What's in the box?

[Naez]

We're in a 3.5 gestalt eberron campaign. they're currently at level 16. for inside joke reasons I want to throw an encounter of animate boxes at the players. the twist will be the boxes are filled with actual threats. trying to figure out what to put into the boxes that may make sense in a wizard's laboratory or a necromancer's lair or just the hold of a cargo ship.

[Arael666]

Depending on the size of said boxes a few oozes would be nice. Arcane oozes could be particularly nasty for casters or conflagration oozes if the party does not have a reliable source of fire resist/immunity

[Draconium]

Twist: One of the boxes is a Box of Holding, with an entire army of undead (who can "survive" in the extradimensional space) waiting to pop out at whoever opens/destroys the box.

[SethoMarkus]

First thing that came to mind...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mcz6p44m6aY/U6seL2qCSgI/AAAAAAAARW8/3OStWSvqqIk/s1600/nothing.jpg

[Arael666]

Twist: One of the boxes is a Box of Holding, with an entire army of undead (who can "survive" in the extradimensional space) waiting to pop out at whoever opens/destroys the box.

that's actually a pretty good idea, wightocalypse in a box. Say, OP, who is sending those boxes? what are their capabilities?

[MisterKaws]

Why not add an additional twist and make the boxes advanced Mimics with normal Mimics inside them?

[Naez]

that's actually a pretty good idea, wightocalypse in a box. Say, OP, who is sending those boxes? what are their capabilities?

was thinking emerald claw. which with the backing of lady vol could do all sorts of necromantic nonsense.

[Draconium]

Why not add an additional twist and make the boxes advanced Mimics with normal Mimics inside them?

How about Advanced Mimics with normal Mimics inside, and then put out "Wightpocalypse in a Box" inside those Mimics?

[Arael666]

Why not add an additional twist and make the boxes advanced Mimics with normal Mimics inside them?

that way the inside is weaker than the outside, I believe what op wants is the "oh god, why did we open those boxes??" feeling

[MisterKaws]

that way the inside is weaker than the outside, I believe what op wants is the "oh god, why did we open those boxes??" feeling

Then put Half-Dragon Spellwarped advanced Mimics just 1 HD from increasing in size, that'd be quite funny.

[Gildedragon]

a handful of living spells

swarms of stuff: there's a swarm of ghost vermin that might be fun (box is made of serenwood), there's a skeleton swarm

Box is a modified decanter of endless water, stuck on geyser, triggered when opened.

[Inevitability]

A chemical that explodes when exposed to oxygen.

A mirror of opposition glued to the inside of the lid.

Another, smaller box, containing another box, containing another box, and so on. All boxes employ a mix of illusions and pocket dimensions to appear smaller than the previous one, without actually decreasing in volume. In addition, the innermost box is affected by an enhancement that allows it to duplicate itself once, with the enchantment being transferred to the new innermost box afterwards.

[DarkSoul]

In Eberron? Living Spells, imported from the Mournland.

[Quertus]

Things that can survive being in a box more or less indefinitely, like...

Undead. Lots of undead.

Vow of Poverty Simulacrum.

Naked crazy girl (psion?) in stasis.

Do oozes breathe?

Fish & chips.

Traps. Aside from the obvious... diseased carcasses, severed necropolitan medusa heads, and 1000 pages of "I prepared explosive runes today" count as traps for these purposes. As does treasure (which the foes can use divisions to locate).


First thing that came to mind...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mcz6p44m6aY/U6seL2qCSgI/AAAAAAAARW8/3OStWSvqqIk/s1600/nothing.jpg

Absolutely nothing? So... A sphere of annihilation?

[SethoMarkus]

Absolutely nothing? So... A sphere of annihilation?

Maybe some Red Snapper?

[ATHATH]

A Symbol of Insanity.

A Wildshaped Urban Druid.

[Gildedragon]

A demilich

Or

A jewled skeleton

[Naez]

A demilich

Or

A jewled skeleton

can I get a source on the jeweled skeleton?

[Gildedragon]

can I get a source on the jeweled skeleton?
no source, just a skeleton decorated with jewels.

If it is just a skull, and the PCs are savvy to their monster manual, it FREAKS them out (looks like a demilich after all). Esp if it is warded by a lot of spells. esp esp if it can wake up (Flameskull from Lost Empire of Faerun) and do stuff to them.

[Bullet06320]

Another, smaller box, containing another box, containing another box, and so on. All boxes employ a mix of illusions and pocket dimensions to appear smaller than the previous one, without actually decreasing in volume. In addition, the innermost box is affected by an enhancement that allows it to duplicate itself once, with the enchantment being transferred to the new innermost box afterwards.

inside the final box you find a note
IOU one donut....signed Homer Simpson

other ideas
a one way gate to limbo

half eaten sandwich

a treasure map that ultimately leads to all the missing sox from the dryers of the multiverse

[Thurbane]

A Jahi (MM2) trapped by magical wards that are broken when the box is opened?

[Droopy McCool]

Naked crazy girl (psion?) in stasis.

Why is she naked? :smalleek:

McCool

[SethoMarkus]

Why is she naked? :smalleek:

McCool

It's a reference to Firefly. One of the characters in the show is revealed at the end of the first episode, stowed away in a stasis pod (naked), in a shipping crate The whole episode the crew of the ship think it's just a box of contraband or what-not, so imagine their surprise when they opened it and found a naked girl!

[Inevitability]

inside the final box you find a note
IOU one donut....signed Homer Simpson

The beauty is: there's no final box.

[Thurbane]

A Muckdweller Vampire?

[Darrin]

Hoard Scarabs (Draconomicon).

[ericgrau]

- Golems
- Dangerous reagents react in an explosion (treat like a fireball or some such), hurting PCs and monsters alike
- A treasure chest! It's a mimic.
- A treasure chest! It's locked. When the PCs finally get it open it contains only a note inside that says "Friendship is the real treasure." Stolen from the SMBG Macguffin thread, #17, Dr.Gunsforhands, who got it from some video game.
- A bunch of animated cleaning supplies, mops, buckets, brooms, and a bunch of walking musical instruments to play the music from Fantasia.
- Advanced rust monster(s). Yeup.
- Clip on long white beard with a pointy wizard's cap.
- Another, slightly smaller box, which has a slightly smaller box inside of it.

[Quertus]

Maybe some Red Snapper?

Mmmm, very tasty.

Perhaps the Vow of Poverty monk simulacrum can be wielding a quarter staff with straw tied to one side. When it jumps out, it screams, "Supplies!"

[SethoMarkus]

Mmmm, very tasty.

Perhaps the Vow of Poverty monk simulacrum can be wielding a quarter staff with straw tied to one side. When it jumps out, it screams, "Supplies!"

Upon opening the box you find nothing, but upon closer inspection you see that it contains a double-die Denver mint penny. And accompanying change for one dollar.



I will seriously reiterate the idea of the boxes containing nothing. All except one. Let's say there are 100 boxes. Number each box and make a list numbered 1-100 and place an asterisk next to the "chosen" box. Every time the PCs open a box, roll a percentile die (or use a number generator if there are more than 100 boxes), cross off that box from the list, and tell them the box is empty. If you roll a number already crossed off, roll again until you get an unused number. When the PCs eventually open the "chosen" box reveal their prize (using any of the suggestions on this list, but bonus points for it being something extremely useful to them, since they'll probably give up opening boxes by that point).


Another idea is to have every box be filled with something mundane, worthless, but useful (in context). Like office suppliesHA!, building materials/tolls (nothing worth money, I'm thinking stuff like damaged bricks or loose gravel), paintbrushes, packing peanuts, etc. I know a lot of those examples don't fit the typical D&D world, but just to illustrate the idea.

[Bohandas]

Highly acidic reagents that splash everywhere if smashed

Alchemists' fire that does the same

[Inevitability]

A hundred coins, one of which is the disguised phylactery of a random currently-destroyed lich.

[unseenmage]

Vargoilles. Lots of them. Apply squeezing rules as necessary.

The box themed Cards Against Humanity expansion. Because boxes.

The Box Ghost from Danny Phantom.

A Well of Many Worlds.

A Magic Mouth spell ceaselessly repeating the 'Whats in box?!' line from the end of the movie Se7en.

Smoky Confinement bottles containing far, far more creatures than should be reasonably possible.
The twist? Theyre not even enemies, just the population of an entire city/nation who just want to go home.

[Bohandas]

-Diseased corpses/meat

-Pinhead and the Cenobites

[Gildedragon]

A disembodied hand that closes the box back up

[Belzyk]

Put a mimic inside a mimic inside a bag inside a mimic inside a treasure coffer inside a mimic with a bag of bees inside. Or a chest full of fleas

[Bohandas]

An inhumane number of lab mice

[Bohandas]

*Spellbooks holding dangerous accumulations of magical energy (like in Discworld)

*Sentient weapons

[Honest Tiefling]

I would like to point out that the genitals of various creatures are both used in medicine and collected as curios. Therefore I suggest having the players find one of these with the actual nasty contents waiting just long enough for the players to think it was only a joke before popping out.

[Gallowglass]

Animated Jade statues of Ballerinas with class levels in Dervish Dancer Bard. Feet and hands are sharpened jagged glass that they use in place of scimitars.

The box plays standard music box music as the activation of their bardic dance.

[Gildedragon]

The box is much shallower inside. It contains a crank that when turned, plays a little ditty.
If cranked until the end of the song 4d6 dire weasels are summoned, their fur covered in explosive runes