In my campaign there is an area that is flooded with chaotic magic and there are no major gods or goddesses or other higher outer realm beings managing this. This has caused multiple areas and creatures to effectively mutate, evolve or otherwise be subject to enchantments of titanic strength. for example a mountain range within which gravity moves and shifts like air pressure in a storm causing flying mountains sheer cliffs you can walk down and paths where you will suddenly go flying into the sky at certain times of day. or a Cloud forest where the regular mists and fogs are very highly corrosive to unprepared invaders and non native lifeforms.
the land is constantly shifting so I need ideas for more kinds of terrain and other Unnatural disasters. Magicquakes, Fearnadoes, Psychic air and Awakened storms there is almost no limits so give me your ideas and I'll turn them into reasons for my players to fear a completely normal rocky outcropping.
Giant bubbles that have a wild magic effect when popped.
Fire of courage, with in 60 feet advantage on fear saving throws. Also expands rapidly
An area where damage effect are switch to their opposite ie radiant turns into necromancy, fire to cold and lightning to thunder. Maybe it looks like a frozen area but the snow lightly burns them to tip them off about the effect.
A area that repeats itself and needs to be escaped in some way. Not the most powerful but if they want to get somewhere that it’s annoying
An area where rock acts like water you can swim through it but keeps it’s shape
Darkness storm - like a sandstorm, but is magical darkness.
Temporal echoes - pockets of land that replay scenes from centuries past. Great RP fodder, or a nice illusion trap for your players to have to get through.
Mirrored magic zones - areas where magic does the opposite of what you intend. Cure Wounds becomes Inflict Wounds. Dispel Magic creates a wild magic surge. Fire spells turn into cold spells. Mirror Image creates a short-duration simulacrum. Jump becomes Entangle. I threw a room of this nature at my players and they had an absolute blast messing with it.
Muted zones - magical silence! Challenge your players with a combat where they can't communicate with each other or cast verbal spells.
Dreamwalker flowers - potent aroma makes people fall into a coma (CON saves to resist, maybe?) and traps them in their dreams. Anyone who takes a long rest nearby is visited by the sleepers in accordance with the Dream spell and are beseeched to stay away, or come rescue the sleepers before it's too late.
If you want to go Lovecraftian eldritch horror with it you can have areas made up of living body parts. Instead of grass, rocks, trees, etc there is live hair, wriggling fingers and toes, grasping arms, kicking legs, farting butts, eyeballs of various sizes that go squish when stepped on, noses that sneeze on feet that walk on them, tongues that lick mouths that whisper, laugh, and scream, and hairy armpit divots that require Dex saves to not catch a toe in and trip face first into patches of mixed-species genitalia that cluster like crabgrass (and maybe even have crabs). The kind of area that the mere description makes your players go "Eewww" and turn around to flee back to whence they came.
Areas of land where everything is corrupted for miles in any direction. The ground is dry and cracked. The trees grow rotten wood and begin to crumble at a slight touch. The grass is replaced by thorny vines, toxic flowers, and foul fungi. The rivers run toxic and cause those that drink from them to vomit immediately. The wildlife is warped into various wretched forms, all territorial at best, cunning and sadistic at worst. The only safe places are 'groves', those rare few patches of land not yet touched by the corruption. Groves are the only places where food can be gathered, and where one can sleep without constant fear of having your innards teleported outside of your body by a horned goose.
I love the idea of the magical morphing of the world having released a form of corruption from the deepest caverns of the world. Maybe the adventurers have to find some way to slow or stop the spreading of the corruption!
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Former Spider Queen of the Spider Guild, and friendly neighborhood scheming creature.
"Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders."
My pronouns are she/her.
Web Weaver of Everlasting Narrative! (title bestowed by Drummer)
Blink Zones. Maybe make the ethereal move uncontrolled by the PC (the ether they blink into is a shifty slidey surface). So use a d6 scatter diagram to figure out how which direction the PC shifts into when they reappear. If they got the levels, maybe spell slots or sorcery points can be burned to control their movement for a minute, like the spell. Throw in some environmental hazards and possibility of landing inside solid object or other creatures if you want to go into brutal mode.
Brutal mode is the only mode I know. I put so much effort into voices and sound effects that my villains have ended up in some of my players real life nightmares we are in our 20s so that should give you some idea.
Get quantum crazy! Locations of players and enemies in that area are only approximate with probabilities that shift with a roll of the dice. Spell AoEs might spread like a cloud. Some encounters might be with two characters acting simultaneously at a distance. “Doors” might require waiting to randomly tunnel to the other side. Perception checks might change a “wave” of monsters into one or two specific ones that are randomly determined. Etc.
I like this one I could also make something like a Schrodinger's Beast a monster that exists and doesn't exist depending on a roll of a dice it unleashes carnage that has or hasn't happened until the beast is slain.
A large field that is just a giant mirror reflecting the sky above and people walking on it. Though sometimes the reflections come out to try to replace their originals in the 'real' world.
Maybe a area were your body slowly rots and decays and you feel extremely sick. Or maybe a area were there’s pits but you can’t see the tops . Or a place where you encounter living mountains and rocks.
At night, the sky is blinding white with an inky moon. It's hard to see in this environment and prevents darkvision from working
In the day, the sky is a dark, murky brown with a black sun. There is some light, but since darkvision is somewhat based on infrared maybe only humans can see without assistance.
In my campaign there is an area that is flooded with chaotic magic and there are no major gods or goddesses or other higher outer realm beings managing this. This has caused multiple areas and creatures to effectively mutate, evolve or otherwise be subject to enchantments of titanic strength. for example a mountain range within which gravity moves and shifts like air pressure in a storm causing flying mountains sheer cliffs you can walk down and paths where you will suddenly go flying into the sky at certain times of day. or a Cloud forest where the regular mists and fogs are very highly corrosive to unprepared invaders and non native lifeforms.
the land is constantly shifting so I need ideas for more kinds of terrain and other Unnatural disasters. Magicquakes, Fearnadoes, Psychic air and Awakened storms there is almost no limits so give me your ideas and I'll turn them into reasons for my players to fear a completely normal rocky outcropping.
Giant bubbles that have a wild magic effect when popped.
Fire of courage, with in 60 feet advantage on fear saving throws. Also expands rapidly
An area where damage effect are switch to their opposite ie radiant turns into necromancy, fire to cold and lightning to thunder. Maybe it looks like a frozen area but the snow lightly burns them to tip them off about the effect.
A area that repeats itself and needs to be escaped in some way. Not the most powerful but if they want to get somewhere that it’s annoying
An area where rock acts like water you can swim through it but keeps it’s shape
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
The rock one could be fun especially if the rock is only fluid for set periods of time lightly damp turns to petrified ect
Living spells
Astral pollen
Electric wind
Glass hills
Sinking rock
Reverse gravity
Earth rain going up
Necrotic gel plain
Chlorine tornado
Force mountain (invisible)
Acid lake
Salt river
Ashes swamp
Time anomaly. Use "slow" and "haste" liberally on both sides of combat. Change it halfway thru.
Have an effect that would paralyze one limb on a few random individuals for 1d4 turns.
Anti-magic zones. Double magic zones. Wild magic zones.
Areas that swap the strongest stat with the weakest stat for 1d4 turns/hours.
Areas that wipe the "common" language out of the PCs minds for several hours/days.
Hunger/thirst/exhaustion/sexual tension/anger/apathy are heightened/reduced for X hours while in the area.
Enlarge/reduce on random PCs.
Fire that takes away heat instead of provides it
Sand dunes, but they move like ocean waves
Ice volcano
Dark lightning (darkning?)
These are all awesome keep it up
Darkness storm - like a sandstorm, but is magical darkness.
Temporal echoes - pockets of land that replay scenes from centuries past. Great RP fodder, or a nice illusion trap for your players to have to get through.
Mirrored magic zones - areas where magic does the opposite of what you intend. Cure Wounds becomes Inflict Wounds. Dispel Magic creates a wild magic surge. Fire spells turn into cold spells. Mirror Image creates a short-duration simulacrum. Jump becomes Entangle. I threw a room of this nature at my players and they had an absolute blast messing with it.
Muted zones - magical silence! Challenge your players with a combat where they can't communicate with each other or cast verbal spells.
Dreamwalker flowers - potent aroma makes people fall into a coma (CON saves to resist, maybe?) and traps them in their dreams. Anyone who takes a long rest nearby is visited by the sleepers in accordance with the Dream spell and are beseeched to stay away, or come rescue the sleepers before it's too late.
If you want to go Lovecraftian eldritch horror with it you can have areas made up of living body parts. Instead of grass, rocks, trees, etc there is live hair, wriggling fingers and toes, grasping arms, kicking legs, farting butts, eyeballs of various sizes that go squish when stepped on, noses that sneeze on feet that walk on them, tongues that lick mouths that whisper, laugh, and scream, and hairy armpit divots that require Dex saves to not catch a toe in and trip face first into patches of mixed-species genitalia that cluster like crabgrass (and maybe even have crabs). The kind of area that the mere description makes your players go "Eewww" and turn around to flee back to whence they came.
Areas of land where everything is corrupted for miles in any direction. The ground is dry and cracked. The trees grow rotten wood and begin to crumble at a slight touch. The grass is replaced by thorny vines, toxic flowers, and foul fungi. The rivers run toxic and cause those that drink from them to vomit immediately. The wildlife is warped into various wretched forms, all territorial at best, cunning and sadistic at worst. The only safe places are 'groves', those rare few patches of land not yet touched by the corruption. Groves are the only places where food can be gathered, and where one can sleep without constant fear of having your innards teleported outside of your body by a horned goose.
I love the idea of the magical morphing of the world having released a form of corruption from the deepest caverns of the world. Maybe the adventurers have to find some way to slow or stop the spreading of the corruption!
Former Spider Queen of the Spider Guild, and friendly neighborhood scheming creature.
"Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders."
My pronouns are she/her.
Web Weaver of Everlasting Narrative! (title bestowed by Drummer)
Blink Zones. Maybe make the ethereal move uncontrolled by the PC (the ether they blink into is a shifty slidey surface). So use a d6 scatter diagram to figure out how which direction the PC shifts into when they reappear. If they got the levels, maybe spell slots or sorcery points can be burned to control their movement for a minute, like the spell. Throw in some environmental hazards and possibility of landing inside solid object or other creatures if you want to go into brutal mode.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Brutal mode is the only mode I know. I put so much effort into voices and sound effects that my villains have ended up in some of my players real life nightmares we are in our 20s so that should give you some idea.
Get quantum crazy! Locations of players and enemies in that area are only approximate with probabilities that shift with a roll of the dice. Spell AoEs might spread like a cloud. Some encounters might be with two characters acting simultaneously at a distance. “Doors” might require waiting to randomly tunnel to the other side. Perception checks might change a “wave” of monsters into one or two specific ones that are randomly determined. Etc.
I like this one I could also make something like a Schrodinger's Beast a monster that exists and doesn't exist depending on a roll of a dice it unleashes carnage that has or hasn't happened until the beast is slain.
a forest or some other area that shifts around and creates new areas of cover and hiding spots and have some mysterious predator lurk in the forest
Dungeon Master: Killing your charcters since 1974
Timeless, Boundless, Ruler of The Spire of Creation
A large field that is just a giant mirror reflecting the sky above and people walking on it. Though sometimes the reflections come out to try to replace their originals in the 'real' world.
I am also here.
Am snek.
Maybe a area were your body slowly rots and decays and you feel extremely sick. Or maybe a area were there’s pits but you can’t see the tops . Or a place where you encounter living mountains and rocks.
Inverted sky.
- Manx (she/her)