A week or two ago, our heroes finished haggling with vendors at Honeyfest. They might have even come out of the deal with a magic item or two. However, as any geek who’s ever been to a convention before knows all too well, passing items back and forth and touching hands with countless strangers has side effects. In our world, we know of this foul ailment by many names. Con crud, PAX plague… the list goes on. In this world of fantasy, it is known by the name of this week’s encounter: Spring Sickness.
As the adventurers depart Honeyfest to go on their next adventure, one or more of the characters may suddenly come down with a terrible sickness. To make matters worse, as they make to leave town (or visit the local apothecary), the market square is suddenly thrown into chaos by a plague wizard and his pet otyugh spreading filth!
Setback Encounter: Spring Sickness
This encounter is suitable for characters of 3rd-level, but it can be scaled up or down to suit higher-level parties.
This encounter is centered on a strange and potentially deadly disease being passed to one or more of the adventurers. The encounter assumes one or more of the characters being exposed to this sickness before the adventure begins, possibly during one of the haggling sessions in a previous encounter: Honeyfest Hagglers.
When the adventurers wake up, every character that participated in the haggling or looked at any items in the marketplace the day before must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a character contracts a disease from the spell contagion. Roll 1d6 to determine which of the six possible diseases that character contracts. A result of 1 indicates the character contracts Blinding Sickness, a roll of 2 results in Filth Fever, and so on.
Don’t worry that lesser restoration can eliminate this disease with the snap of a finger. At low levels, the use of a 2nd-level spell slot is a serious cost. At higher levels, spending a significant number of 2nd-level or higher spell slots to wipe the disease from everyone involved will still have an impact on the caster’s combat prowess in the encounter itself.
At Higher Levels: If the characters are 5th level or higher, increase the DC of the saving throw to resist the disease to 16. If the characters are 11th level or higher, increase the DC to 19. If the characters are at least 17th level, increase the DC to 22.
Encounter Start
When the characters awaken in an inn or their own residence in a village or city, read or paraphrase the following:
The first light of dawn rises over the rooftops of the buildings around you. There’s a dull ache in your bones, and a strange scratchiness at the back of your throat. A wave of dread passes over you as you come to consciousness—could you have gotten sick?
If you recently played Honeyfest Hagglers, each of the characters who haggled or interacted with one of the shopkeepers or their goods must make a Constitution saving throw. See above for the DC of the saving throw and the effects of failing a save. If you didn’t play Honeyfest Hagglers, roll a die with as many faces as you have players (rounding down to the nearest even number).
Once the characters have realized that they either succumbed to a disease or managed to fight it off overnight, any character with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score of 13 or higher notices that a slip of paper has been pushed under their door. This paper is an advertisement for an apothecary in town, selling “cure-all” potions. The apothecary goes by the name of Pyotr Panacea, and has a shop in the market square of this town (or the market district of this city).
In truth, Pyotr is the alter ego of a secret plague mage known as the Father of Filth. He raises otyughs in the trash heaps of this village (or the sewers of this city) and uses his magic to spread sickness throughout the city. He worships Talona, goddess of sickness, but also uses his skill as an apothecary to make money by selling bogus cures for the diseases he spreads. They alleviate the symptoms temporarily, while doing nothing to treat the actual disease. Honest clerics and healers despise this man for his phony practices, but the poor and desperate that flock to him don’t heed their warnings; Pyotr’s cures are, in many cases, the only ones they can afford.
Combat Encounter: Death and Disease
If the characters investigate Pyotr’s flyer, it leads them into the middle of a horrific attack in the market. If the characters decide not to investigate, a serving boy from the inn knocks madly on their door. He shouts, “You’re adventurers, right? There’s an attack in the market! Horrible monsters, and a manic wizard! You have to help!”
Once the characters are in the market, the following scene unfolds before them; you can read or paraphrase these bullet points to your players as if they were read-aloud text:
- The wide-open market square is in chaos.
- The market is a roughly 100-foot diameter circular area with a 20-foot-wide thoroughfare leading out to the north and south.
- Two dozen innocents are fleeing towards the thoroughfares, while easily twice as many are sick on the ground, coughing or vomiting. (Use commoner statistics).
- A green-robed wizard wearing a copper, demon-faced mask cackles and incants foul spells, while a hideous, tentacle monster reeking of sewage grabs innocents and sinks its massive teeth into their bodies.
The wizard is Pyotr, a half-elf magewith the following changes; these changes reduce his challenge rating to 4 (1,100 XP):
- He only knows the following cantrips: infestation, poison spray, primal savagery
- He has only the following spells prepared:
- 1st level: chromatic orb (poison damage only), ray of sickness
- 2nd level: dragon’s breath (poison damage only)
- 3rd level: feign death
- 4th level: dimension door
- 5th level: contagion
- When he is reduced to 20 hit points or fewer, Pyotr casts dimension door to escape. If he can’t escape after this, he casts feign death and allows himself to be captured. When he awakens, he pretends that he was possessed by an evil spirit which forced him to go on a rampage. A character that succeeds on a DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check recognizes that he’s a terrible liar.
The tentacle monster is an reduced-threat otyugh (this modified monster originally appeared in “Dead in Thay,” an adventure printed in Tales from the Yawning Portal). It can understand Common (but not speak it), and follows Pyotr’s orders perfectly. At the moment, it is grappling innocents with its tentacles (without dealing damage) and sinking its teeth into them as gently as possible. This deals only 1 point of piercing damage, but the commoner contracts a disease.
This otyugh has the following change: when a creature is hit by its Bite attack, it is instead affected by the spell contagion, instead of contracting the disease that the otyugh’s bite would otherwise confer. This has no effect on its challenge rating.
At Higher Levels: If the characters are at least 5th level, the otyugh is a full-strength otyugh, and Pyotr is a mage with the listed spells available in addition to the spells he already has prepared. If the characters are at least 11th level, there are three otyughs, and Pyotr has an accomplice called Dalton the Diseased, also a mage with the same spell selection as Pyotr. If the characters are at least 17th level, there are five otyughs, and both Pyotr and Dalton are archmages with the same altered spell selection.
Conclusion
Once the characters defeat Pyotr or allow him to escape, the town guard (or city watch) runs in, prepared to help the sick and injured escape. The characters are free to try and search for leads as to the maniac’s identity—or, if they captured him and unmask him, the city guard is well aware that this man is Pyotr, and the characters may explore his shop and search for clues that could tie him to the filth-cult of Talona.
If a character is brave enough to cut open the otyugh and search through its fetid guts, they find a periapt of health within its large intestine.
At Higher Levels: If the characters are at least 11th level, they find a potion of vitality on Pyotr’s and Dalton’s bodies. If they are at least 17th level, Pyotr also carries a rod of alertness.
Did you like this encounter? If you want to read more adventures, take a look at the other encounters in the Encounter of the Week series! If you're looking for full adventures instead of short encounters, you can pick up the adventures I've written on the DMs Guild, such as The Temple of Shattered Minds, a suspenseful eldritch mystery with a mind flayer villain (for 3rd level characters). My most recent adventures are included in the Gold Best Seller Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas, a collection of 88 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be paired with the beautiful tactical poster maps in Tactical Maps Reincarnated, recently published by Wizards of the Coast.
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their feline adventurers Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I love it! Great work as usual
I think there's a mix-up; it says to make a Deception check to recognize Pyotr is lying instead of Insight
This is a dope encounter, i'm going to use it, the only thing that I'mgoing tochange is make the apothecary a red herring, he is going to be a scam artist who managed to predict where the attack are going to be through observation and good luck.
Awesome adventure! My party is planning on traveling to Neverwinter to do some shopping after they complete Lost Mines of Phandelver and I think I'm going to throw Honeyfest and Spring Sickness at them! Though I have stated that it is early fall multiple times so this may be some sort of fair surrounding the selling of the harvest and the rest of the year's spoils. I really want to run The Haunted Cornfield as well!
I was a bit confused on why you ask for a Deception check instead of an insight check. The flavor of recognizing that they are a terrible liar makes sense but seems to be encroaching a bit on insight's function. I may have to see which of my players are proficient in deception and ask them to roll a general charisma check so as to not tip them off with meta information.
Awesome encounter. I am going to use this one along with honeyfest. I want to see what my players do when they get sick.
That was an error; it's been corrected. :)
A fun idea. If you wanted to stretch this out from an encounter to an adventure, I'd put an investigation into play. Show the people of the town gradually getting more and more sick, and have the players determine that Pyotr is the one making them sick. If you wanted to make him a higher-tier villain, perhaps all of this isn't just to enrich himself at the expense of the townsfolk, but a scheme in his devotion to Talona: Recruiting to her cult, or laying the groundwork for some truly horrid plague.
If I just half an Otyugh's HP, will it be enough of a 'reduced threat' for level 2 players?
Definitely not. I would use the quick monster building system in the Dungeon Master's Guide to scale an otyugh down to the point at which it's a CR 2 creature.
"PAX-Plague" Love it!
This is an awesome encounter! I had planned on something similar to use in my game soon, but it was a spore druid instead of a mage. I'm pretty sure I can still make this encounter work, but was curious if you (anyone) had any suggestions on something more druidic/natural than an otyugh to compliment him?
diseased rat swarm or dire rats, multiply until happy with CR. Rats are the iconic plague carriers.
Could you swap otyughs for other filthy 2nd level creatures, l was thinking that the Carrion Ogre from Dungeon of the Mad Mage would work, as it could be on of Pyotr's twisted sickness spreading creations.
Oh, this will be very useful - I've got a campaign setting where Talona is one of the Big Bads. Or, she was - before my players killed her high priestess and saved the city. But her cult is persistent and resilient, and it'll be a fun callback.
I ogre it was grate
I'm probably going to run this encounter, but my players are in a small town with a 200-person militia. (Which is kind of huge but is also part of the local history). If anyone else is wondering how to balance letting the heroes be heroes, without forgetting the town's own defenses, I have two suggestions:
If I were to use this on a party that is above 5th level, what would Pyotr’s spell list look like?
Check the section above marked "At Higher Levels." It describes how to adjust Pyotr as level appropriate.
So it would be:
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield, chromatic orb (poison damage only), ray of sickness
2nd level (3 slots): misty step, suggestion, dragon’s breath (poison damage only)
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fireball, fly, feign death
4th level (3 slots): greater invisibility, ice storm, dimension door
5th level (1 slot): cone of cold, contagion
Is this correct?
That looks right. There's no reason you couldn't adjust his spell list for any reason, either. Especially since, above 5th level, the suggestion is to give him an apprentice as well. Picking some different spells for the both of them wouldn't be out of bounds.