The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is a perfect drop-in adventure to the part of my home-brew world that the party is currently adventuring in and there is a lot about the flavor and design of the dungeon I like.
I will make some fluff/story additions to make it better fit the campaign, but my players are now at 12th level, so I also want to increase the challenge rating without ruining the flavor of the game. Also, some of the players are long-time gamers and there is a good chance that one or more of them will be familiar with the original adventure.
I would appreciate any ideas you can share to:
1. Increase the challenge to make this adventure challenging for a group of six 12th level characters.
2. Make some changes to throw off any players that may be familiar with the dungeon.
Resources I have access to include the core 5e books (PHB, DMG, MM), Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts.
Public Mod Note
(Sedge):
Moved to new DMs Only board
I'm doing the same thing. I'm adding character levels to the monsters to reflect the difference in levels. Also, I'm adding special abilities in some cases. For example, the Wraith is getting warlock caster levels and I'm giving him the spirit guardians spell to reflect a wraith's power over undead.
Th atically, I set it in a jungle near an evil Tabaxi tribe. The murals inside indicate how this group of humans became were creatures and then tabaxi
Thanks GoblinMonk. I'm wondering if I should make the effects of the poison air in the lower levels more toxic. I think the urgency of that would cause, making long rests, and even short rests dangerous could make this more of challenge for higher level characters.
I'm making the poison air do 1d12 per round and they have to make a save against exhaustion every hour. My players are level 13 and I want the poison air to create urgency.
Oh! I made the poison air have a different effect. I didn't feel like tracking time, so instead of doing that, I made the poison gas reduce the effect of any healing by half. The players came up with the theory that it's because the shrine is to a vampire god. It wasn't my original plan, but their idea is better, so I'm going with it. :-)
Fun how player perception can create new realities in the game. :-)
The exhaustion mechanic worked very well for me. It it hard for high level characters to get concerned over a bit of damage every hour. But having to make rolls for exhaustion creates a real sense of urgency.
I am using the map of the dungeon and changing some monsters and decorations for flavor and story purpuses. The party is currently lvl 5...so it's perfect level for them. Still I will write about my ideas and you decide if some of it is useful for your own game.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ In my game the shrine is a Ziggurat in the edge of a ruined Netherese city flooded by swamp. The players quest is to slay a (Devil Worshiping) Lizard king (who lives at the top of the Ziggurat ) and recover some artifacts from the shrine, thus freeing the other lizardfolk from fiendish control / curse.
The lore is as follows: I've decided that after the fall of Netheril the people of the region misused their magic and turned the land to swamp...after that they lost much of their old power and started to worship dragons. Later still they got in touch with a priest of Myrkul, who made them a cell of the cult of the dragon. The city has been abandoned for over 500 years and recently became a seat of power for the Lizard King.
The Lizardfolk from this swamp are divided into two separate tribes: The Green slime tribe lives in the swamp and serves a Green Dragon (Quest Giver). The Grayscale tribe lives around the Ziggurat and is worshiping devils. They are also allied with a Night hag coven (This is a hook from another quest).
The two tribes have a family feud dynamic - being two branches of the same group that got divided sometime ago and started warring. The grayscale's having different skin because of their devil pact and ritual sacrifice / blood drinking practices.
The players, wisely, do not trust the Green Dragon completely, but the dragon has information about the Night hag coven that the players need, so they agreed to go to the ancient ruins and kill the Lizard King.
Last session they got to the edge of the ruins and found lizardfolk scouts. They tried to circumnavegate their encampment but stumbled uppon a Shambling mound who almost wiped them. Now they are licking their wounds hidden in the swamp, but the lizardfolk know someone killed their scouts.
Next session the group will fall into the room 1 of the ruins of the hidden shrine. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ I am still doing the "reskinning" of the hidden shrine (Currently on room 34 - First Tier)
Basic concepts changed starting in Room 1: I changed all the animal totems and bird feathers motiff for Cult of the Dragon and Reptile scales. I made the pannels in the wall niches of room 1 represent the whole new story I am developing.
The monsters that could speak the weird greyhawk language now speak Draconic or / and Netherese. I did this change because I do not have a player who can use comprehend languages, but one of them speaks draconic.
In the Boulder room (3.) I changed the two monsters for a pair of basilisks protecting their nest at the mud blocked door (4.) Basilisks are reptiles and the players will have the cool "lif-like" statues to interact with. They will probably think it is a medusa or something worse. I did not like the giant lobster and crab in the first place...just silly.
< EDIT: Ended up using one basilisk + The Boulder crab monster. I was surprised by my players reaction to it. Used a Fist sized D20 as the boulder on the grid and they had no clue it would start walking and grapling them. It's good to reconsider and go with the original intent of the writer sometimes...I stand corrected. The boulder crab is awesome. He even survived the encounter, as the players were concentrated on not getting petrified by the basilisk and regretted picking a fight here in the first place.>
Like the original adventure I will have one of the basilisks sleeping beside the big central "boulder" - The boulder will be a petrified ogre, fomorian or small hill giant. The other basilisk will be near (4.) protecting their nest. I want the players to be able to avoid this fight if they wish. Petrification is a nasty condition, even if basilisks are just a CR3 bad guy. There are other petrification and stone encounters and magic items in the original adventure so I decided to captalize on that.
Next important room is the room 7. with the Vampire Spawn in the stone tomb - I keep it as it is, but changed the lore in order to have it be a Priest of Myrkul / Cult of the dragon leader.
I changed the reward here to be the Black dragon mask (from Hoard of the dragon queen), casting the shadow of a Skull on the wall instead of the Berserker axe for roleplay reasons. Then I took away the bracers of defense from the loot to try to balance it out, as I realise the Black dragon mask is a very good item. Still there are good chances that my players will refuse to wear an obviously evil item. They may destroy it. If they do I'll find ways to reward them later or just give lots of XP for good roleplay.
Room 8. I changed it completely to have altars to the 5 chromatic dragon types instead of animal totems. The silver pyramid treasure becomes the Blue Dragon altar center piece ( and a lightning magic trap) the other altar center pieces will be missing. There will be some dead, decomposing, lizard folk spread around the room here for 4 reasons. 1- Hint to the players that there is a trap in the room. 2- Show them that the amber smelly mist is deadly 3- Provide the players means to give food to the Othyugg further down the dungeon (more on that later) 4- Show them that the lizardfolk explored the Ziggurat to take magic from it.
Room 9. Statue on the Corridor -> Replaced the longsword +1 for a wand of detect magic for three reasons: 1- The players already have enough magic weapons. 2- They do not have arcane means to detect magic. 3- The statue is not of a tribal warrior in my dungeon. It is of a Netheril Wizard - The original tomb owner, before the time of the cult of the dragon.
Room 11. Othyugg instead of crazy sentient snail. The othyugg will be the source of the poisonous gas. He is stuck in this room and very hungry. Because of his telepatic abilities I will hint that to players. If they are smart they will bring some carrion to the Othyugg. If they do the poisonous gas may stop after the monster submerge.
I did not like the crazy snail. Changed to something that is both more classic D&D stock and also a plausible "social" encounter that can be also beaten by combat if the players want to.
Stopping the poisonous gas here is optional - I will see how it plays out and how annoyed the players are by it. One of the players is a monk who uses short rests to restore his Ki points. Being unable to take short rests because of the poison damage might be very harsh punishment.
13. Room with the Chaotic Evil Nereid....I simply took it out. Makes no sense to have a mermaid here...I kept the lightning Eel and added a Water weird to justify the water here.
Room 22. Myrkul priest sacrificial chamber will have two monks sleeping just like the original. The catch here is that those monks will be from the same order (Sun soul) as my monk player. They will be sleeping here for 5000 years if the players do nothing. The means to wake them up will be elsewhere in the dungeon. (Turned this random room into a sidequest for a player)
Room 29. The PELOTA Ball game room: This room is just silly. Maybe good in the original game for the Aztec feel...but it's not my taste...It will be just a regular corridor. Maybe with a random encounter, depending on how my players are in terms of resources at this point and how late in real world time it is.
Room 30. The Guardian Beast: Instead of a Weretiger turned to stone, I decided to have two gargoyles shaped like dragons as "the guardian" No stuffed tigger with money in the belly. Just an altar to Myrkul with silverware worth the treasure listed hidden inside it and the "ritual dagger'' made of Dragonbone.
Room 33. No doppleganger. Just more Undead to keep the flavor. Maybe a Wight with some skeletons.
Thats all for now folks. If you are interested in this adaptation of the Hidden Shrine I can post more after I finish it. I can also tell how the players reacted to it after our session this week.
The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is a perfect drop-in adventure to the part of my home-brew world that the party is currently adventuring in and there is a lot about the flavor and design of the dungeon I like.
I will make some fluff/story additions to make it better fit the campaign, but my players are now at 12th level, so I also want to increase the challenge rating without ruining the flavor of the game. Also, some of the players are long-time gamers and there is a good chance that one or more of them will be familiar with the original adventure.
I would appreciate any ideas you can share to:
1. Increase the challenge to make this adventure challenging for a group of six 12th level characters.
2. Make some changes to throw off any players that may be familiar with the dungeon.
Resources I have access to include the core 5e books (PHB, DMG, MM), Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts.
I'm doing the same thing. I'm adding character levels to the monsters to reflect the difference in levels. Also, I'm adding special abilities in some cases. For example, the Wraith is getting warlock caster levels and I'm giving him the spirit guardians spell to reflect a wraith's power over undead.
Th atically, I set it in a jungle near an evil Tabaxi tribe. The murals inside indicate how this group of humans became were creatures and then tabaxi
Thanks GoblinMonk. I'm wondering if I should make the effects of the poison air in the lower levels more toxic. I think the urgency of that would cause, making long rests, and even short rests dangerous could make this more of challenge for higher level characters.
I'm making the poison air do 1d12 per round and they have to make a save against exhaustion every hour. My players are level 13 and I want the poison air to create urgency.
Oh! I made the poison air have a different effect. I didn't feel like tracking time, so instead of doing that, I made the poison gas reduce the effect of any healing by half. The players came up with the theory that it's because the shrine is to a vampire god. It wasn't my original plan, but their idea is better, so I'm going with it. :-)
Fun how player perception can create new realities in the game. :-)
The exhaustion mechanic worked very well for me. It it hard for high level characters to get concerned over a bit of damage every hour. But having to make rolls for exhaustion creates a real sense of urgency.
Thats cool. I have to remember to ise exhaustion more often
I am using the map of the dungeon and changing some monsters and decorations for flavor and story purpuses. The party is currently lvl 5...so it's perfect level for them. Still I will write about my ideas and you decide if some of it is useful for your own game.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
In my game the shrine is a Ziggurat in the edge of a ruined Netherese city flooded by swamp. The players quest is to slay a (Devil Worshiping) Lizard king (who lives at the top of the Ziggurat ) and recover some artifacts from the shrine, thus freeing the other lizardfolk from fiendish control / curse.
The lore is as follows:
I've decided that after the fall of Netheril the people of the region misused their magic and turned the land to swamp...after that they lost much of their old power and started to worship dragons. Later still they got in touch with a priest of Myrkul, who made them a cell of the cult of the dragon. The city has been abandoned for over 500 years and recently became a seat of power for the Lizard King.
The Lizardfolk from this swamp are divided into two separate tribes: The Green slime tribe lives in the swamp and serves a Green Dragon (Quest Giver). The Grayscale tribe lives around the Ziggurat and is worshiping devils. They are also allied with a Night hag coven (This is a hook from another quest).
The two tribes have a family feud dynamic - being two branches of the same group that got divided sometime ago and started warring.
The grayscale's having different skin because of their devil pact and ritual sacrifice / blood drinking practices.
The players, wisely, do not trust the Green Dragon completely, but the dragon has information about the Night hag coven that the players need, so they agreed to go to the ancient ruins and kill the Lizard King.
Last session they got to the edge of the ruins and found lizardfolk scouts. They tried to circumnavegate their encampment but stumbled uppon a Shambling mound who almost wiped them. Now they are licking their wounds hidden in the swamp, but the lizardfolk know someone killed their scouts.
Next session the group will fall into the room 1 of the ruins of the hidden shrine.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
I am still doing the "reskinning" of the hidden shrine (Currently on room 34 - First Tier)
Basic concepts changed starting in Room 1: I changed all the animal totems and bird feathers motiff for Cult of the Dragon and Reptile scales.
I made the pannels in the wall niches of room 1 represent the whole new story I am developing.
The monsters that could speak the weird greyhawk language now speak Draconic or / and Netherese. I did this change because I do not have a player who can use comprehend languages, but one of them speaks draconic.
In the Boulder room (3.) I changed the two monsters for a pair of basilisks protecting their nest at the mud blocked door (4.) Basilisks are reptiles and the players will have the cool "lif-like" statues to interact with. They will probably think it is a medusa or something worse. I did not like the giant lobster and crab in the first place...just silly.
< EDIT: Ended up using one basilisk + The Boulder crab monster. I was surprised by my players reaction to it. Used a Fist sized D20 as the boulder on the grid and they had no clue it would start walking and grapling them. It's good to reconsider and go with the original intent of the writer sometimes...I stand corrected. The boulder crab is awesome. He even survived the encounter, as the players were concentrated on not getting petrified by the basilisk and regretted picking a fight here in the first place.>
Like the original adventure I will have one of the basilisks sleeping beside the big central "boulder" - The boulder will be a petrified ogre, fomorian or small hill giant. The other basilisk will be near (4.) protecting their nest.
I want the players to be able to avoid this fight if they wish. Petrification is a nasty condition, even if basilisks are just a CR3 bad guy. There are other petrification and stone encounters and magic items in the original adventure so I decided to captalize on that.
Next important room is the room 7. with the Vampire Spawn in the stone tomb - I keep it as it is, but changed the lore in order to have it be a Priest of Myrkul / Cult of the dragon leader.
I changed the reward here to be the Black dragon mask (from Hoard of the dragon queen), casting the shadow of a Skull on the wall instead of the Berserker axe for roleplay reasons. Then I took away the bracers of defense from the loot to try to balance it out, as I realise the Black dragon mask is a very good item. Still there are good chances that my players will refuse to wear an obviously evil item. They may destroy it. If they do I'll find ways to reward them later or just give lots of XP for good roleplay.
Room 8. I changed it completely to have altars to the 5 chromatic dragon types instead of animal totems. The silver pyramid treasure becomes the Blue Dragon altar center piece ( and a lightning magic trap) the other altar center pieces will be missing. There will be some dead, decomposing, lizard folk spread around the room here for 4 reasons.
1- Hint to the players that there is a trap in the room. 2- Show them that the amber smelly mist is deadly 3- Provide the players means to give food to the Othyugg further down the dungeon (more on that later) 4- Show them that the lizardfolk explored the Ziggurat to take magic from it.
Room 9. Statue on the Corridor -> Replaced the longsword +1 for a wand of detect magic for three reasons: 1- The players already have enough magic weapons. 2- They do not have arcane means to detect magic. 3- The statue is not of a tribal warrior in my dungeon. It is of a Netheril Wizard - The original tomb owner, before the time of the cult of the dragon.
Room 11. Othyugg instead of crazy sentient snail. The othyugg will be the source of the poisonous gas. He is stuck in this room and very hungry. Because of his telepatic abilities I will hint that to players. If they are smart they will bring some carrion to the Othyugg. If they do the poisonous gas may stop after the monster submerge.
I did not like the crazy snail. Changed to something that is both more classic D&D stock and also a plausible "social" encounter that can be also beaten by combat if the players want to.
Stopping the poisonous gas here is optional - I will see how it plays out and how annoyed the players are by it. One of the players is a monk who uses short rests to restore his Ki points. Being unable to take short rests because of the poison damage might be very harsh punishment.
13. Room with the Chaotic Evil Nereid....I simply took it out. Makes no sense to have a mermaid here...I kept the lightning Eel and added a Water weird to justify the water here.
Room 22. Myrkul priest sacrificial chamber will have two monks sleeping just like the original. The catch here is that those monks will be from the same order (Sun soul) as my monk player. They will be sleeping here for 5000 years if the players do nothing. The means to wake them up will be elsewhere in the dungeon. (Turned this random room into a sidequest for a player)
Room 29. The PELOTA Ball game room: This room is just silly. Maybe good in the original game for the Aztec feel...but it's not my taste...It will be just a regular corridor. Maybe with a random encounter, depending on how my players are in terms of resources at this point and how late in real world time it is.
Room 30. The Guardian Beast: Instead of a Weretiger turned to stone, I decided to have two gargoyles shaped like dragons as "the guardian"
No stuffed tigger with money in the belly. Just an altar to Myrkul with silverware worth the treasure listed hidden inside it and the "ritual dagger'' made of Dragonbone.
Room 33. No doppleganger. Just more Undead to keep the flavor. Maybe a Wight with some skeletons.
Thats all for now folks. If you are interested in this adaptation of the Hidden Shrine I can post more after I finish it. I can also tell how the players reacted to it after our session this week.
Cool! Thanks for sharing.