Hello forums! I recently started running my first campaign ever, and it's a pirate/ship travel campaign. I'd like to make a spider-themed island for my campaign. I'm thinking of it being filled with a cave system filled with, well, spiders, but that's a little lame. That's if nothing more creative comes to me, so I'm going to the forums for some cool ideas! I would prefer things that are silly and ridiculous, since that's how the campaign is so far. We have 5 level 4 players, so it should be something they can handle.
TL;DR: Need silly ideas for spider-themed island in pirate campaign, with 5 level 4 players!
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Make the BBEG of the island a "Spider-Man": ie a Worm that Walks with the worms refluffed to spiders.
Mites riding giant spiders, mean, crunchy fae have humor and creep potential. Nightmare ettercaps if you want to play up an arachnaphobia angle. Depending on the ages of your players, have a spider web gaurded by an awakened direboar, ie a talking pig.
The island is a flating island made of black peebles held together by webbing (doesn't exclue the caves sistem, but will make them necesarely shallow).
Plot twist: those are no peebles. The whole island is made of peeble-sized spiders (a gargantuan swarm?) holding togheter, something like this
lots of drows.
also bend the rules a little and implement werespiders
The island is a flating island made of black peebles held together by webbing (doesn't exclue the caves sistem, but will make them necesarely shallow).
Plot twist: those are no peebles. The whole island is made of peeble-sized spiders (a gargantuan swarm?) holding togheter, something like this
Geez, that is so evil, I like it. It's not silly, but maybe a terrifying twist will be good for the party. There's this one guy who keeps digging holes (looking for "hidden treasure"...), he is NOT going to have a fun time.
Make the BBEG of the island a "Spider-Man": ie a Worm that Walks with the worms refluffed to spiders.
*Ahem* This is LEVEL 4 CHARACTERS. Please everyone keep that in mind.
Make the BBEG of the island a "Spider-Man": ie a Worm that Walks with the worms refluffed to spiders.*Ahem* This is LEVEL 4 CHARACTERS. Please everyone keep that in mind.
Don't get impressed by the sample monster, the Worm That Walks is a template that can be applied to lower level creatures. A level 3-4 NPC with this template is approachable by a level 4 party. DR 15/- is impressive but is still susceptible by energy attacks and a Paladin Smite still cuts through it, and low level means little HP usually.
How much time do you want them to spend on the island?
Just a couple giant spiders, along with a "brood mother" ogre spider might do the trick if you want it to be just a quick stop. If the whole island awakes during the final battle, and starts doing damage as a swarm to anyone in contact with the floor or the walls, that would be a terrifiying encounter they'd do well to run away from (award them xp for surviving)
If one of them is a digger... that's a great chance to have him find a half-digested corpse, with some loot if you want to encourage the digging, or just bare bones if you want to go for the creepy flavour.
Have fun and tell us what you decide to do in the end!
Bonus: if you want it to reapear, maybe the whole island formed around an artifact-level inteligent item (up to you to decide what powers it has, mabye some size-changing powers to explain the giant spiders, and grants certain teamwork feats to everyone in a radius) that with its telepathy gathered the spiders around to form the island. This time they shoul only have the power and resources to barely survive, but if they decide to come back again when they are higher level and "clean" the island away, they would find the item at the center of the floating swarm when they kill it.
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Don't get impressed by the sample monster, the Worm That Walks is a template that can be applied to lower level creatures. A level 3-4 NPC with this template is approachable by a level 4 party. DR 15/- is impressive but is still susceptible by energy attacks and a Paladin Smite still cuts through it, and low level means little HP usually.Make the BBEG of the island a "Spider-Man": ie a Worm that Walks with the worms refluffed to spiders.*Ahem* This is LEVEL 4 CHARACTERS. Please everyone keep that in mind.
This. Throw the template on a 4th level NPC and you have a CR5 encounter. It's scary, but overcome by both Smite Evil and anti-swarm tactics.
@Efreeti The island is just something to spice up the campaign, since one of the players complained about there not being a whole lot of combat. I'm certainly fond of the idea you put forth, too!
@Imbicatus The party dynamics kinda suck... we have no divine spellcasters and little anti-swarm tactics. Now that I think of it, I should have put what the party consists of in the first place. We have:
Human Sea Singer (Bard)
Human Buccaneer (Gunslinger)
Human Summoner
Orc Barbarian
Suli Sorcerer (Elemental Air)
Tieflling Inspired Blade (Swashbuckler)
Whoops, looks like I miscounted, there's 6 of us.
Make the island some sort of giant waterborne spider (think like Turtle Island).
A community of tree-dwelling driders who sometimes barter with passing ships. Trading silk clothes or new sails for supplies they can't access on the island.
You could make Spider Skull Island instead. It already has a Pirate Captain serving as caretaker. :)
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Have your spiders all talk with hokey pirate accents and bad puns.
"We be Arrrrr-thropods! We be arrrrrrrmed -- eight o-them to be exact! Come, dance a jig in our webs, and hear us spin our tales!"
I like the idea of dancing spiders, and love the idea that the PCs might want to trade with the spiders for silk for their sails.