Filling a great big hole

[FearlessGnome]

I'm in a RL campaign. We're a band of champions of Good, and we've found out that across the various Prime material worlds there have been appearing these great big holes miles and miles deep, and half a soccer field in diameter. As the only flying party member it fell to me to check out the first one we found. Nothing on the way down, and seemingly nothing on the rocky bottom. Later that day, though, a detect evil registered the dust on my shoes as overwhelming. So that's a little worrying, kind of thing.

Now, we have found out that evil creatures keep seeking these out and throwing themselves down to their death on the rocky bottom, and somehow this is making the holes deeper.

We are all level 4, so whatever Epic baddass is behind these holes, we can't exactly fight them, and we do have other missions to go on. The holes will obviously have some plot significance later on, however, so if we could stop evil creatures from reaching the bottom of the holes and sacrificing themselves, that might help later on. We have the resources of level 4 clerics, wizards and druids for now, but we expect to gain quite a few levels before being confronted with anything epic. (Unless, of course, the DM decides that the unidentified Arch Villain is surprised at and inconvenienced by our resourcefulness)

So. How do you fill up a great big hole of evil? Redirect a local river and try to freeze as much of the water as possible? Invent concrete? Posted guards who are higher level than us tend to die messily, because the monsters who come to kill themselves do not seem to value self preservation very highly.

[Yuki Akuma]

Follow the plot rails until you do whatever it is the DM wants you to do to save the day!

[FearlessGnome]

Actually, this DM is very good with plot rails; we're free to go off and do other things as we like. :smallsmile: We just usually don't want to, because the campaign is roleplaying heavy and our missions for the Order of Good make sense and do some good.

The holes, however, are likely going to come back and bite us in the ass if we don't do something before we discover "if" and how they are connected to all these other planes being destroyed we've been hearing about.

[MesiDoomstalker]

If the hole only gets bigger when the evil baddies fall and die on impact, then liberal application of Create Water will fill up the holes with water and prevent suicide falls. They can still drown them selves but depending on how them dieing makes the hole bigger, preventing falling-related death may be good for the time being.

[Telonius]

Send some of the dirt off to the Druidic Crime Lab. With any luck you'll find that it contains some kind of flower-pollen that only occurs naturally in this one valley surrounded by steep mountains and guarded by horrendous monsters.

Is there any pattern to where the holes are occurring? Any indication of underdark hordes massing somewhere?

[Zaq]

You need to get a whole bunch of casters with access to spells on the Craft domain together and have a whole bunch of castings of (Greater) Fantastic Machine. It can fill in holes. It also has a trundle speed! How many things have a trundle speed?

[Cieyrin]

You don't need to fill it, just make a grate and cap off the hole. If they can't reach the bottom, supposedly the hole won't deepen and deepening the hole doesn't seem to make it any wider. So, get workers and guards from the nearest town, cut down a small chunk of forest and Knowledge(Architecture) your way to a wooden structure to make it difficult to suicide swan dive in.

[tyckspoon]

Quick and dirty patches:

Wall(s) of Stone, cast as a 'bridge' so it forms a sheet across the top of the hole.
A Lyre of Building, used to quickly construct the same. Transmute Rock to Mud/Mud to Rock to create a thicker plug (if you can't use Wall of Stone/the Lyre to create a base sheet, get some hirelings to build a scaffold in the pit first to support the plug.)

Won't solve your problem- whatever made the holes in the first place probably can reopen them easily if/when it notices that they aren't receiving any more tributes- but it should stop things flinging themselves to the bottom and you might annoy whatever it is into taking some action that will get you more information.

[Telonius]

Too bad "Reverse Gravity" isn't on the list of Permanency spells...

Perhaps you could craft a magical trap of Feather Fall, and install it on one of the walls?

[llamamushroom]

You need to get a whole bunch of casters with access to spells on the Craft domain together and have a whole bunch of castings of (Greater) Fantastic Machine. It can fill in holes. It also has a trundle speed! How many things have a trundle speed?

Not enough, by my reckoning.

The slightly (read: very) overtired me wants to answer the OP's plea with "giant trampolines". The actually sane me suggests some kind of barrier (magical or otherwise) at the top of some of them. For instance, some kind of fast-growing plant, like bamboo, could be placed at strategic intervals around the lip of the holes. While it wouldn't stop a giant, it might halt the flow of kobold-come-lemmings.

As a side note: the slightly (read: very) overtired me only clicked on this link for the possible innuendo. The actually sane me came along for the ride.

[Qwertystop]

Too bad "Reverse Gravity" isn't on the list of Permanency spells...

Perhaps you could craft a magical trap of Feather Fall, and install it on one of the walls?

That'd do pretty well.

[Arbane]

Recruit a hundred peasants to redirect the nearest river to fill in the hole?

[Slipperychicken]

How do you fill up a great big hole of evil?
Like This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmC5SQ3zD3M&feature=related). Repeat as needed.

[enderlord99]

Like This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmC5SQ3zD3M&feature=related). Repeat as needed.

That's the problem though. Except, they're kicking themselves in instead of each other. Soo... Uhh...

That's still funny.:smallsmile:

[Telonius]

Hmm. ... alternate possibility. Evil folks are making the holes bigger, right?

Try kicking in a Paladin and see what happens.

[NichG]

What about just collapsing the walls of the hole? Ostensibly there's a layer of 'evil dirt' that accepts the sacrifices. Throwing yourself down a 20 degree hillside doesn't quite have the same cachet, so maybe it'll stop it from working.

Bonus in that the people who deepened the hole made your job in collapsing it easier. Hire a caster/buy scrolls and stone mud areas around the base and the stuff should come down like a big avalanche. Or as people have suggested flood it with water and encourage the earthen supports to be undercut.

[Slipperychicken]

+1 Sizing, Flying, Riverine Buckler (less than 10k, magic of faerun, stormwrack, MiC). Make the forcewall-shield arbitrarily large as a swift action, then use it like a shovel or something. Use it as an elevator. Press down on the hole from above until the desired results are achieved. If you need funds, go to your friendly neighborhood sovereign and say "Hey, check this hole out. It's an Evil Hole. On your land. For one easy installment of ~8,300gp, you can make it go away with patented Magic Shield Technology Magic".

[Seharvepernfan]

Write a letter to the Elminster/Mordenkainen/Gandalf of your campaign world ASAP. Because at 4th level there isn't jack that you can do.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Decanter of endless water to fill it up, you may need to wait for a while but then you can hang around the hole and any evil dudes that come along can be interrogated to find out what's making them jump to their doom.

[Medic!]

Being 4th lvl you wouldn't have access to Hallow yourself, could you get some outside assistance or scrolls to Hallow the holes? This would, if not stop the violence, give you some clues. The protection from evil effect should remove any compulsion effect forcing the evil hoardes to behave like lemmings...attaching cause fear to it may or may not be helpful at all depending on what's jumping in there (if it's your friendly neighborhood CR4 evil guys, cause fear should keep them from running in.)

Some strategic Web spells would also be helpful. A hallowed hollow with a web in it and a tied-in tongues or zone of truth could potentially yield at least a little information.

PC: What are you doing jumping in that hole?
Lemming: The Balor made me do it!