I'm GMing Pathfinder 1e this weekend and my players will be delving through a cave that was once a silver dragon's lair. I want to have a bunch of encounters planned out so that I can stretch this crawl out to the end of session, since we have a guest player who we don't want in the story for too long or too short.
Stuff they will find so far:
-Group of Frost Giants in the entrance. They don't speak common, but are pretty chill guys if a player remembers to cast Tongues.
-SO MANY SPIDERS, while escaping down a spiraling cavern. I'll have them crawling out of the walls and stuff.
-A Black Pudding. Never used one of these, and I don't think my players would know what to do immediately.
-Long underwater cave with some aberrations in it, maybe gibbering mouthers. Also a gigas clam with a huge pearl to lure in the party ninja.
-Big ending surprise - it's not a silver dragon's lair, it's a black dragon's lair, and this whole plot was him luring you to get eaten. Why is this cave so long? Because the black dragon just uses his underwater secret entrance/exit for his schemes.
Party is level 10 and there will be 5 of them, 6 with animal companion. Does anybody know any good encounters for a group like this? Doesn't need to be system specific - I'd love ideas for cool cave traps and stuff.
Black pudding AND a black dragon
Except the black pudding is actually just the food
What about...a transition section between the dry and underwater cave sections that's an underground river (these are usually at the same level as the region's water table and will flow out the mouth of a cave into an outside stream or river or body of water at the base of cliffs or plateaus). Underground rivers flow through partially flooded tubes and large cathedral-esque caverns that can sometimes be unstable because the wet part of a cave is considered "active" in its formation. They're usually at the lowest elevation in the cave system with the totally flooded sections beneath them.
If you want to add critters, there are usually blind albino fish or salamanders that live in these rivers (dunno what the DnD equivalent is or if they're sentient, but in my head I'm imagining like a vertical village scaffolded on the walls of multiple vertically connected caverns up into the dry, stabler part of the cave).
Forgot to mention that irl people usually run boats through them.
put the giant horrible eel from Super Mario 64 in one of them underwater bits too. It's a horror dungeon now
that's how you really get em. They've succeeded the perception/dexterity/seduction rolls to deal with the Mario 64 eel, come out into a larger, safe-seeming underwater space, and then bam! Mario Sunshine eel
I think, even if it’s not a silver dragons layer, have a fake version of the silver dragons larking corner.
Silver dragons LOVE heroes and will collect and make littl shrines to them. Maybe have the black dragon sort of try to imitate that but in a poor or thrown together way that gives the party a chance to realize something is up?
Like “oh hey we found this old sword but it’s thrown on the ground on a pile of coins that’s weird silver dragons would be more ornate about this”
on the same theme the deeper they go the more decayed and undead things should get. Like have rotting corpses of decaying animals that get up and attack them. or the pools of water under stalagmites becoming foul and gross.
A bird shows up and chirps depending to how close to treasure or danger the party is
That's simple but awesome. I love it. Maybe 2 different types of sounds that the party can figure out. :parrot-node:
I have a wildcard encounter idea:
A nonhostile (unless talks go wrong) run-in with what was thought to have been an extinct civilization, still speaking its language, having its customs, even wearing its history-known regalia. Whatever was supposed to wipe them out didn't get as far as a refugee group that took shelter in that dungeon, used its treasures and other resources to pick themselves back up, and have some semblance of continuity with what they had lost. Even more interesting if they truly don't know they're the last of their empire/kingdom/whatever left and their current leader was waiting for correspondence.
If they’re using torches have a magical item animate their shadows (or just some of them for extra confusion). The party can’t harm the shadows but the shadows can harm them. Only way to do away with them is to put out your torch or to find the source of the magic
I don’t have much to add, other than I turned the sheep green and spun the black dragon’s gold horde into straw. :duck-dance:
Let’s do loot instead. I’m a sucker for the trade off style loot that adds some flavour to the world.
Bard’s Lament (AKA the Spicy Trombone)
Appearance: A bronze hemisphere with a diameter the width of a man’s shoulders. It has straps to stick on the back. Warm to the touch. Hollow-sounding if knocked on. It has five pipes protruding in each of the cardinal directions, including upwards. One of the side-pipes narrows into a mouthpiece, whereas the others widen into horns. Engraved into the bronze is an image of a satyr playing the horn, with a dragon emerging from the horn.
Effect: When blown as a standard action, a Fireball spell is cast simultaneously in each of the other cardinal directions, to the sides and upward. 3/day. (Spell cast can be adjusted based on party level to fit campaign. Make it an empowered fireball, or even a dragonsbreath.)
Lore: This instrument belonged to a fabled court bard. It was a one-of-a-kind instrument, able to entertain a crowd by simultaneously fire bending and playing music. The bard, however, grew too close to the sorcerer-prince’s betrothed, and in jealousy, the prince cursed the instrument. The next time it was played in court, it is said to have incinerated much of the royal family. The bard, in penance, was condemned to enter a dragon’s lair, never to return.
Where to find it: can be placed in a dragon’s hoard strapped to a skeleton, or can be found facing into a corner or crack, with a charred skeleton on top, its mouth on the mouth piece.
Bonus: with a sufficiently high Perform check, the player can prevent the fireball from coming out one or more sides.
cave traps
Hanging lichen "curtains" full of dormant flourescent algae activated by body heat. Mark anybody who has moved through with a nasty neon green glow a couple minutes later. Attract spiders, ruin stealth, bonus to ranged attacks against you. Requires a lengthy bath, strong alcohol or FIRE to remove. May be useful for moving through extremely combustible areas (spider webs, cave gas) or to distract the spiders from the main group... if your players are resourceful.
Raw gems in a cave wall next to an old dwarfish "dibs" rune. The faintest smell of burnt beard. The gems are actually a crystal that reacts extremely exothermically with water, for example when touching skin or (assuming protective gloves) when held up to the face for inspection and breathed on. A good alchemist may negotiate with the salamander living within to make them safer to handle but this requires a bit of a ritual.
A creepy but mostly harmless olm. Getting too close will slow your metabolism and may induce sleep, that's how it keeps its prey fresh. Killing it will contaminate a large sphere of water with its secretions, paralyzing/petrifying everyone inside.
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