Doom Tables

EXT. PLAIN OF HOTH - DAY

A small figure gallops across the windswept ice slope. The bundled rider is mounted on a large gray snow lizard, a Tauntaun. Curving plumes of snow rise from beneath the speeding paws of the two-legged beast.
  The rider gallops up a slope and reins his lizard to a stop. Pulling off his protective goggles, Luke Skywalker notices something in the sky. He takes a pair of electrobinoculars from his utility belt and through them sees smoke rising from where the probe robot has crashed.
  The wind whips at Luke's fur-lined cap and he activates a comlink transmitter. His Tauntaun shifts and moans nervously beneath him.

LUKE (into comlink) "Echo Three to Echo Seven. Han, old buddy, do you read me?"
After a little static a familiar voice is heard.
HAN (over comlink) "Loud and clear, kid. What's up?"
LUKE (into comlink) "Well, I finished my circle. I don't pick up any life readings."
HAN (over comlink) "There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. The sensors are placed, I'm going back."
LUKE (into comlink) "Right. I'll see you shortly. There's a meteorite that hit the ground near here. I want to check it out. It won't take long."

Luke clicks off his transmitter and reins back on his nervous lizard. He pats the beast on the head to calm it.

The weather on this planet is frigid and cloudy at best, most often it's freezing with blinding snow. Staying out longer than one needs is ill-advised, for good reason. But Luke disregarded the ever-present danger and set off alone in the wilderness. Now he must roll on the Doom Table.
  The result: Something big and hungry lurks in the snow drifts, its gaze finds Luke right as a stormstorm hits his location. If he survives the attack, it will be difficult for his allies to find him...

LUKE "Hey, steady girl. What's the matter? You smell something?"

Luke takes a small device from his belt and starts to adjust it when suddenly a large shadow falls over him from behind. He hears a monstrous howl and turns to see an eleven-foot-tall shape towering over him. It is a Wampa Ice Creature, lunging at him ferociously.

LUKE "Aaargh!"

Luke grabs for his pistol, but is hit flat in the face by a huge white claw. He falls unconscious into the snow and in a moment the terrified screams of the Tauntaun are cut short by the horrible snap of a neck being broken.
  The Wampa Ice Creature grabs Luke by one ankle and drags him away across the frozen plain.

LATER - INT. HOTH - REBEL BASE - MAIN ICE TUNNEL

DECK OFFICER "Sir, Commander Skywalker hasn't come in the south entrance. He might've forgotten to check in."
HAN "Not likely. Are the speeders ready?"
DECK OFFICER "Uh, not yet. We're having some trouble adapting them to the cold."

Worse Still, the weather is causing the otherwise efficient and safe snowspeeders to malfunction...

HAN "Then we'll have to go out on Tauntauns."
DECK OFFICER "Sir! The temperature's dropping too rapidly."
HAN "That's right. And my friend's out in it!"
— From Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Script

And now the other hero, Han, must too roll on the Doom Table...

The first time I used a Doom Table was for a Dark Sun adventure in which the party tagged along with a group of well-traveled archaeologists, settlers, and adventurers going far away into a low mountain range in search of an ancient city and, for two members of the group, find a new place far away from the threats in the sandy seas to make their new home.

In this adventure, the party acted as followers or hirelings to the more experienced adventurers, and over time they "climbed the ranks" and gained followers of their own on the way to the hidden lair of a twisted dune reaper matriarch that covered an entire city (the target destination for the group). One key component of the trek was that the morale of the group and of individuals would be tested almost every day. If someone became shaken in combat, their morale was tested; if someone was starving or injured, their morale was tested; if there was a heated disagreement or some other hardship, anyone not doing well mentally up to that point would have their morale tested. On failing the test, people would abandon the quest and leave the party, heading back across the path in the mountains to one of the campsites or going even further back to their abandoned village or another distant city, their ultimate fate being decided by the Doom Table.
  PCs would also have their morale tested and could take short-term effects like losing faith in the mission, loyalty to the leader of the party, or becoming Exhausted. If the player decided that enough was enough and they left alone or with another shaken character, they would also meet the Doom Table and could become further Exhausted, start to hallucinate from the heat, act more erratically than normal, become dangerously forgetful or lost, and there was a good chance they would encounter bad weather or a deadly beast in the wilderness.

Morale

The morale system I came up with was simple: each character in the party that had a level or was designated as a follower/hireling is given a Morale stat between -10 and 10. (I presented Morale as a track at one point and made it into a sort of clock at another, but it always functioned the same way.) It represented their power of will, faith, loyalty, and, to some extent, their mental state, and it began at 1d6 - 2 (average of 3) for most characters. Over time, completing skill tests and accomplishing goals, or failing, would increase and decrease the party's overall Morale.
  During combat, if a character collapsed or died, the group would make a Morale test: roll 1d20 + Morale, with the DC being given for each stage in the adventure; early on the DC was 11 or 12, rising by 2 or 3 each stage of the journey. On a failure, that character's Morale would drop by half of that stage's level (I thought of it as a sort of fluctuating, expected level or monster encounter rating for the area), on a success it would rise by 1. Also on a failure, that character would take penalties until they rested (think Exhausted); if they failed by a large amount (more than 5 or 10) or critically failed, their Morale would decrease. If an NPC's Morale ever dropped below zero or further decreased, they would roll on the Scatter Table. Lastly, if something would cause an NPC to leave the party or if they ventured into the wilderness alone, they would roll on the Doom Table if an effect didn't already force them to roll on it.

The first two tables I made for this system are the following:

1-2 (10%)	Roll on the Doom Table	2 points Exhaustion (up to lvl 4), -3 Morale
3-6 (20%)	Runs away as fast as possible, leaving anything not already being worn or carried; they are no longer part of the campaign	1 point Exhaustion (up to lvl 3), -3 Morale
7-10 (20%)	Runs away to camp site or nearest safe area, packs whatever necessities they can carry and leaves the next afternoon; there is a minuscule chance they will return to the campaign within a week	1 point Exhaustion (up to lvl 3), -3 Morale
11-14 (20%)	Runs away to camp site or nearest safe area, packs whatever necessities they can carry and leaves in two days unless convinced to stay; there is a fair chance they will return to the campaign within a week	1 point Exhaustion (up to lvl 2), -3 Morale until they take a long rest
15-18 (20%)	Runs away from the immediate threat in the local area	1 point Exhaustion (up to lvl 2), -2 Morale until they take a long rest
19-20 (10%)	Visibly shaken, stands their ground	+2 Morale

Scatter Table

1-2 (10%)	Discovers one of the Matriarch's lairs; dies a slow, horrible death, a piece of their equipment will be partially sunk into the dirt outside the entrance which will be noticed by anyone who knew them in life, their body and bones will be eaten by the Matriarch or a random wandering monster within a day
3-4 (10%)	Runs into an acid pit and dies a slow, painful death, a few pieces of their equipment will be scattered around the pit or eaten by a random wandering monster, otherwise nothing of them remains
5-6 (10%)	Runs away nonstop for three days before collapsing and dying of thirst somewhere in the mountains
7-8 (10%)	Runs away for a few days before being shredded to pieces by a random wandering monster, all of their non-food equipment will be wildly scattered in the area
9-12 (20%)	Runs away for several days and reaches the spot they decided it was a good idea to disembark on the campaign, then becomes sleep deprived and wanders in a random direction for a day (1d12 going clockwise, 12 due north, 6 due south) then another random direction for another day
13-16 (20%)	Runs away for several days and reaches the deserted town; 50% chance to encounter a random non-hostile wanderer, 50% chance to encounter a demon
17-20 (20%)	Runs away for several days and reaches the edge of the mountains, making camp; 25% chance to head back to the campaign and make it there alive after encountering multiple wandering monsters, 25% chance to continue their lone journey and be killed by random wandering monsters at dusk

The Doom Table

They're very... simple. I'm not they're simple in a good way, though. And the Doom Table is certainly very final with how it's written, but it was intended to be used as a little dusting of spice and only for NPCs or PCs who were on death's door or who had failed several important skill checks in a row. Since then, I've made other tables, as you do, and they aren't nearly as final. Instead of "you probably die a horrible death," they're more like the situation with Luke and Han on Hoth. If a player does something that would put them in a very, very dangerous situation, roll on a Doom Table that introduces an ailment (internal bleeding, hallucinations), a monster, the malfunctioning of an important item (armor, snowspeeder, wand), or bad weather that suddenly gets much worse.

For my game, weather was rolled similarly (if not exactly the same) to the tables in a previous post, but I love the idea that if Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie were characters in a D&D game, the bad weather in that scene above was part of the Doom Table created for adventures on the planet Hoth and Luke rolled the wrong number. Or, maybe instead of the table in that adventure being focused on what happens to characters who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's focused on broad events like "Wampa attack," "mount dies," and so on and the weather was always going to get worse. Or another way it might have happened is that Han and Luke made too many missteps and spent too much time in the wilderness, progressing the clock, and finally reached midnight with Luke's decision, triggering the table.

I've loved Doom Tables ever since I came up with the first one above, and I've always liked the idea of Morale to make events and combat in adventures a bit more tense. For me, Dark Sun, West March, and Ravenloft/Shadowfell campaigns are great places to work them in. They aren't for every kind of game, but when they do fit, they can be disastrous in the best ways.

Dark Legacy Part 2

In Part 1, I talked about books I was reading for Halloween weekend and some inspirations for adventures in the Shadowfell, specifically Dark Legacy of Evard. With the monsters in the first "session" adapted to 5e rules and a few extras added, I realized I missed an opportunity to go over my plans for the first non-linear section of the adventure.

In Dark Legacy of Evard — and the rest of 4e's Encounter series — the adventure is designed to be played in quick, 2-3 (or less) sessions and focuses primarily on a single encounter each session. This adventure, however, is not linear, which presents a lot of room to play with when you aren't running it the way it was designed. In Session 1, the characters find themselves in an inn (of course), and at night, one of the other patrons sneaks away to the graveyard and triggers some sort of magic that shifts the inn, the graveyard, and the entire town into the Shadowfell. The party wakes up and runs downstairs where they find monsters running around. In Session 2 the party runs into the first fork: they can either track down the missing patron — a suspicious scholar investigating Evard, a very powerful wizard and expert of shadow magic — or to help the guards and militia in town by cutting a path to the armory. If they chase the scholar, they will run through the woods and into the graveyard while the town marshal and guards are left to get equipment on their own. If the players take this route, what will happen to the guards?

I see this as a great opportunity for a secondary antagonist to show up. But not as a Big Bad Dude, as a typical townsfolk: A man in his thirties with a short beard and mustache in plain clothes, comes from around the corner. They carry a sword and are sweating from fighting, and call for someone else between breaths, "Over here! The guards are over here."  Garren and Lilia, siblings, wearing simple clothes and a handful of scars and worried looks just like everyone else tonight, join the group entering the armory and help distribute the equipment among the other militia that made it. The marshal, named Grimbold, and a few guards talk to them about the creatures they've all met so far while they don their armor, and they show gratitude to the pair.
  Garren had hoped to catch one of the townspeople alone — they're starving — but the opportunity to make more allies is well enough. And later, when Garren and Lilia go with a guard to patrol the streets, they'll have time for a quick snack...

Garren is a well-learned illusionist and enchanter and a vampire who wanders between this world and the Shadowfell, and who just happened to be caught in the middle of the events surrounding Duponde. Lilia? Here she is an elaborate illusion of Garren's sister, long dead by now, created from stitching together souls of the dead wandering the Shadowfell and his own memories of Lilia. Garren needs to feed, just like any vampire. Unlike just any vampire, Garren doesn't like killing his meals, he deeply enjoys watching them suffer and fall over the course of months, when he can.
  When he feeds on a guard in town — which he will easily get away with if the party of would-be heroes isn't around — the guard will collapse, as if attacked by one of the shadows, and get a fever. Soon they wake up, thankful to Garren for "saving me back there, I don't know what happened..." but find they can't sleep. If they do sleep, they have chaotic dreams and wake up parched and aching all over. Awake, the night seems to take days to pass. They have trouble staying hydrated and feel hungry and paranoid all the time, but of course Garren or Lilia shows up to help them fall asleep with a few kind, enchanting words to at least help them get some rest and, more importantly to Garren, make it easier to feed. After a week or two, or a couple of nights in the Shadowfell, Garren's curse will have developed enough that it becomes difficult or impossible for anyone in town to remove. And very soon after that, the poor soul will need to feed.

Eventually, one threat or another will make itself apparent. The poor guard could easily be thought to have succumbed to the Shadowfell's dark desires and turned into a monster. If other accursed people are found in town, "it was that guard... How many have they bitten, you reckon?" "Who do you think it is?" "Marshal... It's you? It's you, isn't old man?!" Or, maybe one of the party members is accused. After all, they were "missing" that one night, and the other night. And this whole thing started when they got here, didn't it? "I suspect them over that kook scholar, myself."

After that tiny idea, the stories writes itself, really.

Continued in Part 3

Jaunt in the Shadowfell

A.K.A. Dark Legacy Part 1

This weekend I had some time to watch Battlestar Galactica (which I loved) and felt the need to step away from all the Dark Sun brainstorming to keep myself from getting burned out. Not from D&D altogether, though. With autumn here and Halloween coming up, I really wanted to read a few specific D&D books: 4e Encounters Dark Legacy of Evard, 4e The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond, Die, Vecna, Die!, and I want to sit down and pour through The Keep on the Shadowfell — not to mention dozens of Ravenloft books I miss.

Even though "Halloween weekend" is over, I couldn't help but pick out some pieces of Dark Legacy of Evard — which, by the way, was a pleasant surprise to read through and I think could make for a good weekend of Shadowfell (or Ravenloft) adventuring — and whip up a few creatures and a couple of rewards for a little 5e adventure in a town, nearby ruins or a swamp, a forest, tombs, you name it. A pdf of the adventure can be found on DriveThruRPG for only $4.99. I've tried to find physical copies of it and the Dark Sun Encounters adventure but they are always astronomically high. Speaking of DriveThru, if you're reading this in October and haven't browsed their Halloween Sale already, it's always worth checking out to get some very cheap, very awesome RPG books. I always look for Ravenloft books I don't already have, there are loads (something like 10,000+ items?) of rulebooks and item tables and monsters for all kinds of zombie, demon, eldritch horror/thriller adventures and a ton of stuff that's just weird and fun.

I'll also to implore everyone to dig into the world and art of Magic: the Gathering's Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. When making (adapting?) the umbral sprites I was picturing the insectoid, chitin-wearing, dream-stealing faeries and all of the art of that world. At the very least, look up "Faerie" creatures on Gatherer. Better, even if you know them and their art, look up Rebeccay Guay (Dawnglow Infusion, Bitterblossom), Terese Nielsen (too much to list), Matt Cavotta (Wydwen, the Biting Gale), Daarken (Kulrath Knight for a not-so-obvious one), Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai (Faerie Swarm), Wayne Reynolds's faeries, both Michael Sutfin's and Willian Murai's versions of Vendillion Clique, so many more; Tony DiTerlizzi last but not least, though I figure if you see this blog post and know any of the other artists, you probably know DiTerlizzi.

On top of the few things below, flail snails and vegepygmies would fit great in any forest adventure of course, one adventure I'd love to see (or make) is to play in a party of tiny fey creatures going through the Shadowfell, encountering pixie civilizations and fighting huge (for a pixie) flail snails, faerie dragons, giant (again, for a pixie) spiders, enemy pixie swarms, fiery elemental scarecrows (or scary fire crows?). Or a goblin adventure in the same forest. There's so much that can be explored. But anyway. Onto what I really came here to paste down and get out there this morning: monsters! Just a few, but just sprinkling a few of them into short and simple encounters can make for a lot of fun. Hopefully they're useful or inspiring in some way and they show how minor changes to other monsters can add so much more "flavor" to an encounter. Oh, and some monsters know "Ancient Netherese," I suppose it's mostly completely pointless but it might be good D&D lore to look up.

Encounter 1

Animated Gargoyle (3)
Small elemental, neutral evil
AC 13, HP 32 (5d8 + 10), Speed 30 ft, Fly 30 ft
STR 9 (-1), DEX 13 (+1), CON 14 (+2), INT 6 (-2), WIS 11 (+0), CHA 7 (-2)
Saving Throws: DEX +3.
Damage Resistances: Piercing and Slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't adamantine.
Damage Immunities: Poison.
Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Petrified, Poisoned.
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 10.
Languages: Common.
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
False Appearance. While the gargoyle remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an inanimate statue.
Harry. If the gargoyle moves at least 10 ft straight toward a target and then hits it with a claw attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 4 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 STR save or be knocked prone and become Stunned until the start of the next round.
Actions
Multiattack. The gargoyle makes two claw attacks.
Claw. Melee weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d6 + 1) slashing damage.

  Tactics: These creatures work together to bedevil those who enter the room. Each round, one gargoyle uses harry to knock a character prone then the others swoop in to claw at those on the ground.

Shadow Stalker (2)
Medium undead, chaotic evil
AC 14, HP 19 (3d8 + 6), Speed 60 ft, INI +6
STR 10 (+0), DEX 16 (+3), CON 13 (+1), INT 14 (+2), WIS 10 (+0), CHA 8 (-1)
Skills: Stealth +4 (+6 in dim light or darkness), Perception +3.
Damage Vulnerabilities: Radiant.
Damage Resistances: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from nonmagical attacks.
Damage Immunities: Necrotic, Poison.
Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, restrained.
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 10.
Languages: Understands Ancient Netherese and Common but can't speak.
Challenge Rating: 2 (450 XP)
Abilities
Amorphous. The stalker can move through a space as narrow as 1 in wide.
Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the stalker can take the Hide action as a bonus action.
Sunlight Weakness. While in sunlight, the stalker has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
Triggered Abilities
Shadow Stalk (1/day).
  Trigger: Whenever the stalker hits a creature with an attack.
  Effect: The target must succeed on a DC 16 DEX save or the stalker shifts into the target's space and melds with its shadow. While the stalker is melded with the target's shadow, it remains in the target's space and moves with the target without provoking opportunity attacks and has an additional +5 to hit with attacks made against the target. The target can spend 1 action to attempt to make a DC 16 DEX save to disconnect from the stalker and end the effect.
  If a non-evil humanoid dies while the stalker is melded with its shadow, this ability recharges and a new shadow stalker rises from the corpse 1d4 hours later.
Shadow Step.
  Trigger: A living creature within 25 ft drops below 1 HP.
  Effect: Until the end of its next turn, its speed becomes 60 ft and it gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls.
Actions
Shadowy Touch. Melee weapon attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft, one creature. 10 (1d8 + 6) necrotic damage.

  Tactics: The stalkers are hidden at the start of the encounter; a character must succeed on a DC 20 Perception check to detect them. They each pick out its own target and attack with shadow stalk as soon as possible. If a creature saves against the shadow meld, the shadow flits back to a dark corner of the room to Hide and attack again.

Encounter 2

Swarm of Umbral Sprites (1)
Medium swarm of Tiny fey, neutral
AC 17, HP 40 (8d6 + 12), Bloodied 20, Speed 20 ft, Fly 30 ft (hover), INI +5
STR 6 (-2), DEX 22 (+6), CON 13 (+1), INT 10 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 17 (+3)
Skills: Perception +5, Stealth +9.
Damage Resistances: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing.
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Restrained, Stunned.
Senses: Blindsight 30 ft, Passive Perception 15.
Languages: Ancient Netherese, Common, Elvish.
Challenge Rating: 3 (700 XP).
Abilities
Magic Resistance. The swarm has advantage on saves against spells and other magical effects.
Stinging Swarm. The swarm can occupy another creature's space and vice versa, and the swarm can move through any opening large enough for a Tiny sprite. The swarm can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points.
  An enemy that ends its turn in the same space as the swarm takes 3 piercing damage.
Triggered Abilities
Fade Away.
  Trigger: The swarm becomes Bloodied.
  Effect: The swarm immediately becomes invisible and flees.
Actions
Darkwave (Recharge 5-6). The swarm bursts with dark energy, creating a zone of magical darkness in the space that lasts until the swarm's next turn. Each creature within 5 ft must make a DC 11 DEX save, taking 13 (2d6 + 6) necrotic damage or half as much damage on a success.
Flurry of Stings. Melee weapon attack: +9 to hit, reach 0 ft, one creature in the swarm's space. 10 (3d6) piercing damage.

  Tactics: The sprites hover near the frogs, waiting for them to waylay something interesting.
  This horde flies into the best position to use its darkwave attack against the most characters possible. The swarm cares little about the frogs, but it tries to avoid impeding their attacks. After using darkwave, the sprites skirt around the edges of the battle, attacking with flurry of stings. If it gets hurt but the frogs are still alive and being attacked, it might stay if it can take down an enemy.
  When a creatures stands in the same space as the swarm, they will have umbral pixie dust in their hair or face and on their shoulders.

Sporeback Frog (1)
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 14, HP 22 (4d8 + 4), Speed 15 ft, Swim 25 ft
STR 14 (+2), DEX 11 (+0), CON 13 (+1), INT 2 (-4), WIS 10 (+0), CHA 3 (-4)
Skills: Perception +2, Stealth +5.
Senses: Darkvision 30 ft, Passive Perception 12.
Languages: —
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (100 XP).
Abilities
Amphibious. The frog can breathe air and water.
Standing Leap. The frog's long jump is up to 20 feet and its high jump is up to 10 feet, with or without a running start.
Swamp Camouflage. The frog has advantage on Stealth checks made to hide in swampy terrain.
Triggered Abilities
Spore Burst.
  Trigger: The frog drops to 0 HP.
  Effect: The fungi on the frog's back pop, releasing a cloud of spores and gas. The nearest creature within 15 ft of the frog must succeed on a DC 15 CON save or take 8 (1d6 + 5) poison damage and become infected with a disease. (Creatures immune to being Poisoned are immune to this effect.) Until the disease is removed, the creature takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls and CON saves. Spores start growing inside the creature's lungs and will kill it in a number of days equal to 1d12 + the creature's CON score. After the creature dies, it sprouts 1d4 Tiny fungi that grow to full size gas spores in 7 days.
Actions
Barbed Tongue. Melee weapon attack: +5 to hit, reach 15 ft, one target. 8 (1d8 + 4) slashing damage, and the target is Grappled (escape DC 14) and pulled up to 15 ft toward the frog. Until this grapple ends, the target is Restrained, takes 4 (1d4 + 2) acid damage at the start of each of the frog's turns, and the frog can't use its barbed tongue another target.
Bite. Melee weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage, and the target is Grappled (escape DC 13). Until this grapple ends, the target is Restrained, and the frog can't bite another target.

  Tactics: This amphibian hangs back by the pond, moving only close enough to use its barbed tongue attack. If it can, it pulls its target into the pond and underwater.

Thornskin Frog (2)
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 13, HP 18 (4d8), Speed 20 ft, Swim 30 ft
STR 12 (+1), DEX 13 (+1), CON 11 (+0), INT 2 (-4), WIS 10 (+0), CHA 3 (-4)
Skills: Perception +2, Stealth +3.
Senses: Darkvision 30 ft, Passive Perception 12.
Languages: —
Challenge Rating: 1/4 (50 XP).
Abilities
Amphibious. The frog can breathe air and water.
Leap. The frog can spend all its movement on its turn to jump up to 20 ft horizontally or 10 ft vertically and may make a slam attack.
Actions
Bite. Melee weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. 4 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage, and the target is Grappled (escape DC 11). Until this grapple ends, the target is Restrained, and the frog can't bite another target.
Slam. Melee weapon attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 7 (2d6) slashing damage.
  Tactics: These frogs each leap at the two nearest creatures and use slam against them. If there are any creatures that are not grappled by frogs, they will use bite against them on their next turn, leaping into the pond with them — otherwise they use leap and slam as often as possible.

More Stuff

Umbral Sprite Captain
Tiny fey, neutral evil
AC 19 (chitin armor), HP 3 (2d4), Bloodied 1, Speed 10 ft, Fly 40 ft, INI +3
STR 4 (-3), DEX 20 (+5), CON 11 (+0), INT 10 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 13 (+1)
Skills: Arcana +3, Perception +5, Stealth +5.
Senses: Darkvision 30 ft, Passive Perception 13.
Languages: Ancient Netherese, Common, Elvish.
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
Duskbody. The sprite is vulnerable to nonmagical attacks from iron and steel weapons, and has resistance to nonmagical attacks from silver weapons.
Innate Spellcasting. The sprite's innate spellcasting ability is CHA (spell save DC 14). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring only its umbral pixie dust as a component:
    At will: umbral druidcraft.
    3/day: detect poison, blindness, faerie fire, sleep.
    1/day: confusion, dispel magic, invisibility.
Magic Resistance. The swarm has advantage on saves against spells and other magical effects.
Triggered Abilities
Countercharm (1/day).
    Trigger: The swarm becomes the target of a spell that would Charm it.
    Effect: The spell is recast at the source of the spell.
Fade Away.
    Trigger: The sprite becomes Bloodied.
    Effect: The sprite immediately casts invisibility on itself and flees.
Actions
Poison Prick. Melee weapon attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 2 piercing damage. If the target is a creature, its STR is reduced by 1d6 until it takes a short or long rest.

  This sprite wears tiny blue and black chitin armor and wields a tiny violet needle as a weapon. Their house is a hole in the base of a large elm tree, hidden by a cluster of thick shelf fungi that can be found all over the woods here (DC 17 Perception check to spot the house). When they aren't leading a swarm, they spend their time studying umbral spell scrolls and collecting new thorns and shells for arms and armor. Inside their house is a small (for a human) round glass vial with a red cap inside and filled with salt (a trapped redcap).

  Tactics: If the party is higher level or larger than expected for the swamp encounter, this sprite will leave their home and join the umbral sprite swarm, boosting the swarm's confidence in battle. While they're part of the swarm, the sprite can use poison prick whenever the swarm deals damage. They save their spells for when the swarm is in danger, using confusion on large threats.
  Notes: See Lorwyn and Shadowmoor block faeries for aesthetics, attitude, and miscellany. See bracket fungus like dryad's saddle (Cerioporus squamosus) or turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) for mushroom references, 1d4 chance it will be a different mushroom that looks the same but is poisonous (causing nausea, minor hallucinations, or Confusion for 1d4 hours).

Umbral Faerie Dragon
Small fey, neutral
AC 15, HP 14 (4d4 + 4), Speed 10 ft, Fly 60 ft, INI +4
STR 5 (-3), DEX 20 (+5), CON 13 (+1), INT 16 (+3), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 14 (+2)
Saving Throws: CHA +5.
Skills: Arcana +4, Perception +3, Stealth +9.
Damage Resistances: Acid, Fire.
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 13.
Languages: Draconic, Sylvan.
Challenge Rating: 2 (450).
Abilities
Limited Telepathy. Using telepathy, the dragon can magically communicate with any other faerie dragon within 60 ft.
Magic Resistance. The dragon has advantage on saves against spells and other magical effects.
Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the dragon can take the Hide action as a bonus action.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in bright light or sunlight, the dragon has disadvantage on attack rolls and on Perception checks that rely on sight.
Innate Spellcasting. The dragon's innate spellcasting ability is INT (spell save DC 14). It can innately cast a number of spells, requiring no material components.
  1/day each: contagion, dominate beast, fearie fire, mirror image.
Actions
Bite. Melee weapon attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft, one creature. 3 (1d4 + 1) piercing damage.
Shadow Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales a puff of foul smoke in a 10-ft cone. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 13 DEX save, taking 4 (2d6) acid damage and, for 1 min, the target can't take reactions and must roll 1d6 at the start of each of its turns to determine its behavior during the turn:
  1-4. The target takes no action or bonus action and uses all of its movement to move in a random direction.
  5-6. The target doesn't move, and the only thing it can do on its turn is attempt to make a DC 11 WIS save to end the effect.

Treasure

Umbral Pixie Dust
When pixies fly (while not invisible), a shower of sparkling dust follows them like the glittering tail of a shooting star. A sprinkle of pixie dust is said to be able to grant the power of flight, confuse a creature hopelessly, or send foes into a magical slumber.
  One pinch of umbral pixie dust can substitute for the material components of any transmutation spell of 3rd level or lower. The dust can also be used to makes things blend into shadows and muffle sound made by footsteps or beating wings.

Spells

Bitterseed
1st-level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action.
Range: Touch.
Components: V, S, M*.
Duration: Instantaneous.
Up to four seeds appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one seed. Eating a seed deals 2 necrotic damage and causes the creature to feel starved and become infected with a feverish disease. Until the disease is cured, the creature has disadvantage on STR and CON checks and saves, and attack rolls that use STR.
    The seeds keep their potency when ground into a powder, and lose their potency if they have not been consumed within 24 hours of the casting of this spell.
* - (an almond flower)

Umbral Druidcraft
Transmutation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action.
Range: 30 ft or touch.
Components: V, S; or M*.
Duration: Instantaneous.
You create one of the following effects within range:
You create a tiny, harmless sensory effect that predicts what the weather will be at your location for the next 24 hours. The effect might manifest as a black snake encircling your finger for a shadowstorm, a warm gust of wind for a tornado, leaves turning brown and shriveling for snow, and so on. This effect persists for 1 round.
You instantly make a flower blossom, a seed pod open, or a leaf bud bloom.
You touch a plant and determine its condition. You instantly know whether the plant is healthy, dead, near death (will die in the next two hours), Poisoned or diseased, undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as an artificial plant).
You touch a sleeping creature and instantly sense their nightmares.
* - (a pinch of umbral pixie dust)

And one little extra:

Tiny Book of Umbral Druidcraft
A very tiny book made of pale brown leaves with text and diagrams inscribed with the finest black and silvery ink. It requires a magnifying lens for a human to read. The book contains one scroll each of the following spells: countercharm (1st-level), darkwave (2nd-level), enhanced darkwave (4th level, darkwave that inflicts targets with faerie fire).

Cheers, happy Monday.

Continued in Part 2
Part 3

The Jabberwock

A Jabberwock.

Why? Good question! Alas, I have no answer. I do have the urge to watch the newer movies now, though. I watched part of Tim Burton's Alice but hardly remember it, and wasn't there a sequel?

Mine would end up being a mashup of various jabberwocky from the classic poem and various RPGs with a few twists and quirks. My first notes were partially taken from my skimming over AD&D 2e's Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Three and the only homebrew stat block I found for 5e, along with my own ideas of the creature and a few great depictions: the original illustration by John Tenniel (of course), a close resemblance to the original (sans coat) made for Pathfinder by Wayne Reynolds (Pathfinder Bestiary 2 and artwork for Pathfinder: Kingmaker), and the creature in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010) and great concept art by Michael Kutsche.

The Jabberwock
Huge monstrosity (dragon? aberration?), neutral, CR 14 (11,500 XP)
A huge carnivore (20 ft tall, 30-40 ft from head to toe, possibly more) that prowls the land, flying and swimming from time to time. Although it is more bird-like in form — aside from its long, serpent-like neck and front claws — it could easily be mistaken for a bluish-black drake but with a short-feathered head crest and winged forearms with reflective lateral red-orange stripes (similar to red-tailed black cockatoo tails).

• Puzzling Predator. The Jabberwock is an oddity among creatures, superficially resembling a dragon with gangly arms and stretched neck, and  lives in dense forests or swamps. It's locally debated among "scholars" whether they are the only member of their species or not, most commonfolk correctly believe there is only one.
    There is a widespread myth that during eclipses they lay an egg that hatches and grows into either a kind or terrible creature and that the parent and child fight to the death, the victor consuming the other.
    Another myth is that the Jabberwock does not need to eat or that, if it does, it only needs to eat during an eclipse. The truth is that it constantly hungers for many kinds of creatures and toys with most of its prey before feasting.
• Babbling Beast. The Jabberwock continuously chorps and murbles as it wanders and even while it sleeps. It clearly understands every local tongue and learns new languages almost immediately — despite showing a child-like intelligence and forgetfulness with most other things — but rarely speaks words itself.
    Thanks to the distorting effect its chorpling has on those nearby, it is almost impossible to discern and remember what the Jabberwock looks like.
• Enemy of Drakes, Lover of Fey. The Jabberwock treats most creatures as prey and hates other predators, especially drakes. However, it is fond of fey and tolerates druids in its wonderland, and if only such creatures are near it, the Jabberwock is playful, gentle, and childlike.
• Casual Cache. The Jabberwock has no urge to work for treasure and doesn't desire a hoard. Nonetheless, it amasses one over time thanks to baubles and jewelry and contraptions brought as friendly gifts or distractions from its hunger. It has developed a keen sense of smell for treasure it prizes most and some it fears: silver, platinum, adamantine, sapphires.

Good at: being a fearsome beast, regenerating itself, being mysterious and intimidating.
Bad at: remembering things, strategy, flying, not getting its head detached from its body.
Stats: ++STR, +CHA/CON, -INT.
Equipment: scaly, unnatural hide.
    Other weapons: teeth and jaws, claws (hands and feet), tail. (Not the wings.)

Taking all of that, I hammered away at a stat block for 5e, loosely balancing it against classic dragons around CR 13-15 and eventually being happy with this iteration:

The Jabberwock
Huge monstrosity, chaotic neutral
AC 17, HP 216 (21d12 + 80), Bloodied 72 (HP/3), Speed 40 ft, Fly 20 ft, Swim 30 ft, INI +5
STR 22 (+6), DEX 16 (+3), CON 20 (+5), INT 7 (-2), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 18 (+4)
Saving Throws: STR +9, DEX +9, CHA +7.
Skills: Athletics +8, Insight +11, Perception +5, Stealth -2.
Damage Resistances: Fire, radiant; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with adamantine weapons.
Damage Immunities: Poison.
Condition Immunities: Charmed, frightened, petrified, poisoned.
Senses: Blindsight 30 ft, Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 12.
Languages: Understands Common, Draconic, Elvish, Sylvan (but doesn't speak).
Challenge Rating: 14 (11,500 XP)
Legendary Resistance (3/day). If the Jabberwock fails a save, it can choose to succeed instead.
Abilities
Amphibious. The Jabberwock can breathe air and water.
Regenerative Resting. While the Jabberwock is asleep it has +2 AC, resistance to damage from magical attacks, and recovers 4d12 HP every hour.
Sinister Smights. Whenever the Jabberwock hits with an attack, that creature and other creatures within 120 ft that can see the attack become Frightened for 1d6 rounds. A creature can make a DC 18 WIS save at the end of each of its turns to reduce the duration by 1 round, and can repeat this save on a success. If a creature critically succeeds, they stop being Frightened and immediately feel the need to fight the Jabberwock for the next 24 hours. When the Frightened effect ends, the creature is immune to the Jabberwock's Sinister Smights for the next 24 hours.
Treasure Sense. The Jabberwock can sense the location of silver, platinum, adamantine, and sapphires within 60 ft.
Triggered Abilities
Bloodied, 72 HP. The Jabberwock immediately regains all of its spent legendary actions and uses one legendary action.
Actions
Multiattack. The Jabberwock makes one gnash attack and two slash attacks.
Gnash. +10 to hit, reach 15 ft, one target. 17 (2d8 + 8) piercing damage.
Slash. +10 to hit, reach 10 ft, one target. 16 (3d10) slashing damage.
Snatch. The Jabberwock spins toward its target and lashes out with one of its claws, slamming it into the ground and grabbing it. +10 to hit, 10 ft, one target. 15 (2d8 + 6) crushing damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it is Grappled (escape DC 16) and Restrained until the grapple ends. The Jabberwock has four clawed appendages but can grapple two targets at a time.
Legendary Actions
The Jabberwock can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The Jabberwock regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Detect. The Jabberwock makes a Perception check.
Chorple. The Jabberwock lets loose a caucophony of strange noises and nonsense in various languages known to the Jabberwock. 30-ft cone. Each creature in the area takes 27 (6d8) force damage. Additionally, each creature in the area that can hear the Jabberwock has moderate hallucinations, giving it disadvantage on WIS checks while it remains within 60 ft of the Jabberwock, and must make a DC 13 WIS save or become confused (as if under the effects of a confusion spell) for 1d4 rounds.
Snatch Attack. The Jabberwock uses its snatch attack.
Mystical Mirror (Costs 2 actions). The Jabberwock casts a spell that targeted and affected the Jabberwock this round, choosing new targets for the spell. It casts it immediately and does not need to use any components to cast the spell. This action is disabled for 6 sec (1 round) upon waking from sleep or unconsciousness.

More Stuff

Tactics: When the Jabberwock decides to snatch a creature, they may pick a place to bury them such as their horde of treasure or deep water. It prioritizes neutralizing targets wielding adamantine weapons, then targets casting confusion spells.
    If the Jabberwock is hurt and bleeding or finds itself outmatched, it has no qualms about fleeing from the area (even its lair) to take a nap. If an opponent is too small and nonthreatening, it may ignore it entirely; it may also ignore creatures it finds boring or try to eat bothersome creatures such as dull or boorish wizards.

The Jabberwock lives with a young and particularly smart gith girl. It lets her ride on its back while they sing a strange duet sang with throat singing and whistling which lulls the two to sleep by the end of their ride. There are no discernible words to the song.
  Optional rule: If any creatures stumble upon the pair while they are singing and focus on the song for 1 min, there is a 50/50 chance they will become slightly dizzy and have minor hallucinations or become Charmed for the duration of the song or until they move more than 100 ft away.
  Perhaps the girl keeps an adamantine saber somewhere in the lair or a chest in the pile of treasure, or perhaps some of her teeth are made of adamantine. Why? Good question...

The Jabberwock might also understand the following languages (or myriad others) from past experiences with other creatures: Aarakocra, Ancient Halfling (Athasian), Blink Dog, Druidic, Giant, Gith, Mulhorandi. Some of the languages are likely known through encounters with hostile creatures, and the Jabberwock remembers and occasionally "parrots" phrases they heard while it chorples.

Notes:

• Crushing Damage. A physical attack that inflicts crushing damage ignores resistances against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
  
• Vorpal Weapons. I've never used vorpal weapons in D&D, and outside classic jabberwocky or faerie tales they don't seem to fit very well, so I made them weak to adamantine (by way of damage resistance to non-adamantine weapons) which could easily be replaced with resistance to non-vorpal weapons or the following ability:
    Vorpal Sensitivity. Attacks from vorpal weapons made against the Jabberwock have advantage.
    Its ability to sense adamantine (treasure sense) could be replaced with vorpal enchantments to keep that bit of fluff, or vorpal weapons could be made with adamantine and/or sapphires. Either way, I like the idea that the Jabberwock can sense such threats and would be able to hunt a potentially beamish slayer.

Twenty-Five

Another year older. It never feels like I'm much older or any wiser and certainly doesn't feel like I ever have my life more put together...

In high school I hoped to be living in a studio apartment or cottage on a hill making art or publishing books and making a living out of it. Around five to four years ago I was planning to move out of town into a cold, empty studio and make art alongside working a low-stress, part-time job and apply to work in a brewery. Of course none of that worked out. Too much sleep deprivation, too many days without a night off work, too much stress from work and broken relationships and so on and so on, I repeatedly got too mentally unwell or physically ill to work and things fell apart. I decided to call it quits and refocus everything I could.

Years later, I've been technically unemployed since then but have worked dozens of odd jobs online from enthusiast brewing consultant to community and brand manager and consultant to freelance artist and graphic designer, to most recently a (very short-lived) freelance writer and game designer and, currently, caregiver to my grandfather. Thinking back on it, it's been a strange, nebulous and rocky trail, the path forward is utterly grey and unclear. With my grandfather's worsening conditions this past month, he had the option to undergo a dangerous surgery (dangerous due to his impressively old age) to hopefully permanently fix the issues, or have a minor (minimally invasive) procedure as a workaround that would inconvenience him every day. Thankfully, for everyone else, he went with his doctors' strong recommendations and chose the latter option which he went through yesterday.

Seeing family members struggle is always difficult. Yesterday had a lot of struggles, physically, mentally, emotionally. I'm glad I'm here, though. With my other grandparents I either wasn't around as much as I wanted to be — or when I was my stubborn grandparents insisted their grandchildren and even children would let other people (nurses, etc.) take care of them — or there simply and sadly was nothing that I could do to help when strokes and dementia were at work.

Right now I'm trying to maintain a balance between taking care of myself physically and mentally and being there for my grandfather, cleaning, cooking, assisting, teaching, and baking and sharing desserts and cocktails or warm bread and beer or wine when time and energy allow.

I turned a quarter of a century old today. Time always seems to fly by whenever I think about it.

Brash Brutes: Spider Edition

Spiders. I'm one of those rare people who lets all but the most dangerous ones "rent out" a corner of their bedroom. Whenever I see a new one, I love trying to look it up and identify it. I don't know a huge amount about most of them, but I really do love them. They're really fascinating creatures. And there can never be enough of them in D&D.

One type of spider I want to use all the time in games is the Missulena occatoria, or the red-headed mouse spider, especially fantastical spiders with the same coloring as the males with bright red jaws and black legs and blue abdomen. Visually, they are so striking and menacing. I don't have much else to say other than if you haven't already (and you don't hate arachnids!), go look them up! No rambling about artists or any of that, the inspiration this time is purely the creature itself.

First notes:

Spider: Large arachnid (by D&D and Dark Sun standards, not real world standards) with 10 stout legs (5 pairs; 5 legs on each side, 2 of which are frontal legs but not quite developed into true pedipalps), two large, downward-pointing chelicerae with fangs (jackknife chelicerae; fangs only cross in "mutants"), book lungs, spinnerets under the middle of the abdomen, and a visibly segmented abdomen.
Simple description (for male): Large black and gunmetal blue arachnid with a strikingly bright red head and fangs.
Medium beast, unaligned, CR 1/2 (100 XP)

• Stealthy predator. Beneath webbed trapdoors in cave and oasis lairs they lie in wait, nearly undetectable.
• Menacing. Their striking appearance, their hunting capability, and their unique venom make them terrifying to any creatures that are capable of feeling fear.
• Vile diet. Smaller species eat insects, birds, and other small, soft-bodied creatures. Larger species (considered "giant" in other settings) eat anything meaty and even kill animals they don't want to eat for bait to lure things they do hunger for.

Good at: Stealth, explosive ambushes, fighting when cornered.
Bad at: Engaging creatures in the open (especially multiples).
Stats: ++DEX.
Equipment: Poisoned natural weapons (fangs).

With that stack of notes, I set to filling out the typical stat block. I started with a very simple spider and added a few things to make it more interesting to me. I have several iterations of this thing, one of them was this:

Menacing Spider, Male
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 12 (natural armor), HP 18 (3d8 + 5), Bloodied 9, Speed 35 ft
STR 12 (+1), DEX 15 (+2), CON 13 (+1), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 9 (-1)
Skills: Intimidation +5, Perception +3, Stealth +4 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Senses: Blindsight 15 ft, Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 13
Languages: --
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Abilities
Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Actions
Bite. +2 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the poison damage would reduce the target to 0 HP, the target is reduced to 1 HP instead, becomes Poisoned for 1 hour, and is Paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Triggered Actions
Ambush, on Web Trap trigger. The spider lunges forward, moving up to 10 ft to the target and making a bite attack with advantage. If it hits, the attack deals an additional 4 poison damage, then the spider and target make opposed STR checks. If the target wins, it can move 5 ft away. Otherwise, the target is dragged 10 ft away to a nearby wall or ceiling and webbed to it. They are Restrained and must make a DC 13 Athletics (STR) check or spend a turn burning the webs to escape.
Bloodied, 9 HP. The spider makes a spittling hiss, backs away up to 10 ft, and stops attacking. If it is attacked again, it will resume attacking as normal.

But that didn't feel very... menacing. I feel good about the way its bite attack works, it's built into the attack that the monster makes a point to avoid killing its prey, of course it needs to have an ability for when it's hiding in a web. And I love using bloodied triggers, they can make creatures feel more alive, more deadly, sometimes more desperate or plain creepy. This one ended up being nicer to newer or lower level adventures and, thus, players — which is what I've mostly been as a player and what most people I know play — and I feel great about that. Still, it was missing something, maybe a few things, so I took several more shots by amplifying a few facets and eventually got here:

Menacing Spider, Female
Medium beast, unaligned
AC 13 (natural armor), HP 36 (7d8 + 5), Bloodied 18, Speed 35 ft
STR 14 (+2), DEX 15 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 10 (+0), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 9 (-1)
Skills: Intimidation +6, Perception +3, Stealth +4 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Senses: Blindsight 15 ft, Darkvision 60 ft, Passive Perception 13
Languages: --
Challenge Rating: 2 (450 XP)
Abilities
Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Actions
Bite. +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the poison damage would reduce the target to 0 HP, the target is reduced to 1 HP instead, becomes Poisoned for 1 hour, and is Paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Triggered Actions
Ambush, on Web Trap trigger. The spider lunges forward, moving up to 10 ft to the target and making a bite attack with advantage. If it hits, the attack deals an additional 4 poison damage, then the spider and target make opposed STR checks. If the target wins, it can move 5 ft away. Otherwise, the target is dragged 10 ft away to a nearby wall or ceiling and webbed to it. They are Restrained and must make a DC 13 Athletics (STR) check or spend a turn burning the webs to escape.
Bloodied, 18 HP. The spider makes a spittling hiss and immediately leaps up to 15 ft, making a bite attack at the creature that hit it last or another nearby creature. Then it forces all creatures within 20 ft to make a DC 15 WIS save. On a success, a creature stands their ground and gains 1d10 Temporary HP for 1 hour. On a failure, a creature becomes Frightened of the spider for 2 rounds and has one less action on their next turn.

Much better. It has slightly lower HP compared to other CR 2 monsters I've seen but can dish out a lot more damage. Its bloodied action feels strong and scary to play against, especially if there is a male and female spider with that ability or if it makes all creatures within 20 ft of each of the two spiders Frightened. One thing I'm still not sure about are the "if the target wins, if they lose..." and "on a success, on a failure..." which can make the encounter snowball into being very hard or very easy much harder than if it were designed around just "if the target wins..." or "on a failure..."
    But I do like it a lot. It leaves a lot of room for DMs to play around with tactics and environments, from spiders that hide in trapdoors in grassy plains or savannas, to oasis and wasteland lurkers, to groups that stalk prey in pairs or larger groups with spiderlings in cave systems.

And there is a ton of room for Missulena occatoria's appearance to be used for other kinds of monstrous spiders, here are two templates that came out of a dozen more scrapped ideas:

Weaver
AC 10 (natural armor)
STR 10 (+0), DEX 16 (+3)
Skills: Perception +3, Stealth +5 (+7 in lair or Web Trap)
Languages: Understands Common (but can't speak)
Actions
Bite. +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. 4 (1d8) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 CON save, taking 6 (1d8 + 2) poison damage or half as much on a success. If the target fails the save, they become Poisoned for 1 hour and are Blinded while poisoned in this way.
Web Spray (Recharge 5-6). +5 to hit, 20 ft, two adjacent targets. The creatures are Restrained by webbing and make a DC 15 DEX save. On a success, a creature can take an action on their turn and make a DC 11 Athletics (STR) check to break the webbing; on a failure, DC 15 instead. The webbing cannot be burned away by fire, attempting to do so deals 1d4 fire damage to the restrained creature.

One version of the web spray looked like this: "15 ft radius, 5 ft range. The spider creates a sticky web around them, creating difficult terrain. Creatures in the area must make a DC 12 DEX check or become entangled by webbing. As an action, the entangled target can make a DC 12 STR check to break the webbing, but it cannot be burned away fire..."
    Another version had the spray in a 20 ft line and it leashed creatures together. I seemed cool, but the ways I kept writing and editing the ability that I was playing out in my mind was always messy and clogged up with so many words to cover all of the movement restrictions I kept thinking of. Good idea, I couldn't find a reasonably concise way to write it, so I scrapped it. The "two adjacent targets" version above is so much simpler to me and fits that lower level monster league.
    The language it knows not only means that it can understand commands given by a handler, it also means it can understand when hostile creatures make plans out loud speaking that language and that it can react to those plans. To me, this spider is also begging to be turned into a complete NPC with the ability to communicate telepathically and their own goals and plans, or to be hired by the party or recruited as a follower. It could be added onto drider creatures or, if it were the companion to a raider, rogue, or barbarian (PC or NPC) it could be an insectoid assassin with psionic abilities and relay information it hears to its handler.

Bulwark
AC 15 (natural chitin armor)
STR 14 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 4 (-3), WIS 6 (-2)
Skills: Athletics +5, Perception +3, Stealth +3 (+5 in lair)
Abilities
Wall of Legs. The spider has an additional +3 AC against attacks from the front and +3 to attacks against enemies directly in front of it. The first creature that attacks the spider or that it attacks becomes its focus, and the spider will face and attack its focus whenever possible. If its focus moves 15 ft away, it loses its focus until the next time it is attacked or that it attacks a creature.
Triggered Actions
Stomp, Bloodied. The spider's armor breaks off and it angrily flails its legs at each creature adjacent to it. +2 to hit, reach 5 ft, 8 targets (max). 4 (1d8) bludgeoning damage. The spider's AC is reduced to 12.

I don't know anything about my audience for this blog so far, so in case all of you have never played Gears of War, the "Wall of Legs" ability was shamelessly taken from the Corpsers in the Gears of War series. They could be burrowing arachnids or, like any of the spiders, mystically trained as pets for hunters or barbarians or what-have-you, with extra layers of padded, bone, or metal armor or weapons added to their legs to make them even more menacing. Making this type of spider Large instead of Medium — increasing its stats appropriately — would also make it much more terrifying when it stomps on players, I'm sure.

Creepy Confrontations

"Since morning they've been tailed by a pack of hell hounds, at midday they spotted a dust storm heading in their direction. At the first chance they had, they decided to take shelter in a cave where they won't be hit by the storm and could easily fend off the hounds. It just so happens that it's home to various critters..."
    When a character enters this cave (or for each of the encounters inside, if you prefer), roll on the table below to determine which creatures are living in it. One of that type of creature will hastily move past the character and leave the cave, giving someone the heebie-jeebies.

1d4	Creature	# per Encounter
1	Swarm of Bats	1d2
2	Stirges	1d4
3	Giant Centipedes	1d2
4	Scorpions	1d6

Minor Cave Encounters

Each room in the cave is significantly cooler during the day and will stay comfortably cool at night (or comfortably warm with multiple creatures in the room).
    If a character decides to sleep in any of the rooms or the entrance, the menacing spider will find them and attack at some point unless the path is blocked or the spider is killed. Roll for the spider's Stealth (1d20 + 4), characters must make Perception checks against it or be ambushed.
    Every room (except the front of the tunnel entrance) is extremely dark, so a light source is needed for most characters to see. Standard torches shed bright light in a 20-ft radius and dim light up to 40 ft, but I don't find that to be extremely useful for theater of the mind play. For me, each room has a number given for the torches needed to fill the room with dim light, double that for the number needed for vibrant light. Keep in mind for nighttime and cave encounters that most characters only have two arms and hands to light and hold torches with, limiting them not only as far as being able to see their surroundings but also use weapons, tools, and other items in combat. Additionally, if characters have obscured vision (such as in poorly lit areas), they make Perception checks at disadvantage. Small things like that can make a little cave much more dangerous than the combat encounters might imply. Granted, a lot of non-human characters have some form of darkvision which can negate the effect, adding unnatural darkness to rooms three and four below is a simple way to keep the cave interesting and isn't unreasonable considering at least one of the creatures there.

Onto the cave design:

• Entrance. A narrow gap in the rock is a tunnel with a very low ceiling 3-ish ft high (most characters need to crouch). It is small enough that only 3 Medium size creatures can fit at a time, or 1 Large creature if they are prone. At the back of the tunnel is another gap similar to the entrance which leads to Room One.
  
• Room One. 1 torch. The ceiling is 6 ft high with a few stalactites and the room can comfortably fit 6 people. At the back of this room is a slight decline and the room narrows to a 2 ft wide tunnel that leads to Room Two.
      Minor Encounters: 10 ft left of the entrance in the corner of the room is a gap in the rock. If someone makes a loud noise or puts anything in front of or inside the gap, the creatures will start skittering out and attacking.
• Room Two. 2 torches. The ceiling is much higher and has stalactites completely covering it. This room is much larger overall, able to fit a large family, but has an uneven floor and rough, winding and narrow walls. Taking a short rest here is possible, taking a long rest will not relieve Exhaustion. Something can be seen glimmering in the path to the left.
      The first character that walks more than 10 ft in the room must make a DC 14 Perception check (DC 11 if using a light source). On a success, they scrape against the walls but manage to avoid hurting themselves or snagging equipment on a rock. On a failure, they feel something scratch at them and take 1d4 slashing damage (from scraping against the walls, but don't tell them that unless they're already on to you).
      There is one violet fungus in the middle of the room.
      To the left: The path widens and the space transitions into Room Three.
      To the right: The path narrows slightly and leads to Room Four.
• Room Three. 3 torches. Roughly 40 ft wide and 65 ft long. It has a similar ceiling to Room Two and the walls are smooth and wavy or rippled except for a tall crack to the right and a dozen circular holes scattered around. The far wall is a dead end with a wide, natural shelf jutting out about 4 ft up that a character could sleep on. There is water dripping from the ceiling, running down several parts of the walls and pooling under the shelf (2 in deep).
      To the right of the shelf is a section of wall covered in white crystals with a few large red crystal chunks: 4 red garnets worth 50 coin each, 1/2 lb each.
      Minor Encounters in some of the holes: 5 ft right of the entrance near the floor, 10 ft left of the entrance and halfway up the wall, and another in the far wall overhead the shelf.
      A Dune Reaper Lair is in the crack in the wall 15 ft to the right of the entrance. See below.
  
• Room Four, Menacing Spider Lair. 2 torches. Circular, roughly 30 ft diameter. A few stalagmites dot the floor, stalactites and strands of silk hang from the ceiling, thick webs are strung between walls and stalagmites. The cave boss and 1d6 spiders wait silently and patiently beneath the floor in a trap door web near the center of the room which goes down 20 ft. In the room, roll for the spider's Stealth (+7). The first character that enters must make a Perception check against its Stealth or be ambushed.
      The room is covered in webbing and counts as Difficult Terrain. Webs can be burned away, or can be slashed at for one round to clear the space around a character.
      Wrapped in webs around a stalagmite is a dead humanoid with assorted equipment (random starting equipment for a random class). Two torches are tangled in webs at their feet.
      (Note again that if the spider is not killed or trapped, it will search for the characters in the cave and attack them while they rest. If the party stays in the cave and doesn't enter the last room, they don't avoid the boss fight, the fight just happens outside the spider's lair.)

The lair here isn't just a creepy monster hiding in a spot, it's a trap with a trigger and conditions and so on. This way, it adds a lot to the little area but keeps it simple and manageable and is easier, at least for me, to whip up and tweak to balance as opposed to making a whole monster and all of its stats. I like using dune reapers in Dark Sun games, having a hatchling instead of an adult drone or big warrior allows them to be introduced to players much earlier on.

Dune Reaper Hatchling Lair
Simple trap (level 1-4, dangerous threat, 150 XP)
The former nest of an adult dune reaper who preyed on the other cave denizens before dying. Now there is only the stench of rot and a weak dune reaper hatchling — weak compared to adult warriors, that is.
    Inspecting the hatchling reveals that it is very young and wounded: one leg is broken, the other leg has two deep slashes and damaged muscle can easily be seen. Inspecting the lair reveals some of the debris is the corpse of a half-eaten adult dune reaper. In the very back is one broken egg and two whole eggs (2 HP).
Trigger. A Tiny to Medium size creature moves in front the lair.
Effect. The hatchling attacks the creature. The creature makes a DC 15 DEX save, taking 9 (1d10 + 4) piercing damage or half as much on a success. If this causes the creature to fall to 0 HP, the hatchling drags them 5 ft into the lair and starts eating them, dealing 9 (1d10 + 4) damage at the end of each round. Otherwise, the hatchling retreats deeper into the lair until another creature triggers this effect.
Countermeasures. DC 13 Perception (WIS) check to notice a rotten smell and quiet chewing sound coming from the crack in the wall. On a critical success, a disturbing, alien presence can be felt tickling the character's mind when they focus on the lair.
    The dune reaper has 14 AC and 16 HP. It will retreat deeper into the lair and stop attacking when it reaches 8 HP or fewer unless provoked (by being attacked) or threatened (such as by a large fire in their lair).

Optional rules that can add realism or just a little extra to the encounter:

• The dune reaper becomes sated for 24 hours after eating 4 Tiny, 2 Small, or 1 Medium sized creature. While it is sated, it retreats deeper into its lair and will not attack unless provoked or threatened.
• If the dune reaper is killed by fire, acid, or asphyxiation, its dying screams can be felt by any creatures with psionic capabilities (or the ability to sense telepathic communications) within 100 ft. It deals 1 psychic damage to affected creatures within 20 ft and they are effectively Deafened for one round.
• If the dune reaper or spider dies and its body was not burned, its carcass will attract one of the Small sized creatures in the area (the same creature determined earlier). At sunrise the next day, the attracted creature's population in the immediate area will be doubled; if all of the Small creatures in the area were destroyed, one of the encounters will refresh instead (roll again on the table above).

With all of that, this cave could be its own adventure for low level characters or newer players, but if they play well or have a few levels it could be a breeze.

Another ball of notes finally out there. As I said on Twitter and have mentioned before, I'm busy with more family and personal business this month and can't write these posts a quarter as often as I would like, hopefully they're still enjoyable when I can get them out here. If you have any cool spiders that would fit Dark Sun or any kind of fantasy setting, share them! I'd love to check them out. Thanks again for reading, cheers.