theconsultantdm.bsky.social
I help DMs bring the best they can to their games. Having issues with a game? I’m happy to offer an ear and a suggestion.
Forever DM by choice
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If the party faces the god head on, the Kuo-Toa will just keep worshiping a scarier and scarier version of it, bringing back again and again. To defeat it, they must cut off its power at the source. This can mean defeating the worshipers, convincing them to worship something else, or killing them.
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These are the kuo-toa, the god-makers. In the party’s adventures in the Underdark, a few of these god-makers started to follow them, and see them as diaries worth worshiping. Their belief and customs in the party’s name has created this monstrosity. A god that has aspects of the whole party.
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A large multi headed monster that has a caricature head for each party member. The body of it is a large version of the party’s most visually striking weapon. It is flanked by multiple fish people on the ground worshiping it.
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The party finishes their business in The Underdark, and start to retrace their way back to the surface. As they do, they start to see small sculptures of them constructed on the sides of the path. As they enter the next big room they see it.
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If they calm it, it becomes as magical item:
The Mask of the Shadows (requires attunement) the wearer of this mask gets an additional +10 to stealth checks when hiding in darkness. Curse: when you pass a valuable, rolls a WIS Sav DC 15. Fail: You are charmed by the object until you steal it.
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The problem is, no one that is has possessed this far has been dexterous enough to get away clean. Each person gets caught, so the mask abandons them and moves to its next host. The party must figure out what is going on with this mask and either calm it or destroy it.
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The culprit is a possessed mask that controls its wearer. The mask originally belonged to an infamous cat burglar, who died wearing it. The mask takes over anybody that dons it, and tries to relive the glory days of high level thievery.
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If they let him out, he will keep his word and help them escape, but he will then leave to torment a nearby town.
This encounter is loosely based on the Twilight Zone episode The Howling Man. It is a good way to lead to a grand adventure fixing the evils the party had unleashed.
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An arcana check will reveal that this seal is magical, and other investigations around the house will reveal that this creature behind the door asking for help is a demon in disguise. If the party is trapped in the house because they closed the door, the demon offers their freedom for his.
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As the party explores, some corpses may hop to unlife and attack. All of them seem to be protecting a closet in the master bedroom at the back of the house. When they investigate, they hear a person weakly screaming for help. There is a paper seal on the door that reads in celestial: Door is Shut.
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The house exists on a demiplane that does not connect to any other world except by this single door by the road. If the door closes, there is no way to open the door from inside the demiplane. The house is littered with corpses, all of which seem to be resisting something in the back of the house.
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If the players win, the campaign continues. If death wins, time to break out the character sheets. To make things crazier, treat all of the PCs as undead creatures.
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Each of the nine squares has a monster or encounter from earlier in the adventure. If the players defeat the encounter, they claim it as an O. Every 30 real world minutes, Death claims an X. Death does not force ties, but will always go for the win.
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The party arrives in a firey circle. The reaper stands before them, with an offer. Beat him in a game of Tic Tac Toe and they can return to their bodies. He will even fully heal them and restore their spent resources. The players get Os and Death will play X
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This is a Behir. A lightning spitting serpentine monster. It has stolen many eggs from the dragon, and had just eaten one of them. The party needs to recover all the eggs (including the one that is being swallowed now) to get the kingdom back. Time to roll initiative.
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If the party brings the head of the egg stealer to the dragon, the kingdom will be theirs.
After some investigation, the party tracks the eggs to a cave system. As they explore, they hear something large. At first glance, it’s a blue dragon. But there are no wings. It’s got extra legs.
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A booming voice offers negotiations. The kingdom for a head. The dragon had taken the kingdom in an act of greed and ambition. While they were busy trying to solidify their rule, their nest was attacked. Multiple eggs have been stolen/destroyed.
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A red dragon has claimed the peaks of the mountain as its new home. Because the mountain town is within its sights, it now demands its own sacrifices and taxes. The double taxing is too much for the town. The mayor has asked the party to get them out of at least one of these bad deals.
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NPC uses:
-Escort them to the beholder’s cave and fight off their minions while they do their checkup.
-retrieve a special ore or glass to help repair the armor
-they offer their shield in exchange for help
-a certain beholder mobster hired the party to remove the knight from the picture.
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They make glasses and monocles to help beholders see better. In exchange, they promise to stay in their cave and not try to take over the nearby town. The mirrored armor is there to deflect any accidentally fired eye beams. While the armor is very reflective, it is quite brittle and will break often
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Bonding is a contested roll, Animal Handling vs the sphinx’s CHA. If a bond fails, the bond is lost and the PC is unable to retry. As always, if the story allows for a bond to grow other ways, this roll can be retried/ignored.
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21-30: strange way of putting common knowledge out there.
31+: if no one has had this thought, the world would be broken.
Players then roll WIS to beat the DC (give advantage to truly unique ideas). If they beat it, a new sphinx is created.
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How to run:
Each player wanting to create a sphinx offers an idea. Depending on the originality (DM’s Discretion), set a DC based on the following guide:
DC 1-10: Extremely original idea.
11-15: Never heard that before, but not ground breaking
16-20: uncommon, but you could get there eventually.
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There is also an adoption program. If you can manifest a new sphinx, you have the opportunity to bond with it. If bonding is successful, that player gets a new sphinx familiar who will help them with ability checks.
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On the other side of the portal is the other half of the nursery. They have libraries upon libraries of knowledge all for the new sphinxes to learn from, and large open areas for perching. Wiser sphinxes run riddle contests and teach classes.
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They are welcomed inside, and told this was a Sphinx nursery. Well, half of one. Every time a person has a new unique idea, a new Sphinx is born in the astral plane. The orb on the top of the tower works as both a lens and a portal into the astral plane.
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-The corpse is actually a doppelgänger, and is planning on stealing someone’s identity.
-Vultures attack the party as long as the corpse travels with them
-Water is a limited resource on the desert part of the adventure, making the corpse’s ask a lot harder to fulfill.
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Twists to add:
-The corpse is actually a corpse, and this is a trap to ambush the party in their sleep.
-The party is attacked by the death dog pack that inflicted the poison on the corpse
-The corpse is an agent of the BBEG, and intentionally got bit so they can gather sympathy from the party
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If a PC casts lesser restoration on the corpse, the poison dissipates and they return to looking like a normal person.
The treasure map can be any sort of information you want the players to know. Treasure maps are just an easy go to stand-in.
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If the party obliges, the figure thanks them. They have been attacked by a Death Dog, whose poison had caused this condition. If they would be so kind as to help them to the nearest oasis, the corpse would reward them with a treasure map.
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I built this prison with no plan on how to get someone out. Let your players get creative with it. If you want to raise the stakes even more, have them discover the security systems one by one. Good luck on your player’s escaping!
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-The only person that knows the sequence lives halfway across the world, and sends the code via magic any time the prisoner needs to be let out.
-The prisoner is kept immobilized by 4 immovable rods, and a gag is constantly covering the prisoner’s mouth.
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(cont) and keeps incorporeal beings from passing through it.
-The prisoner is locked up by 15 different chains, connected to the same contraption. Each chain is locked by a unique key, and if a single chain is removed out of order, the weight of two chains will rip the prisoner apart.
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-An inner courtyard, filled with mushrooms that explode into sleeping spores when so much as brushed against. Anyone who ingests the spores make a dc17 com save. Fail: 1 level of exhaustion.
-At the the center of the courtyard is a single cell. It is constructed out of a material that reflects magic
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-50 ft wall, armed with lightning canons to hit fliers
-A 100 foot open area, covered in snow. Any motion from footsteps will be heavily amplified.
-Mammoth Guards patrol the open area, stomping down to find any potential holes
-75 ft wall, manned by 60 dwarves. Each armed with crossbows.
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Kind of. I have a Necromancer villain who grows clones of himself as different classes. The first time they faced him, he had a big ole staff and summoned the elements to kill, the next time they found him, he was a massive barbarian swinging a Warhammer enchanted with a reflavored smite reaction.
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The party goes dungeon diving, and then is forced with the choice. Do they destroy the item and let the ArchHag live forever, or do they bring it back to him and destroy him themselves?
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He offers to lift the curse on two conditions:
1) The pickpocketed item is returned
2) The party finds the Archhag’s Anathema and destroys it.
The pickpocketed item would be easy, but the anathema was another story. The ArchHag lost it in a mine while visiting a curse upon a rude dwarf.
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Tents collapsing in rainstorms, important trinkets falling out of pockets, and rust monsters. So. Many. Rust. Monsters. After the wizard had to create his fourth spell book for the year, enough was enough. The party track down the coven and meet with the ArchHag.