D&D 5E Tests of the seelie court - help me find ideas for 3 dungeons

[plancktum]

Hi,

My players are about to find a portal into the feywild. Unfortunately (for my players) this portal will be closed. But they find an engraving which tasks them with 3 tests. They must overcome this tests to gain access to the portal.

Now, I've thought about basing these tests on the Code of the seelie court:
-Death before Dishonor: Test of honor
-Love Conquers all: Test of the pure heart/love
-Beauty is Life: Test of Beauty/Life
The engravement would look like something like:
"Only the honorable can love
Only who loves can recognize Beauty
Only who recognizes beauty can enter"

Now it gets complicated as I think that the first two overlap too much.
Therefore I thought about changing this a little bit:
-Test of Honor
-Test of Wisdom (here you can combine seeing through illusions and solving riddles)
-Test of Beauty

Maybe this is a little bit easier than the first ideas?

Do any of you have good ideas where to go? Maybe some ideas what tests in the dungeons could look like?
At honor I thought about fighting an overly hard challenge and not running away. Having to save someone and risking their own life. Do not steal the treasure if you know it belongs here. and so on...

So, I appreciate all of your help

best regards

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Random thought - each test tests one of the pillars of the game - exploration, interaction, and combat?
or, random thought number 2 - they find a portal due to passing the first two tests but it is set up to be time specific, time is running out and it needs someone to sacrifice themselves by staying behind to hold the portal open to let their companions through - if they don't or decide on a one for all approach they pass the test. If they allow one of them to sacrifice themselves they also win but the one who sacrificed themself gains some ability from the feywild (eg misty step through the feywild 3x per day and also maybe gains a level in warlock)??
Just woken up so a bit rambling, apologies.

 

[plancktum]

Random thought - each test tests one of the pillars of the game - exploration, interaction, and combat?

I like this idea! Maybe not seeing the three (Honor, Love, Beauty) as 3 distinct parts, but saying that they are an overall code which needs to be respected.
Then I could also use more or less than 3 adventures (depending on how fast the other plotlines develop).

 

[GMMichael]

1) GBE is on to something with the 3 pillars idea. +1
2) Have a plan for when your PCs fail a test, and therefore, are not allowed to enter the portal.
3) This looks like a riddle, not an edict.

"Only the honorable can love
Only who loves can recognize Beauty
Only who recognizes beauty can enter"

If you want your players to enter three dungeons, be sure to give them more direction than that.

...I can picture the "beauty is life" portion involving a black dungeon room, with a large shaft of light illuminating a round patch of grass, in the middle of which grows a single flower. Under no circumstances can that flower get trampled, no matter what comes out of the dark...

 

[plancktum]

...I can picture the "beauty is life" portion involving a black dungeon room, with a large shaft of light illuminating a round patch of grass, in the middle of which grows a single flower. Under no circumstances can that flower get trampled, no matter what comes out of the dark...

This is brilliant! I will use this idea for the combat part.

 

[Beleriphon]

I'm fond of a few different options. I'm going to grib for Avernum 2: Crystal Souls here. There's a part where your group needs to past some tests to get into a certain town. One is a Test of Intelligence (where answering riddle correctly bypasses fights and some button puzzles), the Test of Strength (combat) and the Test of Speed (run like hell from the napalm flow coming up behind you through monsters and past really, really good loot).

 

[Gilladian]

You definitely need to know what happens if they fail the test - is there a way to get around it? Will there be an alternative to solving each one? Or is the trip to the feywild totally dependent on them being successful? If it is, you'd better be prepared for them to fail...

Anyway, you have had some good advice, but why three separate dungeons? Each one would have to be pretty small to stick to the point. I'd think 3 rooms within a dungeon would be more reasonable; or at the most, a 5-room dungeon setup for each portion of the riddle. Are you familiar with the 5-room dungeon idea? You can read about it here: http://roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=156#1

Essentially it is a way of composing any brief adventure in 5 scenes to keep the pace going.

Honor could involve having them meet someone, make a promise to that person, and then be offered a chance/chances to break that promise while completing the dungeon. Only the most honorable person will pass on the chance for treasure/fame/long life just to keep a promise to a person who doesn't mean a lot to them. And of course, keeping the promise is the only thing that allows them to complete the final task at the end of the dungeon/part of the dungeon that moves them on to the second phase of the challenge.

Love can be romantic love, sexual love or brotherly love. I suggest playing on the third, as it is more likely to be something your players are willing to admit to during a game. Give one of them a chance to make a true sacrifice for one of the others (not necessarily his life, but possibly his Honor? What if one of the PCs HAD to do the dishonorable deed to let the rest of them continue on the task. If the one who does it knows that he's doing it so another PC won't have to, that's pretty much the definition of brotherly love, right there.)

Beauty might involve the perfect flower not being trampled, as DMMike suggested, but it might also involve recognizing that something is beautiful despite its flaws - perhaps an elderly woman who was once a perfectly lovely maiden needs their aid. OR they have to choose to help the person who is NOT beautiful on the outside, but on the inside.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

^ re:honour, especially if they give their word to someone traditionally painted as a bad guy. The temptation would be to renege on their promise to the (insert suitable race here), but if they honour their word (at some cost to themselves to do so), they pass. Especially good if the set up for this is made before they become aware of the tests as a 'thing'.