Ideas for RPG Games #12 Life-or-Death Countdowns

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebsh/20041108a
potion : a mixture of liquids (as liquor or medicine)
bandit  : an outlaw who lives by plunder

Touch of the Keeper

The innkeeper wakes up the PCs in the middle of the night. He says that a shipment of potions ofremove disease was lost somewhere along the road between here and the shipment's destination: a disease-stricken village. He asks the heroes to help find the courier, and recover the shipment and deliver it to the village.  Can the PCs negotiate with the kobolds to recover enough of the shipment to save the village? What happens when it turns out that the unscrupulous courier travels from town to town spreading magical diseases (and selling his fake remove disease potions) in the name of the dark deity known as the Keeper?

tusk : a long enlarged protruding tooth(as of an elephant , walrus, or boar) used especially to dig up food as a weapon.

The Moon's Curse

That tusk made a nasty gouge -- but with the wereboar slain, the only matter the heroes must attend to now is curing the lycanthropy that lurks in the wounded PC's veins. Stranded in the midst of the Shadow Marches, locating belladonna (wolfsbane) will be difficult; and for it to be effective, the afflicted hero must consume it within an hour of the attack. If belladonna can't be found, then the countdown to the next full moon begins, which is when everyone can expect the afflicted PC to run amok in his new boar guise -- unless the heroes can find a cleric of 12th level or higher in the next three days. 

The Secret of the Stolen Psyche

During a visit to a small town on the western end of the Towering Wood, Patriarch Dalin d'Vadalis falls victim to a rakshasa's dark spell. His body crumples and his soul is stolen away -- to be used for evil in the Demon Wastes. House Vadalis summons the adventurers to accompany Brumar d'Vadalis, Dalin's brother, on a quest into the heart of the Demon Wastes to recover the patriarch's spirit. The clock is ticking: The soul must be restored to the patriarch's body in a matter of eight days, or he will die. 

Countdown to the Year of Undeath

Dolurrh is coterminous with the Material Plane only once every hundred years: the last time, when the Last War was in its infancy, the Realm of the Dead poured thousands of lost souls into Eberron. Now only days remain before it happens again -- and Thrane is about to make a crucial mistake. In the Mournlands near Thrane's border, a new manifest zone of Dolurrh has appeared. The government of Thrane is arming paladins and commoners alike with flametouched iron swords, planning to attack the manifest zone and all undead within it once it "opens" -- however, the PCs have reason to believe that the restless dead who will be summoned there are actually the souls of innocent soldiers from throughout the history of the Last War, including citizens of Thrane and those who died on the Day of Mourning.

The Perils of Giant Wizardry

In an ancient Xen'drik dungeon built by an industrious, now-extinct species of hill giant, the PCs encounter deadly traps as well as aging mechanical wonders that, in their neglected state, are just as dangerous as the traps. This combined with the fact that the PCs must drag a large stone statue into the dungeon's depths to unlock a lost treasure makes for many life-or-death moments. A massive portcullis that once acted as an automated entry gate now slams shut at unpredictable times. The timing gear on a moving walkway is loose, causing the walkway to accelerate wildly or stop suddenly. An odd giant totem pole with rotating heads is a combination lock to open a secret chamber, but four of the five correct combinations will seal the chamber after a matter of seconds, and three of those will begin flooding the chamber with brackish water soon after. The central device of the entire dungeon is a mystic artifact that radiates power to the entire subterranean structure -