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So, I have a series of ideas for an adventure, and I'd like to recruit the collective knowledge base to help flesh it out. Any input on encounters, tricks, traps, mini-quests and such are welcome. I expect this to eventually morph into a fun one-shot (or perhaps something bigger) for my players.
Let's get started!
Target level range: 12th to 15th
Primary Locales: Once-great forest, drowned by dark magic
Main Antagonist: The Crawling King, a Worm That Walks that drowned the forest
Miscellaneous Encounters: Marsh Giant Plague Zombies hosting cockroach swarms; a froghemoth (because they are awesome); a witchfire attended by several will-o-wisps (possibly with a grudge against the Crawling King)
Those are just a few ideas to get the juices flowing. I kind of want the enemies to focus around vermin, undead, and aberrations; things warped by or thriving in the blighted environment. I look forward to collaborating with you all, and thanks in advance for your input!
Sharks. You don't expect to find sharks in a swamp.
How about some kind of abberration that burrows into you and controls your mind? Similar to "alien", but concentrating on your mind?
One mad vampiric alchemist rumored to be just about making an amazing discovery which makes all undead immune to sunlight and positive energy?
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I've been trying to find a way to bring dragons back into the forefront of my games; that sounds like an awesome idea to add one that the party wouldn't try to abuse [we're all kind of devious in my group] without strongly weighing the repercussions.
Also, sharks is good. Are good? Be good? Either way, yes.
And brain slugs are a nice option. I'll have to think on that.
Keeps them coming!
*EDIT*
Creepy Creatures, by Alluria Publishing [I picked it up here from Paizo], has the "Brain Wasp Swarm," which is exactly what it sounds like. Might need a little polishing for this adventure, but . . . muwahahah!
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Going with the Dragon theme... maybe throw the old 1 - 2 at them. Let them find "signs" of a dragon in the area... maybe a few 1/2 Dragon Lizard men or other creatures and let then run them into a Drake from beastie 2 (low CR) small hoard... they think threat beat easy kill.... then WHAM them with Moma finding her offspring dead.
My favorite, and would fit right in.
Have 2 goblins set traps for them. Have them fire arrows that have been dipped in poison and the puss from a rotting corpse. This can do both poison and disease to each person it hits. :)
Keeps the dwarves from getting uppity. :)
Have the goblins firing from just beyond some traps they've set up (spiked pits work well, nets attached to bent over trees work well to!).
The first time they attack someone will charge them, I guarantee it. They'll probably set off the traps. Either way, have the goblins drop down a goblin sized hole and cackle as they run off through a series of underground passageways.
Have the same two goblins pull similar stunts the next day and the next. However, have them switch it up. Next time, they fire from a concealed location, after setting up a few traps scattered around the PCs camping spot at random.
If they manage to kill the goblins, have the next set of goblins double to 4. Then to 8. Then to 16. Keep this up until the goblins CR matches a tough fight for the PCs.
When they dispatch the tough fight goblins, give them 2-3 days to recouperate without being attacked.
THEN hit them with the big bad corrupted Dryad that was giving the goblins orders. Give her 2-3 goblin druid followers, some animal companions, and a bunch of summoned creatures to give the PCs a very very very rough time.
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Normally, I've got kobolds being my trapmasters, but I haven't been giving goblins the love they deserve. Heck, maybe bugbears. Classic Monsters Revisited has some interesting variants, I think. Might need to pick that one up.
I actually had a kobold shooting gallery with a field of "randomly" spaced pits in one adventure [each 5' square had a 25% chance to hold a pit]; kept the halfling outrider from charging in quite so confidently.
Maybe more than one group of goblins; one under the sway of the crazy dryad, and another the remnants of the village, fighting to reclaim their land amidst the chaos.
As for poison + disease; I like spiked pits with filth & poisonous vermin in the bottoms. Gives me another excuse to use a swarm. . .
Ooh! Spiked pit with a diseased varmint of some sort trapped in the bottom by some sadistic goblins [aren't they all?]. The poor varmint is on the verge of death due to an infestation by a swarm of ticks [Bestiary 2]. --> 50ft deep camouflaged spiked pit [CR 8 outta the Core Book] + diseased deer [CR nil, vector for ticks] + tick swarm [CR 9] = unpleasant fall. Logically, though, goblins would likely be too lazy to dig a pit over 30ft deep. I suppose the charms of a psychotic dryad would override that laziness, though. Add a CR 5 goblin observing the pit area with some particularly potent bloodroot or greenblood oil [+2 or so to the DC] and *blammo* CR 11 encounter [if I'm reading the Pathfinder rules for encounter building correctly, that is].
Hmm, just a few ideas:
-a large gathering of boggards attracted by the wet, befouled environment, comes to worship the froghemoth as a god. Of course, as an unintelligent creature, the frogemoth is barely even aware of them, just coming in contact with them long enough to accept sacrifices. IIRC, Kobold Quarterly had an issue with "ecology of the froghemoth" and it had a few nasty things- tadpole frogemoths, and eggs that acted as traps for intruders into the frogemoth's lair.
-Swarms, don't forget swarms. cockroach swarms, botfly swarms, spider swarms, centipede swarms, amoeba swarms, alchemical swarms; other types of "buggy" swarms. Also, they could very well be templated. Also, when some of those marsh giant plague zombies explode, they might release some more swarms. Imagine a marsh giant zombie inflated with so much blood it infested by a tick swarm! Could also double as a blood battery for particularly decadent vampires.
-Fouled elementals- check out Ravenloft's versions- blood (water), grave (earth), pyre (fire), mists (air).
Also consider what the more "mundane" (compared to these unnatural things) ramifications of such a transformation of the environment would cause. Such a change will effect the basic ecology of the formerly great forest and also change how the locals will live there.
-flooding- turning a forest into a dismal swarmp will likely remove a lot of the trees and other objects that keep the soil stable. This will make the entire land a lot more prone to flooding and landslides. Quickand of course may also become a big problem. Water may be befouled and dangerous to drink.
-mass funeral pyres, plague scenes like outta the middle ages. In a land where death and undeath are both common, the collection and cremation of corpses on a mass scale may become a bleak but necessary daily fact of life. Without bothering to identify or even give the dead last rights, this may bother more religious PCs in the party. Things also get difficult when looters strip the bodies of all they are worth and when relatives of the dead come looking for their lost ones.
-Paranoia runs rampant regarding the forest and the disease it brings about. Anybody could be contaminated. People suspected of being infected with the plague are shunned, locked away in brick tombs until they die. Similarly, the local surviving druids have gone more than a little bonkers and attack viciously anybody who intrudes what little territory they have left.
-Fouled elementals- check out Ravenloft's versions- blood (water), grave (earth), pyre (fire), mists (air).
I've always had to force myself not to use a water elemental in a sewer system. :) Imagine what all it would be sucking up from the sewage...
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The undead husks of trees that were drowned by the flooding, using stats Frankensteined together from a combination of Gargantuan Animated Object, the zombie template, etc. Not any old tree would come back as an undead, in this manner (although use of create undead could explain some of them), but these particular ancient oak trees were inhabited by dryads, who also died when their trees drowned. A variation of the drowned one undead from 3.X, applied to a dryad, combined with a gargantuan animated object zombie tree, could be a scary encounter, particularly if there are more than one of them in an area (since the now-undead oak trees can shuffle slowly around, making their dryads more mobile). Alternately, skip the drowned one (the aura of drowning is pretty tacky anyway) and make the dryads spectral undead or ghosts, linked to the animated corpses of their trees, which must be permanantly destroyed, to stop the dryad-ghosts from returning (and have regeneration - fire or something).
Perhaps the undead oak trees have become carnivorous or vampiric, and sustain themselves now on carrion and the flesh of living creatures they catch, and while they can bash foes or perhaps even Snatch them with their branches, the roots also attack, and have the Grab property, attempting to grapple and pin foes in the waist-deep floodwaters around them, leaving them to drown as they fight to free themselves from the Constricting roots!
Oak trees don't shed their leaves when they hibernate for the winter, and perhaps these carnivorous / blood-drinking undead oak trees have withered brown leaves hanging limply from skeletal branches, rattling in the breeze, until the creature detects living prey, and all the leaves drop off into a fluttering swarm to attack prey as a blood-draining version of a bat swarm or something, returning when sated to feed the tree that spawned them, leaving only bloodless bodies in their wake. A single gargantuan oak tree might produce multiple such swarms, and gain a surge of healing equal to the hit points drained by the vampire-leaf-swarms when they return.
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An undead treant, using a template like skeletal champion or zombie lord or something, retaining the ability to animate trees (only, in this case, trees drowned by the flooding as undead trees) temporarily, could also work this way.
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Mud elementals, composed of the disease-ridden muck that formed in shallow areas where drowned corpses ended up washing into piles and decaying, that carry disease, or are also charged with negative energy, as well as having traditional mud elemental properties, could exist as well, evil creatures brought to existence by the deaths of many plants, animals and people, tainted manifestations of former elemental spirits.
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Undead trees with vampiric leaf swarms . . . by Sobek's scaly backside! I think my players would soil themselves. I love it.
As for the froghemoth [one of my favorite creatures of all time], my research points to Issue 12 of Kobold Quarterly, so that's another goody I need to pick up.
I hadn't really thought about communities near the forest, and the impact on them, but including some of those elements would add a bit of incentive for the players to investigate the situation. What hero can turn down the plaintive cries for aid from a mass of displaced villagers on the road? Maybe have a few super-creepy folks left in the ghost towns too stubborn to leave [or distraught and turning to foul patrons for relief].
I think the old "Libris Mortis" had grave dirt elementals or something like that. I'll have to check.
Keep the deviousness coming!
*EDIT*
It was grave dirt golems, and necromentals that Libris had
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Undead trees with vampiric leaf swarms . . . by Sobek's scaly backside! I think my players would soil themselves. I love it.
Heh. I was looking for something that would be relevant against 12th to 15th level PCs, and Gargantuan animated trees would start around CR 9, with modifications for undead traits, multiple limb -> snatch -> throw attacks, multiple roots -> grab -> drown attacks and the possibility of vampiric leaf swarms providing extra damage, some healing and possibly even concealment (swarming in the squares around the tree) to the tree itself, should buff the Challenge Rating of the encounter with the giant undead tree nicely.
Added cruelty could be having the blood draining leaf-swarms inflict Con damage (standard blood drain, a la stirges) *and* a smidge of Str damage (chilling touch effect), making the PCs who have been blood-drained more susceptible to the root-grapples or the branch-snatches.
If it's got a ghostly / spectral dryad attached, spring attacking out of the cover of the tree itself to level-drain / ability damage foes, so much the more so.
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Or you skip the hassle of building the tree-thing from scratch and just use a Giant Advanced Shambling Mound made of necrotic vegetation and decay, necromantically potent and infested with Ghast-template Centipede Swarms... :)
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I amused myself with the 'drowned undead oak tree' concept and decided to hop, skip and jump over the animated object, zombie, etc. rules to see what I could come up with.
Technically, under Immune it should say 'plant traits, undead traits,' but since the only plant trait immunity that is different than the undead traits is immunity to polymorph, I decided to make it easier and just say 'polymorph, undead traits.'
I also threw a bunch of fun mundane abilities onto the beastie, such as constrict, grab, pull, rend and trample, as well as my own little addition, throw.
Nothing says 'good, clean fun' like having a gargantuan tree snatch up the gnome and hurl him 80 ft. away for 4d6+21 damage. :)
BLIGHT OAK CR 13
XP 25,600
CE Gargantuan Undead Plant
Init +0; Senses all-around vision, blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4
DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 6, flat-footed 26 (-4 size, +20 natural armor)
hp 180 (16d8+108)
Fort +12, Ref +5, Will +10
Defensive Abilities energy protection, hardness 5; Immune polymorph, undead traits; Resist fire 10
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 branch slams +20 (2d8+14 plus grab), 1 root grapple +20 (grab + constrict 2d8+21)
Ranged thrown person or object +12 (4d6+21, Ref DC 32 halves)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks constrict (2d8+21, roots), pull (branch or root, 10 ft.), rend (2d8+21, requires both slams to hit a single target), throw (4d6+21, Ref DC 32 halves), trample (2d8+21, Ref DC 32 halves), vampiric leaf swarms
STATISTICS
Str 38, Dex 10, Con –, Int –, Wis 11, Cha 15
Base Atk +10; CMB +28 (+32 to grapple), CMD 28 (36 vs. trip)
Feats Toughness (B)
Skills none
SQ all-around vision, enhanced stability, slender build, sodden, sturdy
SPECIAL ABILITIES
All-Around Vision (Ex) A blight oak (and it's leaf swarms) can see in all directions. It gains a +4 racial bonus to Perception checks and cannot be flanked.
Energy Protection (Ex) A blight oak takes half damage from acid, cold and sonic attacks. Damage rolled is halved before energy resistance (if any) is applied, and the blight oak is still allowed any applicable saving throw to further reduce damage.
Enhanced Stability (Ex) Due to its many sturdy roots, a blight oak has a +4 bonus to its CMD to avoid being tripped, in addition to the +4 normally afforded to a creature with more than two legs.
Slender Build (Ex) The bulk of a blight oak’s size is vertical, and it counts as a large creature for the purposes of squeezing through narrow spaces, although it is sixty feet tall, and always gains the advantage of attacking from a higher space with its slam attacks against ground bound creatures of size large or smaller (this bonus is +1, and is not added into the attack numbers above). Due to its build, it has half the effective space and reach of a creature of its size.
Sodden (Ex) The wooden body of a blight oak is saturated with the floodwaters that drowned it, providing it with fire resistance 10, and allowing it to automatically succeed on saving throws to avoid catching on fire. If struck with an electrical attack, it takes full damage, but any creatures grappled by its branches or roots also take half damage.
Sturdy (Ex) A blight oak has additional Hit Dice and Natural Armor as if it was a zombie of equal size, and gains bonus hit points as if it was a Construct of equal size.
Throw (Ex) As a standard action, a blight oak can throw any creature (or object) up to two size categories lower than itself up to 20 ft. for each size category the unwitting projectile is smaller than the blight oak (40 ft. for a large target, 60 ft. for a medium target, 80 ft. for a small target). A thrown individual must make a reflex save (DC 32) or take 4d6+21 damage, if it strikes a solid surface at any point during its trajectory (half damage on a save, and half damage if striking a yielding surface, such as water). The object (or person) struck also takes this damage, and is allowed a similar save to halve damage. The blight oak adds its strength modifier to this damage.
Vampiric Leaf Swarms (Su) A blight oaks withered brown leaves drop from its skeletal branches when it senses living prey, and flutter like bats around the base of the blight oak, providing it with partial concealment. Treat the vampiric leaf swarms as four wasp swarms with the plant and undead types (replacing the vermin type), and replacing their poison quality with a blood drain attack that deals 1d4 points of Constitution damage. Once an individual swarm has drained 10 Constitution points worth of blood in this manner, it returns to the blight oak and transfers the stolen vitality to the tree, a process that takes only a single round, healing the blight oak of up to fifty hit points of damage. Excess hit points are retained as temporary hit points for 1 hour. A destroyed swarm can be replaced in 24 hours, so long as the blight oak can feed. Each swarm occupies one quadrant around the base of the blight oak, moving with the blight oak on its turn, but otherwise remaining stationary, except when sated and returning to feed the parent creature. Unlike the parent creature, vampiric leaf swarms do not possess hardness, nor the energy protection or sodden special qualities. Vampiric leaf swarms do not pursue individuals who dive under the surface of the water.
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The blight oak is a terrible creature, ravaged by unnatural hunger and a hatred for any living creature that escaped the watery doom that came to the flooded forest. It shambles along, dank and reeking of mildew, slime and mold, its withered brown leaves softly rattling against each other as they hang limply from its skeletal branches.
When it finds living prey, it surges forward, attempting to crush and trample them under its great bulk with a surprising burst of speed, as its leaves detach and form into blood-sucking swarms of cruelly-sharp leaves, swarming upon all creatures around its base, but unable to travel beyond the creatures reach. The blight oaks gnarled roots attempt to grapple and constrict prey near its base, sometimes dragging an animal or person below the surface of the water, to drown them in its unyielding oaken coils. While it has many branches, it can only attack with two at a time, bludgeoning foes within its reach, and attempting to snatch them up and either rend them limb from limb, showering itself with their gore, or hurl them at the ground, or into the distance, to break their bodies.
While some blight oaks are found alone, created by powerful necromantic magic, the most terrible specimens are paired with the spectral remnants of the dryad who once lived within them, cursed to remain still locked to their rotting heartwood, and similarly unable to leave the reach of this shambling mockery of her past fey existence. Treat such creatures as CE dryads enhanced with the ghost template, that is unable to leave the reach of her blight oak, and whose tree meld ability is limited to her own tree, and whose animal empathy is limited to diseased or maddened animals. Replace the tree stride SLA with contagion 3/day. A blight tree with a ghost dryad inhabitant is capable of independent acts of aggression, but is otherwise completely under the ghost dryad's control, and she can direct its actions as a free action on her turn, as a druid instructs her companion.
Oak trees don't shed their leaves when they hibernate for the winter
**wonders where all those oak leaves he raked in the yard every autumn as a kid came from**
Oozes and slimes. Oozes and slimes. Oozes and slimes.
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Ahh, the majestic hagfish; if not for you, we'd have no eel-skin wallets and belts . . . or super-goopy "traction denial" systems [something the science folks are developing for crowd control and such].
A swarm of amphibious hagfish lurking in the branches might be loads of fun, because you can never have too many swarms of things!
Looking through some of my 3rd-party material, I ran across Blackdyrge's "Moldering" template. Basically a plant that plays host to a fungi or slime of some sort.
With the crazy magical energies unleashed by the Crawling King, perhaps some minor tears to some slimy Abyssal realms have allowed nasty things like omoxes [Bestiary 2] to slip into the world. Extra nasty if the omox has the possession feats from Council of Thieves [I think that's where they printed it].
And I am straight-up going to have to use the blight oak. That is pure naughty. One question; can it target any creature available with its throw attack, or does it need to have the target already grappled?
I'm soooo stealing the blight oak. Thanks, Set!
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And I am straight-up going to have to use the blight oak. That is pure naughty. One question; can it target any creature available with its throw attack, or does it need to have the target already grappled?
Must have the target grappled, but it gets a free grab with it's attack anyway, so it could do it on the round after hitting someone with a branch slam attack.
I cobbled it together during commercial breaks while catching up with my shows on Hulu, so it's got some 'designer-was-distracted' issues. (It should be immune to the distraction and damage of it's own vampiric leaf swarms, for instance, since 5 ft. worth of each 10 ft. space swarm would be occupying one of the 5 ft. spaces of the 10 ft. space of the blight oak itself.)
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Other stuff might need to be fine-tuned. Throw, for instance, I put as a standard action, and it's probably better to make it an attack action, so while it can't throw someone in the same round as it grabs them (unless hasted or something), but it cam still slam with it's other branch or grapple with it's roots in the same round as throwing someone.
The ghost dryad's ability to slip into her blight oak for cover & concealment would probably be better served if she could see out of it, while inside, allowing her to pop out adjacent to an attacker and zap them with her corrupting touch without having to stick her head out and look around to see where everyone is.
A ghost dryad with levels in some class, like druid or sorcerer, also could have the option of healing her blight oak from within, or buffing it with spells like bull's strength, resist energy or mage armor, making it an even trickier fight, but I didn't want to bog it down with spellcasting.
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How deep is the flooding? Because I've got this vision in my head of submerged trees, where the water is green and more translucent than transparent, and the shadows of still-leafy, twisted branches appearing dimly through the murk. Corrupted fish swim through the treetops as songbirds once had.
I was kinda envisioning a forested valley, although since the source of the flooding is magical, the waters are slowly expanding. I'd imagine the depth would range from a few feet at the shallow end to a dozen feet or more in some of the low-lying areas. I'd very much like a section where the water is up to the treetops. Maybe a basin-shaped druid grove or the like.
Back to the blight oak; little miss dryad ghost can throw up a wall of thorns and let ol' woody chuck the PCs into the mess. Or spike stones. Or a boggy bit of quicksand with a swarm of leeches. Or grapple an enemy with its roots and drag that enemy into water a few feet deep, holding them under until the bubbles stop . . .
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Or grapple an enemy with its roots and drag that enemy into water a few feet deep, holding them under until the bubbles stop . . .
Oh, definitely. That was the whole plan for that root grapple attack. I also decided to throw a bone and have the vampiric leaf swarms not attack someone who dived underwater, since I imagined that this encounter would take place in water at least a couple feet deep (normally I'd say 'waist-high,' but if there are halflings or gnomes in the group, that's up there past the seventh chakra...).