D&D 5E (2014) Ideas for an evil force trapped in rock
- Thread starter Agglomérante
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Agglomérante
First Post
Yep, but that wouldn't be imitating their former lives, which all these skeletons do, on auto-pilot. They behave like the miners they were.
I'll be running Ravenloft next, so a vampire is out (but yeah the stone would keep a vamp imprisoned).
Lich? I'd have to seriously weaken it somehow. Problem is, a monster that makes sense will blow the party out of the water. So I'm leaning towards artifact.
Then why do they need deathloks and wights supervising them?
Do they go back to their homes and pretend to eat food and go to sleep, and all of the other trappings of their lives?
Just curious. It just seems that if the skeletal miners are acting like in life, that it would go beyond mining and go into things like "going to the local market to buy food", etc. An entire village of skeletal workers would pretend to be actually living.
It could be a revenant or some lesser form of undead. Possibly an undead cleric whose god still gives him the power to animate other undead.
Artifact is good too.
The "Thieves Guild" series of books had deities that were super weak because they no longer had worshipers. The "Chosen" (i.e. right hand man) of such a being could be in a coffin, buried in the rock. His goal. Bring his master back into the pantheon of more powerful deities. But first, he has to get free. And he himself is super weak (at least compared to what he was millennium ago).
Mephistopheles
First Post
These would all probably involve a bit of a twist on your original idea, but you might be able to use something from them.
This first idea would be about on par as a challenge for your group and would be an open and shut plot.
Haunted depths
A ghost has a wrong to right in an underground site. It came across an evil necromancer (divine and/or arcane) somewhere not too far from the site and attempted to possess this person. It failed, but found an assistant of the necromancer to be easier prey. Using the possessed assistant as a proxy the ghost has been directing the necromancer to dig towards the underground site, and the necromancer is going along with the plan to see what benefit might be gained. If the PCs try to stop it, they might find a surprise when a ghost joins the necromancer in resisting their efforts. Alternatively, the PCs might be able to assist the ghost in resolving the matter that keeps it from the afterlife.
These others are on a higher level and would result in a possible plot arc if some buried evil or force is unleashed, or the PCs guarding a secret or if they manage to keep it contained.
Faith runs deep
A buried monolith that is host to the essence of an evil or elder god. Perhaps:
* the god itself is directing the undead in an attempt to free itself,
* a servant of the god is directing the undead to free the god,
* a servant of the god is directing the undead to free the god, but it's just a legend and nothing (or something else) is down there.
Success: the monolith remains buried, and the powers of the god remain dimmed. The PCs learn a secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the monolith is released and the power of the god will begin to grow. The PCs can't destroy the monolith yet, so they must flee and set about imprisoning the god again or find a means of destroying it.
It'll be just like old times
A former servant of the lich had thought its master dead, but encountered a demilich it recognised as its master. Since then the servant has sought its master's phylactery with the intent of feeding a soul to it to restore its master to lich form.
Success: the servant does not secure the phylactery, and the PCs likely learn the location of the phylactery of a powerful lich.
Failure: the servant secures the phylactery and will go on to feed a soul to it to restore its master. If they cannot stop this from occurring an ancient lich will return to the world, and the PCs probably have a new enemy.
Runs in the family
Long ago a company of paladins that fell from grace brought a reign of terror to a region. They were eventually defeated, only to arise as death knights and continue their campaign of evil. Even then, they were defeated but could not be destroyed, so they were imprisoned in a warded underground tomb. A descendent of one of these knights learns the location of this tomb and seeks to restore his or her ancestor, hoping to obtain power in the process.
Success: the plan is thwarted and the death knights remain imprisoned. The PCs learn of secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the death knights are awakened and the PCs must escape before they are fully revived. An old and powerful force of evil has been unleashed.
Bottomless pit
Not evil as such, but a contained portal to the plane of Negative Energy. Perhaps:
* the undead are simply drawn to the pull of the portal and seek to unearth it,
* someone is actively directing the undead in their task with the intention of unleashing the portal for some purpose,
* the portal will expand once its containment is removed.
Success: the portal is contained, but the PCs learn a secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the portal is unearthed and will slowly expand. The task switches to learning how the growth of the portal can be stopped or reversed to close it.
This first idea would be about on par as a challenge for your group and would be an open and shut plot.
Haunted depths
A ghost has a wrong to right in an underground site. It came across an evil necromancer (divine and/or arcane) somewhere not too far from the site and attempted to possess this person. It failed, but found an assistant of the necromancer to be easier prey. Using the possessed assistant as a proxy the ghost has been directing the necromancer to dig towards the underground site, and the necromancer is going along with the plan to see what benefit might be gained. If the PCs try to stop it, they might find a surprise when a ghost joins the necromancer in resisting their efforts. Alternatively, the PCs might be able to assist the ghost in resolving the matter that keeps it from the afterlife.
These others are on a higher level and would result in a possible plot arc if some buried evil or force is unleashed, or the PCs guarding a secret or if they manage to keep it contained.
Faith runs deep
A buried monolith that is host to the essence of an evil or elder god. Perhaps:
* the god itself is directing the undead in an attempt to free itself,
* a servant of the god is directing the undead to free the god,
* a servant of the god is directing the undead to free the god, but it's just a legend and nothing (or something else) is down there.
Success: the monolith remains buried, and the powers of the god remain dimmed. The PCs learn a secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the monolith is released and the power of the god will begin to grow. The PCs can't destroy the monolith yet, so they must flee and set about imprisoning the god again or find a means of destroying it.
It'll be just like old times
A former servant of the lich had thought its master dead, but encountered a demilich it recognised as its master. Since then the servant has sought its master's phylactery with the intent of feeding a soul to it to restore its master to lich form.
Success: the servant does not secure the phylactery, and the PCs likely learn the location of the phylactery of a powerful lich.
Failure: the servant secures the phylactery and will go on to feed a soul to it to restore its master. If they cannot stop this from occurring an ancient lich will return to the world, and the PCs probably have a new enemy.
Runs in the family
Long ago a company of paladins that fell from grace brought a reign of terror to a region. They were eventually defeated, only to arise as death knights and continue their campaign of evil. Even then, they were defeated but could not be destroyed, so they were imprisoned in a warded underground tomb. A descendent of one of these knights learns the location of this tomb and seeks to restore his or her ancestor, hoping to obtain power in the process.
Success: the plan is thwarted and the death knights remain imprisoned. The PCs learn of secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the death knights are awakened and the PCs must escape before they are fully revived. An old and powerful force of evil has been unleashed.
Bottomless pit
Not evil as such, but a contained portal to the plane of Negative Energy. Perhaps:
* the undead are simply drawn to the pull of the portal and seek to unearth it,
* someone is actively directing the undead in their task with the intention of unleashing the portal for some purpose,
* the portal will expand once its containment is removed.
Success: the portal is contained, but the PCs learn a secret that will need to be guarded.
Failure: the portal is unearthed and will slowly expand. The task switches to learning how the growth of the portal can be stopped or reversed to close it.
Agglomérante
First Post
I got two mining job titles from the DMG's beautiful "Chamber Purpose" table for rooms in a mine: "supervisor" and "manager" (p.293). I translated those into deathlocks and wights.
I got into a bit of that, but I like your idea of a whole community. This is all I've got in my notes on the skeletons:
Skeletons go about their business in the presence of the characters, unless attacked in which case they engage with picks (1d4 damage). Skeletons will only initiate combat with the characters once commanded by a wight or deathlock.
- They work 8-hour shifts, just like they did. Three crews rotate.
- They eat in a mess hall, a cook prepares meals. It's all mime.
- They play musical instruments and dance
- They lie in bed for 8 hours at a time (in shifts)
- There are three locked trunks at the base of each bed, inside of which are 500-year-old mementos from their past lives. Trinkets, but a conspicuous absence of religious iconography.
Mithral picks, hammers, chisels and shovels (there's a surplus of mithral)
A lich as an old-school high-level cleric, its body trapped forever in rock and its mind roaming the outer planes via astral projection. I looked up the spell and you're only called back to your body when it reaches 0 hit points. It says nothing about any sort of notification to the mind that the body is in peril!
A cleric lich is on the front burner now.
I know, right? But then there's an evil artifact needing to be destroyed.
Why flirt with the "Chosen" when we've got a super weak deity? What about a gargantuan creature, still trapped in the rock, but so massive it will take several days to free? ... requiring an epic, Heavy-Metal-scale-fantasy hole dug deep under the crust of the earth? fyi, according to the AD&D DMG, in 500 years, 30 dwarf skeletons can dig 191,625,000 cubic feet, or a 10' x 10' tunnel 33.72 miles long
I'd love to hear some more of your ideas! Have a look at the thread I started, Expanding Wave Echo Cave to bring PCs to 6th level, where various folks more clever than I have pitched ideas
Agglomérante
First Post
Where'd you learn the technique to frame scenarios with success and failure? I love it!
Those are really elegant ideas. I'd use "Bottomless Pit" if I weren't running Ravenloft next.
I've actually thought of using a Ghost to seed a few important details about the mine operation and the NPCs' plot before the PCs step into the mine. It'll take possession of a character and answer questions and generally be eerie.
First off, I really dig the word "monolith" and love the visuals, but it doesn't sound portable! I'm leaning strongly towards an artifact that holds essence of an evil, forgotten god. The problem with the failure scenario is it's like jumping into a PhD without thinking it through -- I'll be with this campaign story for years, I'd better be sure I like it!
Your first two bullets are my default scenario, with the god(ling) directing the action from his tomb. The servants of the god directing the undead are my four all-star wights:
- Goudy Whyhelm Trifeelix, gnome wight, alchemist, gemologist and former wizard. Eyes of minute seeing, for his laboratory work
- Rivvus Argustus, dwarven wight, foreman and warlock. Belt of Dwarvenkind. Plate armour, if time (10 minutes to don)
- Bruenig Doon, human deathlock, former cleric of the deity of mining. Bruenig forsook his deity upon rising from the dead and leads prayers to the Power. Plate armour, if time (10 minutes to don)
- Kunther Asternax Jax, dwarven wight, the mine smith. Responsible for repairing tools and manufacturing mithral ingots. Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Shadowdweller00
Hero
An alternate idea - feel free to use or modify as you see fit:
Wave Echo Cave: The spellforge in the cave is actually powered by magical energy syphoned off from a sentient evil artifact buried in the rock nearby. Beyond canon - the facility was formerly seized from a group of duergar who contructed the original artifact. The undead in and around the cave have been crudely directed by the artifact to dig it out from the rock. (Which would have the unintended consequence of destroying the spellforge). The artifact can only exert very crude control over the undead, so their mining efforts have been largely haphazard and ineffective. Nevertheless, a seam is now discernible somewhere in the cave where picks have unearthed a different type of rock. This area should be visible to exploring PCs, and radiate an eerie phosphorescence and warmth to clue in the PCs as to something being there. A faint spot should detect as very strongly magical somewhere beyond the rock.
The Artifact: Ages ago, duergar bound the soul of a fiery, demonic entity into an iron crown...intending to use the soul of this creature to power magical enchantments imbued into this item. The crown, however, retained some of the creature's sentience and was able to manipulate the duergar so as to cause their eventual demise. The crown remains buried in a small bubble of lava encased in rock nearby one of the mine walls. The crown itself appears to made of black iron set with three rubies that pulse with a blood-red light (radiates light within a 10 foot radius). Aside from the rubies the crown is mostly unornamented, but twisted dwarven runes wind in spirals around the circlet. Inscribed behind one of the rubies is the true name of the bound entity - Nokhthwar - but the name cannot be read or perceived unless the crown is dismantled or destroyed.
Powers: Anyone attuned to the crown who wears it gains resistance to fire. The crown can also has a store of 10 charges that can be used to draw forth flame. One charge can be used to cast Burning Hands (as a 1st level spell), and two can be used to cast Scorching Ray (as a second level spell). The crown recharges 1d6 + 1 charges per day. However - the crown also has some side effects which cannot be discerned by normal identification due to interference by the animating entity, Nokhthwar. The crown emits a subtle call that cannot be perceived by the living but is magnetic to undead. Any undead within a 1 mile radius are alerted to the presence of the wearer and mindless undead find themselves inexorably drawn to the area. This will result in the wearer facing large numbers of undead. The entity, Nokhthwar, is presently starved for power but has the ability to feed off the souls of sentient creatures that are slain by the wearer. As Nokhthwar feeds, it becomes increasingly able to exert its will on undead within a 30 foot radius as well as its wearer...manifesting first as a suggestion-like ability that places the victim into a trance-like state as it carries out said suggestion for a short-ish period of time. If the crown gains enough power, it can control one victim like a puppet (as per Dominate Person). Neither of these abilities can be used more than once per 24 hour period. The crown does not wish to reveal itself and so tries to be subtle about its attempts at manipulation
The Entity: The demonic entity powering the crown wishes primarily to escape. The bindings which hold the entity, however, can only be destroyed if the crown is ingested by a legendary white dragon. Although the crown itself can be disassembled if exposed to powerful, supernatural cold - in which case the entity remains bound in the largest of the three rubies (the one inscribed with its true name). So the crown's ultimate goal is to manipulate its wearer into being devoured, whole, by such a dragon. Nokhthwar considers itself to be vastly superior to mortals and never tries to directly communicate with them. It is not, however, above attempts to manipulate people by influencing its wearer or nearby undead into writing or uttering cryptic prophecy-like verses that might direct its bearer where it wishes them to go and to what end. In its present state, Nokhthwar has the ability to effectively see and hear within 30 feet of the crown...but lacks the ability to read minds, making effective manipulation somewhat of a challenge. It can't see through solid rock...which is one of the reasons it has been trapped for centuries as it tries to influence undead to free it. The creature enjoys and feeds off death and destruction but does not wish to risk trapping itself, so generally confines its influences to small-scale mayhem that does not risk destruction of large populated areas. Because its influence is limited, the crown wishes to find a host that is brave and foolhardy enough to challenge a legendary white dragon - but not one that is wise or educated enough to recognize the artifact for what it truly is (let alone one powerful enough to actually KILL a legendary white dragon). The crown does not presently know where to find a white dragon, and so will need to manipulate its wearer into seeking out the necessary information for it.
Wave Echo Cave: The spellforge in the cave is actually powered by magical energy syphoned off from a sentient evil artifact buried in the rock nearby. Beyond canon - the facility was formerly seized from a group of duergar who contructed the original artifact. The undead in and around the cave have been crudely directed by the artifact to dig it out from the rock. (Which would have the unintended consequence of destroying the spellforge). The artifact can only exert very crude control over the undead, so their mining efforts have been largely haphazard and ineffective. Nevertheless, a seam is now discernible somewhere in the cave where picks have unearthed a different type of rock. This area should be visible to exploring PCs, and radiate an eerie phosphorescence and warmth to clue in the PCs as to something being there. A faint spot should detect as very strongly magical somewhere beyond the rock.
The Artifact: Ages ago, duergar bound the soul of a fiery, demonic entity into an iron crown...intending to use the soul of this creature to power magical enchantments imbued into this item. The crown, however, retained some of the creature's sentience and was able to manipulate the duergar so as to cause their eventual demise. The crown remains buried in a small bubble of lava encased in rock nearby one of the mine walls. The crown itself appears to made of black iron set with three rubies that pulse with a blood-red light (radiates light within a 10 foot radius). Aside from the rubies the crown is mostly unornamented, but twisted dwarven runes wind in spirals around the circlet. Inscribed behind one of the rubies is the true name of the bound entity - Nokhthwar - but the name cannot be read or perceived unless the crown is dismantled or destroyed.
Powers: Anyone attuned to the crown who wears it gains resistance to fire. The crown can also has a store of 10 charges that can be used to draw forth flame. One charge can be used to cast Burning Hands (as a 1st level spell), and two can be used to cast Scorching Ray (as a second level spell). The crown recharges 1d6 + 1 charges per day. However - the crown also has some side effects which cannot be discerned by normal identification due to interference by the animating entity, Nokhthwar. The crown emits a subtle call that cannot be perceived by the living but is magnetic to undead. Any undead within a 1 mile radius are alerted to the presence of the wearer and mindless undead find themselves inexorably drawn to the area. This will result in the wearer facing large numbers of undead. The entity, Nokhthwar, is presently starved for power but has the ability to feed off the souls of sentient creatures that are slain by the wearer. As Nokhthwar feeds, it becomes increasingly able to exert its will on undead within a 30 foot radius as well as its wearer...manifesting first as a suggestion-like ability that places the victim into a trance-like state as it carries out said suggestion for a short-ish period of time. If the crown gains enough power, it can control one victim like a puppet (as per Dominate Person). Neither of these abilities can be used more than once per 24 hour period. The crown does not wish to reveal itself and so tries to be subtle about its attempts at manipulation
The Entity: The demonic entity powering the crown wishes primarily to escape. The bindings which hold the entity, however, can only be destroyed if the crown is ingested by a legendary white dragon. Although the crown itself can be disassembled if exposed to powerful, supernatural cold - in which case the entity remains bound in the largest of the three rubies (the one inscribed with its true name). So the crown's ultimate goal is to manipulate its wearer into being devoured, whole, by such a dragon. Nokhthwar considers itself to be vastly superior to mortals and never tries to directly communicate with them. It is not, however, above attempts to manipulate people by influencing its wearer or nearby undead into writing or uttering cryptic prophecy-like verses that might direct its bearer where it wishes them to go and to what end. In its present state, Nokhthwar has the ability to effectively see and hear within 30 feet of the crown...but lacks the ability to read minds, making effective manipulation somewhat of a challenge. It can't see through solid rock...which is one of the reasons it has been trapped for centuries as it tries to influence undead to free it. The creature enjoys and feeds off death and destruction but does not wish to risk trapping itself, so generally confines its influences to small-scale mayhem that does not risk destruction of large populated areas. Because its influence is limited, the crown wishes to find a host that is brave and foolhardy enough to challenge a legendary white dragon - but not one that is wise or educated enough to recognize the artifact for what it truly is (let alone one powerful enough to actually KILL a legendary white dragon). The crown does not presently know where to find a white dragon, and so will need to manipulate its wearer into seeking out the necessary information for it.
Last edited:
Mephistopheles
First Post
Thanks. I adopted this approach from choose your own adventure books as a means to brainstorm alternative outcomes for scenarios and adventures. This was a response to the players in one of my early role playing groups complaining (constructively) that the game felt a bit linear and was dependent on them succeeding all the time; they wanted to see some situations where they might fail at a pivotal moment and this would then develop into something else.
The monolith idea was inspired by the Dominions series of strategy games (one of my favourites, created by Illwinter). I did think of the mobility option (this is also a consideration in the strategy game), but it's possible it could move, or be moved, somehow - perhaps when its power had sufficiently grown. But yes, I agree the failure option there would probably kick off events of campaign changing significance. You could instead have the monolith be host to something on a smaller scale that attempts to escape by possessing someone that touches it; or it could be a sentinel of some kind, perhaps a few of them need to be unearthed to trigger an event and a cult is working towards that end.
MonsterEnvy
Legend
To be correct on Skeletons when not commanded to do something they tend to do a thing that they did while alive repeatably until they sense a living thing. Then the unlife powering them compels them to kill the living thing before it goes back to it's meaningless tasks.
Pretty much unless told to work by the Wights commanding them the skeletons would try to kill the characters upon learning of their presence.
Pretty much unless told to work by the Wights commanding them the skeletons would try to kill the characters upon learning of their presence.
aramis erak
Legend
It's not a rock - it's a bound elemental. And not an Earth Elemental... A solidified Air elemental or fire elemental.
It's not so much evil, as just frustrated, stuck in solid form, yet conscious... and been there for years. And it's going to lash out when released, for weeks... it's bound until touched by an undead, or returned home...
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