Need some encounters for plains/wilderness

NewJeffCT

First Post
This is a party of 6 level 12 PCs.

the players have 3 options ahead of them - a hilly/mountainous area where I already have some prepped encounters, as well as a forest-y area that I'm also ready for.

However, I'm drawing a blank on encounters in more of an open plains/flatlands type of area.

I was hoping for a series of 2-3 encounters that will give them a good challenge.

Thanks
 

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What sort of intelligent creatures live in that plains area? Plains giants?

I was thinking of a band of fairly low-level but very stealthy bandits (with some sort of camouflage ability, so they can make Stealth checks with ordinary concealment, such as in bushes, or dry gulches) who try to ambush and rob the PCs. Naturally the PCs laugh this off and attack. Hopefully they won't know how pitiful the bandits are at first and might waste a few encounter powers :)

That's when the real threats arrive. They see a pitched battle and figure both sides are weakened. Losing, these villains signal their home base that a real threat has arrived. (Most likely the PCs will kill all these villains and not let a single escape, which means they can't tell their bosses that maybe they should let the PCs go by safely.)
 

*burrowing creatures: ie bulletes? purple worms?
*flying creature: i.e. come across a flying creature (chimera? dragon?) that is busy ripping apart a caravan for some food in one of the wagons with the requisite travelers who are part of the caravan who are injured near the wagon and need to be pulled to a safe distance?
*a horde of skeletons that are rising from under the plains as it was once a battlefield looooong ago... but what (or who) is causing them to rise now? maybe one of the PCs is the descendant of the people that was in this war and thus the skeletons are going after him/her. (okay corny but the point is, skeletons, lots of them, from it being the site of a battle long ago). But if it is a "who" that is causing them to rise now, that could give you a second encounter tied in to the first where just the skeletons are met
*a Piratecat?
*a giant, cyclops?
*marauders that use horses and archery? (<-- the least fantastical)

those are just off the top of my head. i admit that they aren't very well developed but something might spark a better idea in there...
 

My first thought was to go with horsemen/plains runners. Mix some barbarian/brutes in with some strikers who can take advantage of the terrain and have incredible movement. Using elves could be an interesting twist, basing them off some Native American cultures.


I also like the idea of burrowing creatures. With no trees or rocks to escape them, it'll be hard for the PC's to really be safe with an enemy always underfoot (literally).

Rock creatures or golems could also turn the terrain into a danger. The heroes decide to camp amongst some large boulders for the height of the day, when the sun is too much to bear. Huddled in the little shelter these rocks provide, they are greatly surprised when their shelter beings to... awaken? The largest rock they've settled behind is alive, and does not welcome intruders. They throw themselves into battle, only to discover as things wear on, the entire outcrop of rocks is actually a small colony of these creatures! One by one they awaken, and come to the aid of their wounded brethren.

Flying creatures make sense, but actually excite me less (personal choice). You could play up their arrival pretty dramatically, though. Perhaps the PC's are hunting some of the sparse game they are able to actually track on the plains, when suddenly all nearby creatures run for cover... what's causing this?
Obvious answers: Dragons, gryphons, rocs (or other giant birds)...
All good. But what about smaller threats?
Swarms of vicious, razor-beaked sparrow-type birds fill the sky. They weave and bank with perfectly synchronized timing, swarming one foe then flitting away before retaliation is possible. Their taste for blood makes them a feared predator on the plains, one the horses and other animals have learned to avoid. Your heroes, however, have not been so wise...

...or something. All depends who unique you want to make this. You could also do something simpler but equally different and have them run across a band of travel-wearied orcs or goblins (think the second Lord of the Rings). Out of place, and foreshadowing some of the same threats the players may have to face.

Trit
 

*a horde of skeletons that are rising from under the plains as it was once a battlefield looooong ago... but what (or who) is causing them to rise now? maybe one of the PCs is the descendant of the people that was in this war and thus the skeletons are going after him/her. (okay corny but the point is, skeletons, lots of them, from it being the site of a battle long ago). But if it is a "who" that is causing them to rise now, that could give you a second encounter tied in to the first where just the skeletons are met

Perhaps they rise up every night.

Two armies are locked in a strange, oddly formalized re-enactment of their final day.

Every night, one hour after the sun sets, the skeletons claw their way up to the surface to resume their ancient battle.

They don't fight right away- first there's the matter of digging through the churned ground for rusty helms, bracers, weapons and breastplates. The hafts of spears and every single bow are long rotted away, so the archers make do with simple clubs or thrown rocks. Someone always has to track down an arm or ribcage that ended up far away from the rest of his bones, and ally and enemy alike will join in the hunt.

When they're satisfied that they're not going to find any more weapons or bones, the armies start to form up. This usually takes another half-hour or so. Sometimes- no more than twice a year- a skeleton is found to no longer have enough pieces to participate, at which point both armies pause to hold a final funeral for the redeceased, whose animus passes on. The leftover bones are claimed by the most damaged soldiers who remain, if they have need of them, or tossed into the torn-up ground for later use.

Lady Kahech mounts her skeletal horse (it's her fourth- the legs are lost easily, so about once a century she has to take one from a subordinate) and is surrounded by two wings of light-fighters and skirmishers. Her forces ambushed the others, long ago, and they move onto a low ridge. It doesn't conceal them very effectively, but on the day of the battle it was covered with trees.

Commander Sarjahn gave up the ghost (literally!) within fifty years of the first re-enactment; the dragonborn always loved to lead from the front, and his bones continued the tradition. His second, Lieutenant Sorthe, is more cautious; she has more of her original pieces than Lady Kahech now, and occasionally jokes about it as the armies are (pardon the term) assembling. She mounts the bones of her great shieldcrown behemoth steed near the center of the column, which begins to march along the ground where not even a cobble remains of the old road.

The ambush is sprung, as it has been thousands of times, and everyone who ought to do so acts surprised. Then they settle in to the bloody (in a manner of speaking) work. Particular tactics shift over time, with the slow and irregular loss of numbers, the total loss of missile weapons and most steeds. Echoes of strategic skill spark inside broken skulls, seeking new variations that might have somehow escaped earlier iterations of the carnage.

They fight until one army is destroyed, or until the sun's light begins to bleed into the sky to the east. The latter is most common- there aren't any tricks left, it would seem, and the two forces can stalemate each other with exhausting ease.

The whole thing would be a simple wonder, something to watch from a safe distance and marvel at, if the opposing leaders were just a little more locked into their pattern.

Lady Kahech and Lieutenant Sorthe have spyglasses, broken spyglasses that still work for their eyeless sockets, and they watch the battle with care, seeking advantage... but they also watch the surrounding area, sweeping the corroded brass tubes across the horizon from time to time in case there's something worth seeing.

And if they see you, they're going to send a cavalry force to collect you.

They want new ideas, a more modern insight, interesting tactics they haven't heard of before. Fresh blood.

Inevitably, the first group of collectors will arrive just before the second, and both forces will fight each other for the chance to collect you. If you run away under cover of this clash, you'll probably escape without much trouble.

If you fight and destroy both squads, that gives you a brief window of opportunity... but the Lady and the Lieutenant will see you do it. And then it's time for a truce. Within a minute or so, they'll have diced for first choice of your party (using Commander Sarjahn's knucklebones, naturally, even if the Lady suspects they are somewhat partial to his own side) and both armies will move out together.

They know each other very well, and they can work together just as well when they have orders to do so.

You might beat a few more of them, and they don't have bows or spells, but there are hundreds of them for every one of you. Their cavalry will circle and cut you off. Their scouts will hide if there's somewhere to do it- and they can wait beneath the waters of a stream or bury themselves if it will give them a chance to surprise you. They're extremely well-practiced at digging themselves up, after all.

And if you're caught, you've lost a day at the very least, delaying your eventual arrival... if you're lucky and smart and skilled and strong enough to flatter, argue, confuse, sneak, and fight your way out of bondage.

Good news, though! They can't just kill you and bring you back as undead tactical advisers! There's a ritual involved, and it takes time to set up. They'll lock you up in a prison of bones, fashioned from all the skeletons you managed to smash as you tried to get away, and those bones will sleep (uneasy, but quiet) through the daylight hours.

And then the sun sets, your jail will unravel itself into your jailers.

Better be quick.
 

What lives in the area could be almost anything. It's a temperate area and the equivalent of early June in terms of weather. So, daytime temps can be highs from anywhere in the 60s to up to 90.

So, I'd say no desert creatures and no arctic type creatures. River monsters are okay as well, but not deepwater creatures.

I already have a cyclops encounter in the hilly/mountainous region, and the party just finished up with bandits, so I'd prefer something different.
 

*burrowing creatures: ie bulletes? purple worms?
*flying creature: i.e. come across a flying creature (chimera? dragon?) that is busy ripping apart a caravan for some food in one of the wagons with the requisite travelers who are part of the caravan who are injured near the wagon and need to be pulled to a safe distance?
*a horde of skeletons that are rising from under the plains as it was once a battlefield looooong ago... but what (or who) is causing them to rise now? maybe one of the PCs is the descendant of the people that was in this war and thus the skeletons are going after him/her. (okay corny but the point is, skeletons, lots of them, from it being the site of a battle long ago). But if it is a "who" that is causing them to rise now, that could give you a second encounter tied in to the first where just the skeletons are met
*a Piratecat?
*a giant, cyclops?
*marauders that use horses and archery? (<-- the least fantastical)

those are just off the top of my head. i admit that they aren't very well developed but something might spark a better idea in there...

good list I'd XP you for it if I could give XP right now. I'm not sure any group is ready for a piratecat, though.
 



While I don't know if its cannon, in my game goblins live in the forests/jungles, with gnolls living on their plains... giving their fast movement speeds (many of them are 8) this allows them to potentially chase animals like horses and antelope.

Oh, and @contraserrene, that's a brilliant take on the "ancient armies" theme - I've never seen it given so much personality and "life" before. I'd xp you if the xp system were still working.
 
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