should be some puzzle in the mist what they could solve with the controlled zombies... or such puzzle.

No more ideas here?