Eight Elven Mysteries

For me, mystery is the key to all adventure writing. If I can make the players wonder about what's happening, what's happened, or what's going to happen, their curiosity pulls them straight into the world. I'm hoping to do a bunch of posts about mystery and include some random tables of mysteries as well.

Here are eight elven-themed mysteries to draw your players in:

1. An elf riding a white horse hard through the woods just off the road. (bears a message which proves the innocence of accused kin)
2. A shadowy wood where an elven tower stands abandoned. (inhabitants, under a gloom curse, infused their weapons with their own despair and animated them, knowing the weapons would kill them)
3. An elf sleeping against a tree, golden hair spread out around. (actually dead, body magically preserved)
4. A perfectly cylindrical chamber which has no visible exit when the door is closed; ornate pillows on the floor. (elven meditation chamber -- sitting on the pillows and meditating causes luminous elven script and symbols to appear on the walls)
5. An elven shrine; an elf sits in meditation and will not leave. (an elven deity once appeared here long ago and promised to return to the shrine)
6. A band of elves processing, protecting a hooded elf in the centre. (an elven noble escaping from an abusive spouse or lord)
7. Tales of a dryad that once communed with elves, but whose tree was lost. (if asked, the elves don't remember the tree's location, but they remember the name of the dryad and that it granted them Wisdom of the forest)
8. A tree with a symbol of a sword drawn on it which is illuminated by moonlight. (speaking in orcish or goblin will cause the sword to fly out from the tree and attack; speaking in elvish will reveal the sword embedded in the tree behind the symbol)