Encounter Seeds

Every Encounter NEEDS

 * 1) The option for reinforcement in case the players roll over the encounter.
 * 2) Each round of combat should reveal something new, a new enemy, a new ability, or a new modifier on the battlefield.
 * 3) An alternate roleplay option to overcome the encounter, with just as many rewards as overcoming with combat.

Encounter Concepts
The Wizard's Loot - a chest containing hundreds of gold or platinum coins sits undisturbed in a wizard's tower/lair. If the party touches the coins, they shriek and scream and sprout legs and arms and run around the room. A wizard will appears and shout 'They were sleeping!' as he attacks the intruders.

The Treasure - A pile of gold coins so large that it occupies a 15-foot circular area, but the area is under the effect of an anti-scrying and invisibility spell that only makes gold invisible. This gold is cursed and anyone with a strong desire for wealth will be able to detect said gold at distances over several miles, as if under the locate object spell. Multiple parties will engage the party to obtain this treasure.

The Band of Orcs -A band of friendly orcs that are barely proficient in dancing and playing their instruments, as well as singing and acting.

The Ancestor - A skeleton made of an unusual material (glass/metal/wood) that requires some assembly. When assembled, the skeleton speaks as if under a speak with dead spell.

The Doctor - A Wizard who got caught in his own accidental magical paradox, and now lives for only five minutes before his memory and location is reset back to his original state.

The Armor - A large suit of full-plate armor that stands upright on its own and opens from the front sits wide open, ready for someone to attempt to don the armor. Once someone steps into the armor the suit will don itself to the person and will move itself with the person trapped inside, possibly injuring/cursing/mind-controlling them.

The Prison - A man with elaborate scars on his face and body, magical in nature. He claims he once had a demon trapped in his body, maybe he's telling the truth.

The Tarot - A monumental hall with endless rows of pillars, and otherwise completely empty save for one table with an old man wearing a mask, who insist that the players play a card game with him to decide their fate. he urges the players to leave but he is bound to play the cards.

The Plunger - sewage is backing up into the city, causing a horrible sight and smell. A minor nuisance until the sewage is discovered to be magical, and investigating the cause shows that gelatinous cubes are blocking the drainage pipes.

The Sacrifice - A cult gathers in the forest between three massive trees, sacrificing an abomination of a creature to sate the hunger of the forest. The cultists wear ragged sacs on their heads with deer antlers.

The Guardian - A wild animal with a magical halo around its neck, that keeps its distance from the party when they're in it's territory.

Forest shrine to deity that asks one question to each pilgrim, and rewards them according to its judgement.

The Medium - Crossing a lake/river through thick fog that makes visibility close to zero, this fog magically transports boaters to another plane containing endless seas and strange things in the water, and things poking above the surface, the PCs having to solve a puzzle to find their way out.

The Descent - A stone castle/fort with all interior rooms and floor collapsed, leading straight into underground crypt/dungeon.

The Purge - Crime boss who's gang has become to too large to control and manage effectively, requests the party thin out his gang's numbers without tipping that he's involved.

The Bottle Gang - Bootleg health/Magicite Potions being brewed by alchemist or street gang.

The Lost Collection -Collecting pieces of a puzzle to return to a genie or other magic being to trade for a boon or wish.

The Watchers - Faces carved into a stone cliff that spew magic/toxins/lava into tight spaces through which the party must travel, making travel difficult or impossible through normal means.

The Ghostly Merchant - A broken and rotting caravan cart pulled by ghosts, the ghostly driver sells rare and exotic wares. Buyer beware.

The Tangle - A swamp with an infinite number of undead grasping hands, or bear traps just under the surface of the water.

The Taint - Artifacts from the elemental planes have slipped into the mortal realm, altering regions of the land according to their magical natures/properties.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen - Dead humanoids/animals laying around watering hole, in various states of decay. Signs that a terrible creature comes through here, or lies in wait.

The Ground Rises - Stronghold being raised by earth or fire elementals in a random spot, where they are led by a powerful foe who claims the land as his own.

The Flying Sea -Airship full of water and merfolk, bringing the sea to the skyies to pillage and plunder ships, submerging and refilling water when needed.

The Shimmer - A pool of water that reveals a magical bridge made of the moon's reflection on the water at a specific time of the night.

The Traveling mansion - A mordenkainen's mansion that moves around the material plane.

The Emptying - A drained lake/pond reveals soggy tunnels that lead to a water creature's lair.

The Turning - An abandoned tavern or Inn that appears well-kept and fully stocked, but at night is inhabited and run by all sorts of undead.

The Remains - Exposed sewer tunnels and running water out of broken pipes, exposed due to a large explosion or magical teleportation.

The Deal of a Lifetime - A dungeon that has a merchant sitting out front - wanting to 'sell' said dungeon, promising all sort of treasures and uses for storage and operations. The price sounds too good to be true - because its just a regular dungeon full of monsters.

The Omen - Magical anomaly is revealed in ominous place/setting, calling followers a certain god to action seeing it as an omen/affront.

Saving Grace - A wounded angel enlists the party to retrieve it's stolen feather, which robs the angel of all of her powers and without it she will die within 2 days. The feather was found nearby and is being worshiped as a relic by the locals. Angel may or may not be a demon trying to obtain a powerful artifact to corrupt.

Fight Club - A ring that grants power by being within close distance of pain and injury. Owned by the ringmaster of a secret fight club.

He Who Crawls - A simple job to kill petty demons (or goblins) in a villager's basement ends in a large labyrinth dungeon where they are being chased by an invulnerable undead zombie, needing to escape.

The Bleeding Forest - A forest grows overnight, the trees look normal until cut, when they bleed dark red sap like blood.

The Lost Journey - A caravan arrives five years late, but their journey only took 5 days.

The Greatest - a renowned hero with a fragile ego was given a task that he is obviously incapable of but no one else seems to recognize it, the party must assist him with his task before its too late or before he fails.

The Sticky Situation - party is hired to clear a mimic infestation from a mansion/dungeon/etc.

The Game of Life - A game of chance where you bet years of your life for a chance at immortality.

The Elven Plague - a sickness spreads among only those with elvish blood, slowly becoming fatal.

The Missing dead - A local graveyard is found with every single grave dug out and empty.

The Deal - friendly vampires trade protection to a local village for blood donations, but are in fact also feeding a blood mage/ blood golem.

The Newborn Race - a oozes shaped like humanoids are being sighted and are attacking trade caravans and towns, can use weapons and armor and are highly intelligent.

The Book - the party finds a book with many broken locks attached to the binding. The book appears blank even when using magic, and then discovers that demons and devils of the nine hells have been fighting a war for eons trying to find it. The party intermittently finds pages and/or sections of pages ripped out even though no one has opened the book.

The Gift - the party is approached by a strange courier, who offloads a strange crate from his cart, and asks one of the party to sign, then rides off into the night never to be seen again. The crate is filled with souls in great numbers - the crate was supposed to go to a demon lord to power his weapon to conquer the nine hells.

The Orphan Child - an intelligent monster insists that the party raise their obviously monstrous offspring as a human child, and show them the ways of the human world. The child is exceedingly curious about humans and their ways and learns like a normal child, but it's intentions and the intentions of what ti will do with this knowledge is suspect.

The Storm of Births- a magical storm causes all pregnant women to go into labor, and every woman has twins.

The Mistake - one of the local thugs at the tavern is a noble's son who is to be wed to a local baroness to settle a large gold debt. He rebels against his arranged marriage by falling into a rough crowd under a false name. He and his gang of thugs cause trouble with the party one night in the tavern. If killed, his identity will be revealed instantly by onlookers and the party will be implicated and severely punished.

The Long Dark - The sun doesn't rise ever again after one arbitrary night. The party has to find out why.

The Summoning - There's a circle of strange mushrooms with a girl sitting inside it who is calling for help and insists that they tend to her wounds, though no wounds are apparent. Anyone who steps inside the circle of mushrooms will be compelled to do everything in their power to get others inside the circle (no save). The circle is a binding spell/marker that switches the minds of anyone inside with being attempting to gain hosts in the mortal plane, the girl is/was already their thrall.

The Old Standby - a low-ranking villain achieves invulnerability to weapons forged by mortals and goes on a villainous spree, a weapon forged by an immortal can be hard to come by, but one strike is all that should be needed.

The Melting Pot - a glass orb filled with treasure and horrible snake demons.

The Necessary Evil - a good-aligned cult sacrifices virgins to a long-dead god to prevent his return and wrath. Virgin volunteers are in short supply so kidnappings are seen as an unfortunate necessity.

The Pre-emptive strike - The headsman of a town asks the party to stop a rebellious group rising up in revolt against the oppressive king, since he suspects that the king will just wipe them off the map completely with his legions, taking much of the town with it.

The Silver Door - a dungeon dead ends in a room with a large door-shaped mirror, within which is a shadowy figure beckoning you forward, peering inside the mirror you can see doors and chambers beyond which dont exist outside the reflection.

The Vile Horn - a hag keeps a horn under her clothing, both her and the horn smell incredibly foul. The hag uses this horn to repel her misbehaving animal pets, who find the party right as they've slain the hag. blowing the horn requires a CON save to not be sickened and vomit, but if they don't blow the horn or fail their save, the animals attack.

The Race - a mud flat/marsh stand between you and your objective, but a rival party is also after your goal, neither party has boats or vehicles and mounts only get stuck in the mire. A flood is also incoming and threatens to sweep away the parties.

The Dark Paper - A book written by morlocks will blacken and burn if exposed to light. The party needs to find a way to read the book. Darkvision shows the pages as completely blank, possible solutions include alchemy to bring out the writing, a blind man who can feel the pages for the letters, or transmutation to turn the paper into a more stable material.

Paying the Price - A witch knows a secret the party must obtain, and she is willing to parley, but everything she desires is terrible and often disgusting. She will settle for nothing less than a rarity.

Tiptoes - the treasure is guarded by a deadly beast, but the beast sleeps almost all day and night, the party must sneak past.

The Benefactors - A dark cult of do-gooders conspire to do good in secret, looking as shady as possible. They worship a mechanical god who goes berzerk and murders everyone he can find if his cultist's work are significantly disturbed.

The Eternal Worship - A richly decorated temple has been abandoned for a hundred years, and is reported to be haunted, which keeps thieves away. The temple has a permanent portal that open to the Philosophical Egg of Croesus, opened by a priest long ago when he led the temples believers of the ascension of self through labor and artifice through the portal. The temple is kept in pristine condition despite no one ever visiting of occupying the temple.

The Sad Pumpkin - a tiny pumpkin keeps showing up near/around the party. It is so small and so sad. If they try to dispose of it, it will reappear. If they put it in their bags it wil disappear and reappear later. The only way to get rid of it is to cheer it up.

What Makes a Man - A trusted party friend NPC is actually the culprit in some very violent crimes. The party doesn't realize this until they catch them in the act, the NPC is under the effects of some powerful drugs slipped into their drinks at the local in by an experimenting amateur alchemist.

The Best Offense - an armored beast is entirely impervious to weapons, including magical ones. Defeating it may require more strategy than just brute strength.

The Telepath Caster - An illithid wizard has found a way to absorb spells directly from the minds of the party casters, and uses them against the party as soon as he can.

The Flammable Air - a mill run by sentient monsters makes crude flour but is in the air everywhere, any open flame will be disastrous for the party and the structural integrity of the underground mill.

The Perishables - A valuable store of precious metals cannot be moved from its store because its in very large pieces and the area is surrounded by benign oozes/molds/rust monsters in vast numbers that will overwhelm anyone and eat or destroy the treasure and only the treasure.

The Blight's End - The local crops have been all started to succumb to the blight, and the village risks running out of food after this season, unless the party ventures to the cultivist's dungeon archive and recovers the potato seeds that are resistant to all diseases.

Plots
A Dwarven mining caste finds a magicite vein and needs discreet assistance clearing out monsters due to the illegal nature of magicite harvest and trade, which they do not admit they will be doing.

A mask vendor has traveled into town during a festival and is selling masks depicting monsters, which are very popular. After 1 day, people start disappearing and monsters the masks seem to replace the people with the actual monsters they are depicting, and they are terrorizing the town. is the mask vendor controlling them or is someone using the vendor as a patsy for their nefarious deeds?

A young diplomat needs an impossibly rare substance to use in a potion that restores youth, and plans to use it to restore youth to his dying lover, an elderly woman dying of old age.

An ancient wizard who knew a powerful spell that the party needs was turned into a tree by a rival, the only way to restore him is to find his true love and steal a kiss. His known love interest dies over 100 years ago, and her burial place is shared with the party.

A dark lord / evil figure offers their help in destroying a rival dark lord, but that puts him at a significant advantage.

A shrine of murdered monks lies just off the road half a days walk from town, monk bodies everywhere. Inside the shrine is a small caged cat, a monk barely clinging to life tells the party that the cat is actually a demon and if not cared for like a prince, it will revert to its demonic form and wreak havoc.

The honor-bound orcs and alcoholic hill giant tribe are meeting to discuss a truce and plans to destroy the nearby town. This must be prevented, but their numbers are too great for a frontal assault.

To Sort:

 * 1) The Prophet of Vision: Has true sight (e.g. can see invisible, etc.) and has power over everything she can see. Is guarding something important. (So like... can only be hurt by stuff she can't see)
 * 2) The medusa has retreated to a room where she keeps SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS MONSTERS she has petrified. Kill her, and they will all come to life. But you can only get THAT THING YOU NEED if she is out of the way.
 * 3) The Tomb of Time: In these cursed tunnels, anything, or any external part of a thing, that moves faster than like a snail ages at a massively accelerated rate. Put simple, innocuous hazards like a 3m chasm or a muddy, steepish riverbank in there. Add gelatinous-cube like things, or timeless, magical beasts. Swinging a sword a few times means your arm emaciates etc. Also don't blink.
 * 4) Low ceiling'd cave, large pool of lava. Treasure is on the other side. Lava too hot, ceiling too low to climb over. Ropes, organic stuff, catch fire when close to lava for too long. Adding sufficient water to solidify the lava creates enough steam to liquify the people. Lava is sucky and sticky - even resist fire types likely to get stuck/drown.
 * 5) Any damage done to your evil double is doubly done to you. But the double has a tiny octopus in its stomach that is eating away at its insides. Your double cries in agony using your voice and prepares to throw itself in the sea to escape the pain.
 * 6) Halls of Forfeit: Each door requires the sacrifice of a living humanoid eye, hand, or tongue to open. Each door has a little grate so you can see what's on the other side. Each door automatically closes after 3 rounds.
 * 7) The Silent Grotto: The water and rocks here are arranged in beautiful, noneuclidean arrays. Any sound will cause reverberations that will destabilise, liquify or disinitegrate the source of the sound. Louder sounds are more likely to destroy themselves, tiny sounds may only cause mild damage.
 * 8) There is a sword in a stone that only the true king can draw, OH WAIT that whole family died because of an asshole vizier.
 * 9) Cross a moat filled with crocodiles.
 * 10) Symphony of Limbs: In a secluded chamber, The limbs of three hundred creatures play a haunting symphony on makeshift instruments of stone and bone. On a nearby throne, the Worm King schemes, writhing to the music. Anything hearing the songs will have their limbs slowly turn on them, one at a time. Enchanted limbs will do what they can, including separating themselves, to join the choir of limbs. Excess limbs in the chamber will defend from incursions, attempting to remove earmuffs and plugs and such, grabbing, tearing, bludgeoning...
 * 11) Mute room - no noise works in this room. Among other effects, characters (and their players) can't talk. Throw in a fight or a countdown of some kind so that they can't just take as long as they want writing conversations. And maybe something that they've gotten used to solving with a common spell.
 * 12) Important Quest Treasure was created in aeons past, before humanoids crawled from the dreams of animals, when Bears were Kings. Treasure can only be carried by a Bear. Bears want to keep the thing.
 * 13) Mud god. Stats as a level 3 fighter, can only be permanently killed by things that would kill a god. Everything he touches turns to soft, wet mud, eventually spreading to any wagon that he rides in. Bring him 200 miles to the king, who desires an exotic execution for his unfaithful, lowborn wife. The mud god is scared of fire.
 * 14) Only under the full moon, at midnight, will the Ghost of the Pheasant Queen of Charmingwood appear. In the ages since her life, the woods have grown older, and the stains of man and death have left their mark. At night, ten thousand undead sparrows hop, stalk, and wing through the woods. They do not accept the living in their wood, and they cannot be easily fought. They flee only natural sunlight, and will locate anything in the open in D100 seconds.
 * 15) A tinderwisp knows the secret to the thing, and must be taken to it. She is captive in a deep, dark place, locked in a crate. Any nearby fire will turn her to ash and smoke, dead, to be reborn in another age. Any nearby magic will release her to the winds and leylines, and she will be lost. (If fire or magic gets close, roll 1D100 - if the roll is > than the distance in yards, she is lost)﻿.
 * 16) The Akashic Stone: A simple stone, wrought from the fabric of time. Any who speak in its presence lose their memory, and will likely go mad. It is in a distant, dangerous place. A sage needs it to answer some question about something important for your quest.
 * 17) Curse Of Terror: Develop a phobia of the next thing you touch, or are currently touching.
 * 18) Harlequin's curse: Anything solidish (soup, but not beer) that you put in your closed mouth becomes a tiny jester or harlequin of similar size, and it is in the middle of a performance.
 * 19) Infernal Atrium: Any metal within these halls will turn to lava in D100 seconds. Also there is lots of fire and lava in here, and things that set wood on fire, etc.
 * 20) Rare and delicious honey with mild pyschedelic properties useful to magic types. Not only are the hives way up on a mountain (like these: http://www.espritsciencemetaphysiques.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/1200x6002.jpg) but the bees are insanely poisonous and aggressive.
 * 21) Half the dungeon is in the astral plane, and successfully navigating it requires moving around and manipulating objects in both planes. Guarded by scissor-happy monks looking for your astral cord.
 * 22) For every five feet you walk in this tunnel, you grow five years younger. The tunnel is 200 feet long.
 * 23) Your blood is replaced by liquid copper. You can bleed yourself for pocket change, and it "clots" faster, but you're being slowly poisoned and are even more conductive than usual.
 * 24) The inhabitants of this city recognize a friendly, normal dog as their king. The politics of the city revolve around what can plausibly be claimed to be the will of the dog-king. Attempting to influence the dog-king is a capital offense.
 * 25) After angering a trickster god, your party's normal spokesperson is unable to make an utterance without gravely insulting the listener. There's got to be someway to break that curse...
 * 26) Bards﻿.
 * 27) Flooded chamber filled with breathable fluid. (Torches don't work here.) You need to read some runes. The only source of light are some horrible anglerfish fuckers.
 * 28) King A has hired you to clear the field of suitors for Princess B, so Prince A can court her exclusively. You'll be paid handsomely once Princess B and Prince A are married. Halfway through removing the other suitors you learn Princess B and Prince A hate each other.
 * 29) You;re offered a job stealing sentient inanimate object out of a castle where everything is sentient (and vocal). Is it kidnapping? How can you avoid raising the alarm when the damn rugs yell at you and the chairs want to engage in debates?
 * 30) The map to the treasure of the Sierra Madres has been found! The finder has escaped from everyone who wants to kill her/him for it by taking sanctuary inside Doppelganger Abbey. You do have a flyer with his/her picture, though.
 * 31) You arrive in a city that doesn't exist on any map. The language they speak is unrecognizable by even the most intelligent of scholars. And it turns out this city has a taboo against nonverbal communication. Even an attempt at charades will result in horror, distasteful avoidance, or possible imprisonment.
 * 32) You arrive in a village you had just left yesterday. Nobody recognizes you. Everybody speaks a language you can't understand. The cats look at you knowingly. Every day there is a 50% chance that one of the PCs faces becomes (1: the opposite gender, 2: smooth as an egg, 3: elven, 4: orcish, 5: genderless, 6: a mirror). At night, the moon now has glyphs inscribed on it.
 * 33) Get a cat down from a tree without hurting it. It's on a tiny branch, too small to support a man's weight.
 * 34) Cast a spell that is only castable when in freefall. (At least 6 seconds of freefall.)
 * 35) The Iron Kappa Golem can only (easily) be defeated by spilling the water in its head, or else defiling it.
 * 36) The Holy Paladin can only be defeated once he (or his armor) is defiled by sin.
 * 37) Catch the dungeon snipe. It's extremely alert, runs away faster than you can move, and will not set off any traps. Other dungeon monsters will not attack it. At least it's no smarter than a typical bird.
 * 38) The important magical thing has been eaten by a regular duck and there are lots of ducks on the lake. You need it by tomorrow night.
 * 39) Get the treasure from the Hall of False Memories in the Dungeon of Circles. Avoid the ghostly horde of the legion of adventurers past. They run around the dungeon screaming and waving their swords and axes. As they are phantasms, they don't set of traps. They don't really notice living creatures, stuck in their own hell, but their weapons and trampling still cut the chords of life binding the living to the false illusion of the material world.
 * 40) This bad buy can only be permanently killed if its corpse is ENTIRELY eaten within 24 hours of its death. Most people are unwilling to eat this bad guy.
 * 41) In this dungeon, fire turns into poisonous black smoke (only illuminates 5') while noise causes the crystal walls to vibrate, creating illumination.
 * 42) The thing you need is too heavy to move by hand, and the tunnels are too cramped to fit a bunch of people around it.
 * 43) That bad-good penny can only be gotten rid of if it is willingly ingested by your nemesis. The bad-good penny, while possessed, gives immunity to disease, aging, wounds and death. But every 1d100 days one person close to you dies a horribly grisly and random death (no save). When there are no people close to you left, random intelligent creatures in your vicinity start dying gruesomely. Note that your nemesis counts as someone "close to you", so they may well die before you can get them to eat the bad-good penny.
 * 44) An anti-gorgon must be kidnapped and returned alive. If she is ever seen, she turns to stone.
 * 45) The dungeon-pyramid-castle was literally built around the platinum pyrocophagus of Mu Patuti. The platinum pyrocophagus is too big to take out through any one of the tunnels. Cutting it up destroys its magic.
 * 46) Inside a room, on a table, there is the thing you want. Anything that enters the room is reduced in size: -50% for every foot into the room.
 * 47) You must get Lucifer to wear this necklace. The necklace will hide its true nature from all of Lucifer's divinations.
 * 48) Bad Guy can only be killed by the Child's sword. Sword can only be wielded by a child (age 11 or less). There may or may not be a few potions of youth nearby (reduce your age by 1d20 years).
 * 49) The demon crown must be brought across the dungeon to the Slouching Forge. The demon crown possesses anyone that wears it (no save). The demon crown is capable of teleporting atop any head within 20'. The person wearing the demon crown has laser eyes.
 * 50) The entrance to this dungeon is underwater, and you must not get any water into the dungeon itself. The simplest way is just to hire a bunch of villagers to drain the swamp, but there are many other solutions.
 * 51) In this dungeon, if two people are ever in the same room, they begin taking small amounts of psychic damage each turn. Most of the monsters are immune to psychic damage. One monster is immune to everything except psychic damage.
 * 52) One of these villagers is actually a master swordsman. Everyone in this village is dedicated to hiding the master swordsman's identity.
 * 1) One of these villagers is actually a master swordsman. Everyone in this village is dedicated to hiding the master swordsman's identity.