PRAISE THE DRAGON OF THE PIT: Building An Encounter On The Fly

The shrine as seen by the players

This past weekend I ran session 27th of Where Hell Comes to Prey, my home campaign set in Miranda Elkin's Nightwick Abbey. This "100-minute megadungeon" session centered on the party attempting to destroy a rumored profane shrine that had appeared in the Fog-bound Forest. I want to talk about building this encounter to cement this procedure in my head, but also because I think there is a paucity of posts demonstrating how to tie it all together when DMing. How does one use all the tips and tricks in concert like a conductor to create an adventure symphony? 

This post covers: (1) random events as a seed, (2A) variation on basic enemies, (2B) set piece and adding a "clock" to a challenge, and (3) shrine as NPC or how to extend utility beyond destroy this "bad thing".

1. RANDOM EVENTS AS A SEED: The Shrine

I've started using a regional events table as method of making the world breathe and walk independently of the players' actions. The big yearly event was "volcano" and for this month it resulted in changes in the Abbey as a new demon emerged (Session 26). For this month "shrine" was rolled.

Aside: At this point, the game is on in 20 minutes and I've gotten little done on the shrine portion after reviewing session 26, generating hirelings, writing down other rumors, and restocking.

Okay, so I've done shrines before, but I wanted not to make this one passive. Let's make it an active threat instead and connect it to the emerging new cult in Nightwick. So "shrine" has become "a shrine to the Dragon of the Pit" with the themes of never-ending hunger, fire, sacrifice, and domination. I wanted the shrine to represent the new cult's rapid reach to the outside world, especially with the still active volcano in the Nameless Mountains. What’s the connection between dragons and hell? From inplacesdeep:

The Infinite Layers of the Pit are made of the different chambers of the Dragon of Hell's infernal gut. Most chambers have their own individual lord of hell, with some chambers or even whole organs belonging to a great prince or president. The chambers tend to be themed, but beyond these broad strokes it is difficult to describe the Pit as it is the essence of chaos contained

2A. VARIATION ON BASIC ENEMIES 

To "active" in this case, means something that is a threat to the players versus a "passive" shrine which would just be offering a sacrifice and gaining a boon/bane. The easiest way to make a shrine "active" might simply be to have it surrounded by crazed cultists. Meh. The PCs certainly encountered that before. The players have seen that before. If there is not a cult to defend the shrine, why has it hung around? Why hasn't the local population of woodsmen not destroyed it yet. 

I decided that was because the shrine itself was alive and could defend itself with the bodies of its sacrificial victims.

Aside: By this time the game was already in motion. Players were starting to focus on the shrine instead of their previous attempt to infiltrate the Abbey and deal with an undead judge.

To make the shrine a "monster" I used a combination of three different previous posts covering reskinning, layering, and "punnett squares". Since the shrine's elements are charred skeletal sacrifices and fire, its easy enough to borrow from Nightwick's Blind Dead and Children of Stone.

The Blind Dead are an average of 5hp, damage as weapon (1d8), and have typical skeletal immunities from slashing and piercing. While the Children of Stone have an interesting breath weapon. Perfect, let's just smush these two together:

Shrine to the Dragon of the Pit: A profane totem carved in the shape of a phallic wurm sitting on top of a pyre and glowing with an internal fire that seemingly causes knots in the wood to blink and flare as if living eyes; around the base are chained 3 charred skeletal figures.

Shrine Sacrifices: Those sacrificed or who die in the presence of the shrine become its guardians; AC 12, HD 1+1, HP 5, Atk 1 breath of embers (15' cone), Dmg 1d6 save for half; Sacrifices must stay within 30ft of the shrine itself.

The shrine as seen by the players

When the party arrived at the shine itself. They spent a couple of turns investigating the shrine leading to the death of a hireling who was supposed to throw some holy water on it, but missed, awoke the shrine, and immediately got a face full of hot embers. But they learned something!

It was after this investigation turn, I decided that the guardians of the shrine were contained to a 30ft radius area around the shrine. Why? (1) Because I didn't want it to feel like a zombie spawn point. And I wanted to potentially be able to convert the shrine into a usable location should PC perhaps want to align with the shrine or use it for some purpose. (2) Related to this is that "Hell Always Wants to Make a Deal" and so has to be present to do so. If the shrine becomes too regionally aggressive it certainly is a target for attack and destruction. We have a set piece with a radius. 

Why don't the players just stand right outside the range and plink away at it? It's a good strategy and exactly what my players decided to do, however, they were slightly under-prepared and tried to throw rocks and use slings to destroy the skeletons. If given infinite time this would be successful. But that is boring.

The coursing fire inside the shrine flares tearing the top off in a gout of flame and smoke, in your ash-stung eyes, visions of thundering hooves of skeletal horses appear, but as you frantically clear your vision no sign of the corpse cavalier appears- yet...

So, I decided to add a "clock" to this encounter. Why? Entering into steady-state situations where success is possible if the party only waits long enough is boring. It is not what characterizes good adventure to me which is more composed of cunning plans, stunning victories, and harrowing escapes. 

The visions of the dire horseman presented a gamble to the players: can your "safe" plan work quick enough before this horseman arrives? The players' answer was "hell no" and they bounced after destroying a few skeletons of risen companions.

3 SHRINE AS NPC OR EXTENDING UTILITY BEYOND DESTROYING THIS "BAD THING"

At one point, the players decided to use an extra PC to try and talk with the shrine. Unfortunately, this PC was killed by the shrine because they had not come with an offering and the 2d6 reaction roll was quite poor. However, this action did make me thing about what is the shrine giving to the people that built it.

I needed a "give" to help the shrine become more like an NPC. Why? If the shrine can be fought, talked to, and plays a continuing role in the region when left alone turns an encounter thrown together in ~20 mins into a potentially long-lived piece of worldbuilding. That is a fantastic creative economy. And its creates a dimensionality to the “thing” and enhances its believability because it doesn’t or no longer exists simply as a PC obstacle. Multidimensional existence is important for creating a realistic, fantastical world instead of a colorful video game setting.

The Give: On first offering, gain 1 "sin" (takes up 1 equipment slot)

• Daily Prayer: Hot Temper as Resist Cold
• Silver Offering (200sp): Eye of Avarice as Locate Object
• Flesh Offering (1 heart): Stomach of Fire as Magic Missle  

So there you have it. How I threw together a set piece encounter in ~20 minutes using existing stat blocks that has expanded to become a notable piece of world-building that ties back to the setting and factions.