Aerial encounters, rare and special scenarios, require a bit more imagination than a standard land based encounter. Whether travelling on an airship of some sort, wandering the lands of a cloud giant or seeking wisdom at a celestial’s aerie, creating encounters in the sky generally comes with the assumption of a higher level. Dragons, wyverns and the like come to mind.

This doesn’t have to be the case. Further, encounters originating from above can be applied to any environment where space is available. Consider urban rooftops, open plains, mountainous regions and open seas as other viable locations for an aerial attack. Massive caves and canyons could also be perfectly suitable locations for such encounters. Additionally, combining lower level foes in an interesting way can create memorable encounters.

Aces High is written with an airship in mind, but feel free to change the location as you need. Anywhere with space for flying creatures to attack from above is suitable.

I can’t speak for other players or Game Masters but I get a lot of my inspiration from music. The simple act of listening to the radio in my car or a playlist on my phone can lead to outbursts of “I have to write that down!”

Songs inspire character concepts, backstories, encounters and scenes I want to lay out for my players, or images leading to character sketches and other artwork. This encounter was inspired by such a scenario.

In this encounter, the albatross is a metaphor. Since Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of The Ancient Mariner, the concept of wearing an albatross around your neck has come to mean being saddled with a burden or a debt to be repaid.

It could mean being wrongfully vilified, perhaps even willingly so, just to serve a greater good. It could mean bearing an immense responsibility or taking on a curse to save another from it.

In this case, the metaphorical albatross creates a burden, and in a situation not normally expressed in a tabletop game, but which occurs frequently in video games—the escort mission. Testing the resolve of the party and their willingness to share a burden creates tension, the intent behind this encounter.

These pages explore the concepts of monsters or treasure as encounters, but not monsters covered in treasure. It’s one thing to face a foe and rifle through their pockets and pouches after defeating them. It’s another thing entirely when the monster is plated in treasure risking damage being fought through conventional means.

All That Glitters deploys the infamous stone golem, but not in the usual format. Stone golems are essentially magically animated stone statues, which means any statue can suffice. Additionally, by plating this stone golem in gold its true nature is disguised and turns a monster into a lure to guarantee the encounter.

Taking it a step further, changing the form of the statue from a humanoid shape into something less obvious (yet totally believable as a statue) like a horse, we add elements to disguise the encounter. This enhances the lure.

Placing this encounter in a believable space becomes the task. Surroundings lend themselves to the encounter just like any monster does, likewise with the environment. One makes the other more acceptable and plausible.

We’ll insert our golden stone golem where one might find one—guarding something even more valuable.

This is a concept based around a “what if?” Countless powerful magical items and artifacts exist throughout the multiverse. Swords wreathed in arcane flame, crystal lenses beguiling those who gaze into the wearer’s eyes and boots granting the power of flight are only a few.

But there are also dangerous, cursed items for those who attune to them, like armor that makes the one who dons it vulnerable to certain types of damage and weapons that drive their wielders berserk.

One of the most insidious of these cursed items can completely change the morals, values and perspective of the unfortunate soul who dons it. A helm of opposite alignment carries a terrible curse, converting the wearer’s alignment to its diametrical opposite, or to an extreme viewpoint in the case of a creature with neutral alignment.

Some veteran adventurers and Game Masters know of such awful items, either as victims of the curse or as the one who seeded a treasure trove with this harmful headgear to see if a greedy character would claim it. With that established, there are creatures out there for whom putting on such a magic helm would have a very unusual outcome for one main reason—they have more than one head.

So, what if an ettin put on a helm of opposite alignment?

If the caravan can be spared and the scattered horses returned, the merchants reward characters with 500 gp—should they make it to their destination (the nearest town or village in your campaign setting).

Greed.

It’s the single biggest motivator among players. They may tell you otherwise until something shiny shows up. A clever Game Master can use this to their advantage and set up encounters, plot hooks, storylines and perhaps entire character arcs through this simple vice. And to that, I have an admission to make: I think hags are cool. They are an underrated villain, although not in fantasy and mythology. Therefore I’d like to implement a classic villain who plays chess while the adventurers still play checkers.

The intent for this encounter is less about combat (although potential exists for a fight) and more of a way to set up change or manipulate existing encounters on the fly. Auntie Treeshadow always has a way of manipulating others to her own ends and chooses discretion over combat whenever possible. For an immortal fey, there’s always tomorrow.

Many starting Game Masters struggle with how to make a new monster, one not already in an existing reference manual. The general advice is almost always “just re-skin it.” That can be tricky when the new monster doesn’t really fit into one category or another.

In an effort to assist starting GMs, this encounter blends aspects of two different “monsters” to create a new encounter and keep new and experienced players off guard.

We take part of the mechanics of a swarm of insects and blend them with a flying sword to create an animated swarm of daggers. This new creature mimics some of the aspects of both entries, creating something new that is neither one entirely.

One method of approaching something like this involves picking two creatures of relatively the same challenge. It’s also important to remember when doing this you do not unnecessarily ramp up or tune down the new creature’s abilities without some consideration first.

You could, for instance, just create a swarm of swords, but this would significantly up the damage potential and thus the challenge. In this case, we’re trying to make a new encounter for starting characters, and thus we’re going with daggers instead.

The second step in generating a fresh encounter with a monster mashup is placing it in the correct setting and in a way that takes experienced characters off guard.

I’m a big fan of altering perceptions or challenging preconceptions, so creating something like this is key to establishing those preconditions where change is possible.

A swarm of daggers might very well mimic the appearance of certain spells, so immediately experienced players start looking for a spellcaster who might be concentrating on this spell. Imagine the look on their faces when the “cloud” begins moving toward them.

A single swarm might not be much of an encounter, so we’re going to add a trap as well. To make things fun, we’re going to make a magically and randomly moving pit.

This blends a challenge 1/4 with a challenge 1/2 and then adds a minor trap to take the challenge closer to a full total of 1.

Even if this challenge is still a little low, it accomplishes two things. First, it establishes things might be a little different from here on in. Second, it demonstrates that even encounters below a party’s level should not be something to take for granted.

Can you tell I come from a tradition where funhouse dungeons were the norm?

Forcing characters to make a choice based on what they value creates tension and drama. Furthermore, different characters always have different motivations, so these choices can be rooted in the very basis of the character.

The right encounter might flush those motivations to the surface. This can often lead to heated discussions but can also serve to really clear the air on where characters stand with each other. That can only lead to character development.

Additionally, it has been said before any treasure or magic items in the possession of a villain should be used by that villain. Other Out of The Box encounters follow this mantra, and Balance follows the trend.

This encounter is intended as an extension of both concepts, as well as an opportunity to reward characters with a form of treasure that cannot be bought—a rare companion or familiar.

Chances to win such an ally crop up in games all the time, if the opportunity arises and characters act correctly. Inspiration for this encounter comes from the iron flask, a legendary magic item capable of trapping a creature native to a plane of existence other than the one you’re on currently.

Adding a dramatic element, it becomes a balance between saving a potential ally and acquiring a magic item. Which will the characters choose?

Preconceptions permeate this game. We often view monsters in a singular way. Savage orcs. Cowardly goblins Brutish trolls only vulnerable to acid and fire. This is a result of the long history of the game.

Much of the game’s backstory is based in player and Game Master experience, and has influenced movies, novels, games and pop culture since its inception.

This is both good and bad. It’s good to know your favorite hobby has such an impact, and it’s bad when the preconceptions become not only normal, but expected. When a new player experiences the magic of discovery, experienced players miss that feeling and envy their sense of wonder.

I hope these encounters break some preconceptions from time to time and give experienced players the refreshing feeling of having their experiences turned on its ear—if only to have a eureka moment one more time. To do this, it’s important to not only take things in new directions, but to also read the fine print. Be willing to give your monsters the benefit of the doubt, give them souls and thoughts and wants. Make them someone, not something. When you do that, the world is your oyster.

The side effect of this may well be you end up creating a series of great side villains who can show up from time to time and give your characters the same feeling comic book readers get when they see classic villains from a hero’s rogues gallery. It makes them feel more like heroes because they start to develop their own rogues gallery of enemies.

This encounter takes one of those monster tropes, reads the fine print, gives the monster a motivation and generates a villain who may or may not return—perhaps different than the last time—all depending on the actions of you and the players. In this case, we use the much-used and stereotyped troll. This monster is almost always seen as an idiotic, gluttonous savage that only stops when someone holds a torch. We now ask the old question: “What if?”

What if a troll ate something and mutated in a positive way? What if the troll gained some measure of intelligence or understanding of what just happened … and wants more? Now you have a villain who, like the player characters, gains a story arc, a motivation and may or may not increase in power level.

This makes an already dangerous foe a much more deadly threat overall. This troll seeks to feast upon creatures, other monsters, NPCs or even the player characters to try and inspire a new and positive mutation, increasing its power.

More specifically, this troll is the Beast of Bellard. The Beast has already consumed one or two creatures in an ongoing life experiment, so when the characters encounter this mutated troll it’ll already be something more than a standard troll.

Now, despite this being called the Beast of Bellard, there is no reference to a community of Bellard. This is an encounter, not a town. Feel free to make this the Beast of Your Town, wherever the town or village may be. That’s the beauty of this encounter. This troll could have any number or variety of mutations and locations, all based on your needs.

For this encounter, we’ll give the troll two plausible creature based mutations capable of making them a handful. The Beast has fought, defeated and eaten an ettin for control of this territory. Now they have two heads. The Beast also cleared out a ruin of hobgoblins, killing and eating many including a warband officer.

Now they’re not only two headed, but smarter than the average troll. This, arguably, is the troll’s greatest score to date. The Beast now not only gains greater self awareness, but ambition and some tactical sense.

We often take travel for granted. Whether over land or by sea, travel can be an opportunity to create dynamic encounters. Combat, exploration and even social encounters become more complicated both above and below open waters.

Merchants ply trade routes, carrying legitimate goods to market. Nobles and commoners alike employ the seas for business or leisure travel. Creatures lurk in the depths and entire civilizations reside in the deeps.

And, of course, there are pirates and other nefarious sorts prowling the seas hunting for treasure and smuggling their ill gotten gains. But what happens when the illicit goods aren’t too keen on being smuggled bounty?

I can’t speak for every table, but I know mine likes to inject a little humor into serious moments. A touch of the ridiculous can often turn a normally staid affair into one capable of hooking players into memorable encounters. Even darker humor often elicits better engagement than none. If you can add a description to a moment that earns you a “huh?” expression, all the better.

Counting Sheep is intended along this line of thinking. It takes what would normally be a simple and straightforward encounter but adds a touch of the ridiculous and the curious. How you run with those ideas is up to you.

Misers hoarding wealth beyond their needs, hunters felling prey out of simple bloodlust, thieves picking one too many pockets … greed comes in many forms. In the Feywild, when creatures act on impulses of greed, gluttony and excess, picnic hags crawl from the waste left behind.

A bottomless appetite drives these hags. They are what they eat; picnic hags harness the abilities of creatures they consume and their bodies shift and change to reflect their latest meals. Acts of gluttony draw picnic hags forth and many find their way to the Material Plane where greedy humanoids might find themselves the hags’ next meal.

Several hooks could lead adventurers to the cottage of picnic hags described herein, where a family of dragon wyrmlings has been captured. A gold dragon wyrmling, the youngest sibling of the dragons, might plea for the adventurers’ help. Alternatively, the picnic hags might have captured a friend of the party and are poised to eat them. It is up to the adventurers to conduct a rescue mission!

I love making players ask questions. “How did this get here? Why is that thing like that?” A random encounter might be able to inject this sort of curiosity with the right setup. By doing so you can add depth, color and even a little history to a game when the well has run dry of ideas, then unleash the characters and let their questions build the world.

However, a player should always remember what happened to the cat in the cliché...

Lizardfolk typically suffer from a reputation as primitive and simplistic brutes doing little more than thumping about the swamps and jungles of a territory hissing aggressively while brandishing primitive weapons. They take the worst cliche from any pulp film and add scales.

No society could last for any significant length of time without some form of sophistication. Even the most primitive societies in our own world lasted for centuries through cunning, adaptation and actively keeping with specific rules about the dangers of the world around them. They were not mere thugs brandishing weapons and lumbering about without learning.

Lizardfolk, in spite of the cliche, should know better. If they didn’t, they would be extinct in a world filled with aggressive orcs, martial hobgoblins, hungry ogres and every other sort of creature looking to feed upon the ill equipped. Lizardfolk would be better suited to their settings if they were either fully bestial or far more advanced. Yet, somehow, they have allegedly been stuck in this proto-societal stage for millennia.

However, there is one example wherein there is some hope, albeit its own cliche. Should the rise of a powerful individual occur, lizardfolk society advances. What if these lizardfolk rulers were not prone to evil, but were god-touched as they claim? What if these higher lizardfolk worshipped some form of the Old Ones, primordials, elemental entities or other form of ancient faith no longer in common practice?

Lizardfolk would then be a doorway into an ancient world where the current races could look back to what once was, for good or bad. These rugged lizardfolk may have endured rituals that would strike pale the softer, pinker races of the non-scaled folk. Some practices performed in daily life by other races may have spawned from these ancient people.

All that would remain would be to find out. This is the stuff of the greater tales from pulp novels of high adventure—ancient cultures, lost temples, hidden treasures and vast power of forgotten gods. Not blathering lumps of reptilian flesh hurling pointed sticks at vastly superior foes.

Every devil’s duty is to collect mortal souls to bolster the forces of Hell. Powerful adventurers turn the tide of their eternal war against the forces of the heavens and sunder the hordes of Abyss.

As for weaker souls, well, let’s just say the nightmare stables don’t clean themselves.

In Devil’s Hospitality, you, the Game Master roleplay an ambitious upstart devil who has set their eyes on converting a band of adventurers into Hell’s minions.

To aid in your endeavor you are provided with a diabolical toolkit of deception and trickery to challenge players.

Violence is not a necessary component of this encounter, but adventurers can certainly revel in it.

Primordial magic as old as creation itself governs the immutable agreements of infernal contracts. Even the most powerful archdevils can do nothing more than dance around the loopholes.

The signer of the contract must fully comprehend the terms for it to be valid. This is an ironclad rule.

However, through a stroke of luck you discovered the contract can actually be signed before the terms are understood.

Once both conditions are fulfilled, the voice of the cosmic arbiter informs the adventurers an infernal contract had been signed and they have a 1 minute cooling off period to cancel the contract. Certain conditions apply.

Your task is simple. Lie, cheat, weasel and do everything you can to prevent that from happening. But, there are still rules you need to follow, or the contract will be void.

The idea here is to test the players’ ability to focus on the most important task at hand, which is cancelling the contract and pushing through the obstacles instead of reducing the hit points of everything they see to zero.

Our games are filled with assumptions, perhaps because our lives are filled with the same. We often foolishly make assumptions about a person based on their appearance or dress, judging personal traits like intelligence or a person’s wealth or other detail about their life. We assume someone may have a specific level of education if they have glasses.

These same assumptions carry over into our game worlds.

One thing I like to do is shatter assumptions. This encounter is all about doing so. Below you’ll see a race filled with assumptions involved with a monster bearing its own.

When we turn these assumptions upside down, we can truly surprise even a jaded group of players.

Often, the most basic settings can be a great place for an encounter. What seems like another boring problem turns out to be more.

When missing goods, livestock and the like become an issue, players always blame goblins, kobolds or the usual rogues’ gallery of villains. Switching things up from time to time is a good idea, as it keeps the players guessing.

Additionally, players tend to forget that others operate as a team too. Characters use scouts, terrain, spells and the like to their best potential. They seek to flank their foes or find some way to gain advantage. Some monsters do this too.

What if a monster has another monster as a pet? What if the characters are surprised to find a typically solo monster acting like a team in concert with other creatures?

Oni are special among giantkind in that they are talented spellcasters and shapeshifters. They walk the line between brute and hag, making for a villain potentially accomplished as both.

Some hags might employ oni as minions, but to be honest, given their intelligence and accomplishments, any service to someone might be temporary at best. Dangerous, cunning and strong villains are rarely anyone’s minions for long, usually having plans of their own and no small amount of ambition.

The oni might be more dangerous when in the service of an even more powerful villain like a dragon, greater devil or demon, lich or mummy lord. This would give the oni access to greater resources, perhaps a helpful organization or even their own pool of agents like cultists or spies.

For the purpose of this encounter, the oni is the agent of some greater villain in your world. I’ve used medusae, succubi and more in this fashion, and they’re all great in their own way. An oni, like a succubus, can be anyone, anywhere, and really ramp up the paranoia. The oni could be hidden among a tribe of orcs, then disguised as a human guard and then as a wandering monk. One never knows.

The Change Shape action states the entire appearance changes size if needed, and their glaive changes in size with them, meaning they’ll always have a polearm. That makes it essential for you to place the oni in roles where the existence of such weapons would be logical and acceptable. You may even wish to make such weapons more common in local soldiers and among peasant militia.

This is supported in historical fact with such weapons as the bill and the military fork. You could even give the oni in question a magical glaive with the ability to temporarily change shape, or give it an ability to call the weapon from anywhere via some sort of teleportation.

There are lots of ways around the predicted metagaming of the experienced and cunning player.

In this particular case, the oni is ready to greet the adventurers as they return to civilization—either ahead of them as they arrive in a new town—or to welcome them as they return to a home community. Just remember, the oni is an intelligent opponent. They act with cunning and a decent tactical sense. They retreat if circumstances take a bad turn and strike when they have some sort of advantage. That’s what makes them deadly.

The natural relationships between monsters sometimes go overlooked. Exploiting these relationships can justify other interactions and create a chain of logical encounters to generate a buildup of excitement.

Orcs and ettins, or goblins and wolves illustrate existing relationships to scale up the danger. Seeing one may not necessarily lead to another, but even the hint of a partnership could lead to some great tension or scene building.

Eyes Have It takes something relatively easy to deal with—aggressive plant life—and ties it in with aberration creature types to present a bizarre new threat to adventurers. These dangerous plants generate exclusively from dead remains.

These small details add depth to the fungal creature and perhaps elicit curiosity in the characters and players.

The key element of this encounter is the aberrant nature of the plant, linked in a way that could spell the undoing of the aberrant fungi source creature—a natural reaction to an alien species into an environment they’re not adapted to for survival.

This not only builds on the theory of the natural ecology between monsters in some cases, but has a basis in actual biology.

Okay Game Masters, how many times have your players asked you about familiars and other companions? If at least one wizard or warlock in the group displays how fun this relationship can be, that may lead to a desire for others to have their own little friend.

Some want one for color or roleplaying. Some want one for the power it gives in scouting and the Help action. Some want one out of sheer envy. Players are all different.

Despite any plot hooks you might think are obvious, or clear indications the characters should take on a task or head in a specific direction, they still seek out something they want. Feel free to jump on this opportunity as a way to create new encounters, plot threads and campaigns.

No player could honestly or fully shrug off any culpability in any events which spawn from their agency, if and only if you allow the story to follow their direction.

To that end, you might even wish to have a district in a larger community filled with places like the one in this encounter, along with potion apothecaries, arcane focus dealers and material component markets.

Even in a lower magic setting, so long as you have no magic item dealers, you could run such establishments in their own section. They might even come with their own social stigma, or their own array of con men and charlatans who would more than gladly pawn off their junk as magical.

You may even wish to make some of these vendors transient. They could take their wares from town to town like the snake oil salesmen of our own history. Imagine mixing fake magic trinkets with actual oddities as the makeup of their wagon bound inventories.

The options here are truly endless.

In this specific case, we address Fibble and his Fantastic Familiar shop. For the purposes of this encounter we’ll place this shop in an urban setting whether it’s a city, village, town or thorpe. But the shop could just as easily be mobile, and adventurers could pass by the merchant wagon on the roadside.

One trope in tabletop roleplaying games in need of work is the concept of the encounter as a “one thing shows up and does one other thing.” There’s no reason why multiple monsters of similar alignments and motivations would not work together.

If these creatures work together more than once, they should have some sense of how each other operates as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Grouping like-minded individuals might turn what would be a typical encounter into something a little less predictable.

The following is one such encounter where two monsters, tactically minded and ruthless in combat, work together to create a small fighting force that would be dangerous to deal with, especially in a confined setting where collateral damage is something to consider.

As an example of this, I am presenting two races that fit the bill—fire giants and hobgoblins. Both love war, are tactically sound and would likely work in concert to achieve a goal. Both share the lawful evil alignment, so you can expect them to behave in similar fashions and seek similar solutions to the same problems.

In the correct environment to add complications, you have a problem that needs to be solved—quickly! The introduction of this encounter might well be a doorway to the start of something larger.

Any encounter at sea or on water is dangerous. Several factors contribute to this and few are employed often enough to truly bring terror into the game. When dealing with aquatic encounters the focus should be on the very real potential of drowning, so make sure to check the rules for suffocation and underwater combat to understand the mechanics.

Another consideration is water tends to disrupt magic. Fire often fails, visibility is poor and verbal spells fail if the caster cannot breathe water.

Finally, when knocked off a ship there is a risk the ship sails on without noticing, missing the chance to stop and recover a lost companion. Swimming 30 miles to shore is nearly impossible. Once in the water, there are many, many monsters that can be seriously dangerous to one’s health.

What this allows for us to do is create a trifecta of terror: drowning, water issues and being lost at sea. This encounter is designed to play on all three, and demonstrates that level isn’t always useful in surviving an encounter with low level monsters.

Players and characters have a wide array of value sets and see value in many things. More than a few see value in monetary things, but this may be simply a pragmatic outlook and not greed. The reality is things generally cost money.

However, many others place value on the intangible. Some place value in concepts or ideals. Love, honor, faith, hope, justice and freedom, or even death, carnage, corruption and tyranny.

This encounter touches on the overarching theme of value in a small way. What do the characters value or deem sacred?

Symbiotic relationships exist in nature, as do social groups. We have accepted this fact for many years. We see it in insects, mammals, reptiles, and even people. So why not monsters? Friend in Need explores such a relationship where two creatures, an otyugh and a mimic, share a living space, companionship and tactics.

How many times have you heard this phrase?

“Wait, a (insert monster)? In (insert environment)? Don’t they normally occur in (insert different environment)?”

How many times has that been a headache?

This encounter addresses the dilemma. True, many random encounter generators, whether digital or printed, separate the reasonably possible creatures into the environs they should be expected in. However, you may wish to use a creature because you may never have tried a new one, or find the list of possible encounters uninspiring. The simple solution is to reskin a creature in such a way as to make it plausible. If real world species have variants that occur in strikingly different climates, then why not fantasy creatures? If foxes could have species variants ranging from the arctic to dry deserts, and we already know dragons have very specific subspecies for different environs, then applying that same logic to other monsters might be not only possible, but opens up an entirely new toolbox for you to use.

Building on both of those concepts, I intend to use the chimera as the basis, but we’re placing it in an environment it is not native to. Then, we’ll either swap or re-skin the heads so it is thematic with the terrain as well as believable.

Taking lessons from our own world, the chimera’s lion head becomes a Siberian tiger, and the ram becomes a mountain goat. The dragon’s head is the easiest to change. We simply change the red dragon head to a white dragon head, and therefore change the Fire Breath to Cold Breath, and the saving throw from Dexterity-based to Constitution. Now we have an arctic chimera.

Using the same logic, you can create a monster for different climates, including such extremes as aquatic or elemental depending on how much work you wish to put into monster creation or alteration.

All that remains now is to create a motivation for any monster. Chimera are typically proud, greedy and stubborn. They are also not that intellectually gifted, to say the least. This can be quite limiting in the context of usage. Experienced players may know of the chimera’s intellectual limitations, and coupled with action economy, turn a typical chimera encounter into a quick exchange of blows to resolve it.

The easiest way out for you to make this less predictable is to increase the monster’s Intelligence score. While this could be explained as an atypical mutation, such explanations have always earned at least one set of rolled eyes in my experience.

Magic then becomes the next easiest answer. This tactic is used in Argument where a magic item is applied to one of the two heads of an ettin to alter behavior. Whereas that created a possible roleplaying opportunity with the injection of some humor, in the case of the chimera we seek to make the monster less of a standard encounter and perhaps more of a villain.

Playing on the dragon head’s greed, it’s entirely plausible that a magic item like a headband of intellect might fall into the paws of a chimera and be taken by the greedy dragon head.

This would alter the monster’s outlook in a wholesale manner and would make one head far superior in its ability to direct the actions and schemes of a creature normally subject to infighting. This is in keeping with the trend of turning two-dimensional monsters into something more.

For this encounter I thought it would be appropriate to use the one creature likely the most difficult to run—a dragon. Dragons wield immense powerful capable of destroying a party outright within a few rounds if played to their potential. It then falls to you, Game Master, to create an encounter both reasonable to the characters and yet fair to the creature in question. You want the moment to be memorable, and do the creature justice.

This can be tricky, because older dragons create regional effects and gain lair actions—on top of flying past the characters and breathing fire, cold, poison gas or the like.Younger dragons are less refined and can be easier to corral for the more cunning player. So, where does one fit a challenging, yet rewarding, dragon encounter that is neither a total party kill or murder-hobo-fest? I think it’s in the young-adult range. And to make it more interesting, make it a metallic. Most metallic dragons are not only known shapeshifters, but all come with personality quirks making them more relatable as individuals, despite their vast power.

At either the adult or ancient phase of their lives, metallic dragons gain the ability to Change Shape. Taking the guise of a humanoid or beast these dragons can interact with the world without arousing the terror or awe their natural forms would undoubtedly elicit. I see no reason why a dragon could not manifest this ability earlier in their life. Perhaps they have a special talent for it, a powerful mentor, a genetic tendency for shape changing earlier in their life or some other trait that triggers this effect ahead of the typical age.

To flesh this encounter out, you need a reason for a young copper dragon to be in disguise, and some reason for the characters to help them. Powerful creatures are generally more capable of helping themselves out of a problem, so you need to create a scenario requiring character input.

If you have a dragon show up in dragon form, you either have characters who seek to avoid them, or the murder-hobo gene is triggered and it becomes a bloodbath one way or another. To reinforce a dialogue, it’s also a good idea to make sure there’s some reason to keep the dragon out of the affair as much as possible. Cursed magic items, high level spells or enchantments or interference by an entity more powerful than the dragon are all possibilities. The following encounter suggests some of these directions.

This encounter adds a burst of frenetic energy into what might otherwise be typical travel through the forest.

If the characters succeed, they impress a gold dragon and have a way to cash in their gems for magic items rather than stockpiling all their money at higher levels like a certain duck billionaire.

The fascinating thing about our own world is that history is still being discovered every day. We are still finding lost relics, tombs and clues to ancient civilizations—sometimes in the most surprising places. Mythology and rumor sometimes persist around these ancient sites, but just as often all living memory is lost. Records may not have been taken, rumors are forgotten or a civilization may have been totally wiped out. Then all that stays behind becomes a mystery waiting to be discovered. However, in a fantasy realm even when others forget, the dead remember.

There are many kinds of players, but one that never goes away is the murderhobo/vandal. Their style of gaming lay in the foundations of the roleplaying game genre when it first hit the market. It’s still a popular style of gaming, especially with the rise of video games. Monsters and puzzles are sources of loot. Everything is opened, broken, killed or avoided if it can’t be one of those.

Despite the harsh style of play, these players are also the fire under the bottoms of players who struggle with decision making or need to follow 16 steps before opening a door. The murderhobo/vandal is always the first to launch into combat, explore a new passage or open a stuck door.

As much as they lead the way, the style of play can sometimes cut off roleplaying or problemsolving opportunities, or create problem solving issues for others in their party. The following encounter is for when you might have a runaway murderhobo/vandal. Here’s the catch—if the murderhobo/vandal doesn’t act, there’s no treasure. But if the murderhobo/vandal does act, there’s danger.

Isn’t life awesome?

Random encounter tables are a great resource for Game Masters. Whether you’re preparing for a game session or scrambling when players take an adventure in an unexpected direction, tables and charts can provide the solution.

Mixing and matching different elements from encounter tables can further customize these scenarios. The following idea combines the concepts of a circle of standing stones, a skeletal ferry captain and floating earth motes from one such random table.

Next, it’s important to note the special abilities of monsters or NPCs and pay special attention to any flavor text too. When all the pieces fall into place you can really have an encounter with depth. The intent is to give your players something unusual and thought provoking.

Now your encounter creates a moment for players to ask more questions than receive answers. They’ll struggle with how to proceed socially and may even have moral or ethical questions, adding depth to the character dynamic.

That’s the basis for this encounter. You might even use something like this to start an adventure or expose a character’s background elements. How you fully utilize it is up to you.

While researching something else entirely, I glanced at the passage on the mirror of life trapping purely by happenstance.

Because of the fluid nature of this mirror’s possible past, it may contain up to 12 random creatures already.

How they got there and why they ended up near the mirror could be any number of reasons.

That means this encounter, if you set it up right, could be infinitely adjustable to your group’s level and abilities. It could be a campaign starter. It could be a campaign ender—even if only by accident.

Since the contents set the challenge level, take care in making sure you stock the mirror wisely. For the purposes of this encounter, only one of the 12 cells is free, so as to not trap the entire party, and to deliver enough random oddities to truly challenge your group.

This encounter should only trap one character, leaving the rest to solve the problem. It may well set up one of those moments where the entire party says, “What have we done?”

It could also be used for a session where one of the players couldn’t make it, and narratively their character winds up trapped in the mirror.

In one of my old campaigns I needed a way to transport characters whose players were absent. I implemented a supernatural guardian of the universe who knew the exact time and place certain people needed to be in certain times. You know, for fun.

This character’s identity and source of power then became a mystery for my players. I had no idea, I was just trying to come up with reasons for missing characters. The Keeper’s arbitrary appearances and disappearances grew into a legacy amongst my games.

This encounter introduces the Keeper, and you can easily continue to re-use this encounter only with the Teavern portion of it to pull away characters or bring in new ones. Be as creative as you want!

I’ll bet one of the most commonly asked questions placed at the feet of any Game Master is, “Is there a place where I can buy magic items?” This might have been a common occurrence in the past, but Fifth Edition assumes a baseline limited access to magical marketplaces. That’s not to say they don’t exist, or characters can never find purveyors of such rare and wondrous items. Far from it. But the danger in dealing with such a market bears the risk of trying to prove its own economic worth.

Rare components or those gained through dangerous tasks would make most proper magic items either impossibly expensive or priceless. Components common enough for sale would be overpriced due to their difficult creation or high demand. It truly would be a seller’s market.

This encounter is for when you’re feeling brave and wish to rise to the occasion with difficult bargains to address characters needs and desires.

The answer to the question, “Is there a place where I can buy magic items?” might be, “How bad do you want it?”

It’s always important to read the flavor text. For monsters, magic items and spells, the flavor text can turn a blasé encounter into something more.

This encounter is based upon the little details of one particular spell—polymorph. However, instead of just using the spell as written, adventurers discover a special region affected by the spell, designed in such a way as to give the players more agency within the confines of this encounter. At the same time, this special region is a wild magic zone, introducing another element to the encounter. Mayhem!

Everyone has a story. Players create stories for their characters and bring them to the table where we tell a broader story together. Campaign villains often carry complex tales of dark desires and twisted motivations but what’s often overlooked are the stories of the minor monsters, including random encounters during larger adventures.

Undead creatures present perhaps the most tragic of these stories. With a few notable exceptions like vampires and liches, undead can sometimes come across as cardboard villains. I find this to be a lost opportunity.

There’s a huge wealth of story building potential, side quests, plot hooks and the like from any single undead if you are willing to make them more than generic villains. This encounter ensnares adventurers in one such story.

A continuing challenge, especially for starting Game Masters, is taking the mundane and making it special. Fortunately, there are a wide array of creatures that fit the bill. Each has their specialty. Mimics can stand in as mundane items. Darkmantles are indistinguishable from cave formations like stalactites and stalagmites while motionless. Gray oozes can resemble wet stone or pools of water.

After a time though, players come to expect this. Then it’s time to bring out classic themes from horror and surprise characters when they least expect it. In a dungeon setting, they might well be ready for something.

But when travelling between towns and villages in patrolled or protected lands, characters might let their guard down. Farmlands are perfect for this setting, as they are cultivated lands typically already under the auspices of a local sheriff, regent, baron or other leader. They should be safe.

That’s when you spring the surprise. Doing this sort of thing early in a campaign can set the tone for the entire event. This is perfect for when you intend to later add a hag, evil wizard, or other supernatural foe as a central villain to a campaign. It provides the correct feel for the rest of the adventure or campaign.

Tension is an important element for some campaigns, and defines the nature of the ongoing undercurrent to all other events that follow. This specific encounter draws upon the cultural acceptance or fear of scarecrows, as well as the almost ubiquitous presence of their intended target, crows. Both set within farmlands should be a normal and expected occurrence, allowing you to spring this encounter on lower level parties with little or no set up.

There’s an old cliche stating “not everything is as it seems.” Of all the genres in gaming, books, or movies, horror follows this the most. Good horror has a bait and switch or a surprise hook to take viewers or participants by surprise.

There are many monsters capable of this with the right delivery. What should follow is the generation of tension, and perhaps a little player paranoia, to add depth to the next few encounters. The right moment or delivery of this bait and switch can set the tone and give your players pause.

The following encounter is but one example. The threat presented here can be utilized with every single NPC and beast, and almost every living creature—so long as it has a brain. The methodology for this foe has been seen in the horror genre many times.

It can be anywhere. It can be anyone. It could be the person standing right next to you … or the duke’s loyal hunting dog at his feet. Anyone.

The following encounter takes on two challenges. First, it addresses an issue brought up around many gaming tables where a Game Master puts something like a bounty hunter or assassin on the trail of the adventurers. This could be due to some offense the characters have created against a king, noble, wizard or guild master, or perhaps to address some action the characters took in a city where vital laws were broken. Second, it looks at the unique issue of adding class levels to a monster. It falls on you to make the final call on how the challenge rating of the monster is affected, on a case by case basis. The secret here is to ask yourself “What do I want this monster to do?” And then building for this purpose. The purpose here is to capture characters in a dramatic fashion and return them to the employer—be it king, criminal boss or angry mob—alive, or at least relatively.

An environment that goes unnoticed in many settings or campaigns is the importance of rivers. Rivers were the first highways of the ancient world and are still major thoroughfares to this day. The same can be true in a fantasy setting. Rivers should be a constant resource for encounters of all kinds, be it lizardfolk, pirates, goblins in rickety steamships, or orcs in war canoes.

In this instance we’ll draw from ancient history and base this encounter around a funeral procession. To build on the concept, this funeral procession is not just a funeral barge, but an elaborately carved vessel with a large single sail and a single cabin. Imagine, then, that this vessel is not of this world, but the next. The vessel itself is an expression of a Realm of Shadow. Now you have a river encounter you could have at night, with all the haunting dread of what happens when the dead meet the living.

The intent behind this encounter is simple—sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone. Curiosity killed the cat for a reason. In this case, the cat might end up worse than dead.

Sometimes an encounter occurs because of a single “what if.” It can lead in all sorts of unexpected directions. Imagine an illusionist’s castle, dungeon or other lair. Imagine an environment filled with puzzles, tricks and other dangers. Within such confines, Rube’s Cube exists.

For this encounter, I wanted to use an underappreciated monster—an ooze—in a way other than a hit point sponge or ambush predator. What followed was a series of “what if” questions.

What if a normally nonspellcasting creature had access to a spell or spell like effect? In this case, I thought of mirror image. No item to my knowledge creates such an effect outside of a ring of spell storing with the correct spell, so a little extra creativity was called into play.

What if you made such an item? In the end, you take what would normally be an ambush predator who may not survive more than three rounds, and create a mystical shell game with one ooze and one item.

What if you take this creature and the magic item and place them in a room custom made for both in a fun way? Rube’s Cube is born.

Creature templates are gems often unnoticed. They are a great way to take what the players are familiar with and shake them up. What this does is twofold. First it generates an encounter the players are not ready for. This is its own reward as it freshens up what would be an ordinary and possibly predictable encounter.

Second it takes the omnipresent metagame aspect and turns it on its head. Ask a Game Master what value they would place on making one experienced metagaming rules lawyer at their table give a puzzled expression, and I’ll bet they’d rate it pretty high.

The following encounter is intended to do both by applying the half dragon template. This template can be applied to a beast, humanoid giant or monstrosity.

That’s a lot of choice.

This is but one example of such an application and might open up a series of encounters where a rather amorous dragon has seeded a campaign with its brethren, creating a whole list of choice encounters.

Convincing the dragon of the value in more considerate parenthood to end this series of events could become the motivation for several adventures, if the players show interest in discovering the origins of the draconic creatures encountered here.

In this instance, we enter the swamps to deal with a squad of lizardfolk cavalry mounted on giant toads, led by a half black dragon lizardfolk.

Many experienced Game Masters know the key to tension is the right touch of paranoia. The right description and setting can establish the right mood and put the players on edge. This can allow you to set up other encounters or drop hints from your campaign setting. Such encounters may just be red herrings intended to throw characters off the trail or to make them think. Couple these descriptive moments with noncombat elements and a group puzzle might challenge the characters in a way they were not expecting.

In conjunction with previous encounters this expands on the concept of making monster encounters less vanilla. Like Phoba’s Bet this is another foray into granting class levels to a normally predictable monster.

The monster in question this time is the cyclops, classically seen as a dimwitted, superstitious and ill tempered brute who might fall victim to any assortment of late night infomercials. Whereas this preconception should bear some merit, and some elements may be contained in this encounter, leaving it as is defeats the purpose of delivering an encounter to challenge preconceptions.

This encounter is designed to take on the concept of a danger interjected with moments of humor. To accomplish this, we’ll give the cyclops three levels of warlock with an Otherworldly Patron: the Fiend, and a great little helper in the form of an imp for its Pact of the Chain familiar. The entire encounter is driven by this relationship. Though technically a servant, the imp familiar is actually the brains of the outfit.

This cart before the horse dichotomy should generate moments during the encounter where more than one character should raise an eyebrow and wonder who calls the shots. The hope is players walk away with both moments of laugh out loud ridiculousness and wincing when their characters are thumped by the cyclops.

This encounter also includes some sample dialogue for you to insert should you so choose to give the players the right mix of the ridiculous and the dangerous.

Monster synergy. It’s something I do not hear all that much. Surely we all know different goblinoids work together, or creatures like ettins and ogres work for others for the right bribe. We see lesser animated undead like skeletons or zombies work with each other or the creature that animated them, but not with something equally mindless. Way back when I first started playing the world’s greatest roleplaying game, what are now considered “dungeon hazards” were monsters. Slimes, molds and other colony based organisms were included alongside other monsters and added to wandering monster tables. You could stumble into a growth of them while walking about. Organisms like these can prove deadly, but lack the ability to move on their own. This doesn’t prevent them from growing on something with its own mobility, provided it could be a viable host. It is entirely plausible for overgrown dangerous mold growth developing on zombies. The trick would be explaining and delivering this encounter in a way both unpredictable and believable.

There are a great many spells that could be the key to an interesting encounter. One with particularly great potential is awaken. According to the spell it grants a 10 Intelligence to a single plant or beast under the right circumstances. It also allows plants the ability to move along with speech in one language. These effects are permanent.

Imagine applying the entire array of abilities to any number of beasts or plants. Not only can this spell affect expected beasts like horses, dogs, elephants and fish, as well as plants like trees and shrubbery … but also fungi and giant beasts. The only limit is a starting Intelligence of 3 or less and size of Huge or less, and the beast or plant creature type. It is worth noting awaken is an expensive spell to cast, requiring an agate worth 1000 gp, which the spell consumes.

This awakened beast or plant could fulfill multiple roles in your campaign or encounter. Since it has average human Intelligence, human-like senses and can speak a language, you could run this as a role-playing encounter in addition to a combat or puzzle encounter. This beast or plant could be a full NPC or companion to another NPC. In this case we’re aiming for a social encounter, but also a more specialized version of a social encounter because the NPC in question is an awakened tree with a service to offer.

For this encounter to work, you’ll need a forest of a decent size, and hard to traverse for more reasons than just having trees in it. Treacherous gullies, jutting rock formations or even a forest on a steep incline of a mountain are all valid choices. Feel free to use these or any others you might think of. The awakened tree acts as a way to connect two parallel roads at different—and difficult to access—elevations. This encounter arranges travel through difficult terrain that would otherwise slow, hamper and endanger the party. If those conditions are met, insert something akin to this in your world to engage players and turn a travel situation into a rich opportunity for roleplaying.

A popular cliché or trope that seems to endlessly occur in Fifth Edition games is this: defeat monster, check its pockets, take its stuff. Here’s a way to rethink the scenario. What if the magic item is part of the encounter? What if a magic item defined the encounter such that it makes it very difficult to acquire without damaging it? What if that same magic item was also highly desirable? Adding to this concept we’ll apply a template to the encounter, taking a common everyday monster (zombie) and applying it to a monster less common … say, one that makes it harder to just take the magic item.

Here’s my interpretation of that concept—start with an instant fortress, make a few customized adjustments and place it on your selected terrain already deployed, with a zombified tyrannosaurus rex inside it on the ground floor.

How? Why? That’s not important.

“A wizard did it.”

Add locks and traps. Then ask yourself—is the eventual edifice worth the problem of dealing with the watchdog trapped inside? Even better, if they deal with the watchdog and get greedy, there could be even more issues...

One standard preconception modern gamers often have about any fantasy world we game in is this—the common person is just as sophisticated as we are.

Before you laugh, allow me to explain. It wasn’t too long ago in our history we collectively believed Earth was the center of the universe. We believed medicine was witchcraft. We believed tomatoes were evil. We believed washing was bad for us. We believed royalty were godlike beings.

Visiting anything outside an hour’s walk was too far. News came by strangers, rumor, superstition or what your local leader told you.

We’ve come a long way in our understanding of science, politics, geography, communication and travel. Planes, cars, modern roads, medicines and the internet have connected the world in a way our ancestors in the Middle Ages could never have dreamed.

This advancement creates a sophistication even the most ignorant among us have over our ancient counterparts. Building an encounter around this ancient ignorance and lack of sophistication means you can create a rumor in a local town, village, hamlet or crossroads that could spread fear and superstition as quickly as a virus. Something we would, with our modern understanding, quickly dismiss as something else would have been accepted as fact back in the day.