Seasonal Themed Monsters

[Grogg of the North]

In the game I'm running, my PCs are going attempting to reclaim a staff for some druids. Doing so will help the fighter overcome the curse he received when he angered The Woodsie Lord (a nature, trickster deity in my game).

What I would like to do is when the players go to reclaim the staff they have to pass through each of the seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. Each season would have its own guardian that is appropriately themed. I'd also like to have the season play into each encounter too. Driving snow in winter, thunderstorms in the summer, um ... big leaf piles in the fall?

Now I've searched through MM 1 and 2 and BoED but I haven't found anything that really fits for what I want.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Either homebrew or from another book I haven't checked. One of my players has almost every 3.5 book so I could borrow them.

If it helps, my party is level 12 and consists of a warlock, a fighter, and a cleric.

Thanks!

 

[kitcik]

Spring:

 

[steeldragons]

If you want a general theme to each season I'd say go with something aking to the following:

Spring: Fey realm. Pixies, Sprites...maybe satyrs, redcap goblins for some nasty critters. Maybe their entrance into the "spring realm" causes them all to shrink to "fairy-size". So things like giant toads become a real threat (swallow you whole, ya know?), giant snakes, bears or foxes (or dire wolves) who have recently given birth and are protecting their den (mothers protecting young are extra nasty/will probably fight to the death). Throw in some water creatures (April showers and all of that): playful (or enslaved?) nixies, maybe a kelpie (always nasty).

For a "guardian", if you want combat to be the way through, maybe some kind of monstrous centaur? Or, if combat doesn't have to be the answer, a fey/elvin princess (fairy queen type figure) or some such who they can "make a deal" with instead of having to fight her.

In general, an "easy" level to get through. Lull the characters into a sense of "OH we can do this no problem."

Summer: The pinnacle of "sun, heat and life". Moving out of the fey realm (or just a more "summery realm with in?). Carnivorous vegetaion, some kind of representative (mortal or otherwise) of your world's Sun deity (maybe they need help or maybe they are not as "nice and good" as the PCs might be expecting), sandy/beach areas (giant crabs? or Crabmen/demons, dragon turtle?, sea serpent who comes up on the beach to feed), air (very HOT air) elementals, or lightning elementals/demons (for those summer thunderstorms).

For a "guardian" figure here, given the level of your characters, I'd go with a fully matured Green Dragon. Again, they can fight or try to talk their way through.

Fall: The harvest, the waning of the year, the encroaching of darkness. I would goo all out "Halloween" realm here. Living scarecrows, crows everywhere (there was a 3rd party adventure who's name I don't recall had a nasty variant called "blood ravens" or something like that.), full on undead (everything from hordes of skeletons or zombies to wights and spectres, and/or shadow creatures.

A guardian here...maybe a "death knight" reskinned a la a "Headless Horseman" kind of figure who is the master/commander of all of the other undead in the realm. Or a vampire lord who serves the same role. Talking your way through this realm is not likely...also lending to the general theme of the "year"...spring and summer should be "pleasant"/not so difficult, fall more so difficult/forboding and winter should be hard.

Winter: For the winter realm, the books are exploding with possibilities: hoar foxes, winter wolves, Frost giants, ice elementals, white dragons, pick the cold/ice themed monsters of your choice and go nuts.

The guardian here, probably I'd go with a Frost Giant king/kingdom, some kind of Ice-themed very powerful devil or demon...or you could carry through the "fey" aspect from the beginning and have an evil/cold/winter anti-fairie queen (the spring fey queen's evil sister or some such).

Also, frostbite, snow blindness and continuous cold damage from the unending blizzards should be strong environmental hazards here, moreso than the environments of the other seasons (unless you want to go blistering hot in the summer realm).

Cool concept though and look forward to hearing what you decide on.

Have fun and happy gaming.
--Steel Dragons

 

[xigbar]

Check out Sandstorm, Frostburn, and Stormwrack, the environment books.