Hey all! So right now my players are making their way through a keep belonging to the Unseelie Court to retrieve an artifact stolen from a Seelie ally, and I'm just going through and populating the keep with shenanigans. I'm having a lot of fun doing it, but to make things go faster since next session is on Wednesday, I thought I'd solicit the forum for room ideas. I've looked at other threads but most advice I could find was for running campaigns in the feywild, but this is more a one-off that will end with the party returning to the Material, so I'm really only looking for room ideas.
So far, the keep is populated by dark satyrs, dryads, some hags, quicklings, a redcap, satyr, or two hellhounds on loan full a fiendish ally, and a sentient rat chef. I've got a couple puzzles and oddities that I can detail later if you're interested, but yeah, what fey stuff you got?
Fey are honestly pretty poorly defined especially the courts so it helps to come up with an archfey and their personality to help define it. Another thing to keep in mind is that because fey are a little bit meta with their story book theming basically any monster can be a fey and fit that theming by leaning into the tropeyness or weirdness. For example you can enter into a room and everyone while they are in it is a cat in little outfits like puss in boots and the terrain is like cat play equipment, you could have any monster in there but appear as a cat in a costume.
As you can see it gets pretty crazy so its hard to be specific without knowing what you are going for. Like if I were to guess given the reputation of satyrs and fiends it could be the other kind of dungeon or a club for all I know and it would be odd to see Remi in a place like that. Depending on your audience a pole dancing hag could be hilarious but obviously that isn't for everyone.
It could also be like like the castle from beauty and the beast for all I know. It could be pretty funny to have a version of beauty and the beast except the ruler of the castle just eats bell.
It's a party of 3 level 4 characters, and here's several of the room descriptions for a hint as to the vibe:
-a room with a circle of mushrooms on the floor, where if you stand in it, you will get a great treasure if you can convince the rest of the party to enter the circle as well. If you don't convince them, instead you're cursed. If you explain the situation exactly to them, you're also cursed. The curse makes you "more trustworthy" by making you unable to lie.
-a fake door that looks locked but really has no room behind it.
-an armory full of "beetlebombs"; black scarab beetles with a gem in their backs that will crawl up to intruders and, unless they touch the flashing gem to deactivate it, they will explode for 1d6 fire damage.
-a blind redcap guard sits lecturing to what they think is a quickling trainee, but the quickling has left out of boredom and the players might persuade him that they're the trainee to avoid capture.
-if the players get caught, they end up in a locked cell in a basement with seven staircases that each say they lead to the same room. 6 of them are actually connected, so that climbing one will only bring you back until the prison as if from a nonexistent lower floor, and to get out they need to find the unconnected staircase. Also a hag interrogator casts Zone of Truth and threatens to turn them into lawn furniture if they don't cooperate.
- there is a banquet hall where, if the players are there not during a meal time, two groups of quicklings are using the tables to play a sport that seems to be a combination of rugby, bowling, and the floor is lava, each team vying for control of a small fireball to get from one end of the tables to the other where they're trying to knock over a giant stack of dishes. The quicklings might attempt to "pass" the fireball to the players and the ball deals 1d4 fire damage on a hit or catch, but they can use the dodge action to deflect one with no damage. Scoring a point for one of the teams will start a fight between then.
- there are 4 courtyards on the ground floor and each one is a different season. The summer quadrant has a large garden full of a ton of dilapidated lawn furniture.
Those are a few of the rooms I already have going with some weird stuff/ funny challenges. Any other ideas for encounters would be welcome.
I made a short fey themed dungeon once. Some similar ideas as the ones you've suggested, though I mostly focused on weird stuff that ended up being hilarious because of good roleplay by the players.
- Made a banquet where different fey creatures would come to feast, intended to create a lot of hooks. The PCs were invited to join, and if they did they could engage with the creatures: The Satyr wants to gamble (and will try to get the PCs drunk and cheat them), the dryad tries to charm a PC into becoming her guardian, the hag tries to buy some toenail clipping for reasons, the eladrin will teach a fellow musician an enthralling song and the pixie will ask for a PCs name in return for a favour (worded "give me your name", causing the PCs name to be forgotten).
- Made a corridor that would cast enlarge or reduce (random) on all characters passing through. Next room had one large and one small door, passing through the "wrong" one would make s lightning trap go off.
- Made a trap that would create an illusory "assistant" on the PCs shoulder, with a random personality: Aggressive (Quasit) Evil (Imp) Kind (Planetar) Playful (Pixie) Logical (Monodrone) Apathetic (Satyr)
- Made a trap that would cause (temporary) fey features from the fey wanderer subclass: Illusory butterflies flutter around you. Fresh, seasonal flowers sprout from your hair. You faintly smell of cinnamon, lavender, nutmeg, or another comforting herb or spice. Your shadow dances while no one is looking directly at it. Horns or antlers sprout from your head. Your skin and hair change color to match the season at each dawn.
- Made a trap that would change the PCs mood and make them feel overwhelmingly: Sad, Happy, Depressed, Bold, Mirthful or Impatient
With the seasons rooms it could be good to fill them with fey doing the different seasonal activities. You could have brown tanned goblins in one and hockey players in another
An infirmary with fey injured in other rooms so a red sunburnt goblin or quickling, one with a cold from the winter room and one all beaten up in bandages. The doctor uses a four humors medical system where they variously drain or infuse bodily fluids. Like draining all the blood from the sunburnt creatures so they aren't as red. The nurse might be something like a vampire that looks like a mosquito.
For the dining room it could be fun to make the ball a hot potato
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Hey all! So right now my players are making their way through a keep belonging to the Unseelie Court to retrieve an artifact stolen from a Seelie ally, and I'm just going through and populating the keep with shenanigans. I'm having a lot of fun doing it, but to make things go faster since next session is on Wednesday, I thought I'd solicit the forum for room ideas. I've looked at other threads but most advice I could find was for running campaigns in the feywild, but this is more a one-off that will end with the party returning to the Material, so I'm really only looking for room ideas.
So far, the keep is populated by dark satyrs, dryads, some hags, quicklings, a redcap, satyr, or two hellhounds on loan full a fiendish ally, and a sentient rat chef. I've got a couple puzzles and oddities that I can detail later if you're interested, but yeah, what fey stuff you got?
Fey are honestly pretty poorly defined especially the courts so it helps to come up with an archfey and their personality to help define it. Another thing to keep in mind is that because fey are a little bit meta with their story book theming basically any monster can be a fey and fit that theming by leaning into the tropeyness or weirdness. For example you can enter into a room and everyone while they are in it is a cat in little outfits like puss in boots and the terrain is like cat play equipment, you could have any monster in there but appear as a cat in a costume.
As you can see it gets pretty crazy so its hard to be specific without knowing what you are going for. Like if I were to guess given the reputation of satyrs and fiends it could be the other kind of dungeon or a club for all I know and it would be odd to see Remi in a place like that. Depending on your audience a pole dancing hag could be hilarious but obviously that isn't for everyone.
It could also be like like the castle from beauty and the beast for all I know. It could be pretty funny to have a version of beauty and the beast except the ruler of the castle just eats bell.
It's a party of 3 level 4 characters, and here's several of the room descriptions for a hint as to the vibe:
-a room with a circle of mushrooms on the floor, where if you stand in it, you will get a great treasure if you can convince the rest of the party to enter the circle as well. If you don't convince them, instead you're cursed. If you explain the situation exactly to them, you're also cursed. The curse makes you "more trustworthy" by making you unable to lie.
-a fake door that looks locked but really has no room behind it.
-an armory full of "beetlebombs"; black scarab beetles with a gem in their backs that will crawl up to intruders and, unless they touch the flashing gem to deactivate it, they will explode for 1d6 fire damage.
-a blind redcap guard sits lecturing to what they think is a quickling trainee, but the quickling has left out of boredom and the players might persuade him that they're the trainee to avoid capture.
-if the players get caught, they end up in a locked cell in a basement with seven staircases that each say they lead to the same room. 6 of them are actually connected, so that climbing one will only bring you back until the prison as if from a nonexistent lower floor, and to get out they need to find the unconnected staircase. Also a hag interrogator casts Zone of Truth and threatens to turn them into lawn furniture if they don't cooperate.
- there is a banquet hall where, if the players are there not during a meal time, two groups of quicklings are using the tables to play a sport that seems to be a combination of rugby, bowling, and the floor is lava, each team vying for control of a small fireball to get from one end of the tables to the other where they're trying to knock over a giant stack of dishes. The quicklings might attempt to "pass" the fireball to the players and the ball deals 1d4 fire damage on a hit or catch, but they can use the dodge action to deflect one with no damage. Scoring a point for one of the teams will start a fight between then.
- there are 4 courtyards on the ground floor and each one is a different season. The summer quadrant has a large garden full of a ton of dilapidated lawn furniture.
Those are a few of the rooms I already have going with some weird stuff/ funny challenges. Any other ideas for encounters would be welcome.
I made a short fey themed dungeon once. Some similar ideas as the ones you've suggested, though I mostly focused on weird stuff that ended up being hilarious because of good roleplay by the players.
- Made a banquet where different fey creatures would come to feast, intended to create a lot of hooks. The PCs were invited to join, and if they did they could engage with the creatures: The Satyr wants to gamble (and will try to get the PCs drunk and cheat them), the dryad tries to charm a PC into becoming her guardian, the hag tries to buy some toenail clipping for reasons, the eladrin will teach a fellow musician an enthralling song and the pixie will ask for a PCs name in return for a favour (worded "give me your name", causing the PCs name to be forgotten).
- Made a corridor that would cast enlarge or reduce (random) on all characters passing through. Next room had one large and one small door, passing through the "wrong" one would make s lightning trap go off.
- Made a trap that would create an illusory "assistant" on the PCs shoulder, with a random personality: Aggressive (Quasit) Evil (Imp) Kind (Planetar) Playful (Pixie) Logical (Monodrone) Apathetic (Satyr)
- Made a trap that would cause (temporary) fey features from the fey wanderer subclass: Illusory butterflies flutter around you. Fresh, seasonal flowers sprout from your hair. You faintly smell of cinnamon, lavender, nutmeg, or another comforting herb or spice. Your shadow dances while no one is looking directly at it. Horns or antlers sprout from your head. Your skin and hair change color to match the season at each dawn.
- Made a trap that would change the PCs mood and make them feel overwhelmingly: Sad, Happy, Depressed, Bold, Mirthful or Impatient