Threats around and under Grendel's pond

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

(Midwood players, shoo.)

My players will soon be plunging into (and under) a pond loosely based on Grendel's pond in Beowulf. Two scrags (mother and son) will be waiting for them in air-filled caves below, but I want to give the crew a fight before they deal with the (very real at low levels) barrier of swimming down under a pond.

I'm going to be hitting them with a piranha swarm outside the cave entrance, but I'd like the adventurers to have some fights prior to that. Their last adventure was made up of just a few hard encounters, and while they were fun, at least one of the players has expressed his desire for more XP, and for the adventures to come, they could surely use another level or two. They're overloaded with healing (two clerics and a druid in a party of five), so expending all their resources on healing isn't much of a problem.

Any suggestions for thematic filler encounters in and around a "Grendel's pond" sort of environment?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Sea snakes.

A merrow butler.

Venomous giant clams.

Grappling sea fans.

 

[Crust]

Perhaps a team of rival hunters from a nearby mead hall. The two parties can either join forces or fight over the right to plunge into the pond.

Beyond that, I'd suggest a swarm or some intelligent plant or fungus. Maybe some stirges, some large spiders, centipedes, or scorpions. Perhaps a pathetic rabble of goblinoids or kobolds guards the pond.

 

[Wik]

A zombie, suspended against a tree - nailed into it, in fact. It speaks to the party, in goblin (it's a goblin zombie), and taunts them on the deaths they are about to face. (I stole the scene... thanks Dungeon!)

Why not hit the group with a few lovely pit traps and the like? Once they're hit by one or two, you could have them encounter goblins and the like that have fallen prey to these traps. And you should definately throw at least one head on a pike. AT LEAST one.

Or you could use my favourite monster of all time - the Squealer (from the 1e MM2 - I think it got updated in the Tome of Horrors or somesuch). It's a great surprise monster, and I'm sure none of your players will have any idea what the thing is.

 

[Enkhidu]

Why not go the whole 9 yards and have the ruins of a giant's citadel, complete with armory?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why not go the whole 9 yards and have the ruins of a giant's citadel, complete with armory?

It's tough to fit under a pond, for one.

 

[Enkhidu]

It's tough to fit under a pond, for one.

True enough. I just always pictured the hall under Grendel's mere as one built for and by giants (ones that degenerated into Grendel and his mother maybe?). That, and the poem mentions "sea beasts" that harried Beowulf as he was dragged to the bottom - that seems to indicate that the mere was rather deep, at least.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm, that's true. Interesting idea. I'll think about if that's adaptable to my setting.

 

[demiurge1138]

I always heard the "sea beasts" as "serpents and linnorms". So huge constrictors? Half-dragon vipers? Maybe even a black wyrmling or two.

Demiurge out.