D&D General Brainstorming an inland temple of a bronze age sea goddess

[RangerWickett]

The party is only 3rd level with no druids, so shapeshifting into fish might require some extra effort, but I'm going to give them a week or two to come up with how to pull off the heist. It won't be possible to grab the stone, shapeshift into a fish, and escape, because the stones are divine relics that are immutable (so no absorbing them into your body in fish form).

But maybe I should have some thing in the temple that is hard to deal with unless you can come in from the pool? Like, during the day golems have designated spots they stand as statues, while at night they patrol the outer perimeter. But if you can get to some inner chamber you manipulate some control stone to summon them back to their standing spots, which will let the party bypass one layer of security. But then there are still priests who come and go occasionally, and they might still spot the party and sound the alarm, so there's still a need for stealth.

I also rather love the idea of going a bit Innsmouth-y with the priesthood (though maybe it's a genetic thing, so if you happen to join the church you won't be transformed?). It's only one of many deities with temples in the city, and so they'd keep their mutations hidden, and only allow those of proper stock to rise within the priesthood.

Maybe the other temple's hierarchs know about the strange nature of the Beshelans, and some are entangled and feel compelled to protect their secret. Others seek to purge the priesthood of those with the elder blood, and turn the contracts of She Who Writhes upon the goddess herself, taking her power instead of exalting her.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A thought occurs…

Perhaps you’re designing too difficult a challenging for the low level party you’re describing. Perhaps tone it down a bit, and have them react to THIS heist with more powerful guards & wards for subsequent adventures?

Instead of golems & tentacle horrors, perhaps there’s marine analogues of shriekers, a less powerful version of the Black Tentacles spell, and so forth. IOW, things to warn of and slow down unwanted people for the more mundane temple guards to come running.

One that springs to mind that would work here is a RW illusion from the ancient world. It involved a platoon of armed warriors emerging from a pool who could not have been underwater as long as they were if they had been mere humans. The TRICK was they had been in a submerged chamber below the surface, supplied with fresh air courtesy of people operating some bellows.

Now imagine this trick combined with the “sea-shriekers”. The heist is going…swimmingly when the guards start emerging from their aquatic concealment. It’s suddenly kilt-crapping time!