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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    HalflingPirate

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    44. The Shrine Maiden

    A very old wall of stacked fieldstone separates a large pasture from the road. Where the road bends away from the wall there is a nich built into it about 100 feet farther along the wall. The wall bends with the road at this point, and it is taller with an arched roof that covers a 5 foot deep, 10 foot wide area that is 10 feet high. The nich beneath the arch contains a weathered statuette about three feet tall, the base of which is firmly planted in the wall, and what may be an altar stone is placed against the wall at its feet. The statue, which is robed and hooded, may be a woman or an effeminate man, or both or neither.

    The turn of the road creates a wider space between the wall and road that has a half-dozen very old trees with canopies so dense that they inhibit undergrowth. The more or less clear space has obviously been used as a campsite in the past.

    At the altar the wall bends to rejoin and follow the road, creating a roughly triangular space about 100 feet along each wall section and about 150 feet along the curved road.

    If the party camps at the site overnight, and a guard is watchful, (especially if the party placed offering on the altar,) a young woman not quite old enough to marry may be seen tending the altar. She appears to be sad. Her robes are grey, her hair mousy-brown, and her eyes black. Her face and hands are white.

    She will not be afraid if approached. She doesn't know her name, and is certain this is where she has always been. She does not know the name of any locals, but will tell of travelers who passed this way and the stories they told of far-away places.

    She wants to travel to those places, but is cursed, she claims, to remain in this place forever.

    DM INFO:
    She is a celestial, summoned and bound so long ago to this holy site that nobody knows anything about her or why she is here.

    She may suggest that the altar is what keeps her here, and give the impression that she wants the PCs to destroy it so she can be free. Damage to the shrine will force her to reveal herself as a (level appropriate) celestial shrine guardian. If the altar is broken her binding will break as well and she will resume her existence as a free-willed celestial. She will be angry if the altar was defiled, but if the altar was physically destroyed she will be relieved that her watch over the altar of a forgotten fertility goddess is finally over.

    If the party has treated the shrine and the shrinemaiden with dignity and respect, the celestial will give them each a blessing in the form of a natural 20 on any single d20 roll if the player announces it instead of rolling. The DM decides if a time limit applies to this gift.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-12-19 at 01:43 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    45. The Unicorn

    In the path of the adventurers is a very large equine with a long spiral horn growing from its forehead. The horn, hooves, mane, and tail are gold while the creature's coat is white. Unlike most equines, the hooves are cloven.

    The creature will ask a member of the party to ride it so that it can take the adventurer to a place where an heroic deed can be performed. The deed will not be specified, and cryptic hints will be offered that make it seem that it can't talk about it.

    If an adventurer does take a ride the creature will become etheral, and will take the rider on a tour of The Hells. It will also reveal itself to be a nightmare.

    The nightmare will ce amused by threats and will point out that harming or killing it will leave the adventurer stranded in the nether regions. When the ride is over the adventurer will be dumped at the spot they first met.

    Thereafter, every time the character goes to sleep the nightmare is there and takes the character on another ride. The character gains no benefit from rest until the beast is defeated.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    46: The New Castle

    As the adventurers pass through a small village the villagers run up to them begging their help.

    "It is fortuitous that you have arrived today. You see, in the night that castle appeared," the village elder points to a shiny steel drum tower surrounded by a turreted curtain wall,"and we do not know if we should flee or welcome our new neighbors. All our wealth is in our lands, and if we flee we will have nothing but our lives. If we stay and are eaten by whatever lives in the castle we will not even have that much. We beg you to go to the castle and see what lives there, and to find out what accomodations they will require of us."

    The castle appears to be constructed of rivited sheet steel. The curtain wall is about 40 feet tall with six crossleted turrets around the circumference. Each turret is twenty feet tall with a conical base and roof. They are set halfway into the wall and rise half their height above it. The wall is circular and about 120 feet in diameter. There is a single iron portcullis which accesses a 40 foot deep lich yard walled on both sides with crossleted steel walls 20 feet tall which lead to the drum tower. The tower is 80 feet tall, crossleted in a ring around the 60 foot height, and flat-roofed.

    The residents will not respond unless some attempt is made to breach their defenses. Their response will be a ballista bolt from the nearest crosslet and a warning shouted in a deep bass voice.

    The occupants are frost giants, and they will promise to leave the villagers alone in exchange for 10 sheep per month in tribute.

    Any deal they make will be short-lived because they have an artifact, The Orb of Winter, which will slowly reduce the temperature of the region until a 10 mile radius region is permanently frozen. The first hints of this are snow flurries above the castle, and the radius will expand to include a quarter of a square mile per day thereafter.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    47.) Stalked By A Maniac

    The PCs are hunted bu a lunatic similar to the hunter from the original Jumanji movie

    48.) Starved Opponent Cube

    The PCs are accosted by some rogue modrons who were caputred during the last Modron March by a mad scientist who unsuccessfully tried to reprogram their brains. They later broke put after being held for years. They are now quite insane and run around randomly trying to stab people.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-01-11 at 02:20 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    47.) Stalked By A Maniac

    The PCs are hunted bu a lunatic similar to the hunter from the original Jumanji movie

    48.) Starved Opponent Cube

    The PCs are accosted by some rogue modrons who were caputred during the last Modron March by a mad scientist who unsuccessfully tried to reprogram their brains. They later broke put after being held for years. They are now quite insane and run around randomly trying to stab people.
    Aside from occasional shouted threats and calling the character Sonny-Jim, what is the reason the PCs don't simply slaughter the hunter?

    Suggestions:
    Hunter has a magical blunderbus that inflicts a horrific amount of damage.
    Hunter has an item that creates a dragon fear aura.
    Hunter is specifically designed as the character's nemesis, so he has immunities to the character's best attacks and his attack bypasses the character's best defenses.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    44.) Loose adaptation of a dream I had last night

    A man and a woman are walking a dog by a lake, when suddenly the lake turns into a bunch of water elementals who start attacking the dog. If the PCs investigate it turns out that the "dog" is secretly a werewolf who's been having an affair with the woman without her husband's knowledge and that he owes a lot of money to the Marid mafia, who have sent these water elementals to collect from him

    EDIT:

    45.) A Very Silly Mercenary/Assassin

    A yugoloth sellsword driving around in an ice cream truck with "ice cream" crossed out and "murder for hire" written in in its place
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-01-23 at 12:13 AM.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    51. The Bookseller

    A man leading a donkey cart wears peasant clothes and a wide-brimmed straw hat. In warm weather he goes barefoot and in the cold he wears farmers' clod-hopper boots. He never rides the cart.

    The donkey wears a hat similar to the man's, but with ear-holes cut into it for the donkey's huge ears. The donkey's harness is made of rope and thick wool pads, with almost no metal fittings. In the cold the donkey wears a thick wool blanket and in the heat the man carries a short tasseled whip that he uses to swat flies on the donkey.
    The box of the cart is 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and 4 feet high. Its 4 foot wheels lifts the box 3 feet off the ground. Two poles attach the cart to the harness. Drop-down shelves and small doors open to compartments, most of which contain books. The rest contain gear and provisions for the man and the beast.

    A clever arrangement of a tarp allows the cart's traces to be used to create a stall walled and roofed in canvas for the donkey while the man generally sleeps beneath the wagon.

    He keeps a cane knife, (a broad hacking blade bound to a 4 foot pole,) hidden beneath the wagon both as a tool to gather firewood or clear an overgrown path and to serve as a weapon at need. (Treat as a simple weapon that damages as a broadsword.)

    He has the following merchandise in his cart:

    Health, sanitation, and folk medicine = 6 books

    Cooking and preserving foods = 11 books

    Children's elementary education = 24 books

    How-to build, fabricate, or forge tools = 3 books

    How to plant, grow, and harvest edible and commercial plants = 5 books

    Animal husbandry and training = 2 books

    Identification and use of medicinal plants = 1 book (illuminated)

    Children's stories = 8 books

    Adult romances = 3 books

    In a secret compartment, (DC 22 to spot or search,) is a primer on the basics of arcane spellcasting. One can learn enough to cast cantrips.

    In another, (DC 25,) there are eight cantrip scrolls.

    In the last, (DC 27 and Wizard Locked,) is the spellbook of a level 3 wizard and a recipe book for a level 2 alchemist.

    The bookseller will sell a mundane book to an adventurer for 10 gp or a magic book for 100 gp. The scrolls he will sell for 10% over cost. He will not sell the spellbooks, but will allow spells or recipes to be copied from them at purchase price, or in exchange for a scroll of the copied spell.

    Otherwise he will buy books at 1 gp each up to a total of 25 gp, which when he counts out his copper and silver is all he has. Normally he loans books to peasants for a few coppers or silvers and picks them up or trades for them when he passes the farm or hamlet again.

    In winter he often takes a job as an elementary school teacher in a remote farm or settlement. If possible he will apprentice a former student as teacher to continue teaching after he moves on.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    52: The Dead Guide

    When the sun sets and the dark of the evening cloaks the roadside camp of the adventuring party, a loud, clumsy tromping can be heard in the undergrowth. Following the sound, the adventurers come upon the zombie of a former adventurer whose untended equipment has nearly rusted and rotted away. It appears to have been a male fighter-type in life, and it's cause of death is obviously the horrific wound in it's back.

    The zombie appears to not notice the adventurers as it meanders down a well-trodden path to a small clearing just short of the trail or road they are camped beside. When it reaches the cleared area the zombie appears to search for something on the ground until it finds a twig or pine cone or something. It picks the item up and shuffles back down the trail.

    If the adventurers kill the zombie, it's trail is still apparent and easy to follow. Otherwise, the zombie will never notice the party, nor defend itself if attacked.

    The trail leads to a small building that has become overgrown. A ranger or druid might estimate a decade of growth. The zombie will enter the building and deposit it's load onto a huge pile of debris in the center of the flagstone floor, then march back the way it came to repeat it's task.

    If the debris pile is disturbed, a wraith will appear and attack the party. If the wraith looks like it might win the fight, a shadow will appear out of nowhere and backstab it. (This might happen at the end of the fight even if the adventurers are winning.)

    Under the years of accumulated debris the adventurers discover a pair of skeletons and their gear. One was likely a mid-level rogue and the other a mid-level wizard. The knife of the rogue is still in the ribs of the wizard, and the damage to the armor and gear of the rogue indicates that lightning was the likely cause of his/her death. Beneath this, among rotted and useless goods that might once have been of value, is a modest treasure, though the silver and copper is badly corroded. The magical gear of the dead adventurers may still be in good condition, and a few of the spells in the middle of the wizard's spell book may be salvageable if handled with care by one who knows books.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-02-04 at 09:48 AM.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    53. Generic Religious Precession

    Non combat encounter where the PCs are passed on the road by a religious precession of some sort

    EDIT:

    54.) Baron Munchausen needs the party;s help to attach a pulley to a tree branch above the mire or quicksand or whatever he's stuck in so that he can run his pigtails through the pulley and hoist himself up by his own hair. He shoos off any attempt to pull him out directly
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-04-06 at 01:07 AM.
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    55: A Princess And An Ogre

    A young teenaged female human runs out of a wood, followed closely by an 8' tall ogre. The ogre is followed by a pack of armored men at arms which appear intent on killing the ogre.

    "Help me!" the girl screams.

    DM info:
    The girl is a princess.
    The ogre is her childhood companion and guardian.
    The men at arms are bandits who want to hold her ransom after killing the ogre.

    The princess was on a journey to the manor of her grandparents when their guard was attacked. The ogre saved her life by escaping into the woods. The men at arms were dispatched to find her, along with a dozen other such groups.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    56: The God of the Watering Hole

    On the vast Sea of Grass there are few open bodies of water, and fewer which persist through the dry season. Small animals which can survive on dew and the liquids stored in their prey thrive out on the open prairie, but larger beasts which require drink are more rare unless they are very mobile.

    Where watering holes exist, the grasslands are mowed to the ground by masses of herbivores which venture out seeking fresh grazing, but which are bound to return to their water source. Naturally, predators take advantage of this. Competition between them for hunting grounds limits their numbers more than the availability of food, but such predators grow lazy, an in the wetter seasons can starve waiting for their prey to return to their territory.

    But there is one watering hole out in the Sea of Grass that almost never runs dry, yet attracts few herds of grazers to its mineral-rich waters.

    The local tribes folk tell a tale they claim as truth; the watering hole is the home of a god. Any who drink from the enticing pond become food for a god with insatiable hunger. In times when their hidden wells begin to dry up they make sacrifices from their flocks and herds to the god, which sometimes answers their prayers for rain.

    And criminals, or tribes folk of other tribes which come raiding in their territory, are staked to a chain long enough to allow them to reach the water, and left, either to die of thirst, or to be devoured by the god when they drink.

    DM info:
    The god is a giant snapping turtle which has been in the pond for several hundred years. It is about twenty feet across it's shell, and it's six-feet-wide mouth can grab even the largest herbivores and drag them to their deaths. It can strike up to fifteen feet from the water's edge in a surprise attack and, if it wishes, it can leave the pond, moving clumsily but at the speed of a running man. Generally, it prefers the patient approach, and will sit and wait for prey, adjusting it's position underwater until it can snatch prey and drag it underwater.

    A number of large fish live in the pond, and are also food for the turtle. As long as it is alive, fishing for them is a questionable enterprise, at best. Removing the turtle will also eliminate their food supply. The ecosystem of the pond is almost entirely dependent on the turtle and it's waste products.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    57. Goth/Metal Disney Princess

    In a clearing in the forest (or wherever) the party happen to glimpse a beautiful young woman, dressed in black, singing a song about the futility of existence. As she sings she is approached by a throng of friendly crows, vultures, worms, beetles, foxes, coyotes, blow flies, and other carrion feeders. If class becomes relevant, the woman is probably some mix of bard, druid, and/or aristocrat (and/or the variants, kits, and class-specific PrCs thereof; noble, spirit shaman, blighter, harbinger, etc. and things of that nature)
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-05-10 at 01:25 AM.
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  13. - Top - End - #43
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    58: A Giant Headache

    As the adventurers travel they hear an anguished howl echoing across the land. It repeats every minute or two, but there are no words in any language the PCs know.

    Following the sound to its source, they discover a mountain giant sitting on a boulder clutching its head. It looks to the sky periodically and howls.

    If attacked the giant will defend itself, poorly. (-5 to hit, -5 to damage.) If spoken to the giant will saw,

    "Baw, me 'ead aches! Done thought me up a 'orrible idea, an now its fightin' t' get out!"

    Any question that more or less asks what the idea is will be answered, "Baw, I thought up a complete idiot idea: somethin' that 'as no purpose but t' 'urt folks for fun. An' now it be in me 'ead lookin' fer a way out!"

    The PCs' questions should lead to a solution offered by the giant: to crack open the giant's skull and let the idea out. Once vocalized, the giant will latch on to the idea and insist that it be done. If the PCs refuse, the giant will insist, to the point of attacking the PCs, (at -5 to hit and to damage.)

    If the PCs agree to open the giant's skull, it will show them where it hurts most and have them strike there. The PCs should engineer the act, and it should be difficult enough that the giant has to offer 'advice' to do it right.

    When the giant's head opens a tiny spikey toad-creature armed with a tiny spear, (d6 dam, + fort save vs 1-3 rounds of immobilizing pain,) crawls out and begins to attack. The creature should have a CR suitable for a random encounter by the party, and it will attempt to spread it's damage around so that everyone gets to feel it's pain.

    When defeated the creature and it's spear turns to vapor and blows away. The giant, however, sits up and looks around with it's wound halfway healed.

    As a reward, the giant gives the PCs it's magic ring, a defective Monstrous Regeneration ring which only heals half of the most recently inflicted wound. (If a character takes 3 HP damage the ring will heal 1 HP in the following round. A second hit for 3 more points will give another hp. A third hit for 10hp will let the ring, over the next five rounds, heal the last blow halfway, ignoring previous damage.)

    Further, the giant will give a toot on a ram's horn then give it to the PCs, promising to help if he hears the horn blow. (10 mile radius when outdoors.)


    59: A Little Bird Told Me
    While traveling, the adventurers are met by a talking raven.
    "My master, the wizard Deleriac, is in need of help! She will pay you well if you have a long rope and are willing to use it to help her get out of a well that she fell into."

    The wizard cannot fly or climb out, and could obviously get out with various spells if she had them in her spell book. It seems the PCs must ignore the bird, which will follow them pleading for help for a few miles, unless attacked first, or go to the rescue.

    A mile off the road the PCs come to the lip of a sinkhole. Down in the cavern below a brown-stained spot surrounds a pile of bones. As the PCs are looking down, a team of goblin rogues attack with the intent of shoving them over the edge. Surprise!

    Down in the well is a hunger-crazed ogre mage with crippled legs. It moves about by walking with it's hands and dragging it's twisted legs behind. Because of this it can move or attack but not both in a round.

    The raven is its familiar, and it is not a raven at all. It is a quasit familiar that recruited the goblins to help feed its master, which it wants to keep alive so the quasit can remain on the material plane. It pays the goblins for pushing victims over a 40' fall with bits of treasure carried by the victims.

    The goblins have a nearby cave-camp where about a year's worth of loot is stored. Large treasure too heavy for the raven to carry is in the sinkhole. Most of that is in a hidden niche used by the ogre for his camp.

    The familiar will snatch the ogre's soul and zip off to the afterlife if the ogre is slain. Killing the raven will reveal it for what it is: a polymorphed demonling. The ogre would kill the quasit if it could, but after a year of pain and torment the ogre mage is quite insane. It is very much unreasonable and unreasoning, and it is starving.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-05-28 at 08:49 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    59.) Banzai! Tree

    A small overly zealous treant samurai
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-06-01 at 04:48 PM.
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  15. - Top - End - #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    59.) Banzai! Tree

    A small overly zealous treant samurai
    Don't laugh, these things are dangerous. You have to contemplate for hours before you can defend yourself from their furious assaults.

    60: A Shaved Bear

    We don't know how it got here, who shaved it, or why, but this bear is mad. Really, really mad
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-06-01 at 11:34 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #46
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    61 Owlbear pellets.

    You see the compressed remains of a small mammal on the forest floor. A DC 10 Nature check reveals that this is a pellet like the kind that owls regurgitate, but bigger. A DC 14 Nature check reveals that this is a pellet regurgitated by an owl bear.

  17. - Top - End - #47
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    62. River Merrow

    The PCs are ambushed while trying to cross a fast flowing river by a group of Merrow. The players could be crossing via bridge/barge/raft depending on where you are dropping this encounter, regardless the Merrow attempt an ambush and use their harpoons to try and pull their victims into the river and drown them. Each round on initiative 20 the river's current carries creatures 10 feet downstream, any creature with a swim speed can choose whether they are carried downstream or stay in position. Whenever someone is pulled into the river one Merrow will try to grapple the target and another Merrow will use the Help action to maintain the grapple, they will drag the target below the water and then swim downstream together dragging the target.

    For a less deadly encounter, have random NPCs crossing at the same time so that they can be targeted instead of the PCs, or rather then trying to outright drown the target they can just be taking them prisoner and bring them to their lair. Or even have a merchant caravan be part of the crossing and the Merrow target the goods, they try to harpoon and drag wagons, chests, etc... into the water which they can then loot at their convenience.

  18. - Top - End - #48
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    63. The Trolley Problem

    There's a trolley (or other vehicle) that's lost its brakes. If it continues on its current course it will run over five people and kill them. But the party has the opportunity to pull a lever that will send it onto a new path where it will instead kill a single person who was not previously in danger
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  19. - Top - End - #49
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    64: The Singing Stone

    As the party enjoys a meal around their campsite, a strange music can be faintly heard. Following it to its source reveals a stone which appears to be making the sound.

    The stone is not magical, and nothing sets it apart from the many other stones nearby except the sound. It is too large to easily move, and certainly too large to take with them. A speaker of dwarven may recognize the words, and someone who grew up with dwarves may recall the song as a dwarven lullaby.

    Speaking to or around the stone will cause the singing to stop. "Who's there?" The female dwarf voice will ask.

    She doesn't know the answer to many questions. She cannot see the people speaking to her, and she cannot say where she is. She claims to be lonely and she wants friends to talk to.

    DM info: she is a dwarf teenager in her bedroom, unknowingly speaking through a 2 inch, (5mm,) vent drilled to the surface then concealed by clever placement of a boulder. The air flows out, and the vent is designed to divert rain and debris before it gets to the bedroom.


    65: Flash Flood!

    While traveling, a sudden downpour, (perhaps one at a distance if traveling through arid territory,) causes a sudden, rapid rise in water levels, resulting in a land where only the hilltops are above the flood. Every living thing in the area which cannot fly must seek higher ground. Some climb trees, others are fast enough to cross flooding ground to higher ground.

    A strange phenomenon occurs at this time: predators don't predate, herbivores lose their fear. Only the ant swarms, displaced from their flooded ant hills, pose any threat as floating balls of ants flow with the stream, occupying any object, floating or otherwise, which remains above the flood.

    The party may have to make a mad scramble to hight, only to find they have been joined by an alpha predator or two. Who will be the first to break the flood-truce?

    Within a day the floods will subside. Other than an abundance of mud, sometimes with corpses of the flood victims in it, life will resume it's normal patterns. Roads, ford's, and bridges may be damaged or impassable, and communities will be hard at work recovering from the devastation.


    66: Troll Bridge

    The PCs arrive at a bridge across a ravine. The buttress of one side is a tiny cabin beneath the deck of the bridge, obviously intended for the caretaker of the bridge, with a little stone stair from the road down to the doorstep of the cabin.

    The stone arch of the bridge is intact, but the wooden handrail and wheel-guard is broken in several places.

    As the PCs prepare to cross this bridge in the middle of nowhere, the door of the cabin opens and from it emerges a troll. The troll is stooped, and coughs at irregular intervals. He wears farmers' bib overalls that are patched in many places with rags of different colors and patterns. Much of his (her?) skin is inflicted with boils and ulcers which have cracked, weeping scabs.

    Spoiler: Healing Check DC 15
    Show

    The boils resemble Anthrax, a disease passed among cattle and other domestic herd animals, which can be passed to humanoids by direct or indirect contact. Farmers burn infected animals and the fields in which they graze.
    Spoiler: Healing Check DC 20
    Show

    Cure Disease will work as will it's many forms, such as the Paladin ability, scrolls, and potions. Very few non-magical means exist which will cure the disease. Fire usually prevents further spread, but only if applied to anything and everything the disease may have touched, and watering holes must be quarantined for a minimum of seven years.

    Spoiler: Fortitude Save DC 18
    Show

    Each character must roll a save or the symptoms of coughing and painful boils will begin to appear within 48 hours and every day thereafter a point of Con will be lost until death or healing takes place. Recovery of lost Con points will require 2 days per lost point unless a Restoration type spell is used.


    "I cannot allow you to pass unless you pay the toll," the troll says in a raspy voice. It then coughs as though speaking caused it. "One copper per unshod foot, one silver per shod foot, one gold per axel."

    Apparently, oxen, horses, farm animals, pets, and anything else that walks on the bridge must pay, or have payment made for them. Carried children or animals don't count, nor do creatures which fly over the ravine.

    If the adventurers threaten, the troll asks, "If you are so tough, I can allow you to pass for free, but only if you do something for me. Each evening for the last two weeks, the Broo Brothers, Ramsey, Nan, and Billy, have come to tease me and cross my bridge without payment. If you can chase them away for me, I will allow you to cross for free."

    Around sundown the Broo Brothers arrive. They will call out the troll and dare it to try to stop them. They are goat-headed humanoids. Nan is actually female, and her horns are small and slender. Ramsey is slightly larger, and his horns are thick and almost make a complete spiral. Billy is a very powerful male whose horns complete two complete turns, and are very thick at the base.

    Nan goes first, and if opposed, she will try to butt whoever tries to hinder her crossing until one or the other is hurled over the side of the bridge to fall twelve feet into the ravine. Next will come Ramsey, larger and stronger than Nan. Finally, Billy will come. He is Size Large, very strong, and skilled.

    If the adventurers try to use lethal force, Nan will Bestow a Curse of Incurability on the attacker(s), rendering the disease, if caught, incurable until the Curse is Removed.

    The troll, if cured, will be thankful and allow the PCs to cross the bridge whenever they wish. (It heals faster than PCs once the disease is cured, and the sores visibly reduce by the round.)

    The bridge belongs to Lord Taglimont, whose farmers use it in their daily commerce. The troll is part toll collector, part maintenance man, and part guardian. The Broos have interfered with trade and the troll fears his lord's wrath when word gets back. If the Broos are defeated, they will go away to find someone else to torment.
    Spoiler
    Show
    They also are carriers of the disease. They are immune to its symptoms, but spread the infection. Killing them and burning their corpses would help the region contain an outbreak of Anthrax. Curing them of the disease will work, but only until they are re-infected by their clan's ceremonial infection ritual can be performed. (They worship a disease deity.)

    Lord Taglimont may have small presents for the adventurers when he learns of their deeds. Killing the troll, Chauncey, will upset him. Actually curing the infection will move him to reward the PCs with the Order of the Sunflower, a title which comes with a gold-plated brass medal that is respected by those who owe fealty to the Lord.

    He may also have a quest to go beneath his citadel to purify a tainted well. What that entails is another issue!
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-06-28 at 09:36 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #50
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DwarfBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    the Netherlands
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Random Encounters

    67: Spider-tailed Horned Viper.

    This guy! Or girl, I'm not sure.

  21. - Top - End - #51
    Troll in the Playground
     
    HalflingPirate

    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Default Re: Random Encounters

    Quote Originally Posted by the_david View Post
    67: Spider-tailed Horned Viper.

    This guy! Or girl, I'm not sure.
    1st Ed had the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Essentially a Mimic for outdoor settings. We saw one in the chamber of monsters never updated to 3rd Ed in Dorukon's Dungeon.

    68: Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

    A saddled horse wanders toward the PCs mounts and tries to join their herd. It appears to be a normal mount, trained to accept a rider, without health issues or injuries. It is not branded.

    The PCs can accept it as a riding mount, pack horse, or keep it with intent to turn it over to authorities.

    Attempts to backtrack it lead to several days of meandering which end at a river or having further tracks erased by rain or other effects.

    True Seeing or other magic may reveal the horse to be a shapechanger, but it will give no reason to make such checks. Attempts to perform magical divinations will cause it to try to flee, shapechanging into falcon form to fly away if it cannot run fast enough or if it is tied or restrained.

    The horse will stay with the PCs for three to five days before they are confronted by a ranger and his cohorts. The ranger claims the horse as his property and demands restitution for the PCs theft. The ranger names several of the party's most treasured items as his price to avoid charges of horse thievery.

    Refusal to pay up results in open threats, followed by an attack. During the attack the shapechanger will attempt to lead the mounts away along with all their gear. If this succeeds, the ranger and his party will flee.

    The shapechanger is an evil half-elf who works with the bandits. She notes all that the PCs possess, and communicates the information to her gang before the confrontation. If caught and confronted during the attack by her gang she will assume the shape of a dire wolf and attack.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-07-13 at 10:52 PM.

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