Doug the Winter
New member
So this is a carry over from the Introductions thread, but the general idea is to put up a few text dumps of dungeons and encounters past.
That being said, here's an event that happened last weekend with my current home brew group:
For context,
The group (APL4):
Druid - Played by my wife who presently works in management for BC Wildfire (used to be an Initial Attack crew leader...they deploy via helicopter). Also grudgingly the group leader.
Paladin - Former fire crew member of my wife. Also modelled the RP aspects of his character after Carrot from the Disc-world series.
Rogue - Naval Sub-mariner, transitioning to Engineering officer (worth noting the rogue has a dwarvish shortbow called "the Hammer of Thabolir" that shoots a red streaking arrow that creates a massively audible bang when it connects. Lore was that Thabolir drunkenly swore an oath to hammer an orc's skull in during a siege but was subsequently assigned to command the clan's archers)
Ranger - Fellow engineering student
Barbarian - Also former BC Wildfire fighter
Monk - Local carpenter (point to note, the Paladin, the Monk and the Barbarian recently joined the group because their associated fiancée's are all doing law school together...one of which is joining as a warlock this weekend)
The situation:
The group has been stuck in the Fey Wild due to an ongoing feud with a night hag coven. The coven has had a few encounters using phasing and some homebrew dreamcatchers to elude the party. Some local fey have given the party information as to how to find a "Terravore". This monster in essence is a modified Roper, but I'll get to that in a minute. The driving factor for the party is the lore such that the Terravore is a native to the feywild that eventually eats everything. Like an inverse apex predator, detrius and dead alike eventually follow the downstream effect to a low point that the Terravores make their lair. Since this thing is known to eat anything native to the feywild, it has an innate ability to lock things in its immediate surroundings into the current plane and phase of existence. So the party makes its not so merry way (the landscape is described as muskeg, which holds a special place in hell with firefighters) to the lair of a Terravore with the fishhook that this beast's heart will give them the temporary ability to lock the hags out from phasing when they plan to kill them.
The Terravore:
So this beastie is again, a reskinned Roper for all intents and purposes. But here's the changes.
- Lair effect akin to a shallow grade Sarlac pit. All the broken willow limbs, various vines, and thorns around the pit make for difficult terrain to move away from the centre, but uninhibited travel towards.
- Terravore can make 4 legendary attacks using either Tendril or Reel
- Maxed out the hitpoints to 143
- Defined its combat disposition to reflect a dog with a bone (for the purposes of deciding who it focuses on)
The fight:
The party for all their cleverness and typically cautious nature given their individual back grounds, was surprisingly rash in approaching this this encounter (later explained to me that it was they had become increasingly spiteful of the hags.) Upon learning of the effect a Terravore heart could have on these hags, they cut the conversation short with the local fey and were off to commit some violence. Upon arrival of the lair, they still managed to approach quite stealthily given the Paladin in their ranks.
To their credit, when they noticed the size of the hole in the lair entrance, they quickly discussed amongst themselves the merits of probing locals for more information.
Given their group composition, they decided that luring the creature out into the open was by far the most advantageous situation they could hope for. I had planned for an exterior fight anyway, since it was a very shallow cave, and the lair effect would become apparent if they tried to spread out after attempting entry. As my encounter plans usually go with this group, things took an unexpected turn at kickoff.
The group assembled a three post lookout away from the lair. This is three 12-15' poles lashed tightly in the middle, with ropes on one end that effectively hobble the feet of the tower from spreading out too far, and notches in the top where a loose rope mesh is also tied to use as footing and sidewalls. The Barbarian, the Paladin and rogue rush out to the perimeter of the lair (just outside the visible sarlac pit effect), post the lookout stand by twisting the legs out, and the rogue scrambles up to promptly start raining arrows into the lair entrance with the Hammer of Thabolir.
From here I can't reasonably say a Dog-with-a-bone troped monster is just going to huddle in its hole while successive concussive blasts rain down on the entrance of what amounts to its dog house... exit the large tentacle monster from the hole.
First round, the rogue gets a surprise round attack at disadvantage on the Terravore as a target presents itself while he was indiscriminately firing at a hole in the ground. Maybe I'm a stingy DM, but my monsters typically need all the help they can get from these people. Initiative falls on my wife the druid who immediately drops Faerie Fire on it (successfully at that) as the Paladin, Barbarian, and Monk pile in. First round reveals the legendary actions that grapple the rogue and pull him from the tower (as the most present and real threat perceived thus far), the Barbarian lands a nasty crit, the Paladin relays to the party that the hide is "insane" after a 19 fails to hit, the monk attempts to dine and dash with an attack and run that reveals the difficult terrain moving away, while the Ranger and Rogue continue to hail down attacks from afar (the rogue electing to continue his barrage with faerie fire granted sneak attack damage rather than try to break the grapple). Last in the order is the Terravore that lands a nasty bite on the Barbarian. The tone changes dramatically amongst the group when they realize how much damage the bite goes for even when halved for rage.
The next round begins with a surprising (to me at least) plan to mitigate grappling and bite risks. The Druid holds her action to thornwhip the lowest HP party member within 5' of the Terravore when it looks ready to bite someone, effectively trading a potential bite for her cantrip damage. In doing so, the party unanimously unloads on the Terravore and the Paladin who smites this round, plans to cast Protection from Good/Evil on whoever gets bit next figuring that they could at least soak one bite each in melee (he also assumed that this might qualify as an elemental or a fey, which it was a fey, but I'm still impressed a Paladin had read his spells beyond "can smite.")
The net result was a rotation of managing who was grappled, and who was in melee. Turning points included the Brass Dragonborn Barbarian rolling 10 damage exactly on a breathweapon attack across three tendrils that had grappled the Druid, Ranger, and Rogue in one round of legendary actions. Just so happened to be the turn the Terravore retaliated by missing its bit against said Barbarian, which subsequently left it dead the next round 🥺
The Terravore had the last laugh in the end however with blood like molasses, and a size requiring the Rogue (Scout, having the highest survival) to crawl inside to remove the heart.
Congratulations if you made it this far, thanks for reading!
That being said, here's an event that happened last weekend with my current home brew group:
For context,
The group (APL4):
Druid - Played by my wife who presently works in management for BC Wildfire (used to be an Initial Attack crew leader...they deploy via helicopter). Also grudgingly the group leader.
Paladin - Former fire crew member of my wife. Also modelled the RP aspects of his character after Carrot from the Disc-world series.
Rogue - Naval Sub-mariner, transitioning to Engineering officer (worth noting the rogue has a dwarvish shortbow called "the Hammer of Thabolir" that shoots a red streaking arrow that creates a massively audible bang when it connects. Lore was that Thabolir drunkenly swore an oath to hammer an orc's skull in during a siege but was subsequently assigned to command the clan's archers)
Ranger - Fellow engineering student
Barbarian - Also former BC Wildfire fighter
Monk - Local carpenter (point to note, the Paladin, the Monk and the Barbarian recently joined the group because their associated fiancée's are all doing law school together...one of which is joining as a warlock this weekend)
The situation:
The group has been stuck in the Fey Wild due to an ongoing feud with a night hag coven. The coven has had a few encounters using phasing and some homebrew dreamcatchers to elude the party. Some local fey have given the party information as to how to find a "Terravore". This monster in essence is a modified Roper, but I'll get to that in a minute. The driving factor for the party is the lore such that the Terravore is a native to the feywild that eventually eats everything. Like an inverse apex predator, detrius and dead alike eventually follow the downstream effect to a low point that the Terravores make their lair. Since this thing is known to eat anything native to the feywild, it has an innate ability to lock things in its immediate surroundings into the current plane and phase of existence. So the party makes its not so merry way (the landscape is described as muskeg, which holds a special place in hell with firefighters) to the lair of a Terravore with the fishhook that this beast's heart will give them the temporary ability to lock the hags out from phasing when they plan to kill them.
The Terravore:
So this beastie is again, a reskinned Roper for all intents and purposes. But here's the changes.
- Lair effect akin to a shallow grade Sarlac pit. All the broken willow limbs, various vines, and thorns around the pit make for difficult terrain to move away from the centre, but uninhibited travel towards.
- Terravore can make 4 legendary attacks using either Tendril or Reel
- Maxed out the hitpoints to 143
- Defined its combat disposition to reflect a dog with a bone (for the purposes of deciding who it focuses on)
The fight:
The party for all their cleverness and typically cautious nature given their individual back grounds, was surprisingly rash in approaching this this encounter (later explained to me that it was they had become increasingly spiteful of the hags.) Upon learning of the effect a Terravore heart could have on these hags, they cut the conversation short with the local fey and were off to commit some violence. Upon arrival of the lair, they still managed to approach quite stealthily given the Paladin in their ranks.
To their credit, when they noticed the size of the hole in the lair entrance, they quickly discussed amongst themselves the merits of probing locals for more information.
Given their group composition, they decided that luring the creature out into the open was by far the most advantageous situation they could hope for. I had planned for an exterior fight anyway, since it was a very shallow cave, and the lair effect would become apparent if they tried to spread out after attempting entry. As my encounter plans usually go with this group, things took an unexpected turn at kickoff.
The group assembled a three post lookout away from the lair. This is three 12-15' poles lashed tightly in the middle, with ropes on one end that effectively hobble the feet of the tower from spreading out too far, and notches in the top where a loose rope mesh is also tied to use as footing and sidewalls. The Barbarian, the Paladin and rogue rush out to the perimeter of the lair (just outside the visible sarlac pit effect), post the lookout stand by twisting the legs out, and the rogue scrambles up to promptly start raining arrows into the lair entrance with the Hammer of Thabolir.
From here I can't reasonably say a Dog-with-a-bone troped monster is just going to huddle in its hole while successive concussive blasts rain down on the entrance of what amounts to its dog house... exit the large tentacle monster from the hole.
First round, the rogue gets a surprise round attack at disadvantage on the Terravore as a target presents itself while he was indiscriminately firing at a hole in the ground. Maybe I'm a stingy DM, but my monsters typically need all the help they can get from these people. Initiative falls on my wife the druid who immediately drops Faerie Fire on it (successfully at that) as the Paladin, Barbarian, and Monk pile in. First round reveals the legendary actions that grapple the rogue and pull him from the tower (as the most present and real threat perceived thus far), the Barbarian lands a nasty crit, the Paladin relays to the party that the hide is "insane" after a 19 fails to hit, the monk attempts to dine and dash with an attack and run that reveals the difficult terrain moving away, while the Ranger and Rogue continue to hail down attacks from afar (the rogue electing to continue his barrage with faerie fire granted sneak attack damage rather than try to break the grapple). Last in the order is the Terravore that lands a nasty bite on the Barbarian. The tone changes dramatically amongst the group when they realize how much damage the bite goes for even when halved for rage.
The next round begins with a surprising (to me at least) plan to mitigate grappling and bite risks. The Druid holds her action to thornwhip the lowest HP party member within 5' of the Terravore when it looks ready to bite someone, effectively trading a potential bite for her cantrip damage. In doing so, the party unanimously unloads on the Terravore and the Paladin who smites this round, plans to cast Protection from Good/Evil on whoever gets bit next figuring that they could at least soak one bite each in melee (he also assumed that this might qualify as an elemental or a fey, which it was a fey, but I'm still impressed a Paladin had read his spells beyond "can smite.")
The net result was a rotation of managing who was grappled, and who was in melee. Turning points included the Brass Dragonborn Barbarian rolling 10 damage exactly on a breathweapon attack across three tendrils that had grappled the Druid, Ranger, and Rogue in one round of legendary actions. Just so happened to be the turn the Terravore retaliated by missing its bit against said Barbarian, which subsequently left it dead the next round 🥺
The Terravore had the last laugh in the end however with blood like molasses, and a size requiring the Rogue (Scout, having the highest survival) to crawl inside to remove the heart.
Congratulations if you made it this far, thanks for reading!
