Five items from A Link to the Past with some summer camp themed adventure seeds.
Bombos Medallion: The bombos medallion is a weapon of massive destruction. Activating the medallion engulfs the entire screen in a torrent flames and explosions. The medallion is locked in an ancient glyph-etched tablet that sits atop a cliff that is unreachable by normal means. As the only optional medallion in the game, it is a reward for players who thoroughly explore the world.
Not all summer camps are held in log cabins along the banks of placid lakes. A camp for gifted students is held at Babylon University in Arizona. The camp offers gifted students the chance to study subjects like dead languages, ancient mythology, and lucid dreaming. One thing that makes Babylon Camp for the Gifted stand out is the extensive on campus arcade. Campers are able to enjoy the arcade during their open evenings after a long day of educational activities. Pazu's Arcade and Games has been a staple of Babylon University campus life as long as anyone can remember. Rumors persist of a private invitation only room full of banned and custom games. Campers learn they have been invited when they receive a black tempest token from any of the arcade's machines.
On the far edge of the unforgiving desert is a village of sun worshipping folk. They have learned to live in harmony with the scorching desert sun. They channel the sun's heat to boil water, forge metals, and even burn their enemies. The greatest master of the channeling arts was exiled from the village from a fear that they would inadvertently destroy the village or harm the villagers. The sundancer has made their home atop a cliff face that they have blasted into smooth glass. Content in their isolation, the sundancer has made no conventional means to climb the unassailable cliffs. Any who seek to study with the sundancer must first find a way to the top of the cliffs. Then they must find a way to endure the sundancer's fiery techniques. Those that have studied under the sundancer's tutelage and survived are gifted a small copper chime from the sundancer's body wrap.
Bug-Catching Net: Whether you are looking to catch bugs, fish, or fairies, this net will serve you well. Link borrows this net from a child that has been sickened by the evil wind blowing off of Death Mountain.
Summer camp is many children's first exposure to how wild the wilderness really is. Some kids hate all the bugs that come with the camp being located near a forest lake. Other kids find a new passion in the critters that flitter, skitter, slither, and crawl. Amateur entomologists at the K. T. Lou/P. F. Tang Sleepaway Camp have been finding the most peculiar specimens throughout the campgrounds. They do not realize the creatures they have been collecting really are unimaginably rare. What the campers assume to be a slew of newly discovered insect species are actually fragments of an extra-dimensional being seeping through cracks in our reality. Do the campers have time to figure out why reality is thinning around the lake or where the camp counselors go after they lock all the campers in their bunks every night?
A dark force has taken hold at the summit of the mountains to the west. Enervating winds sap the strength from any living thing caught outside when storms roll down from the western peaks. Healthy adults are able to withstand the wasting effects of the winds, but children and the elderly are at a much greater risk. The only creature that appears to be unaffected by the bad airs is the death watcher beetle. Superstitious individuals and folk healers will tell you the death watcher beetle feeds on death itself. A traveling doctor is working with local healers to hopefully discover a tonic that can protect people from the ill effects of the wind. The group has asked that any willing foragers gather as many of the elusive death watch beetles as they can to hopefully discover what is warding the beetles.
Cane of Somaria: This is inspired by the art in the game manual for A Link to the Past. Game manuals used to have these amazing snapshots of what the 8 or 16 bit sprite you saw in the game represented. Often they looked almost nothing like the in-game assets but I never loved the games or the manuals any less. I am wary of falling into the trap of thinking media was better when I was a kid. I think I was better at falling in love with games as a kid but I know there are some pretty amazing new games out there.
At Amontillado Cheer Camp, the lead cheerleader of each squad proudly carries a spirit stick at all times. Each stick is unique to the squad, many have been passed down between cheer captains for generations. One group has a brand new spirit stick that is causing quite the stir. Gossip around the camp is that the cheer captain found the staff in the cafeteria basement inside a locked box that was chained to the ground in a small alcove that had been bricked over. The spirit stick looks like it could be older than camp, maybe even as old as the winery that originally stood there over fifty years ago. It doesn't matter where they found the stick or how old it really is, the cheer captain with this stick has truly exemplified the crowd leading aspect of being a cheerleader. With the spirit stick in hand, it seems like they can get any cheerleader to act exactly how they want. No one has seen a few hundred cheerleaders in more ordered marches anywhere.
The Cane of Somaria summons a person sized cube of pink force that Link can pick up, throw, push, and use to deflect incoming projectiles. Link can only have one force cube at a time, with the older cube disappearing when a newer cube is created. In A Link to the Past, the force cube only has a few hits before it dissolves. This is a fantastic utility item for any adventurer.
I can imagine a labyrinthine dungeon filled with large buttons that need to be held down, ledges that are too high to jump to, projectiles that must be avoided, and pits filled with deadly traps that must be crossed. This dungeon was crafted by an arcane inventor that wished to create a gauntlet of puzzles and traps to stress test the limits of the cane while also testing the reflexes and problem solving skills of various participants using the cane. The inventor was more interested with creating new and more complicated puzzles than running a secure testing facility, so they created a construct that would be intelligent enough to run the entire testing facility while the inventor designed new rooms in their workshop. Colleagues and contemporaries of the inventor have not heard from the inventor nor heard any news from the testing facility in many months.
Shovel: A handy survival shovel any adventurer could use when wandering through a land filled with buried treasure and secret entrances to long forgotten catacombs. It is also great for digging a ditch or a grave.
First year cadets at the Ft. Greenhill Military Camp for Teens often experience hazing from more senior cadets. One popular ritual is known as the "Dirt Nap." After lights out, cadets are required to dig themselves a shallow grave and sleep in the grave all night. Those that complete the ritual earn the horary title of Zombie, one of many faux ranks the cadets can earn through hazing. This year, an over eager cadet that knew of the hazing ritual from an older sibling dug too deeply and found real human remains. The cadet quickly covered up the bones but campers have been reporting strange occurrences like furniture rearranging itself and T.V.'s turning on by them self.
The Shovel is given to Link by a boy who went searching for the Golden Power and became trapped in the dark realm. The boy asks Link to find and dig up his flute so that he might hear it played one last time before he passes on to the after life (see turns into a tree). For a mundane item like a shovel, that is a pretty amazing introduction story.
Flute: The item is clearly an ocarina in game but since it is called flute I drew a flute. A Link to the Past uses the flute as a way to warp around the map. It also has one of my favorite little stories attached to it that I never really paid much attention to as a kid. A lost soul asks our hero to find their flute and play if for them one last time. The missing boy's father hears Link playing the flute and understands that his son is lost forever. The boy's pet bird hears the song and mourns the loss of its master while thanking Link for closure by offering him fast travel. I understand it is a game mechanic to set a pace on how quickly the player is able to move around the world, but I feel it is an artful alignment of narrative and game play.
The first day of practice at band camp was interrupted by a swarm of snakes rushing into the auditorium as the band began to play. The second day of practice was interrupted when a stream of rats marched out of the kitchen into the cafeteria where the band was practicing because the counselors said the auditorium was off limits until an exterminator could be called to investigate the snake problem. Practice on the third and fourth days of camp were blissfully uneventful for the campers. No one suspected that the sudden disappearance of a rocky island off the coast of Japan during an unexplainable earthquake had anything to do with the 3rd chair flutist's new flute they found in a funny little thrift shop run by the most peculiar person. Practice might be interrupted on the fifth or sixth day of band camp, depending on the average swim speed of a certain creature that is right now being tracked by a branch of the Japanese government that does not official exist.
A stranger digging holes in a barren field requests assistance in looking for a lost flute that is a family heirloom. They offer you a shovel to help turn over soil quickly and spare your hands the grueling work. The flute was lost somewhere in this field but they haven’t been able to find it. With a thorough investigation of the field a small metallic object can be seen poking up through the ground. The flute is caked with corrosion and almost entirely buried in hard dry soil. The skeletal remains of the flute’s last owner are revealed when the flute is dug out of the ground. If the corroded flute is returned to the stranger, they begin play the flute as if it were in pristine condition. As they do, they wither and rot away until nothing is left but a small pile of dust and a perfectly restored flute that plays with a hauntingly beautiful timbre.
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That last idea was for the shovel AND the flute.
I am really enjoying picking a through line for adventure seeds and riffing on that concept.
Thanks for stopping by. Please don't profit off my work without my consent. You can use it personally however you see fit.
As always, be excellent to everyone.
-Ceph
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