Felspar Is Back With Another Potion Of Alchemy! Its (in Theory)stronger Than The Potion Of Minor Alchemy

Felspar is back with another potion of alchemy! It’s (in theory) “stronger” than the potion of minor alchemy in that it lasts longer and its effects tend to be more severe, but it’s not any rarer since it’s all just flavor, anyways.

Something this anon has wanted to explore many a time- an adventure wherein traditionally 'evil' creatures go through a reverse dungeon crawl- escaping the fortress in order to desert the Dark Lord's armies!

Campaign Starter: From Under the Shadow

No where to go but up

Setup:  More than a mere underdark fortress, Ykandri’s Shackle is a marvel of engineering and hubris that only the Duergar could have managed. Filled with visions of industry and conquest, the architects tasked with building a simple lift through a miles long fissure through the world below let their ambitions sprawl, becoming a make-work project for their subterranean empire and a monument to the pride of their succession of dour and powermad rulers. 

Like any expansionist Military power, the Duergar of the “Great-Chain” conscript their defeated foes and societal rejects to do the worst of the labor, toiling away to expand the warrens supporting the Shackle or fending off the beasts of he dark vastness that infest the surrounding caverns. This is where we find our party, the lowest of the low, captives bound together by their mutual desire for escape. 

 Adventure Hooks: 

While freedom is their primary goal, the party must keep up appearances and thier first mission will be a crawl through an mine and adjoining excavation site that has recently become infested with underdark pests. This will give them a chance to show off their characters and you an opportunity to hammer home just how miserable life on the Shackle really is. What’s more, having them return victorious and then being forced to hand over their gear and trophies under threat of lashes will set up great minor taskmaster/guards villains that they can avenge themselves against on the way out. 

Have them plan their escape like a heist, rolling out a hastily drawn sketch of the Shackle standing between them and nearby underdark portals. Lay out what sidetasks they may need to perform or challenges they’ll need to overcome to get the resources they’ll need for their escape.  

While preparing for their great escape, the party hear whisperings of  some tumult among the upper ranks of the Clan’s hierarchy, something to do with a prisoner and the overreach of the notoriously wicked spymaster. Leadership may shuffle from time to time but the lot of those captive in the Shackle never does. “ Different Boot, Same Neck” goes the saying... at least it does until a blinding burst of divine light suffuses the fissure and a band of high-level heroes from the surface world come to rescue that prisoner and bring the Tyrants of the Great Chain down in the process. Pull this trigger before your party is fully ready to escape, or just as things go righteously wrong after they’ve decided to attempt a more risky escape.  It’ll be clear they need to get out while the getting’s good, now having to sprint through a warzone rather than sneak through a prison. 

Portals in the underdark are tricky things, leading an escaping party to all manner of potential locales ( that they may might not know ahead of time unless they stole the right information). Maybe they’ll end up in a disused mine on the outskirts of a city of new beginnings, a far cavern trading post with fortunes waiting to be made,    a friendly settlement of exiles and make their reputation while defending its swampy borders. Perhaps somewhere even more strange? 

Operation of the Shackle:   The Shackle was built to ferry supplies, thralls, and soldiers en-mass across the great altitudes of the fissure, a task that could otherwise take days of marching or carting and be equivalent to descending a tall mountain. Instead, cargo is loaded from one level into an adjoining  fortified platform attached to the great chain, which is raised as the other side decends, until it comes level with another  platform. Cargo from one is loaded into the other, and then the mechanism reverses, sending the first platform down while the second platform ascends the way it came. By this way are the Shackle’s contents moved where they need to go by way of an overly elaborate, two way bucket chain, a process important to know should the party seek to escape their current level, or later should they wish to return to the site of their imprisonment and raid its ruins. 

Future Adventures: 

During the hatching of their escape plan, the party are slipped a few vital supplies by a drider merchant who did a little black market business on the shackle and took a shine to them in the process. Delighted to find the party no worse for ware ( despite possibly hopping dimensions) and that they’re now in a position to afford his more exclusive stock, the drider will be happy to send them on missions to fill their pockets then sell them things to empty them again. 

The Party and their favorite spider boy aren't the only survivors of the Shackle, as one of the mercenary captains hired to keep order in the prison fortress has made it out with a newly formed legion of followers, and is interested in carving out a new territory for himself that just so happens to include the party’s new home.  

It’s inevitable that the party left unfinished business on the Shackle, and some time into their adventures they may feel the call to return to their one time prison/home. Thoroughly in shambles after the heroes hit it with everything they had, the seat of empire has now become a patchwork of warlords fighting over the remnants of power, with vast stretches inhabited by the beasts of underdark attracted by the slaughter. Bonus points if the party runs into the pests they first fended off in the mines, grown in size, threat and swarming number without their population being culled. 

Adventure: Anarchy in the Royal Archives

Synopsis: If your party wants that critical piece of lore, they’ll have to help a gnomish librarian oust the malevolent presence that’s taken up residence among his shelves. 

Setup: Royal lorekeeper Nizburt Incunabulum has maintained a library in the capital since before the ascension of the dynasty that would grant him the title. For nearly three centuries Incunabulum has been a minor but steadying influence on the politics of the realm, as to weather threats that might destabilize a kingdom, rulers rely on the knowledge and histories of his archive to provide a solid foundation. Codes of laws, ethics, and philosophy can guide the ruler in making just decisions, while chronicles of past disasters and scientific progress can lead their kingdom out of any crisis. 

How unfortunate is it that in the hour when the realm is in most in need of his knowledge, Nizbut seems to have fallen prey some terrible and befuddling curse. 

It started, as it always does in a library, with the books. Often they’d be out of order, or stacked in piles in disused corners, or simply missing for long periods of time, just when Nizburt had need of them.  Then it was the creeping chill, an unseasonable intrusion that slowly developed into a pervasive mist that seemed to coalesce in the least traveled parts of the archive and spread outwards.  Most of these Nizburt could excuse as minor inconveniences, that was before the rooms started rearranging. 

Now the archivist is fighting a losing battle against chaos: climbing pillars of misplaced books in an attempt to return single volumes to their proper spot, or leaving string and chalk markings behind to  attempt to circumvent the library’s shifting floorplan. The librarian is sure something is tormenting him, personally, but has been unable to investigate the source of this haunting with his priority of keeping the books safe. 

Adventure hooks:

The party are minor members of the castle staff, royal family, or even Nizburt’s assistants, and thier first adventure together involves ridding the archives of it’s curse and rescuing the old man from being buried allive by his own precious tomes. 

A more experienced group of players may gain access to the archives as reward for their great deeds. A great honor on the surface, but one that turns out to be a hollow prize when it turns out the chaos in the library has been going on for years and the librarian hasn’t been seen for just as long. Really this was yet another royal mission, as if the players wish to claim the archive’s benefits, they’ll have to do the work themselves of excoriating the curse.  

Keep reading

It is believed that only the most twisted fey become bogeyman, as well as the victims they abduct; so long as they are male, can become bogeymen. The bogeyman looks like what the stories say he looks like. If a mother warns her son of a long thin man with knifes for hands who punishes rotten children, then the monster that appears before the child will be thin and tall with claws or metal daggers in place of fingers.

A bogeyman has its own preference for whether it's weapons are part of their body or held and this stays true no matter what the story of it is. Either way if it is slain it and any of its equipment melt into shadow.

They relish using their abilities to torment a creature, enjoying their growing realization that something is creeping nearby. They prefer lone targets as groups allow comfort to the victims, souring their taste. They only fight groups willingly if cornered or in their lair, where their victims and food sources are stored.

They usually haunt secluded locations but the most evil bogeymen are ones who become serial killers, tormenting entire towns and cities and feeding on the mass fear, in which case their powers grow but the likelihood that competent adventurers will find them rises as well.

Lair actions under the cut

Lair and Lair Actions

Bogeymen tend to haunt places where few people wander, like the abandoned shack just outside town, but arent shy of waiting under a bed or a closet. Once a bogeyman has thoroughly learned every inch of a building it can be treated as its lair, even while an unsuspecting family still lives in the house. Vermin, and spiders seem to show up out of nowhere, and the building becomes unsettling overnight.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the bogeyman takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the bogeyman can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

Any two creatures the bogeyman can see are assaulted by shadows from the corner of the room. provided the creatures are within 10 feet of each other and not in bright light they must make a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 15 feet towards the wall and be grappled until the end of their next turns.

A identical copy of the bogeyman forms in a point it can see within 60 feet of itself provided it and the point are not in bright light. This copy is physical but has 1 hit point, and can take no offensive actions but can pretend to. At the point of forming the bogeyman can choose to swap places instantaneously with its copy, forcing enemies to guess which one to attack. The double lasts until the bogeyman dismisses it as a bonus action, uses this lair action again, or dies, or the double takes any damage. In any case it shatters and disperses into its choice of vermin.

Shadows swirl in a 10 foot cube within 30 feet of the bogeyman, any creature in this area must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or lose all resistances until the next initiative count 20. Can be used on targets in any light level.

Regional Effects

The region containing a legendary bogeyman's lair is sullied by the bogeymans magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:

Creatures sleeping within or within 30 feet of the lair have difficulty sleeping, having a 50% chance to gain no benefit of resting in the area. Additionally these creatures lose their positive emotions over time.

Light sources dwindle twice as fast as normal, and if no creatures observe them for 20 minutes or longer they go out.

The air within the area blows with an unpleasant chill all hours of the day.

Creatures feel as if something is standing behind them breathing at all times.

If the bogeyman dies, these effects fade over the course of 1d4 days.

Toxling look the purple torsos of a large spider, lacking a head or abdomen, the underside is a pale almost white color.

They have excellent hearing and leap at any creature nearby as they can hear the blood pumping through them. Once they find prey they latch on and several stingers on the bottom of its body stab into the creature. Should it fall prey to their poisons they begin to slurp out the digested insides through a special mouth part in the center of their body.

Their carapace hides a thing layer of gases that isolate all sound coming from inside the toxlings body preventing them from interfering with the toxlings sense of hearing, however should this gas heat up it is violently flammable.

Even a simple looking vial can be a great asset to a young adventurer.