Level Up (A5E) A few planar bleedthrough/manifest zone inspired exploration challenge/boon/monster signs

[tetrasodium]

I've been thinking about it since I mentioned it the other day in the exploration challenges/boons/monster signs preview thread & wanted to share some fun seeds for manifest zone/planar bleedthrough themed exploration challenges using genericized but thematic planes . Since I couldn't really get a grip on what specifically defines a challenge tier I just skipped assigning those. Since it's still really early I guessed at some possible boons involved with a few of these & penalties for failure.

• A plane of order or extreme law(daanvi)
  • A distraught family of farmers is pleading with a squad of mono/duo/tri/etc-drones or other agents of law in the process of uprooting their crops due to being planted with imprecise spacing in imperfect rows.
  • A a greenhouse is scheduled to be dismantled & by agents of law for the role it plays in subverting the natural order in order to grow out of season crops. Naturally the farmers who own it are eager to trade for help in the matter.
  • Local farmers teach a party member a ritual spell they use in crop fertilization & frost protection or hire the party in protecting them from a metal monster that invaded their homes last night. The Marut or similar chasing them believes the players are also involved in subverting the natural order. For extra fun minced words, a wide scale zone of truth is applied across the entire planar bleedthrough.
    • Whatever ritual spell they were taught need not normally be a ritual but casting it in this way takes a good number of hours & possible expensive components.
• A plane of bleak death & ennui(dolurrh)
  • Local officials are in need of support in performing a ritual on a local graveyard needed to prevent ghosts & sprits from claiming the bodies within so they could rise as corporeal revenants. The usual official who knew the rituals was killed & the books/dragonshards detailing the ritual are beyond the remaining oficials.
    • Players could wind up with anything from a newly risen wave of zombies & revenants to learning ritual version of a spell such as hallow not tied to any particular class
• A Plane of fire (Fernia)
  • Puddles bubble up from the ground
    • Geysers could erupt raining down scalding water while mephits elementals or similar cross through. A suitable nature or relevant planar knowledge check could warn of the possibility and allow for slow travel through the area while working to avoid areas more likely to be weakest
    • A hotspring allowing some/the recovery of fatigue & strife through a long soak in the pleasant waters is discovered
      • That hotspring may or may not be part of a small resort or similar bathhouse & the wards responsible for keeping dangerous elementals from crossing through may be damaged in ways that result in unpleasant encounters. Alternately the staff of that resort may be eager to hire players to manage the elementals abd/or repair the wards before a dedicated magewright can arrive to do a more permanent fix on the wards.
• A plane of chaos (Kythri)
  • An inverted or out of order rainbow may appear with an appropriate DC to notice & decipher the meaning. Success could indicate the presence of the planar bleedthrough from a plane of chaos.
  • Appropriate monstrosities are more likely to wander through the border between planes, they may or may not be a appropriate CR for the party & may or may not be hostile.
    • A passing beholder or similar arrives outside of camp telepathically carrying a large game animal such as a stag & offers to share his catch while sharing the party's campfire. For extra fun do this when a newer player is on watch & describe the monstrosity without naming it. Remind the more experienced players they are asleep whole watching them pale
  • Choose any weather related challenge to take immediate effect.
• A plane abound with unrestrained growth of nature (Lamannia)
  • Plants within the area grow in dense making it difficult to traverse the area. This may extend to the road if wardmarkers responsible for keeping the manifest zone are damaged or in need of repair.
    • A traveling merchant is willing to hire the players to extract their wagon after it became grown in overnight against megafauna. If this is not done quickly, players may themselves find their transport is also grown in.
    • A magewright offers to hire the players as guards against megafauna while he repairs the road's wardposts. He can't offer much, but he's going the same way
• A plane representing the desolation & still of cold
  • Weather is colder to the point of needing cold weather gear & sudden sleet, snow or blizzards can begin with little or no warning
  • Standing watch, sitting, or attempting to sleep without suitable precautions requires a dc ## con save to avoid gaining fatigue or strife(?). Failure by 10 or more causes a creature to suffer #d# points of cold damage from frosbite at the end of heir next long rest. Damage from frostbite requires a dc 15 nature check to notice before the end of the next long rest.
• A plane of war & battle (Shavarath)
  • Creatures are more likely to be aggressive at the slightest provocation &must succeed on a dc ## wisdom save to avoid flying into a rage when given the slightest reason to feel threat fear or provocation
  • An enormous curtain of whirling blades similar to blade barrier manifests & passes through the area
• A plane of Fey & stories (Thelanis)
  • One or more characters from a story or similar crosses paths with the players who find themselves caught up in the story. A seemingly harmless creature such as the drill sergeant's 91 year old granny stopping for a quick cup of extremely alcoholic tea before doing PT for fun to any children's story you can think of.
    • Players can become trapped in a pocket realm where the story is playing out until they can recognize & complete the story or put it back on the rightful track. objects of great power are common in stories, but more than one children's story tells the tale of an adventurer trapped in a story they couldn't fix after murdering hose playing critical parts.

 

[Morrus]

Since I couldn't really get a grip on what specifically defines a challenge tier I just skipped assigning those.

Those are just the standard four tiers of play in 5E. The challenges have challenge ratings like monsters do, but those four tiers help you narrow them down quickly.