Desert Encounters

[CheddarChampion]

What kinds of creatures (or reflavored creatures) should I put in the sandy wilderness of an upcoming campaign? I'm going for an Arabian Nights feel, 4 players that'll start at level three.

Looking around the web I found merchant caravans, giant scorpions, dust devils, camel-centaurs, cactus ents, bandit slavers, chimeras, giant cobras, sphinxes, elementals, giant vultures, Gnolls, Djinni (and the like), mummies, sand druids... are there any cool things I'm overlooking? Any ideas for good encounters in the desert?

[Demonslayer666]

Dust Mephit, spiders, ants, Yuan-ti, Brass Dragon, Cyclops..all come to mind.

You can use Dunjon's random encounter tables for desert:
https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/#type=encounter;n_pc=4;level=1;difficulty=any;envi ronment=Desert

[Imriel]

I'd go for some giant worms Tremors-style! If someone uses invisibility, that would give the fight a whole new Kevin Bacon Crossover flavor! 😂

[Unoriginal]

The DMG and the Xanathar's both have list of what dwells in desert, the Xanathar's in particular having random encounter tables (which I find pretty fun).

If you want to add an "Arabian Nights" feel, you could add Giants, Genies, and all sort of fiends.

[CheddarChampion]

Those tables will definitely help! I'll have to add in "escape the purple worm" as the worst case encounter. Don't know how I forgot Yuan-ti.

How would you tweak the devils and Giants to fit better, roleplaying or flavor wise?

[Vogie]

A Cave of Wonders that looks like a Tiger's head, obviously. There's a Carpet of Flying inside.

Run across a group of Sandbenders (Desert druids) in their Sandsailer skiff.

[GlenSmash!]

I'm mostly kidding.


Sandworm
Gargantuan Monstrosity Unaligned
Armor Class 26
Hit Points 820 (40d20+ 400
Speed 40 ft Burrow (Sand) 40’

Str 30 (+10), Dex 20 (+0), Con 30 (+4), Int 3 (-4), Wis 10 (+0), Cha 11 (+0)
Saving Throws Dex +10 Str +16, Con +16 Int +2 Wis +6 Cha +6
Skills Athletics+22 (expertise)
Damage Immunities fire, lightning, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing weapons that are not magical
Damage Resistances All except poison and psychic damage.
Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed, petrified.
Senses Blindsight 120’, passive perception 16
Languages –
Challenge 30 (155 000)
Legendary Resistance (3/day).If the Sandworm fails a save it can chose to succeed instead.

Spell Immunity: Sandworms are immune to level 1-9 spells

Magic Weapons: The Sandworm weapon attacks are magical

Emergence When a Sandworm first emerges from the sand lightning bolts strike all beings within 50’. Each bolt deals 6d10 lightning damage to each target. A DC 20 dexterity save reduces the damage by half

Actions.
Attack. The Sandworm makes a bite attacks and a thrashing attack.

Bite: Melee : +19 to hit, reach 15’, all targets within 20’ area. Hit 62 (8d12+10) piercing damage. If the target is a creature it is grappled (escape DC 20). Until this grapple end the targets are restrained and the Sandworm cannot bite more targets.

Thrashing . The Sandworm thrashes its body around crushing everything within 50’. All creatures in that area 20d6 (70) bludgeoning damage. A DC 26 Dexterity save reduces the damage by half.

Swallow The Sandworm makes a bite attack against a gargantuan or smaller creature it is grappling. If the attack hits the targets take the bites damage, the targets are swallowed and the grapple ends. While swallowed, the creature is blinded and restrained and takes 10d6 acid and 10d6 fire damage at the start of the sandworms turn.

If the Sandworm takes 60 or more damage from a creature inside it, the sandworm must succeed on a DC 20 constitution save or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10’ of the Sandworm. If the Sandworm dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse by using 30’ of movement, exiting while prone.

Legendary Actions
The Sandworm can take 3 legendary actions choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creatures turn. The Sandworm regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.

Attack. The Sandworm makes a bite attack.

Move. The Sandworm moves up to half its speed.

Chomp (Costs 2 actions)The Sandworm makes one bite attack or swallows.

[Kadesh]

Tlincalli I feel are pretty tragically underused.

[Ronnocius]

Tlincalli I feel are pretty tragically underused.

Definitely agreed here. I saw them in Volo's Guide to Monsters and was surprised that I had never once heard of them being used or discussed at all. Of course a single tlincalli is CR 5 so probably quite the challenge for lvl 3 characters unless they had NPC help.

[Sigreid]

Lusty belly dancers.

[SociopathFriend]

I know one thing I really liked doing when a party I DM'd for (well the Pathfinder equivalent for that particular campaign) was in a desert was I filled it with skeletons- the kind that will resurrect if you don't kill them properly (bloody skeletons IIRC). The party meta-gamed the hell out of the skeletons by smashing them to dust each time for basically no reason but I maintain the concept was sound.

Basically they found a bad area and I rolled X amount of skeletons to be in a giant grid in groups of 3-5. If they stepped over an area skeletons were in- Dex save or the skeletons got a free attack as they sprang from the ground. Roll initiative and fight.

Individually the skeletons weren't all that dangerous- but over time they (theoretically) would add up to be a threat.

This works best if you have some method of insinuating there's treasure in the same area as well, since then they'll at least try to stick around to find something rather than running away.

[sophontteks]

Efreeti and Djinni. The caliph desert of Faerun was made by them.

EDIT: Crap you mentioned them and I missed it.