Yet another idea for a new epicly huge sidequest, which would be pretty hard and time-consuming to make and stuff, but well:
The Forgotten Route of the Lost Adventurers (or something)
Basically, it would be one enormous forest map, where you'd need to go after some kinda oldish man in some town would tell you about his two sons and one daughter who always went to the forest to play when they were kids, and one day they didn't come back ten years ago; he'd hint that he suspects they escaped.
It's pretty obvious he'd want you to find them and whether or not they're alive anymore. Naturally, because the forest is big, it'd be extremely hard to find them, and especially since you'd be left with only very few clues: the girl had an enchanted dagger that freezes everything it's stabbed with (to protect herself from evil old perverts and prevent them from escaping) and one of the boys had apparently stolen an old family sword before they disappeared (he'd say something like "my other son always expressed interest in that sword, so he must've stolen it... hopefully it has kept them alive, wherever they now are".
Another obvious thing is that you'd go there late at evening/early at night (for no logical reason
just so it'd be dark, but not pitch black; around sunset maybe?) and once you'd be in the forest, the first thing after taking a few steps would be a big herd of spiders dashing from the darkness, just to give an "oh crap the kids are dead if this happened to them"-feeling.
Other similar things would keep happening, dangerous monsters bursting out of nowhere, etc. and you'd just have to keep going through it until you find a big group of lost adventurers (at least 15 or so) moving along an extremely vague path (which would go around the forest without ever going out from there... and they'd been walking it for years without realizing it, new lost people joining them by time, older ones dying, etc).
They'd be very different from each other, but almost all would have torn clothes, scars, etc. and all kinds of weapons and items, so if you kill them... well, if you'd
manage to kill them, there'd be cool stuff to find. Maybe some storydeepening stuff as well, for example diaries and stuff like that describing their simple survival-centered life. Almost all of them should be humans, but maybe an occasional lumpkin or cobol as well... Maybe one G'nome... There'd be one blind and injured Elf,
possibly a Hobgoblin as well just for extra "WTF is wrong with this place?!"-ness, but I don't know.
When you find them, you could bump them and they'd say something random, if you bump them again, they say something like "Oh, you want to know about those three siblings?" or "Three siblings? Well..." and after bumping again, they'd react differently. Some could be like "Yep, I know where they are, just give me that X you have (some weapon, etc)" and if you give it to him... well, he'd tell you he lied (should've seen that coming, heh). Someone would say "I'm sorry, I don't know, but they were here a couple of years back" and "No, never seen them...", etc etc etc., you know. The blind Elf would be the only one to say anything remotely useful (but intentionally questionable), "About six years ago, I saw three youngsters heading over towards the Great Mountain of Gmarlant, and I told them it was dangerous, but they refused to listen... I truly doubt they are alive anymore, but that would be where I would look if I wanted to find them".
He'd tell you where the mountain is by describing some landmarks, so you'd actually have to "find it".
I mean, he's blind, so it wouldn't have to be perfectly accurate, although he'd have traveled the road many times and he'd be the only one who's realized they're going in circles. Maybe just some pretty vague descriptions would be good.
Anyway, when you'd find the mountain, there'd be some kind of tribe living there (spawned after talking to the Elf; the whole mountain was off limits somehow (...you know I'm gonna type it, so here goes: invisible walls?
)). Anyway. The tribe would be Elf/Lumpkin crossbreeds, and how they reacts depends on how you approach them. If you're like "OH HAI GUISE UR GUNNA TELL ME WERE TEH KIDS R OR ILL CUT UR HEADZ OFF LIEK THIS MUCH LMAO!!!1!!!ONEONE!!!11!!ONE!!!!" (that was a retarded way of saying "if you attack them") then they attack you. If you bump any of the men there first, then they all are polite and tell you about the siblings who came there. If you bump the women, they think of you as some kind of pervert/murderer, and refuse to tell you anything (but don't try to kill you). Maybe just say stuff like "I'm not gonna tell a sick pervert like you!" and "You're too suspicious to tell anything to... how do I know you wouldn't kill me after I'd tell you?", etc. Basically, if you do that, you have to convince them you're not by doing a little quest. It could be randomized from a few:
1) Giving the blind Elf a new cane*
2) Herding some sheep for a while**
3) Eating dinner with them (LOL)***
4) Teaching some kids something****
5) Fishing with some dudes*****
6) Assassinating an evil guy******
*You'd just have to go back to the Elf and give him a cane as a gift for some reason.
**They have a sheep farm place there and the owner of it would go away for a short time, which you'd have to stay with the sheep and fight wild animals that try to eat them.
***Obviously, this would be the easiest. You'd just have to do nothing.
****For example, if you're a Wizard, you could teach them magic and stuff, if you're a Healer, teach them to heal, etc etc etc. Basically just hanging around with them and doing what you do to show them how to do it. Adventurers would be a bit of a problem, though... maybe they could have to listen to the kids' stories (IN SOVIET RUSSIA, KIDS TEACH YOU!!!
)
*****On a lake that's on the other side of the mountain... not sure how this could be done, but well.
******Slaver who lives on the other side of the lake on the other side of the mountain. You know, kinda like this:
...he'd be evil and takes people (well, Elf-lumpkins) from the town to his place of evilness. You'd have to kill him, but the town people don't know that he's immortal. So, you can't kill him. The only way to beat him would be pushing him into a deep pit full of grub bugs in the place of evilness, which he'd have used as an execution device. Naturally, if you'd fall there... well, you'd either die or if you manage to fight your way back through a sewer to the main place of evilness, you could try to attack the Slaver again. The sewer obviously wouldn't be big, but filled with grub bugs... maybe a few survivors who're too scared to escape all the way. (Most likely the best solution to do this would be by having it as a teleportation place "outside" the map...) If you manage to push the Slaver in the pit, free the slaves he has, and take them back to the town, you'd go on with the main sidequest like every other thing would also lead to the same thing:
However you'd get the town people (...Elf-lumpkins...) to tell you where the siblings are, there'd be an old guy (yes, I have an obsession about epic old guys) who tells you that they left a few days ago to the Mountain of Tdmrull, which is on the other side of the forest. It also would have been unaccessible before this by whatever means needed (invisible walls most likely... lol...). Obviously, he tells you that the mountain is nothing like this one, and that it's the home of an insane angel who kills everyone who goes there, and that the siblings are certainly dead if they went there, because, well, he literally kills everyone if they even go close to the mountain. The reason why they went there? To kill the angel. The old guy could say something like "I thought they were joking, but then I realized they were serious".
Anyway, that would probably be pretty frustrating... but when you'd go to the other mountain, there would be no sign of anyone wanting to kill you. Maybe that would actually be a
slight disappointment, if you'd hope for an epic battle with an epic boss. Oh well, there'd be one later, so...
At the top of the mountain, there'd be a fight going on when you go there, between the siblings and the angel, who would have only very low health so that it'd be fast and the player wouldn't have enough time to go interrupt it*.
When the angel dies, the siblings want to kill the player. They'd be very, VERY hard to beat, especially the other one of the guys with the sword, he'd basically be like an extremely strong guy who runs towards you and swings the sword like crazy. The sword would be magically poisoned (some ominous green particles around it to make it obvious without being hit) and he'd also have a poison cloud spellbook. The other guy wouldn't be strong at all, but he'd have a spellbook of orb storm and he'd heal himself like crazy with potions, etc. The girl wold have the dagger of freezing stuff and ice spells, like the "glacial spike" and "wintery blast".
After beating them, there'd be two choices: to kill them or to take them back to their father. If you wouldn't kill them, then they'd just follow and if bumped, the sword guy would say things like "I'm ashamed of how weak I am...", and the other guy would be like "Dad's still alive? COOL LET'S GO SEE HIM!!!", and the girl would say something like "I guess it's good to go visit him once in a while". When you take them to him, they're a happy family again.
If you kill them... well, then you beat the sidequest as well, but the result from going back to the old guy (their father) would be him attacking, and obviously guards come, and since that's what they do, kill him (unless of course you kill him first, in which case, the guards probably would attack you? I'm not sure if it'd be like that, since there usually aren't any enemies in towns...)
*Unless they have, in which case, if they kill the siblings instead, the angel supermegahyper-enchants the player's inventory (makes every weapon do more damage, makes every spell cost less mana, etc) and awards them with a "divine pressure" skill (when standing idle next to demons, they can't attack and their health is drained (but they can't die from it, otherwise that'd be really unbalanced when in the Abyss), and every time you kill a demon, there'd be an overdramatic explosion, health would be increased a bit, other things would also grow a bit (but not too much))! He'd say something like "This is only a very tiny part of my powers, so if you try to attack me now, you will fail." His health would obviously have grown to be huge the moment the siblings die.
--------------------------------
....so, yeah. It'd be huge, but nearly impossible to do, and most probably would actually be pretty boring.