Sword of Spirit
Legend
Random encounter tables seem like a great way to get players to encounter many of the monsters in the MM, especially the benign wild creatures like Unicorns that I would struggle to put in an encounter otherwise!
Out of interest, do you let the players see the random encounter tables you use? So far I haven’t shown my players the table (because there is no table), but once they get to a higher level and are able to take on a bigger variety of creatures I have thought about make the random encounter table public to them to see if it adds to the immersion of the world or not.
My players would be welcome to look at the tables, though I doubt they would be interested in doing so. Sometimes I tell them whether certain encounters they've had recently were from a published adventure or one of my tables for making "Interesting Encounters", because I think the tables work pretty well for making encounters that often look like something that's part of an adventure, rather than just a random thing you ran into.
For instance, the recent one with the criosphinx involved an encounter with injured creatures at the lair of another creature, with trees prominent, and an encounter distance of 60' visual and 120' auditory. (There was also supposed to be increased precipitation but I forgot that part.) That rolled up to be goblins at the lair of a criosphinx. So I rolled for the number of both creatures, then looked each up on my table of "Monster Relationships" which tells me what sorts of variants there are of a particular type of creature, as well as other creatures that are frequently their masters, minions, or associates. I decided that the 8 goblins had 5 giant rat pets. Looking up goblins in Volo's Guide to Monsters, I decided that one of them was a Booyagh Whip with max hp (12), and gave him a couple features from a third-party book with monster talents. I rolled in the back of the DMG for random traps and came up with a non-magical fire jet trap. I assigned a save DC and damage value following the updated guidelines in Xanathar's Guide to everything. Looking up sphinxes in the MM, I determined that the lair should be dedicated to a deity of some sort. Since the party was camping above ground over the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, I randomly rolled on a list of Olman deities, and came up with Coatlicue. So I decided that the lair was a shrine to her. I also rolled a random treasure horde for the sphinx (it just came up with some gems, coins, and a potion). I decided that the lair was guarding a portal, and rolled on my random portals tables, determining it was to Sigil, and operated only at certain times. I decided that the criosphinx would return to it's lair in 1d4 hours.
Interpreting that all together, here is what happened: The party heard goblins arguing in the distance. When the party rogue investigated she discovered there were 8 of them, with 4 giant rats, about 40' from what looked to be a passage into an earth covered structure, and 4 of them were burnt, and laying on the ground dead or unconscious. The party decided to approach them peacefully. None of them really spoke Common, but the leader knew a few words, and they were able to mutually agree not to fight each other. The party determined that the prone goblins were in stable condition. The leader of the goblins negotiated exploring the ruins and splitting the treasure. The party discovered lots of large lion tracks in the area, noticed the burn marks on from the trap (the rogue disarmed it), the roasted body of a giant rat and a serpent symbol outside the ruin. Intelligence (Religion) rolls failed to identify its significance. The group waited for the unconscious goblins to regain consciousness, but the sphinx showed up before all of them had. It moved to the opening of its lair, and asked in challenging manner what the group would sacrifice to enter the lair. They managed to talk their way out of it and beat a retreat into the jungle. After the goblins had recovered from their wounds, they split from the party and continued off to wherever they were going. Had the party entered the lair, I had decided that the corridor was longish and creepy and had another flame jet trap at the far end. It opens up into a large chamber with stone columns with more serpent motifs, and passages leading off in multiple directions. Entering them causes a magical effect similar to the maze spell, but where you only get a DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation) check once per hour to get out (the sphinx is immune). If someone knows that there is a treasure room in there, they can choose to get out into that room rather than back into the main hall. In the cave-like treasure chamber, in addition to the sphinx's treasure, is a natural arch-shaped depression in a wall. If the sphinx moves one of its horns (or the horn is removed from the sphinx and someone else uses it) into the depression in the first hour after midnight or after dawn, it opens a portal to the Great Bazaar in Sigil that remains open for the remainder of that time frame. On the Sigil end, the portal is in a back alley right off the bazaar, and there is no way to open it from the Sigil side.
I added the information on the lair into my Realm Works database so that if the party later feels a need to investigate I'll have the information on an interesting little site. Since access to known planar travel locations is important in this campaign, they might potentially hear rumors in the future of a portal at this site, and know exactly where to find it.
