In today’s installment of Dynamic Domains, it’s time for some spelunking as I brainstorm features to make your subterranean combats more interesting.
Stalactites & Stalagmites: If you ever forget which is which, a good mnemonic (in English, at least) is the ‘c’ or ‘g’ in the middle of the two structures’ names. Stalactites hang from the [...]
A wizard named Thorin built a tower in the middle of a forest to study his arts in seclusion. Thorin loved dogs, and brought many of them along with him. At some point, he created a spell to uplift all the dogs, giving them rudimentary intelligence and the ability to speak.
Thorin is long dead, but [...]
A massive beehive, bloated with tens of thousands of the venomous little insects, hangs precariously from a tree branch.
Description: The hive is an active* feature suitable for forests, plains, ruins, and other places a hive of bees or other insects might be found.
Setup: Try to place the hive somewhere which combatants are likely to pass [...]
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 [...]
The PCs are scientists working for the US government in the years building up to World War II. Hitler has just come into power, and is not quite yet seen as the threat he truly is. The US government discovers strange radio signals coming from deep in the Amazon rainforest, and sends the PCs along [...]
A tribe of barbaric elves inhabit the forest of Mosh’tardin. They worship a silver-pawed ape god named Magdar, but this worship is almost responsible for wiping them out. Mosh’tardin is inhabited by another tribe, you see, a group of humans who also worship Magdar. They believe Magdar to be a bear with an adamantine paw, [...]
Sentry mushrooms are a small, pale blue fungus which grow well in dark, damp conditions. They get their name from the peculiar effect their spores have; those who breathe the spores of a sentry mushroom find themselves wracked with involuntary hiccups. Sentry mushrooms are often planted by subterranean races in order to warn of impending [...]
Discovery
The PCs hear pained howling in the distance OR
The PCs see a rustling in some bushes by the side of the road OR
The PCs see an animal
Animal
A bear OR
A wolf OR
A deer OR
etc …
Situation
The animal’s leg is caught in a hunter’s trap OR
The animal seems to be moving slowly and limping painfully OR
A large [...]
The hermit Saursa is a bit of a loner, not by choice but by circumstance. Actually, he’s quite lonely, but it’s very dangerous for him to get attached with anyone so he lives by himself in the middle of a dense forest.
He’d run off to explore a cave as a teenager and become trapped in [...]
The Coriander Spice started life as a merchant vessel transporting spices (including, of course, coriander) from the east to the west. It was taken over, however, by the ruthless pirate Ma Bartley nearly fifteen years ago, and today its sails are a scourge on the horizon.
Ma Bartley herself is a grizzled pirate on the wrong [...]
