So I'm sending my party into a desert to find a lost tomb for a magic item. I guess I could just hand wave "you find the tomb", but I'd like to make it a cool, kinda challenging thing. Other than just rolling survival/perception/investigation checks until they hit a DC, does anyone have a cool way I could make them look for the tomb?
The Icewind Dale adventure, Rime of the Frostmaiden, has a section of suggestions and rules for wandering around the icy tundra that eats up travel time and allows for some side-shows along the way. You could easily adapt that do a desert environment.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Deserts have quite a varied topography. You could have a series of terrain features they have to navigate: past the dune sea is an oasis, from the oasis find the wadi that leads you to the tomb…
Whatever puts them on this path presumably gives them some vague idea where it is beyond "out in the desert, somewhere", but they're going to have to refine it, and they're all ways to introduce complications.
Ask the players how they want to go about finding it. (Depending on your players, you may need to nudge them.)
"We're going to do research at the local university/library/wizard's school/temple":
The knowledge they figure out they need is in a book, but the book is missing, or in the old stacks that nobody's been to in years
There's a scholar who can help them, but they're off on an expedition of their own. Come to think of it, they should've been back by now...
They get some information, but ultimately it points them to one of the other research paths
"We ask the gods":
Divinations rarely give clean answers, but they can point them in the direction of another research path
The local temples have information, but they want something in return
"We ask around in the local criminal underworld":
There's somebody who claims to have found the tomb, but can they be trusted, or is this a scam/trap?
There's somebody who found the tomb, came back with an artifact definitely from it, but now they're hiding out from the local gang boss
"We go out into the desert and ask the nomad tribes":
This tribe doesn't know, but their neighbors, who they are at war with, and who (they say) are all evil cultists, definitely do.
This tribe does know, but they want something in return.
This tribe doesn't know, but they tell you of the crazed hermit, who's been to the tomb, and came back utterly mad due to what he saw there.
You're going to have to be prepared to roll with what they come up with. If they insist on just heading out into the desert to look, nomad tribes and crazed hermits are still on the table.
So I'm sending my party into a desert to find a lost tomb for a magic item. I guess I could just hand wave "you find the tomb", but I'd like to make it a cool, kinda challenging thing. Other than just rolling survival/perception/investigation checks until they hit a DC, does anyone have a cool way I could make them look for the tomb?
The Icewind Dale adventure, Rime of the Frostmaiden, has a section of suggestions and rules for wandering around the icy tundra that eats up travel time and allows for some side-shows along the way. You could easily adapt that do a desert environment.
Deserts have quite a varied topography. You could have a series of terrain features they have to navigate: past the dune sea is an oasis, from the oasis find the wadi that leads you to the tomb…
Research!
Whatever puts them on this path presumably gives them some vague idea where it is beyond "out in the desert, somewhere", but they're going to have to refine it, and they're all ways to introduce complications.
Ask the players how they want to go about finding it. (Depending on your players, you may need to nudge them.)
"We're going to do research at the local university/library/wizard's school/temple":
"We ask the gods":
"We ask around in the local criminal underworld":
"We go out into the desert and ask the nomad tribes":
You're going to have to be prepared to roll with what they come up with. If they insist on just heading out into the desert to look, nomad tribes and crazed hermits are still on the table.
The nomadic tribe thing! I love it! This was just the spark I needed!!