Almost new DM here. I have constructed an adventure for a one-shot this weekend. It's going to take place in a once green, beautiful forest that has been tainted with some kind of evil force. It now is a dark, twisted and dangerous place and I want them to venture into the heart of the forest where a being lurks. I want the monster to be the source of the evil that has taken up the forest and when it dies the forest is liberated.
Im not sure what the monster should be, so I thought I'd ask you guys for help. It does not have to be a life sucking monster that is known for taken over forests but if there is such a monster I don't know about, great! But I can come up with some reason for it to be the source of the evil. I saw in my mind som kind of Marlboro, like from final fantasy, or some other plantmonster.
Yeah I mean you have a ton of different options. You could have a corrupted Faerie Dragon plus some other things, I just recently ran an encounter for my level 2 party that was a bunch of giants spiders and swarms of them, culminating in an ambush by two carrion crawlers and a small cave of an old wolves den taken over by a cave fisher.
If you wanted to have more the plant theme there are plenty of 'plant' classified monsters in that range-such as a Needle Lord or a Shambling Mound or a Wood Woad all of which you could just 'resin' a little as corrupted and causing the corruption to spread through the forest. You could always just use Hill Giant stat blocks for like a corrupted tree or just a colony of myconids. Tons of options!
I like the evil treant, idea you can complement it with maybe something its inside of it, like and old artifact or maybe it was a fail test for some kind of ritual with and specific tree but instead taint the entire forest. This will leave a the adventure open in case the party would like to continue.
Thanks for all the ideas! I like the appearance of the Shambling Mound, it feels like it would really fit the theme! Since they are level 3, four characters, are they going to ba able to beat a Shambling mound or should I scale it down a bit, like half the hit points and that i makes half damage or something? I don't want to make it too hard but not too easy. They can be a bit beaten up after travelling in the forest, or not - depends on how they roll.
I'm definitely going to bury some kind of artifact that corrupts the place, good idea!
A Shambling Mound is a Deadly encounter for 4 level 3 PCs, but it's not dramatically over budget; they should be able to beat it as long as they got a short rest before the encounter, and if they come in at full strength after a long rest they might find it easy.
Night hags aren't terribly strong in direct combat, but they have annoying abilities that level 3 characters can't do much about, so I wouldn't really advise using one as a boss.
Not sure if I'm late to the chat, but I have an idea. Make it some type of disease/blight that is affecting the wildlife, environment, and even living trees throughout the area. You can make the source like a demon, or an ancient archmage, or something. Make the boss one of the diseased enraged creatures, or a monster created through dark magic. This way, you have something to spin the story off of, or it can be a quick sidequest that can easily be stopped. Like they find a corrupted water spirit, which is the source of it because roots interlock throughout the forest ground, so her pool of blight is soaking through everything. (You can also make an underground tunnel cave, in which they have to dive into the lake or something to find.)
Gnolls would be a good a encounter before the boss fight. In addition, the boss could summon some Awakened Shrubs (or Awakened Trees if you want to be nasty).
Hi!
Almost new DM here. I have constructed an adventure for a one-shot this weekend. It's going to take place in a once green, beautiful forest that has been tainted with some kind of evil force. It now is a dark, twisted and dangerous place and I want them to venture into the heart of the forest where a being lurks. I want the monster to be the source of the evil that has taken up the forest and when it dies the forest is liberated.
Im not sure what the monster should be, so I thought I'd ask you guys for help. It does not have to be a life sucking monster that is known for taken over forests but if there is such a monster I don't know about, great! But I can come up with some reason for it to be the source of the evil. I saw in my mind som kind of Marlboro, like from final fantasy, or some other plantmonster.
The group is four characters of level 3.
Thanks in advance!
low level demon, or a bunch of them. that, or a chaotic evil treant has escaped.
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Yeah I mean you have a ton of different options. You could have a corrupted Faerie Dragon plus some other things, I just recently ran an encounter for my level 2 party that was a bunch of giants spiders and swarms of them, culminating in an ambush by two carrion crawlers and a small cave of an old wolves den taken over by a cave fisher.
If you wanted to have more the plant theme there are plenty of 'plant' classified monsters in that range-such as a Needle Lord or a Shambling Mound or a Wood Woad all of which you could just 'resin' a little as corrupted and causing the corruption to spread through the forest. You could always just use Hill Giant stat blocks for like a corrupted tree or just a colony of myconids. Tons of options!
I like the evil treant, idea you can complement it with maybe something its inside of it, like and old artifact or maybe it was a fail test for some kind of ritual with and specific tree but instead taint the entire forest. This will leave a the adventure open in case the party would like to continue.
Thanks for all the ideas! I like the appearance of the Shambling Mound, it feels like it would really fit the theme! Since they are level 3, four characters, are they going to ba able to beat a Shambling mound or should I scale it down a bit, like half the hit points and that i makes half damage or something? I don't want to make it too hard but not too easy. They can be a bit beaten up after travelling in the forest, or not - depends on how they roll.
I'm definitely going to bury some kind of artifact that corrupts the place, good idea!
Scaling down could work, less HP but change the hit dices from 2d8 to 2d6 maybe, so the damage don't scale down to much.
A Shambling Mound is a Deadly encounter for 4 level 3 PCs, but it's not dramatically over budget; they should be able to beat it as long as they got a short rest before the encounter, and if they come in at full strength after a long rest they might find it easy.
Maybe a night hag could work?
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Night hags aren't terribly strong in direct combat, but they have annoying abilities that level 3 characters can't do much about, so I wouldn't really advise using one as a boss.
You could draw inspiration from things like the Book of Vile Darkness. I believe ******* is legal.
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Not sure if I'm late to the chat, but I have an idea. Make it some type of disease/blight that is affecting the wildlife, environment, and even living trees throughout the area. You can make the source like a demon, or an ancient archmage, or something. Make the boss one of the diseased enraged creatures, or a monster created through dark magic. This way, you have something to spin the story off of, or it can be a quick sidequest that can easily be stopped. Like they find a corrupted water spirit, which is the source of it because roots interlock throughout the forest ground, so her pool of blight is soaking through everything. (You can also make an underground tunnel cave, in which they have to dive into the lake or something to find.)
Gnolls would be a good a encounter before the boss fight. In addition, the boss could summon some Awakened Shrubs (or Awakened Trees if you want to be nasty).
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