Quick Adventure Hook "The Scarmaw Orcs"

Twenty  athletic  Orc youths stand in a row. With them standing out  like sore thumbs are two humans....

The  king has been clear about  the mission. Locate the Scarmaw Orcs, negotiate a treaty of trade and nonaggression with the green skinned bastards, and if possible see if we could turn the tribal chiefs attention towards the dwarves in Iron Pass. Simple? No not simple. So here we are the chief has refused to speak to us unless we pass the orc warrior trial, what ever the blazes that is, and  now this big brute Thagnar and his smashed up smelly tooth is shouting in my face.

From the  other side:

Thagnar One Tusk looked over the new recruits. Not a single one of them would survive a battle, not one worm ridden one. He marched up and down the ranks of young orcs, only a few would meet his gaze the rest of these sad sacks of yak shit turn down their eyes, like yearling wogs.

Humans sent by the chief?  This must be some play at humor towards Thagnar; Thagnar hates humor. Thagnar will send back their corpses in woven baskets once the trial is done.

“Pathetic worms!”

Thagnar grinned to himself, he knew by smell that at least one of theses young warriors just wet their armor.

“It's time you worms, time to find out which of you will done the shield of our tribe and begin training for the patrols. It is time for you slime-wallows to prove you're ready, become true Scarmaw tribes-orcs, or go back to helping the mothers tend mushrooms!”

With that uplifting speech the Mudmaw Orc trial of passage begins.

Roll 1D20 to determine the  trial:

1. The participants  pair off and are tied together. Between the two of them they are given one dagger and one torch. They are then pushed into the and told to return with blood on the dagger.
2. Each young warrior must face down a dire boar, forcing it to yield, their only weapon is a shield.
3. Each  participant , must strip to the waist and fight a giant cave wasp weaponless.
4. There are twenty  new recruits, all of them are lead into a cave with a deep bowl shaped depression in the middle. At the sound of a gong Thagnar tells them to fight, when ten are left standing  the trial is over.
5. The participants pair off and are connected to each other by a 5 foot iron chain. The chain is suspended over a raging fire. The last of the pair to give has passed the trial. There are no rules.
6. All of the participants are told to go to the coast and retrieve the egg sack of a giant eel, (a favorite of the chief) The eels are very large and very protective.
7. The participants must run through a trench while older Orcs rain rocks on them from above. At the end of this gauntlet any left standing are each made to ride a Cave Slith (a 10 foot long lizard known for it's nasty disposition) To pass the initiation the  young orc must stay on the lizard for no less than  5 drum beats.
8. The  Inductees must drink the pulp of the Yacoooma mushroom. It is very hallucinogenic, and is known to give visions, and send some of those who imbibe into murderous rages. In the end each  youth is taken to the chief alone to tell him of their visions. Only  those who have visions of war progress to adult hood. The chief gets a second boon form the  exchange as each vision is seen as something of an oracle, the visions are highly valued by the chief. Interestingly yacoooma pulp may only be consumed once, if it is ever drank again by the same person it acts as a deadly poison.
9. The young orcs are sent to the nearest human settlement and told not to return with out a horse. Those who return pass on into adult hood. Those who do not are presumed killed.
10. Participants must enter the  caves of the  slug god, negotiate the dark and  mucous coated confines of the  Spineless gods domain, fill a flask with slug acid and return.
11. The  Workings of the  boulder. the group is split into two teams of ten and are taken to a strange cave with a thirty foot tall conical mound at it's center. Each team is given a six foot round, very smooth  boulder of granite and told to push it to the top of the cone, the first team to succeeded passes the trial. There are no rules as to how this has to be done.
12. There are twenty new recruits and twenty large brown leather sacks laid out in a row. Each participant must step forward and cram their head into one of the sacks when orders to do so. The sacks contain. (roll once for all sacks or once for each it's up to you)1.Broken glass 2.honey 3.A poisonous viper 4.A brick 5.Fire ants 6.gravel 7.A sleeping badger 8.The  head of one of last years losers 9.hot coals 10.Thistles 11.A cave centipede 12.A large pile of orc ear wax and toe jam. 13.A spiked gauntlet. 14.A glass jar of  Skink blood. 15.Finely Ground charcoal and several sharp stones 16.A pair of young fire beetles. 17.Chiken bones 18.A live chicken 19.A still beating heart from "something" 20.A tribal dagger which (if you survive jamming your face into it,) becomes yours.
13. The  participants pair off and "chicken fight" on on the others shoulders using  red hot iron spears. The winner of each match is the  first to knock off or scar his opponent. The winners move on.
14. Thagnar takes the group to a wide open cave, a deep crevasse bisects the floor. An open sided stone bridge arcs over the crevasse some  eight feet wide and thirty feet long. As arrows begin to whistle by, Thagnar grabs the first recruit in line and pushes him towards the bridge. You hear him growl, "Serpintine" as he shoves the frightened orc forward.
15. Bullett Jumping. In a pit outside of the  tribal caves the the tribe keeps a captured Bullett.  Each  participant must jump over the beast twice to be declared a brave enough orc to fight in the ranks. Each year the  Bullett claims several of the initiates.
16. Each participant gets a set of  tightly woven wicker gloves covers on the outside with stinging  cave ants, the participants then fight until there are only ten left standing.
17. Each participant is given a small cup of  a highly toxic fungal extract, they are told to pour it in their eyes, to purify their sight for battle. This does not damage the eyes but makes the  recipient violently ill both vomiting and emptying their bowels. After this  purification  each participant is hit with long supple wooden switch  crossed the face to mark them as a member of the  tribe, finally they are secluded for a day and a night with no food or water. When  the next day dawns they may come out of seclusion as adult warriors. Some never come out.
18. IN a near by  underground gully  there are known t be umber hulk dens, each  of the twenty is given a different formulation of  ocher mud, which is smeared on their hands. They are to race to the umber-hulks den , some  three miles away though dangerous underground tunnels and leave their hand print on the  beasts. Those who make it back  succeed, those who do not are dead.
19. There are groups of patrol that watch ever hall and entrance  to the Scarmaws tribal caves each wears a headpiece adorned with cave lizard scales, bring back a scale to pass the trial. If you happen to kill one of the guards you may take his post after the trial, if a guard happens to kill a participant, so be it.
20. There is a thirty foot tall cliff at the far end of the caves, below it will be built a fire that will be allowed to burn down to hot coals. The participants must leap from the lip of the cliff into the coals and survive. How this is achieves is unimportant, if the participant dies or is  maimed, then they  were never meant to be warriors. After the leap each survivor is bathed in  water from a near by spring then covered in  dark charcoal dust  which is vigorously rubbed into the participants burns and open wounds, marking them for life.

As always
Thank you for reading.

Please Drop any comments you  like into that woven basket full of bullet ants bellow.