Artwork by Hugo Stals. This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
The Pickle Dragon looks a bit like a combination between a domestic dog and a crocodile but with fewer teeth. They smell vaguely of vinegar and dill. They’ll eat anything pickled, and love cucumbers above all. They are primarily herbivorous but have been known to eat pickled meats like corned beef, picked tongue, or pickled oysters and mussels. They are good-natured and playful, but hard to tame and tend to wander off for no apparent reason.
The room is 35ft. square with the walls and floor made of masonry. There is a 5ft. square stone platform in the middle of the room raised about 6 inches from the floor. A large wooden chest sits in the middle of the raised platform. The room has a high ceiling of about 23ft. There is only one door in this room.
The whole room is a gigantic ancient mimic. The chest is to lure hapless adventurers into the room at which point the “door”, which is its mouth, will close and the mimic will proceed with digest anyone inside it.
Mimic (Ancient)
Huge monstrosity (shape changer), neutral
Armor Class 16 (natural Armour)
Hit Points 128 (16d8 + 64)
Speed 15ft.
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
21 (+5)
12 (+1)
18 (+4)
7 (-2)
13 (+1)
8 (-1)
Skills Stealth +5
Damage Immunities acid
Condition Immunities prone
Senses darkvision 60ft., passive perception 11
Languages –
Challenge 8 (3900 xp)
Shapechanger. The mimic can use its action to polymorph into an object or back into its true, amorphous form. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed. It reverts to its true form if it dies.
Adhesive (Object Form Only). The mimic adheres to anything that touches it. A Huge or smaller creature adhered to the mimic is also grappled by it (escape DC 13). Ability checks made to escape this grapple have disadvantage.
False Appearance (Object Form Only). While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object.
Grappler. The mimic has advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it.
Actions
Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit : 11 (2d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the mimic is in object form, the target is subjected to its Adhesive trait.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 5) piercing damage plus 6 (2d6) acid damage.
This is the second of three versions of this room.
The room is 35ft. square with the walls and floor made of masonry. There is a 5ft. square stone platform in the middle of the room raised about 6 inches from the floor. A large wooden chest sits in the middle of the raised platform. The room has a high ceiling of about 23ft. There is only one door in this room.
The chest is, in fact, a mimic and will hungrily attempt to devour any adventurer that gets close enough.
Mimic (Mature)
Medium monstrosity (shape changer), neutral
Armor Class 12 (natural Armour)
Hit Points 58 (9d8 + 18)
Speed 15ft.
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
17 (+3)
12 (+1)
15 (+2)
5 (-3)
13 (+1)
8 (-1)
Skills Stealth +5
Damage Immunities acid
Condition Immunities prone
Senses darkvision 60ft., passive perception 11
Languages –
Challenge 2 (450xp)
Shapechanger. The mimic can use its action to polymorph into an object or back into its true, amorphous form. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed. It reverts to its true form if it dies.
Adhesive (Object Form Only). The mimic adheres to anything that touches it. A Huge or smaller creature adhered to the mimic is also grappled by it (escape DC 13). Ability checks made to escape this grapple have disadvantage.
False Appearance (Object Form Only). While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object.
Grappler. The mimic has advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it.
Actions
Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit : 7 (1d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage. If the mimic is in object form, the target is subjected to its Adhesive trait.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) acid damage.
I’m planning to inflict this room on my players 3 times over the course of them gaining several levels. The room will look identical each time, but be subtly different. This is the first version of the room.
The room is 35ft. square with the walls and floor made of masonry. There is a 5ft. square stone platform in the middle of the room raised about 6 inches from the floor. A large wooden chest sits in the middle of the raised platform. The room has a high ceiling of about 23ft. There is only one door in this room.
The platform is, in fact, a pressure plate and any change in weight on the platform will trigger the trap. DC20 to find the trap trigger. Disarming the trap is a different matter. The party would have to figure out that the block above the doorway is the “trap”, and have to find some way to prevent it from falling (DC25 to disarm trap).
If the trap is sprung, a huge block of stone will drop to seal the door. The block of stone is very heavy. It’s 5ft. square and 15ft. tall, so it will be almost impossible to lift. (Google tells me that 5*5*15 feet of sandstone should weight ~56,000lbs.) The block is a tight fit. As the block falls, it releases a massive flow of water into the room from a cistern above which the block was holding back. The water will quickly fill the room at a rate of 5ft deep per turn. The room will be full in 5 turns. The room holds 28,175 cubic feet of water.
The cistern above is a chamber 20 feet square and 71 feet deep, holding 28,400 cubic feet of water. Enough to fill the room below with a little bit of water leftover filling most of the aqueduct connecting the cistern to the trapped room. (I was nice to the party when they were in here. My cistern filled by a natural spring in another chamber above the cistern that the players were able to climb up to and escape.)
Let the party be creative.
Air will run out rapidly in the room. How long can the party hold their breath? (It turns out 5e D&D swimming speed combined with suffocation rules make it very easy for the party to escape this trap. They can hold their breath 1 minute plus 1 minute per CON bonus. Swim speed is half normal movement speed. At maximum it would take them 5 turns to swim out of here once the water stopped flowing. 5 turns is only half a minute in D&D, so even without and CON bonuses, they can escape in 30 seconds, with 30 seconds to spare before they start drowning).
It’s up to the DM how sadistic they want to be. Electric eels in the water could be fun 😀
Perhaps once the water stops flowing when the room is full, they can swim out the way the water came in and escape via the now empty cistern?
Seed Bombs appear to be small round balls of clay about the size of a golf ball. The surface is hard and has been polished somewhat and has a pattern pressed into the surface suggesting the kind of bomb that it is.
This is also my 4th post this weekend. I don’t normally like to post so frequently and usually schedule posts to space them out a bit but I needed to get the images online so I could use them on GM Binder. I also recruited my son to help with the images. This one is one of his.
This clockwork beetle starts curled up in a little ball the size of a walnut. It can be thrown as a ranged attack and when it hits a target, will spring to life, flying into the face of its target while making a loud buzzing noise, distracting the target.
It was no ordinary wolf. It was the size of a small horse. Kai kept their steely gaze on the creature while they slowly reached into their jacket, pulling out 5 cards: 5 diamonds! The cards streaked from Kais’ hands, leaving a trail of blue energy as they slammed into the wolf. The wolf shuddered and was no more.
I’ve been playing around with an idea for a kind of mini-card game within D&D. I want to use normal playing cards with poker hands to generate magical effects; the better the hand, the better the effect.
I played around with various ways of generating a score from a poker hand that could be applied to the game. This turned out to be harder than I imagined, but in the end, I think I settled on something simple enough to use in play that generates suitable values for hands. The effect is different depending on the suit being played. Spades (Swords if using a Tarot deck) deal slashing damage. Clubs (Wands or Staves if using a tarot deck) deal bludgeoning damage. Hearts (Cups if using a tarot deck) heals people. Diamonds (Coins in a tarot deck) create a defensive barrier.
The poker hand system can do anything from 1 point of damage, all the way up to 199 damage (or healing, or defence) for a King high straight flush. The straight flush is a pretty rare hand though so I don’t expect to see it get played much, if ever.
I also wanted some way to do this using a tarot deck mainly because the artwork on tarot decks is so much cooler than normal playing cards. Now the basic poker hand thing still works with normal tarot cards, although they have one extra card per suit (common card decks have 13 cards per suit while tarot decks have 14 cards per suit). But Tarot also have the Major Arcana which are in addition to the other cards.
For the Major Arcana, I adapted D&D’s existing Deck of Many Things by modifying some existing effects. Others I rewrote entirely, and some I kept as is. Some inspiration came from this Reddit thread.
Rovers’ End is a small village on the three-way border of Dwarven controlled mountains to the west, human domain to the east, and largely uncontested wilderness to the north. This was a once prosperous village but has fallen on hard times.
I originally used the watabou city generator to make this map, but it’s undergone a few revisions and additions since then. This is the most recent redrawn version.
Rovers’ End
TheTown Square has a well in the middle and hosts a monthly market where farmers from the outlying areas come to sell produce. Dwarven merchants often come into town at market time to sell pots and pans and the like.
TheCouncil Building is where the council meets and is also where town records are kept (although births, deaths, and marriages are recorded at the church). There is almost always at least one council member present here.
The Baker uses locally grown grain ground at the nearby mill and produces good quality bread here. Nothing fancy, but tasty. Villagers buy directly from the baker, but the inn is the bakers’ main customer.
TheLocal Inn is the social heart of the town. Food, drink, lodgings, as well as basic adventuring gear can be purchased here. In more prosperous times, the inn would have often been full, but now many of its rooms sit idle. (I’m using Dyson Logos Wooden Duck Inn map for this.)
The Manor House is where the local lord used to live. The town prospered under his patronage for a while, but strange events cast a shadow over the house, and people started avoiding the town which led to the current decline in the towns fortunes. After the lords’ death, the house has been locked and uninhabited.
The Mill uses a water wheel drive by the river to grind locally grown grain.
The Blacksmith is a gnarly old dwarf with a sour disposition but makes excellent quality metal goods. He typically mends pots and forges plough sheers, but has a small inventory of common weapons for sale to the occasional passing adventurers.
The Docks used to see a lot more use than they do today, with shipments of grain and other goods being sent downriver to the larger towns. Today the docks sit idle a lot of the time except for harvest time, or when the occasional traveller arrives by boat.
The Church is the spiritual heart of the village. Olaf, the head priest, has presided here for many years and is a strict but kind patriarch of the village.
Orchard. Fresh fruits grown here.
The map above is the 72dpi version. The map below is a 300dpi version.
I love a good random table, but my problem with some tables is the distribution. A simple d10 is a linear distribution, where every number has an equal chance of being rolled. But if you roll multiple dice, like the 3d6, you get more of a bell curve with most rolls falling in the middle, around 10 or 11.
Self KO. Make a DC10 Dex save or knock yourself out. 1d6 rounds unconscious unless roused by somebody, or take damage from any source. Start your next turn Prone.
4
Pulled up lame. Make a DC10 Dex save or move at half speed for the rest of this encounter (or until healed)
5
You turn yourself around. Somehow you spun around and turned your back on the opponent who now gains one attack of opportunity against you.
6
I meant to do that. You miss in such a comical way that your opponent must make DC10 WIS save or be incapacitated laughing until the start of your next turn.
7
Two left feet. Drop to the bottom of the initiative order.
8
Really poor footwork. Drop 2 initiative level
9
Poor footwork. Drop 1 initiative level
10
Epic Fail. Your friends will tease you about this for weeks to come.
11
Epic Fail. Your friends will tease you about this for weeks to come.
12
Poor footwork. Drop 1 initiative level
13
Your next attack is with disadvantage
14
All attacks against you are with advantage until the start of your next turn.
15
Your weapon slips from your hand and lands in a random square 5 feet away. Roll 1d8 to determine direction with 1 being directly in front where the PC is facing, then count clockwise.
16
You miss your opponent, but your weapon strikes and gets lodged in wall/floor/furnature within 5′ of you and requires a DC12 STR check to pull it free.
17
Self Harm. You hit yourself. Roll damage as normal.
18
Self Harm. You hit yourself and do full damage to yourself.
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