Thought I'd share a fun encounter we
played out Sunday. It was of course inspired by the 'Riddles in the
Dark' encounter from 'The Hobbit'.. But of course I added a twist to
it. The set up can be seen in the first Pic below.. the 'U' Hallway section. This
encounter also demonstrates one of my signatures as a DM... I like to
SHOW the PCs the means by which their demise will be occurring before
it happens and use a combination of terrain obstacles, role play, and
monsters to make things interesting. In this case, its the innocuous
drainage grate in the hallway section is the 'peek' at what's to
come. The players can HEAR the waterfalls, and running water in
caverns below, especially when they take the time to stop and listen.
What they don't know is that a
gelatinous cube lies in the caverns below, and will be attracted to
the dungeon halls by the vibrations of the character's passing,
entering the hallway by oozing through the bars of the grate.
The next part of the set up is the
'Riddle Column'. Set up by the Priests of Nerul to guard access to
the 3rd level, and further protect the secret passage,
this column is quite insidious. The souls of those who have failed
the challenge can be seen, as countless heads 'floating' in the red
substance that makes up the column. There is also one evil, large
head, and this is the 'Riddler'.
Anyway... As the characters make their
way down the hall, they will first hear the chatter of whispers. Once
they can SEE the column, the large head will 'float' to the side of
their approach, and pose a riddle. The first riddle the column asked
was:
“ I have rivers without water,
Forests without trees, Mountains without rocks Towns without houses.”
Of course rather than trying to answer
the riddle, they all decided to turn back and try a different way.
Problem... because, as you can see in the pic, by this time the
Gelatinous Cube was making its way towards them. Kind of an, “Oh
Shit” moment when they turned back down the way they came, and their perception allowed them
to see the thing.
Okay.. plan B.... lets try this riddle
thing... They didn't know for sure, but they know me as DM and knew
there would be consequences for just trying to 'walk on' without
answering the riddle. The problem was... this one stumped them. I
think they tried, “A desert' when the answer was, 'a map'. So, DC
12 con saves all around, and 4d6 necrotic damage. OUCH! The good part
is that the column then posed another riddle, the bad part is, the
Gelatinous Cube is getting closer. The barrage of missile weapons and
spells really had had only minor effects to this point, and the thing
was baring down on them.
Second riddle:
“Ten Men's Strength, Ten Men's
Length, Ten Men can't break it, Yet a young boy walks off with it”
The most experienced player got it almost right away, “A rope!”
The column replied, “Good. Now, give
one and you may pass.” Which meant, give a riddle back.... they had
to think about it for a second... the gelatinous cube double moved
and almost engulfed the wizard (which would have been certain death
with his measly 12 hit points) but he managed a nat 20 on his dex
save.
Thinking quickly the Bard replied with
the riddle of the sphinx, to which the column replied, “Good, you may pass.”
So, moving quickly they managed to get
ahead of the thing, and finally took it down with combined missile
fire and spells.
Afterwards, everyone changed their
shorts.
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