I'm fishing for ideas from the creative forum community. I'm starting a campaign at level 5 out of a marshy town at the edge of a mangrove swamp. The swamp contains the ruins of ancient civilizations, and all manner of reptilian threats, as well as tribes of intelligent humanoids.
I have some first time players, and I'm looking to throw a variety of encounters at them, as well as give them role playing experiences. I also have a loose overarching storyline for them to delve into, with an ancient reptilian engineered, magic and alchemy powered devastating climate change event referred to in ancient writing as the "Writhing Tide."
I'm already going to be introducing regular and distinctly evolved looking advanced versions of megafauna and reptile species, as well as swamp orc/ogrekin (from merrows or marsh giants) as well as hydras bred as an ancient weapon of war. Jungle gricks seem like fun, and bullywugs are going to be the comically brutish sluggers that the party runs up against.
I'm going to be introducing some new monsters as well. A race of velociraptor more intelligent than the average human emerging once more after hundreds of millions of years as a part of an unseen reptilian master plan. I'm also going to create wurms as giant vermin, importing the concept from magic the gathering. Lots of hit points, lots of raw damage, inexorable tramplers, et cetera.
I'm looking for ideas on traps and hazards to use in ancient half sunken temples and the byways of the vast bayou/jungles I'm setting my game in. What sort of monsters or folk do you imagine drifting, lurking or rampaging through primal, uncharted forests and swamps at the end of civilization?
What would your imagining of an event known as the "Writhing Tide" be? What shapes would you see the reptilian master plan taking as it crawled, swam and plodded its way toward realization?
And most importantly what could a small band of adventurers, hirelings and mercenaries do to oppose it? What ancient knowledge would they need to be armed with?
Traps:
Pits full,of poisonous snakes (cf Indiana Jones), statues that curse those who disturb them, or animate and attack, rogue elephants wandering in the jungle, flooded pits with crocodiles, swarms of rabid bats.
A good couatl imprisoned for its opposition to the plan, who can tell the PCs what is going on. Perhaps a tribe of ape men who remember him.
The Writhing Tide? A kraken, rising up and using its weather control abilities to summon hurricanes.
Will O Wisps and Boggards.
Hazards: quicksand and/or mud holes, poisonous spore mushrooms and other spore producers for hallucinagenic effects.
Monsters: (the usual) crocs/gator, poisonous snakes, constrictor snakes, insect swarms and insect related diseases, evil treants, quickwood trees and similar.
Haunts: (things die alone in swamps and make for good haunt locations.)
There are some cool haunts with an outdoor flavor that might fit, in #30 Haunts for Kaidan, by Rite Publishing - strange hanging fruit haunt comes to mind, and it's ancilliary haunts.
Also look at 101 Mystical Site Qualities, Rite's newest release, has some interesting mystical locations that you might want to fit in especially larger encounter areas in your swamp. Site qualities is a new aspect, something like hazards with an arcane twist.
Hazard/trap: a log with lots ofvies. Ifitfallsonyou, it does damage,andleavesyouebrabgled vyvines(treat as tanglefoot bags), of course the lizard,e who set up the trap have done it In a Tree with a lot do insects, so you get a swarm attack plus lizardmen rnhgers in the jungle shooting at you from concealment pinthetrees, ormaybe up in them, lus the swarm and entanglement. All individually low CR but the effects stack up.
Pungi stakes in the woods nearby are extra options. It's rather a nasty trap zone.
More an annoyance than a hazard is itchy mud. Like molds if the party fails to identify it and blunders through it evokes a DC Fort save or be afflicted with the Sickened condition for the next hour or until the mud is diluted with alcohol.
I used this in a swampy forest with Muddlers (re-skinned Brownies with a create water variant where they constantly exuded mud for a variety of other powers like grease and movement). The fey were immune to the effect of the mud so they would carry some around with them fling it and make things terrible for the PCs. They also hurled quick-dry mud (re-skinned tanglefoot bags). It was delightful.
More an annoyance than a hazard is itchy mud. Like molds if the party fails to identify it and blunders through it evokes a DC Fort save or be afflicted with the Sickened condition for the next hour or until the mud is diluted with alcohol.
That's called foot rot, it lasts for days. Everyone got that back when I was tooling around the Boundry Waters in the Great Lakes.
Serpent Men woken from stasis to reclaim the world.
Oh, giant leeches too.
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I'm looking for ideas on traps and hazards to use in ancient half sunken temples and the byways of the vast bayou/jungles I'm setting my game in. What sort of monsters or folk do you imagine drifting, lurking or rampaging through primal, uncharted forests and swamps at the end of civilization?
Partially submerged temples and ruins can be a hazard all on their own. Imagine small ruins or mounds jutting out of the water, with entries and passageways that lead to large open chambers below. Some partially flooded while others are actually passable to air-breathers. The strong temptation of treasure coupled with the danger of flooding chambers and collapsing ruins could make for some interesting non-standard dungeon crawls.
I can also see the vine choked ruined temples and haunted shrines to a forgotten time dotting the swamp. Places that are quickly passed during the day, and avoided at all costs at night. Could be infested with shadows and shadow variants - members of an ancient race that was facing destruction at the hands of Good and gave up their bodies to avoid death (and becoming undead in the process).
As far as folk - you can have bayou scavengers and traders. Those who make their living by scavenging stone or valuables from the ruins to trade back at the closest thing that resembles civilization. Secretive and distrustful, but fundamentally good people at heart. Maybe they could be decedents of a successor state long absorbed by the swamp?
What would your imagining of an event known as the "Writhing Tide" be? What shapes would you see the reptilian master plan taking as it crawled, swam and plodded its way toward realization?
The Withing Tide could be many things, it could also hold multiple meanings at the same time: An ancient race checked by the powers of good several millennia ago could have foreseen their destruction - some shed their bodies to avoid destruction at the hands of good, while others could have fled to some proto-primeval plane (where many were obliterated by the powers that they worshiped).
The Writhing Tide could be imperceptible at first. Maybe the party is sent out to the edge of the world to check an small but important trade post that has been reporting problems of increased attacks by swamp denizens. When the get to a smaller town near their objective they can see that the people there are spooked, no word from the trading post has come through in a week. The party may then start to notice that their maps are wrong, that the swamp area is much further extended out from the boundaries and ranges detailed in the information provided to them.
Of course when they do get to the location of their objective it has been swallowed up by the swamp. With all indications that the swamp is slowly growing.
The Writhing Tide could be an effort by the ancient race to reclaim their old lands, or maybe even a retaliatory fail-safe that failed to trigger when they were wiped out in their last war. Sort of like a vengeful doomsday device that is accidentally triggered by an unknowing swamp scavenger. Maybe one of their ancient war machines - an intelligent giant constrictor snake - could be trying to herald a way back for the ones who created it. And when I mean intelligent giant constrictor snake, I'm not talking Naga here. I would imagine something on par with a large ancient dragon in spells, power and influence - a creature that served as a genocidal general in the old army. Now this general has discovered some magic that was hidden from it and it is ready to flood the world and infest it with all sorts of swamp horrors, which in turn only server as a precursor to what abominations will be coming through.
And most importantly what could a small band of adventurers, hirelings and mercenaries do to oppose it? What ancient knowledge would they need to be armed with?
Find what worked the first time this empire was stopped? Of course the forces of good and powers that united them don't exist anymore - the knowledge and weapons to push back this fragmented (but powerful) invasion are out there - some probably even in the heart of the swamp.
Anyway, good luck - I have always liked swamp adventures going back to Tomb of the Lizard Kind and Against the Cult of the Reptile God (a very good mod).
Boggards (Bullywugs)
Green Hag
Lizard Folk (some peaceful, while others are cannibalistic)
Shambling Mound
Water Elemental (with Fiendish Template)
Swamp Crazies (mix of ogrekin)
Ogres/Ogrekin
Shadows (with Fiendish Template)
Trolls
Ochre Jelly
Swamp Folk (Scavengers or simply swamp folk villagers)
Faceless Stalker (works as a good ancient servitor race)
Giant Dragonfly
Vampiric Mist (advanced and Fiendish templates and still CR 4)
Medium Mud Elemental (with Fiendish Template)
Emperor Cobra
Serpent Folk
Amphisbaena, Swamp variety
Annis Hag
Cat, Puma (leopard stats)
Wights (maybe Barrow wights, living in burrows dedicated to ancient warriors)
Dinosaurs, Mutated - Mutations can range from albinism, rage ability/insane and may attack inanimate objects, thick hide (AC or DR), extra limbs or tail (extra attacks or DEX boost)
-Dimetrodon
-Iguanodon
You can use other dinosaurs, just make them smaller using the young template and treat them as the swamp variants.
Some swamp horrors from another time:
-Advanced HD and Size, Fiendish Swamp Squid. Classic tentacles coming out of the water creature. Should not be described as just a "swamp squid".
-Animated Object (vine covered statue). Classic quasi-golem type encounter, using a lower CR creature to fill the role.
In some cases I added the Fiendish template - this is a free non CR increasing adjustment (as long as the creature has 4 or less HD). You can drop this is it makes the creatures too powerful for a new group of players.
I had a better list but the forums ate part of my post.