At the end of my last campaign...

At the end of my last campaign, one of my players stole a locked satchel from a bank vault right before the bank burned down.

What kind of plot hook should be in the satchel?

Money

The Merchant's Box

It looks like a puzzle that needs to be solved and probably holds something valuable inside.

it contains a waterfilled metal box with a skull in it, and upon removing the water it beginns to talk and ...[fill in here]

A planeshift scroll, a portal key from carceri to curst, a map of carceri with a big red x on it and it is all fake except the spellscroll.

It belongs to a very powerful person/entity that now wants it back.

...it calls the party a bunch of fairies.

They want it back because it's just a really nice bag at the end of the day.

A bunch of bottles, each bottle holds a year worth of farts

Part 1 of 3 of a teleporter

>materials used to blackmail someone
>shares of a mysterious company
>debt contracts
>several strange objects that are actually clues that their owner left for himself for when his memory is wiped as per his contract with a research company

The most rare, sought-after and impossible-to-find item in the universe: a MacGuffin.

Seriously, no-one's ever found one.

7 shrinked heads

It contains various, encoded documents detailing normal shit like transactions, debts, and other accounting information. Seems innocent at first.
As you dig deeper, you will see signed papers. If anyone in the party can decode them, they will be revealed as contracts; people signing over their own blood, their own children, and even their souls.
Deeper still are various rituals of necromancy; this reveals that even people beyond death areally still in debt, and paying the bank with servitude, or worse, by having their ghostly soul devoured completely.
Then, if all has been discovered, the final thing in the satchel is a modestly decorated wooden box, with a blood-ruby amulet; this is the phylactery of the banker, who is a lich.
Making this worse, is that this bank is partnered with other banks across the region; whose owners are also liches (don't reveal this, but have players suspect it). Each of these liches have the same motif in their phylactery, connecting them to an interplanar demon.

...

Marsellus Wallace's soul

A fugitive leprechaun, bound and gagged.

Some money and a note dictating everything known about each party member. Step up that political discourse game OP.

>this bank is partnered with other banks across the region; whose owners are also liches (don't reveal this, but have players suspect it). Each of these liches have the same motif in their phylactery, connecting them to an interplanar demon.
Was good until this part. This is just too convoluted.

That same player character's head.

If you put it to your jawbone, or up to your ear, it rings like a tuning fork.
All the time.

I'd run a chaotic evil NPC that does that. Does terrible things, rampages across the land in the end just gives them what ever want sin the bag but really wanted the bag back.

Fuck you.

That's eerie, I was just about to post the same thing.

I'm presuming this is fantasy, so a heavily warded book (or another Macguffin of your choice). When the players open it, it has a few awesome things on the early pages (e.g. treasure maps, etc) what remains of the rest is obviously encoded in some form the players cannot easily decode, and some pages are obviously torn or cut out. They have to find someone who will be able to decode the text, although they should have clues where to look. The decoder is either a) crazy and you can have fun acting all cooky as an NPC or b) requires the players to complete some quest before decoding the text.

You can just as easily do this with a sci fi or modern setting, just replace the magical elements with technology.

If you're feeling ambitious, you can create props (if you're into that) by messing with images from the Rohonc Codex, Voynich Manuscript, or other undeciphered script. You could print them up and then age them by spraying tea or coffee on them (or find another method to make the documents look old, there are lots of how-to articles and videos), and then show them to the players.

The still living head of an oracle blathering away several prophesies and speaking of a hidden treasure that ties them all together.

the phylactery of an arch lich

the prophylactic of an arch lich

Head of Vecna

What appears to be an older version of the player's head.

A very ornate seemingly empty book.
The content of the pages are whatever knowledge the holder wants to know but only when the holder is willing to sacrifice others for his ambitions.

FPBP

A severed hand turned into a macabre trophy bearing the signet ring of some recently murdered noble.

Congrats you are now wanted for bank robbery and murder!

Lunch, medkit, heavy anti-bank robber weapon and other personal items. Return the bag to the owner and get an escort mission to their new job.

Inside is a chessboard that can play itself, but if the player loses they die. If they win they also die.

A vial containing a water elemental marked "Emergency Fire Suppressant"

BBEG's dead sibling's M:tG collection.

or if not the BBEG then some important NPC the party needs something from but have inadvertently pissed off.

Nanite bomb that ensures cancer

Whatever you put inside, they should get a blast of ink to the face.

Then stop try to sticking things inside your mom's ass.

A Pulp Fiction reference

Nothing ;) - but maybe there should have been???

Some kind of incredibly powerful, ancient immortal, who's been tracking down the satchel for the last seventy years because it's his favorite bag and he'll be damned if he has to wait another thousand years to get another that good.

the bank manager's head, someone sees them unlock it and now they are being framed for the murder, grand larceny, and arson

>"The golden phallus sheath of Amon-Gai! The legends are true!"
meanwhile
>"GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS IT I NEED TO GET MY BONE ON AND I AM NOT GETTING THE GHOST-CLAP AGAIN"

>What kind of plot hook should be in the satchel?

Several bank notes, a few rolled gold coin stacks, but most importantly a deed detailing ownership to a very large track of land and it's accompanying county/village/little towne(?), entry-level manor house, and entitlement to a small dividend from the 250 coin-paying citizens and 1500 or so documented material-paying peasants.

The catch, of course, is that the entire property is EXTREMELY HAUNTED: ghouls, ghosts, skeletons, werewolves, wargs, shadman goth dryads, necromancers, evil druids, black-furred satyrs, just an absolute fucking spooky mess. The bank doesn't even want the deed back, they're sorry to see the money god, but they're happy someone fucking stole it of all things as it's been through several bank auctions and no one has even bid on it once.

i thought that said 7 skinhead heads

For a modern/near modern plot

Sequentially marked small denomination bills. $5, $10, $20 or whatever is used for single use drug purchases in the local area.

And a note that says "buy drugs LOL"

The actual plot was supposed to be a sting operation to try and nail low-end dealers and users with something heavier than small-time drug possession related crimes: distributing counterfeit bills.

They're actually a result of a faulty die being sent to The Mint. Someone caught it after a large run was done. All this worthless cash. A scummy Federal law enforcement agent heard about it, and had the run transfered to his department with the idea of getting it into the street and using it to clean up the city. The Mint has been sworn to secrecy, and warned that if the mistake got to that size of print run, they could be on the hook for other, larger counterfeit runs.

Additional bonuses of this shady government move:

1-There's little risk to the average, law abiding citizen if they get hosed on a small bill, but it may encourage them to go cashless, which is more traceable.

2-Since the run size is known, as they're taken out of circulation, they can be tallied up and controlled.

3-Since the bill numbers are known, they can be used to trace trafficking patterns (who ends up with them at the top) and black marketeers (who end up trying to launder them)

A possible clue could be the note, which if hand written could match someone they know or dealt with.

Or where the money was sitting. A satchel of cash may have been marked for a specific party to pick it up.

And then there's the Federal agency who planned it. What will they do if they discover that the money is in circulation?

Hate to be a pedant, but it's "tract" of land. Not "track".

It's actually a very good saddleback satchel, before their current suppliers gave them shit leather.

I have that same bag. It's fucking great.

Spiders

>before their current suppliers gave them shit leather.
Shit, seriously? I hope they don't go under, they make great stuff.

fpbp

I've heard they just cut a lot of corners and tried to expand to stuff they didn't need to.

An I O U note from a master thief that will make them want to go after said theif lol

Metal spiders that attack the thieves.

>shadman

>shadman goth dryads
loli spirits arent really a part of my games

>shadman goth dryads
I'm sickened yet curious

>Shadman
Think about it lad

I'm mostly just sickened

The bag is stuffed to the brim with obnoxious fae, the kind that live in your cellar, drink your wine, and call you a bitch. If they try to rid themselves of it, it will return but restocked with slightly more annoying fair folk.

inheritance propierty papers AND key to a closed factory.

The factory made toilet paper in the shape of mummies, as it was their merchandise catch. However, it didn't catch and had to close.

There is a dungeon underneath the factory. The twist is that none of the monsters is actually a mummy

The Satchels contains several undelivered letters with instructions to be delivered at a given date, something like six months after whenever the player opens it or such.

In every letter, should the players read it, a young wizard alert his loved ones and family to move to a mountain mine where he has set a safehouse for them that should keep them protected from the 'calamity'. He apologizes and urges them not to bring anyone else but the listed names, as the wards on the safehouse will vaporize anyone not listed.

Then he explains that he had not choice but to set the calamity in place and it would happen at the end of next year. He left the bunk reliable couriers in charge of delivering the letters at this date (that is actually still six months away) because from that day onwards, there was nothing anyone would be able to do to stop the calamity. He further explains that he will join them at the safehouse after it starts and they'll remain underground for a whole year before the 'outside is safe again'.

He signs with love and that's it.

Knowledge (Geography) will let the players know that there's only two or so reasonable size villages near the 'safehouse' and two of the letters go to the Village in the north, for the parents. So Wizard must be from there and it's a good place to start tracking it.

A high difficulty perception will reveal that the Ink used is very rare, not entirely black, but with residual silver-colored crystals, meaning it comes from one of the few city states across the sea that mine their ink minerals in residual silver mines. Furthermore, the type of parchment seems to confirm this.

Feel free to include other clues that could have the players begin their quest to track said mage before the calamity takes place. Should your setting be low magic, replace Mage for prophet and say the calamity was forseem rather than planned.

Does it look like a bitch?

Gwyneth Paltrow's head.

A key, surrounded by sand.

If more people were pedantic, more people on 4chams would be able to spell at a middle-school level.

Pedant it up.

a liches phylactory. which looks like a mysterious puzzle cube. the party gets attacked by this lich or messed with.

A cambion's dick. It's always warm and makes it possible to cast Aganazzar's Scorcher once per day. The previous owner badly wants it back.