D20x5 Quixotic Questers

“The Impossible Dream” is a banger of a song.

D20	This quester is
1	a humble, bright-eyed farmboy.
2	a princess-turned-pauper.
3	a bastard heir to a great fortune.
4	a bumbling magician’s apprentice.
5	an acerbic stablehand.
6	a senile knight.
7	an alcoholic barber.
8	a runaway child.
9	a daydreaming squire.
10	a fresh-out-of-the-ivory-tower academic.
11	a perpetually amused bohemian.
12	an indentured servant dodging the law.
13	a luckless beggar.
14	the middle scion of a cadet branch of a middling noble house.
15	a scarred amnesiac.
16	a journeyman mason starving for an adventure to free them from the banality of professional life.
17	a fatalistic serf going along with the quest only because doing what they’re told is the only way they know how to live.
18	a happy-go-lucky highwayman.
19	a staid scribe.
20	an inquisitive and insensitive student.

D20	This quester is on a quest
1	to overthrow the reigning government and replace them as a benevolent monarch.
2	to rescue a fair maiden from a cruel beast.
3	to cleanse the land of monsters and bullies.
4	to find an artifact lost since the world’s dawn.
5	to cure the plague ravaging the region.
6	to forestall the coming of winter forever.
7	to end the sudden famine that’s befallen the land.
8	to prepare the proper authorities for an incoming horde.
9	to identify the reincarnation of a treasured guru, and defend them from their past life’s surviving enemies.
10	to cleanse the corruption at the source of a vital river.
11	to lead some pilgrims to a promised paradise.
12	to champion a crusade into the darkness beneath the earth.
13	to steal the golden egg of the Ziz, for reasons they only vaguely understand.
14	to seal a gate that’s opened between the worlds of the living and the dead.
15	to broker a peace between warring clans.
16	to slay a living nightmare gnawing at the boundary between fantasy and reality.
17	to uproot a cell of witches who plan maleficarine sabotage.
18	to pluck the prismatic flower from the bottom of a dungeon and use it to lift a heavy curse.
19	to deliver a portentous proclamation to the highest power in the land.
20	to collect a wise man’s wisest words, a kingdom’s last crown, and an immortal’s bones, to mix them into a potent potion.

D20	This quester was given this quest by
1	a fairy-queen who shone like the dawn.
2	a disguised spirit.
3	a disgraced oracle.
4	a charlatanous hierophant.
5	a naiad trapped at the bottom of an old and runed well.
6	a radiant divinity who appeared to them in a dream.
7	an allegedly enlightened hermit.
8	a wizard who mistook them for someone of occult significance.
9	a sage who translated most of a prophecy from an ancient tablet.
10	a decrepit talking automaton-statue of a legendary lord.
11	a fading demigod bound to the untended embers of their sacred flame.
12	a thundering voice that came from behind some clouds.
13	a hologram projected from a filigreed gem they stumbled on in a field.
14	a genie, as a precondition for the granting of their wish.
15	the ghost of their grandmother.
16	a warrior who wandered off a distant battlefield in an enchanted trance.
17	a vision of themself from the future.
18	a duplicitous hero delegating their duty.
19	an ergotic hallucination they believed to be a revelation.
20	a mercury-poisoned hatmaker.

D20	This quester believes
1	they are the chosen one who is destined to save the world.
2	there is a cabal of demons in charge of the government.
3	that a truly virtuous heart can conquer all obstacles. Failing to prevail will shatter their self-image.
4	the disasters of this generation are caused by its sexual flagrancy.
5	that everyone they meet must either be their friend or their enemy, and they prefer friends.
6	that you only get injured if you’ve done something to offend the gods, and so must surely deserve to be.
7	that covering your head indoors is an act of grievous disrespect, while not wearing one outdoors is the mark of an indolent fool.
8	that anyone who doesn’t look like they do must be some sort of demihuman, like an elf or dwarf.
9	that all evil creatures can be repelled by salt.
10	that the blind can perceive things that the sighted cannot.
11	that there is a villainous split personality lurking within their own mind, waiting for moments of weakness to surface.
12	that when they complete their quest they will be rewarded with heavenly blessings.
13	that exercising nude in the morning light is necessary for maintaining one’s health.
14	that there is a finite supply of blood in the world, and it must sometimes be spilled in order to maintain its proper circulation.
15	that they possess an undefeatable secret combat technique which they have sworn to use only in the most dire circumstance.
16	that physicians siphon off some of their patients’ precious fluids to influence them with from afar with fell medicines.
17	that they can speak the tongue of Adam, understandable by all people (they cannot).
18	that thunder is made by giants beating on drums.
19	that to remain pure of body they must abstain from any food that’s grown on the ground.
20	that songbirds carry the last music of the innocent dead, and must be honoured with offerings of honey and seeds.

D20	This quester has with them
1	a sensitive and gentle sow.
2	1d4 flea-infested sycophants.
3	a magic sword, the wounds left by which the wielder can command to transform into red birds and fly onto another target.
4	a fiercely loyal mule.
5	a large and floppy dog that can smell insincerity.
6	a luminous sprite which is to angels as imps are to demons.
7	a crow-voiced bard who hopes to use their quest to inspire a song that will be sung through the ages.
8	a scrawny urchin who idolizes them.
9	a lecherous monk who hopes to redeem themself by guiding the quester.
10	a parrot that repeats only curses, and knows more than it speaks.
11	an illustrated book of riddles encoded with hints of the threats and paths along their journey.
12	1d4 sore and disillusioned retainers.
13	a bored and mocking noble, following for the spectacle.
14	a bandolier of silver bullets.
15	a mute and mighty oaf.
16	a jug of holy healing honey.
17	a craven, opportunistic scavenger waiting for them to kill or die.
18	a scarf woven from acrobats’ hair that will snap out to save them should they fall or be knocked off a ledge.
19	a brave and canny goat with garlands garnishing its horns.
20	a porcelain shield which will protect its wielder completely from any one attack before shattering. It can only be repaired with pure gold, and bears the glinting fractures of several such past mendings.