D&D 5E Help me write a tomb crawl!

I want to put together 3rd level Arabian-themed hack and slash type adventure for some new players.

The basic concept is that they're part of a mercenary guild who have been hired to clear out an ancient lost temple of (insert relevant deity here), which has just been discovered by the local active temple. They'll be accompanied by a priest from the temple whose goal it is to sanctify and cleanse the various parts of the temple once they've been cleared (the priest will either be an NPC or a PC, depending on what the players want to do about them). Obviously, it's not going to be much fun if they just turn up and they don't face any barriers to their progress so I'm thinking that the old temple has become occupied and defiled in various ways. There should probably be some undead in there, including a mummy (which would be the tainted remains of some kind of high level member of the church) and presumably some kind of BBEG who's either raised the undead or is just taking advantage of the situation. I'm thinking there should also be either some living monsters, some monstrous humanoids (probably gnolls), or some combination of the two. With any living creatures in there, I'm just thinking they've come across the place and have taken up opportunistic residence there.

I'll be using this map from the Pathfinder Beginner Box: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6PeQSVm15...ZLUiM0/s1600/PathfinderBeginnerBoxFlipmap.jpg

Can anyone think of some interesting encounters, creatures or traps I could put in the rooms? Also, what kind of BBEG d'you think would be cool? I'd like the dungeon to make sense, so not just a totally random assortment of rooms and monsters...

Could be a temple to Sobek (Crocodile god).

'A recently excavated cavern reveals and entrance into an ancient temple. The torches in the cavern still burn on the ground where the excavation team dropped them, fleeing from the terrifying site before them. The entry way into the temple is carved to resemble a giant crocodile, its mouth agape, as if to enter you would be entering the belly of the beast. Sharp teeth, perhaps made of polished marble or ivory line its mouth, some of which you can see stained with blood. Random bits of ancient scrap cloth and a few bones, some whole, some crushed, are scattered about the entry. An ancient tapestry hangs near the back of the entryway, 10ft back in the crocodiles mouth. It moves back and forth in a slow, rhythmic pattern as a groaning and croaking sound emanates from somewhere deep within, as if the crocodile were alive and breathing."

The entrance to the temple is carved after the God Sobek, the crocodile lord of the nile. It is a trap. Two actually. The entry way is 15ft in total, with the mouth occupying 10ft and another 5ft to the tapestry and beyond. The first 10' has 2 pressure plates that can be detected by a Wisdom(Perception) check DC 15 (20 spots the secondary trap as well at this point). When a pressure plate is triggered the mouth of the crocodile collapses dealing 3d10 points of bludgeoning and piercing damage. A Dexterity saving throw DC 12 avoids the crushing trap if the first plate is triggered or half damage on a successful save if the second plate is triggered. It requires a Strength check DC 14 to lift up. Once lifted 3 feet, the trap resets automatically to its top position. Unfortunately lifting up the mouth trap sets off the secondary trap. A Wisdom(Perception) check DC 15 notices this second trap at this time. When the mouth is raised a loud click is heard as the automatic mechanism takes over and raises the mouth up, but the floor lowers and any character in the mouth must make a Dexterity saving throw DC 12 or fall 10' into area 5. The slide resets automatically when the mouth trap reaches its final position. The reset procedure takes 3 rounds."

The fun is in figuring out whats in area 5. I'd like to see a crocodile pit.

I recommend picking up the classic 1E adventure I4: Oasis of the White Palm from dndclassics.com and plundering it shamelessly for ideas. It's an Arabian Nights-themed adventure with a number of mini-dungeons, each of which has some unique features that could easily be repurposed.

For creatures, you can pretty much apply the "desert" or "sand" tag to any humanoid - desert goblins, desert orcs, desert elves, etc. You can also use snakes, snakemen (yuan-ti), spiders, antlions, scorpions, scorpion men (drider), cactus dryads, animated cacti, dust devils, crocodiles, (dire) ostriches, (dire) camels, lizards, nomads, tomb robbers, dervishes, fremen, sand worms, flying carpets (of smothering), genies, jackalweres, vultures, vulture men (aarakocra), golems... Seriously, the desert is full of life.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Astrosicebear, while I really like that trap idea, it's venturing more into the Egyptian side of things than I'd like to go. I know I mentioned including a mummy, I'm not thinking of the straight up sarcophagus bound Egyptian mummy and thinking more of the reliquary-type preserved body of a saint. I was also thinking this could provide quite a cool encounter where the priest would want to lay the body to rest via ritual rather than wanting to attack. Maybe the other party members would try to hold it back while the priest utters the incantation.

The temple is going to be dedicated to the worship of Sarenrae (from Pathfinder's Golarion setting), but as I want this to be set in the Forgotten Realms I'm going to make her an Exarch of Lathander. The guys I'll be playing with have no knowledge of any of the D&D or Pathfinder settings so I'm pretty free to play around with things like that!

Standard undead are always a good standby. They work very well in this kind of setting, especially with a theme of purifying the temple.

To spice things up, you could have a second party follow the PCs in. Take a look at the jackalwere entry in the Monster Manual; a band of them masquerading as another adventuring party, waiting for the chance to kidnap someone and drag them back to their lamia master could make an excellent villain.

JWO said:

Can anyone think of some interesting encounters, creatures or traps I could put in the rooms? Also, what kind of BBEG d'you think would be cool? I'd like the dungeon to make sense, so not just a totally random assortment of rooms and monsters...

Click to expand...

You know, the whole tale of King Shahryar killing his virgin wives because of his first wife's infidelity (1,001 Nights) could make a spooky twist for an encounter with wights, revenants, ghosts, banshees, or some other undead. That might be a juicy plot hook for getting less religious inclined PCs involved, and suggests at least one fun encounter.

Let's see...another Arabian Nights trope (thank Aladdin and Sinbad) is the protagonists getting trapped inside the tomb due to a nefarious third party NPC. Could add a twist to the usual dungeon delve when they realize later on that they've been sealed in and need to find an alternate route out.

Hmm, some kind of a genie prison might be fun. Maybe the genie was imprisoned by the temple for mischief but isn't truly evil? So letting him out might gain an unreliable ally who has his own agenda but could help them access difficult to reach areas. Of course, their temple priest companion wouldn't be keen on freeing the genie.

Huecuva (evil undead priests) would make for an interesting RP/combat encounter in the tomb, especially if they initially pose as guardians asking the PCs to complete some act to "prove their devotion to Sarenrae" while actually marking them as enemies. [MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] did a nice little write-up in the Monster Database for these guys.

Personally, I'd structure the tomb in three "layers" - an outer area infested with living beings who have overrun the tomb (dervishes, cultists, etc). A middle layer laced with traps, entrapped guardians and still-living "sacrifices" and an inner sanctum consisting of undead and perhaps the highest members of some cult seeking to raise/bind undead or some unholy artifact of the tomb.

As for the BBEG, I'd go with a twist - a maelific genie (efreet?) tasked as a guardian with orders to revive the dead priest entombed within. The original intent was that the priest knew evil would come one day and had the genie entombed with him to resurrect the priest to do battle when revived by his followers who penetrated the tomb. However, the genie intents to twist his orders, reviving the priest as an undead abomination that will be the evil that will ravage the land. Perhaps there's even a secret way/path (that a smart, cautious) the party could undertake to properly revive the priest without unknowingly unleashing the genie.

Now I'm getting inspired. Hah! Great suggestions, all.

I think it'd be cool if the traps, undead, and other monsters were put in place by the active temple's ancestors. This lost temple was sealed and deliberately lost, and never intended to be found. Those obstacles were put there not only to keep intruders out, but to keep something in.

So, as they're slaying the mummies, maybe a Religion check to note that the mummies are wearing the raiment of ancient practitioners of the active temple's faith. The PCs might conclude that they're corrupted, or cursed. Nope: they volunteered for the honor of defending and guarding this place.

Maybe at the very end, after they crack the last seal, you reveal an old story about a place so horrible, a mistake so shameful, that an entire temple was abandoned, an entire priesthood compelled to undead guardianship, and an entire region erased from history. That story was thought to be apocryphal, but nope--you found it. Tease out the story in bits and pieces (scraps of journal notes, or canned NPC dialogue from their guides/henchmen) the same way games like Bioshock feed scraps of lore.

When the players realize what they've done, cue the earth-shaking and the column-toppling. They have to flee upward, running through previously cleared areas while dodging collapses, environmental hazards, and minions/spawn. When they finally escape* they have to wonder if the collapse will keep the Bad down, or if that dried-up underground river they passed on the way down will provide an avenue of escape.

* If you let them escape. Would be fun to wipe the party. Treat the entire thing as the pre-opening-credits scene of a movie that sets up the real campaign. If you do that, give the players pre-gens (and just say "trust me on this, for one or two sessions" when they ask to make their own).