The PCs befriend a dragon, who decides to start adventuring with them. At first, things go great– the dragon is an incredible ally.

Things quickly proceed down hill from there. The dragon accidentally toasts a cherished mount, demolishes buildings with its tail, and claims anything that’s valuable and not nailed down as its own (as well as quite a few things which are nailed down). Through it all the dragon is very kind to the PCs, for example throwing a feast in their honor (”borrowing” all of a village’s cattle and grains to do so, of course).

As you walk through The Dancing Wood, you hear a wind like a thousand whispers. All the trees are sentient and capable of both movement and speech, but they move at an incredibly slow place, dozens to hundreds of times slower than you or I. As a result, there doesn’t appear to be anything unusual as you walk through it, but if you go to sleep the trees will not be in the same places when you awaken, and no path is reliable for more than a few hours.

The wood is guarded by a circle of druids known as the Falashere. The Falashere druids prevent anyone from cutting down even a single tree, and any who try to do so are put to death. For the most part they try to stay hidden and watch anyone who enters the forest from afar, only making themselves known if it seems like a tree is in danger.

The druids also have mastered a ritual using a combination of meditative techniques and magic which allows them to slow themselves down to the pace of the trees, allowing them to commune with them. A single conversation may takes months in real time, and during that time the druid is completely helpless, essentially a statue.

Encounters in The Dancing Wood

Someone bought a map of the woods from a disreputable merchant and became hopelessly lost. The PCs must find the lost person, likely encountering the Falashere druids.

The PCs hear a legend that a mountain used to be very different than it is today. The trees of The Dancing Wood could confirm the legend, and tell what them happened to the mountain.

Announcing my latest creation, Treasure Trove. What Treasure Trove does is, simple, lets you find all magic items meeting a certain criteria (type, source and level range). Useful since there’s been quite a few new magic items released in Dungeon and Dragon.

Fun facts (based on current statistics and guaranteed to get out of date as soon as more stuff is added):

There are currently 239 distinct items. 63 of those items are not from the PHB.

There are a grand total of 830 items overall, counting things like Magic Weapon 6 times (i.e. +1 Magic Weapon, +2 Magic Weapon, … +6 Magic Weapon). Of those 830 items, 227 are not from the PHB.

Go give it a try!

Treasure Trove

Lexandr Ibanov was the definition of a self-made man. His mother was a prostitute impregnated by a sailor, and he grew up destitute in the docks district of Kardiev. He took up odd jobs around the docks as a child and eventually became a sailor himself. By the age of thirty, Lexandr had made a small fortune in the shipping business, and he used his wealth to expand his empire into several other trades. Today, Ibanov’s business has branches in every major city in the world and no small amount of influence in many governments.

At twenty-six, Lexandr married a prostitute he’d fallen in love with named Misty. Misty would end up giving him four children, all girls. Natasha was the eldest, followed by Tania and then the twins Rada and Raisa. Eventually Lexandr got a boy named Dmitri as well, from an affair with a woman who died during childbirth.

Over the past few years, Lexandr’s health has begun waning, causing a great deal of infighting as the siblings jockey for position as the heir to the family business. For her part, Misty seems content to party, get drunk, and bunk with whatever handsome suitor her affluence can attract.

Natasha, who grew up as the presumptive heir, is extremely jealous and fearful of Dmitri. She knows that her father was always disappointed in his lack of a male heir, and worries that even though the boy’s barely a teenager Lexandr may pass control on to him.

Dmitri feels little empathy towards his half-sisters. His father’s told him that he’s the son of a duchess, and he takes great delight in rubbing in the fact that his sisters are daughters of a common harlot.

The twins don’t care very much what happens to the business, so long as they’re taken care of. Where Natasha is a driven and ruthless woman, the twins are spoiled brats who take after their mother and want nothing more than a life of luxury and decadence.

Tania ran away when she was a teenager. Lexandr searched for her half-heartedly for a while, but in the end decided he didn’t miss her all that much. She was sick of living in her sister’s shadow, and decided to run away and make a new name for herself.

Encounters with the Ibanovs

One of the PCs becomes the object of Misty’s affections, and is showered with gifts. If he scorns her, however, she takes a grudge against him and does everything in his power to make his life a living hell.

Lexandr hires the PCs to find Tania. He’s become disgusted with the sycophants that surround him and believes that only Tania, who spurned him and his wealth so long ago, is truly fit to run the business.

Natasha and Dmitri each hire the PCs to dig up dirt on the other.

While the PCs are attending a formal party, the twins crash it and make a huge scene, flouting all senses of decency and propriety.

Fuller Murdoch wasn’t born with that name. In a sense, he wasn’t born at all, actually. though you probably shouldn’t try to convince his parents of that. Fuller, you see, is a warforged, but one in an unusual predicament. In addition to his warforged personality, he also has the mind of a former comrade-in-arms permanently trapped in his head.

Alton Murdoch and Fuller were soldiers in the Cormean army whose unit had been all but destroyed. Stranded deep behind enemy lines, the two were the only ones left, and had vital information. It took all their talent and ability, but they eventually managed to make it back to friendly territory, only to be ambushed as they were escorted to the capitol.

Alton prefers not to talk much about exactly how it happened, saying only that some “peculiar circumstances” allowed his life to be saved by being transplanted into Fuller. In thanks for making the sacrifice, Alton adopted Fuller’s name as his own. Fuller and Alton share control of the body equally.

After debriefing, they were judged no longer fit for duty and honorably discharged. With nowhere of his own to go, Fuller did not resist when Alton wanted to return to Kettlebrook.

It was slow and hard at first to win people over, even Alton’s family, but over the years Fuller’s become fully integrated into the small town. The tireless and resilient warforged body is excellent for working fields and performing other farm work, and every evening they entertain the local children with stories or war and heroics.

Encounters with the Warforged Lifeboat

Given the sleepy agrarian community he resides in, both Fuller’s race and his combat prowess should prove quite a surprise. Depending on the circumstances, he could be friend or enemy to the PCs.

Fuller seeks help from the PCs, as he worries about Alton. Lately he’s felt as if Alton’s grip is loosening, and fears that he might be fading away. The reverse could be intriguing as well, Alton worried that he’s fully supplanting Fuller and not wanting his old friend to fade away.

Something odd happened in the city of Ling’hurak one day: reapers started dying. The hive never reacted to the metatons’ destructions, at least not in any way visible to the squatters living there, but a reaper’s unmoving shell is a bizarre and unforgettable sight in the city.

The culprit is a peculiar reaper designated 12-8-x, though he prefers Marek. Marek is unusual in that he doesn’t actually belong to the hive– at least, not this hive. Cut off from the hive, he must steal other reapers’ power sources to sustain himself.

Marek is stuck– voluntarily– in a time loop. Even he’s not sure how many times he’s been through it; part of the loop involves overwriting his memory. He could have been through dozens of times or billions. He’s not even sure where he’s originally from; by all logic, he simply shouldn’t even exist. But exist he does, and it is his goal to make his existence count.

His ultimate goal is simple: to help protect, arm, and inform those who can destroy the motori when the time portal reopens and they return to Ling’hurak. He hasn’t yet been successful, but each time he gets a bit closer. He carries with him a spare core, into which he programs specific information and instructions to help guide him in his next loop.

Only the most important information is stored in the core. As a sentient being, if he were to maintain the same continuous memory throughout all of his time loops he’d quite literally go insane. Much of his knowledge is based on triggering events. For example, a particular chance encounter introduces him to his charges (the PCs, of course).

Shortly after meeting the PCs, Marek believes the housewarming protocol is about to be enacted. He hurriedly rushes them out of the city so that they might escape the reapers’ slaughter.

Eventually, when the city re-opens, Marek helps smuggle the PCs inside. He informs them of how to destroy the time portal and stop any further motori reinforcements; however, before they can do that, they must help him jump back in time. This will require resetting the portal to just a few weeks prior and swapping out Marek’s core with the spare he’s been programming from this time loop. Heading back in time at the last possible moment, he’ll never know if the PCs were able to defeat the motori or not.

It sits like a massive red boil on the landscape; a huge, red dome visible from miles away. Malus Mundi, commonly known as The City of Devils.

Malus Mundi is quite literally a little bit of hell on Earth. At its heart lies a gate to hell, and infernal creatures come and go freely, allowing them to enter our world. Thankfully, they cannot stray too far. While any mortal creature can pass through the red veil of the dome with no more difficulty than passing through a light curtain, the denizens of hell find it more solid than any wall ever built.

It is usually not advised for mortals to enter Malus Mundi, though they usually need not fear wanton slaughter. The fact that they can leave and return freely makes any mortal foolhardy enough to enter quite valuable to the wretched creatures within. Some mortals even have established permanent residences within the dome, though that requires the protection of a truly powerful devil to ensure that no “accidents” happen.

Encounters in The City of Devils

A farmer’s son, discontent with a rural lifestyle and seeing no alternatives, has ventured to Malus Mundi to forge a partnership with a devil. The PCs must stop him.

The PCs manage to earn the attention of two devils, who offer them jobs. Not accepting is not an option the devils offer; unfortunately, the two are rivals and working for either also earns the other’s ire.

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Here’s my Monster Maker, designed to help you create your custom monsters and easily format them in an attractive and authentic stat block.

While cleaning out his attic, a clerk named Arnett Quimby finds a large mirror. He decides to donate it to the city hall, placing it in the reception area. What he doesn’t know is that the mirror is home to a fae trickster which feeds on jealousy and love. It randomly chooses people who look into the mirror, and gives them visions of their one true love.

It also fills them with a deep obsession, leading them to go to extreme lengths to win their love’s affections. A few days after the mirror is installed, people all over town are going insane. Friends and siblings fight and sometimes even kill each other due to the madness.

Doing some investigation, the PCs might find out that Arnett’s uncle was killed when he was a boy in a duel for a maid’s honor, and his grandfather killed a man to win over his grandmother. Shattering the mirror will release the fae, which must then be killed or bargained with to release everyone from its glamour.

As the PCs explore a kobold warren, they encounter a long, thin hallway barely wide enough for a dwarf to fit through. Dark seams run along both walls a few feet off the ground, roughly at waste height.

When the PCs are about halfway through the hallway, a kobold on the far end activates the trap. Buzzsaws begin emerging from the seams long the wall, cutting at the characters. At the same time, more kobolds spring from hiding at both ends of the hallway and charge them. The blades are set just high enough so that they go over the heads of the kobolds.