Junglebox - well met in the jungle

After the incredible success of my previous Junglebox Kit post, here's a list of random encounters in the jungle to tide you over when the party has decided to wander away from your carefully designed adventure site.

d12 what the fuck kind of rejects did we run into this time

1. Foraging crew (3 officers, 3d10 semi-intelligent zombies) of Karrnathi Unterwasserboot Todmansliebe, Capt. Dallmeyer commanding. Experimental transplanar strike craft, hopeless navigational issues, no clue the War is over, amiable disposition and high morale. Crewed to capacity, low on fuel crystals and other supplies. Prone to ask "vich vey zo Sharn, bitte?"
2. Toll post of Giants on the great river, with watch towers and a huge net across the stream. Allied with local mer/crab/mollusk-men or other assorted Deep One-knockoffs. Embarrassing case of cross-species STD doing the rounds.
3. Deeply paranoid party of Shadowbinder Drow on an infiltrition in the soft, weak overworld. Lost in the jungle and lost even more in their political officer's daily propaganda. Indoctrinated to believe that overworlders will sell their souls, secrets, riches and precious protein for baubles, and will fall for the most pathetic schemes. Carry nothing that isn't trapped, poisoned, honed or enchanted to kill. Slave carries their trading supplies of baubles - returning daggers, decoy homunculi, everhungry cloaks, boots of invisible tracks (will hide tracks but leave marks that glow in darkvision).
4. Serpent Folk slavers (1d6, and 2d4 drugged humanoid guards) returning to market with 3d6 new acquisitions (roll on table of People/sentients). At least one undercover revolutionary in the group - 1d6: 1-3 number of slave revolutionaries; 4 guard; 5 guard and slave; 6 Serpent Folk bleeding heart mistaking suicide vengeance squad of 3 slaves for revolutionary cadre that will help build a just new society where all are free.
5. Giant ants (1 weary overseer, 1d3+1 soldiers, 2d4 workers) carefully herding oozes and fungi to clear a death trap bonanza Drow burial vault which Princess First of Tender Ministrations has declared the site of her future colony. Going is slow and frustrating, with suspicions of the oozes intentionally leaving some traps intact. Overseer would love for a team of experts do a hands-on inspection of the project. Will promise first dibs on any annoying gold or arcana cluttering the chambers. Will need to contend with oozes having reached critical mass and bootstrapping their hive mind into full-Shoggoth rebellion. 
6. Happier than a pig in mud-explorers Prof. Livingstone and Prof. Stanley from Arcanix University. Wandering the jungle in blissful ignorance of their treacherous guides, the wild narcotic properties of the local "pipe weed" and the horrific curses on their archeological finds. Curiously lucky in avoiding the many accidents that strike their companions instead of them. Picture two clueless gentleman-explorers gallivanting around the jungle going "I say, what a pretty view, more tea?" while their cartoon villain guides are picked off by flesheating spider horrors. 
7. Cyclops archaeologist ultra-carefully excavating ancient Giant fortress, keeps berating innocent Hill Giant servants for tearing down delicate structures at night. Sleepwalks, drawn to buried mindcrystal that houses survivor of the big extraplanar invasion from the nightmare realm 40k years ago.
8. Swamp of super relaxed, doped out tree frog-people enjoying the warm waters. Attended by motley crew of 1d6 wildly different servants (roll randomly for people, animals, vermin) that have become enchanted and docile after exposure to the drug-soaked swamp water. Use as nymphs but with more slime.
9. Dream merchant willing to provide ancient, weird or just plain otherplanar gear for minor deliveries and fetch quests, clearing of vermin from a local glade, etc.. Actually a bunch of trained phase spiders that deliver shiny crap on behalf of a psychic tree monster that's trying to lure sentient food to its lair.
10. Stranded House Orien teleporter on a deep secret mission to treat with a Rakshasa demon. Have agreed to both teleport into and meet a an easily described hidden valley. Valley functions as ancient Giant honey pot for invading Quori (nightmare) spirits - you can teleport in, but then a magic circle goes up until the local overseer can check you out. Human and demon very suspicious of each other, playing polite shadow games to find out each other's real, true, actual motivation. Last Giant overseer died 40k years ago protecting hidden vault of promising Giant children in deep stasis. All animals in valley carry soul fragments of stark raving mad nightmare spirits. Have started to eat each other to concentrate spiritual power, take over biped invaders and open dimensional lock. Overburdened crap.
    Take two: two mages + entourage have teleported to this beautiful valley to discuss illegal trade or treasonous activity. Local shaman is troubled by dreams that indicate one of the visitors is a demon in disguise.
11. Hapless troupe of actors from Sharn have decided to travel the jungle for inspiration with ever-diminishing band of stage hands. So far, have picked up cursed golden idols, gems that are whispering demon souls, the skull of a ravening ancient vampire, sacred totems of the local filed teeth Drow, two changeling impersonators, and well hidden and increasingly bemused locals following them with bets on how much longer they'll last.
12. Burlesque smugglers. (I have no idea. My wife suggested this one while watching Mel Brooks' The Producers.)
13. BONUS ENCOUNTER FOR WHEN YOU'RE STUMPED BY ANOTHER ENTRY: group of young industrial espionage gnomes hunting for the next scientific breakthrough after elemental binding, necromancy or Warforged. (Could still be burlesque, offers my wife.)
14. SUPER EXTRA BONUS ENCOUNTER: Giant hermit preaching wisdom to bunch of deeply conflicted Drow, who are torn between unending racial hatred for anything over 6 feet tall and the fact that the hermit is a werescorpion, which must surely be a sign from their scorpion god Vulkoor. Hermit's poisonous sting conveys scorpianthropy and is also 90% deadly. Drow understandably less than enthousiastic about those odds, but will gladly try to rope interlopers into transfering holy werescorpionishness unto less troublesome vessel, leaving the group free to kill off the hermit without offending Vulkoor.

Map: zigguramid

I've got pyramids and ziggurats on the brain - hence, doodling. Here's a take on a mesoamerican-ish structure I hope to use in my ongoing Jungle Trek game.

This place

I imagine this place to be the ancestral home of a priest-ruler, with underground cells (or a lab?), a burial gallery (or vault?) and a sacrificial room with an bottomless pit. Now a ruin, the site has seen a couple of different inhabitants. The caverns or excavations on the right hand side were perhaps made by monsters or barbarian invaders.

A: One story gatehouse on the grand staircase, with many arrowslits (could bear improving, better version in B) and stairs to the underground structure.
B: Elevated palazzo, throne room, bell tower. Arrowslits came out better here.
C: Caves (or digging) breaking into the main structure. Lower cave opens up on the bottomless pit. Probably whatever made them was either from the surface and looking for buried treasure, or from below.
D: Your basic underground lab / prison / vault / sacrifice site.

Some self-commentary

Style clearly stolen (badly) from Dyson. I'm learning to plan out spaces before I put pencil to paper, but am still sketching at too small a scale, I think. Working at a larger scale I could've planned and straigthened out the stairs better, included furnishing in the rooms, etc. Playing around a bit with how to indicate features and terrain. In C, tried to work in inner walls in a big open space, not quite happy with how it turned out (too thin, lacks mass). In area D, I tried first (lower right cave) to copy Dyson's water icon, then settled for ripples in the lowe left cave. Left one looks better to my eye.

Junglebox kit

Here, for your enjoyment and to force myself to write down these ideas for a change instead of winging it, is my first stab at a junglebox. This is the first of a series; also includes random encounters and a ruined, contested jungle metropolis. For reference, my group is currently using Pathfinder - critters should be portable enough to other D&D clones.

This, but better and in different terrains? Sure!

Wavecrawl kit and Sandy box kit - Playing D&D with Pornstars
Forestcrawl kit - Wrath of Zombie
A slowly evolving Fungus/oozecrawl - Goblin Punch, Coins & Scrolls: The Great Rot, Monsters thereof,  Myconids and their ecosystem


Why you are in this jungle

1. Stranded after transport accident
2. Chasing known miscreant
3. Retrieving lore from hermit
4. Hunting for legendary creature
5. Searching for rare herbal cure to deadly plague
6. Returning cursed artifact to finding site
7. In race to faraway landmark
8. Challenged to discover legendary lost site
9. Questing for semiportable macguffin
10. Trying to get away from your cesspool of a home town
11. Looking for source of potent drug
12. Seeking forbidden magic

What keeps things interesting

1. No supplies, need to live off the land
2. Lost guide or maps
3. Natives don't speak Common
4. Saboteur in the party
5. Unwittingly carrying artifact of doom (50% chance of pursuing zealots)
6. Many factions to negotiate with
7. Haunted by ghosts of tombs you desecrated (50% chance of pursuing zealots)
8. Yellow bellied party members afraid of every last insect, fungus and snake
9. Dead weight - expedition member is useless, needs to survive the trip
10. Natives friendly, way too much into cannibalism
11. Limited carrying capacity for food, gear & loot
12. Wasting curse or disease whittling down party

Why you can't just turn around and call it a day

1. Drunken oath during farewell party to succeed or die trying
2. Burning hatred for rival adventuring party
3. Mistook retirement fund for drinking money
4. Promise to your one true love
5. Contract with guild master
6. Quite reasonable request from local Gnomish mafiaentrepeneurs
7. Crippling gambling debt
8. Archwizard with 'for the pursuit of knowledge' speech and Geas spell
9. High priest with 'chosen by the gods' speech and Quest spell
10. Wasting disease and inflated prices at temple of healing
11. Entire nation's fate hangs in the balance
12. Wandering curse - cannot sleep in the same place for more than 1d3 nights

This place

• Roll d8 to determine the dominant wildlife.
• Roll d10 to find out if there are people about, from which culture, and what is bugging them.
• Roll 1d100 for places: ruins, eldritch locations or other landmarks.

Dominant wildlife (d8)

1.    Fungus and ooze (d12)
2.    Plants (d12)
3.    Vermin (d12)
4.    Animals (d20)
5.    Lively plant life, small wildlife
6.    Dead-silent foliage, no wildlife
7.    Alliance: 2d4
8.    Conflict: 2d4

d12	Fungus & ooze	Plants	Vermin
1	Phycomid	Assassin vine	Assassin bug
2	Sky dreamer	Calathgar	Carrion moth
3	Giant slug	Cobra flower	Botfly swarm
4	Gelatinous cube	Crypt flower	Blood caterpillar
5	Ochre jelly	Dire flytrap	Death butterflies
6	Black pudding	Gallows tree	Firecrab
7	Tyrant jelly	Hangman tree	Giant centipede
8	Fungus queen	Jinmenju	Deathgrip bug
9	Ascomoid	Kawa Akago	Scorpion, giant
10	Violet fungus	Phlogiston	Scorpion, emperor
11	Myceloid	Udoroot	Scorpion swarm
12	Mindstab fungus	Witherweed	Tick swarm

d20	animals	d20	animals
1	Anaconda	11	Megasloth
2	Brontosaurus	12	Megasnake
3	Bulette	13	Megatortoise
4	Crocodile	14	Monkey Swarm
5	Devilfish	15	Poisonous frogs
6	Girallon	16	Quetzalcoatlus
7	Great cat	17	T.Rex
8	Hippo	18	Terror bird
9	Iguanodon	19	Venemous snakes
10	Megacrocodile	20	Wyvern

People (d10)

1.    1d3 Hermits (wise folk, witches, oracles, outcasts)
2.    2d6 Travelers (traders, hunters, slavers)
3.    2d4 x 10 Camp (nomadic)
4.    3d8 x 10 Settlement (permanent)
5.    Empty
6.    Empty
7.    Empty
8.    Empty
9.    Alliance: 2d4
10.    Conflict: 2d4

Culture (d30)

1	Firebinder Drow
2	Shadowbinder Drow
3	Girallon slavers
4	Slaad
5-6	Ashen Lotus cult; reroll for cover
7-8	Giant Ants
9-10	Serpent Folk
11	Fire Giants
12	Storm Giants
13-14	Jungle Giants
15-16	Hill Giants
17	Ettins
18	Cyclops
19-21	Vulkoor Drow: loreseeker
22-24	Volkoor Drow: wrathful
25-30	Volkoor Drow: hunter

d20 What is bugging them

1. Rival tribe conducting raids in territory
2. Wandering monsters poaching hunting grounds
3. Shaman is having prophetic seizures of "despoilers"
4. Bad hunting season. Usual rites and taboos do nothing.
5. Horrible weather - heat, cold, drought, rain
6. Burial grounds looted
7. Youths on rite of adulthood disappeared
8. Plague
9. Tools keep breaking and disappearing
10. The god in the pit grows hungry for a fresh bride
11. Holy madmen whipping up suicide cult
12. Drug addiction, stash ran out, trader is late

d100 Places

1	Abandoned town	51	Wide river
2	Razed temple	52	Lake
3	Sacrificial altar	53	Standing pools
4	Burial ground	54	Rapids
5	Giant stone head	55	Waterfall
6	Trading post - water, land, air	56	Muddy expanse
7	Crashed skydwelling	57	Quicksand
8	Bridge	58	Tar pits
9	Ancient aquaduct	59	Dinosaur boneyard
10	Vinerope bridges in the trees	60	Gigantic tree
11	Arena	61	Stone outcropping
12	Cliff caves, winch entry	62	Steep cliffs
13	Dream vault	63	Barren expanse between trees
14	Aberration lair	64	Cave-riddled hills
15	Mine: metal, gems	65	Oddly cool and quiet grove
16	Underwater tower	66	Smoke or gas from vent
17	Ziggurat observ/laboratory	67	Broken ground, slow going
18	Farming community	68	Pit of green slime
19	Derelict warmachine	69	Swamp with will-o-wisps
20	Trapped armory	70	Branching canyon
21	Temple full of eggs	71	Filled with rare blue flowers
22	Well with horror and treasure	72	Concentric rings of rock
23	Decayed watchtower	73	Gems that crumble in sunlight
24	Line of watchtowers	74	Forest-wrecked structure
25	Buried quorforged army	75	Impact crater
26	Crashed skycraft	76	Towering fungal growth
27	Walking fortress	77	Rage-filled glade
28	Inverse tower	78	Dried lake
29	Labyrinth, (dwelling in walls)	79	Broken dam, staggered rapids
30	Outsider foothold	80	Towering highlands
31	Magic tree*	81	Warblasted flora, fauna, terrain
32	Dead magic	82	Hot springs
33	Reverse river	83	Boiling hot geyser
34	Floating rock	84	Stone islands in caldera-lake
35	Haunted slave pens	85	Gigantic quartz shard
36	Syberis dragonshards	86	Glowing gems in the rock
37	Canyons are Draconic runes	87	Permanent thunder storm
38	Sunken town, breathable water	88	Lava flow or pit
39	Glow orbs mimic constellations	89	Still, clear, bottomless lake
40	Tilting floating building	90	Very pleasant glade
41	River of tumbling rocks	91	Dinosaur trapped in amber
42	Obsidian coral growths	92	Titanskull hermit crab
43	Field of Slaver Sunflowers	93	Fruit trees and game
44	Imp caught in amber, watching	94	Tidal caverns
45	Hut of giant skulls (spellbooks)	95	Mating ground
46	Giant shadows burned into rock	96	Disorienting spores
47	Permanent fire pillar	97	Poisonous and flammable gas
48	Cloud sigils teach magic	98	Giant wasp hive
49	Magic waterfall**	99	Hill carved into giant face
50	Magic river***	100	Lotus field

1d20 magic trees
http://gloomtrain.blogspot.nl/2013/07/horticulture-of-unknown.html

1d6 magic rivers

1. Untamed. Cannot be crossed by boat or bridge, a bitch to swim across, birds avoid flying over it. Any attempts gets you visits by gremlins, then elementals, then the god of the river himself comes to wreck your shit. Defeat him to cross and to travel faster in the future, but endure his constant challenges.
2. Forgetfulness. Every encounter check on the river, also roll a Will save or lose a year of memories, starting when you became an adult (first adventure, rite of passage) and moving one year closer to the present every roll.
3. Adventure. Reroll any encounter check that doesn't result in a direct encounter.
4. Time. A day of travel will last (d6) 1 10 minutes, 2 an hour, 3 ±1d3 days, 4 ± 1d3 weeks, 5 ± 1d10 months, 6 ± 1d100 years (travel back in time for negative results).
5. Unchartable. Strange plants, animals and landmarks appear on the banks; end up (d4) 1 unexplicably closer to your goal, 2 several days back along your journey, 3 in the spirit world, 4 at a harbor between the worlds.
6. Fate. Pronounce your own doom; the DM gets to add half as many words to the prophecy - you know these words. Gain a bonus to saves and checks equal to your level + charisma bonus when failing them would prevent you from meeting your doom. Your doom lies 1d10 years into the future; every time you use the river bonus, it moves one year closer. When you hit 0 years, your doom will come within d4 sessions.

1d6 magic waterfalls

1. Dilution. Objects thrown into the waterfall have their power washed away. Good place to wreck a cursed item. Just don't go in with spells memorized - unless you don't mind losing them forever. 
2. Soul sink. The waterfall destroys away the soul of anything falling into it. A way to end a recurring undead (which is nothing but a stubborn soul puppeteering dumb matter) or an angel/demon. Also a great way to make anyone surviving the trip into a soulless sociopath.
3. Chrysalis. Falling down the falls frees you to make the next evolutionary step. Roll 1d3 to determine number of mutations gained - for each mutation, roll Fortitude difficulty 15 + (total mutations) to determine whether it comes from the the minor or major mutation chart.
4. Nihilism. Will save, difficulty 20 nightly to gain any sleep: 2 consecutive failures turns you into an Awakened, 2 consecutive successes cures you.
5. Elemental baptism. Throwing a precious sacrifice into the waters blesses you with a powerful ward against magic.
6. Binding. The waters imprison anything as long as they keep running. Damming the river will stir up seriously pissed-off critters dumped into the falls in ages past.

3d6 Why the weather particularly sucks today
Roll for weather twice per day. After you roll extreme weather (3-6 or 15-18), reroll with 1d8+6 (7-14) to find the weather after the freak event. The next half-day also rolls 1d8+6.

3.     Radiation blast: Range 10/20/30ft, Fort 13/17/22 or initial 1/1d4/2d4 Con drain & 1/1d4/1d6 Str dmg/day (2 saves ends Str damage; spillover Str damage goes to Con). Buried source nearby.

4.     Earthquake: 1-25% 10x1d4+1 ft fissure; Ref 20 or fall; 26-40% Ref 15 or prone; Acrobat 10 to move, Dex-skills -8; Concentration 20+spell level to cast)

5.     Hypnotic Mist (Will 18, Confusion, 10 rounds: 1 Wander off, 2 do nothing, 3 attack self, 4 attack other)

6.     Forest fire (1d6 per round, 2d4x10 rounds; Fort 15+1/round (max 20) or 1d6 nonlethal)

7.     Clear, warm, breeze

8.     Warm, cloudy

9.     Heavy fog, 20% concealment out to 10 ft; 50 % concealment 10-20 ft.

10.  Humid, hot, still; Fort 10+1/hour of moderate excercise or fatigued (8 hours to recover)

11.  Heavy rainstorm

12.  High winds, half movement, -5 to climbing/flying checks

13.  Freak cold snap after rain storm

14.  Lightning storm (5% 10d6 lightning; 6-15% 5d6 shrapnel, Ref 20 half; 16-30% Fort 12 or deaf, 1 min) 

15.  Incorporeal wind (ignores everything but flesh; Fort 15 or 1d6 nonlethal & fatigue: -2 Dex & Str, no running)

16.  Flash flood (Survival 20: 1d4 rds warning; Bull rush +20 or swept away, 2d6 dmg/rd, Ref 12 half, 3d6 rds; Swim 20 to move towards dry land (1d3 checks))

17.  Reverse rain, dehydration (1 dmg/round of exposure, 3d6 x 10 rounds)

18.  Syberis shardfall (4d6 piercing & 4d6 fire, Ref 15 half; 1d4 rounds; yields 3d4 shards, value 20-50-200-1000 gp, weight 1/2-1-1-2 item slots)

Hexing my pathcrawl - big structure of my jungle game

I've gone on record saying that I like to be surprised by my players. (Idiot) "Go off the edge of the map", I think I said. You'll never guess what happens next!

...that's right, I pull out a binder with tables either written on my own or scraped off of better blogs and roll up their doom, is what happens. Here's how I try to add spice and variety to the trip, while keeping my prep work manageable.

Of course I'm not the first to write about this.

My guys are currently exploring the continent of Xen'Drik, Eberron setting. From the world map, Xen'drik is about 5000 miles east to west, 2000 miles north to south, with three big peninsulas and islands tacked on. Back of the envelope says ~16 million square miles of terrain. The group will be unlikely to visit the same place twice; there is no home base, only the ever-moving expedition back home. How do I plan an interesting game?

Hex it up?

If the continent were smaller and our group were more into exploratory hex crawling, I could number off ~50,000 six mile hexes, run a stocking algorithm and sit back in amazement as the players try out yet another type of poisonous fruit or get chased up boobytrapped waterfalls by Drow, Giants, snakes, scorpions and piranhas.

It might get old at some point, but let's label it "Plan B". Boobytrapped waterfalls sound awesome.

Or I could treat the whole trip Indiana Jones style, with travel abstracted so I can zoom in on what's happening at adventure sites along the road back home. But then I miss out on any surprises that the terrain can spring on the party.

Demands on my game

• players must be able to make a meaningful choice about their travel plans
• spending game time on travel should be interesting
• prep work should be minimal, but able to handle unexpected changes of plans

Meaningful choice tells me that I don't want to put the group on a railroad from predetermined site to site; they need to be able to learn about what is ahead, and choose where to go and what to avoid.

I'll cover keeping travel interesting by gauging the table during play. Solutions will be either to condense travel time ("you travel down the river a few days through these horrible marshes - roll to see whether the rations catch a mold or something") or by expanding it into a big part of the session ("there's a net across the river, with giant guards in uniforms patrolling the banks and towers in the distance. Whaddayado?"). Will need to rig the random encounters for a nice mix. Or give a short/long version of each encounter:

Toll post with net across river, a watch tower on either side of the river, giant guards in uniform. Druggie cult run by Shadeer, a naga sorceror looking for wealth and sacrifices to fund her research. Either roll stealth, pay 200 gp in valuables per party member, hand over a party member, or encounter 8 giant guards, 2 serpent folk druids and one naga.

Prep work is where I need to make a choice. I don't want to spend a lot of time slicing up the map with mega, macro and micro hexes. I also want to give a sense of progress along the long journey, which to me means some abstracting of travel time. Solution: a path crawl with quickly generated hexes for when the group goes off the path.

Adventure sites and travel routes

The big structure of Jungle Trek will be a path crawl: alternate between exploring adventure sites and negotiating travel routes. Adventure sites are detailed areas with lots of moving parts such as factions, plots, cities or dungeons. Travel routes connect adventure sites in a point crawl and can be stretched or condensed to taste. During travel, random generators serve up encounters, scenery, challenges and miniature adventure sites. If the party goes off a path and enters the wilderness proper, I'll quickly generate a couple of hexes and stock from random tables. These will include tips on how to navigate back to the paths and sites of the overall map.

In an algorithm:

1. party sets out towards new adventure site, having found directions in the current site
2. directions and rumors in the current/previous site hint at dangers along the path
3. random encounters spit out high points of the trip to the new adventure site
• if/when the party veers off-piste, generate local hexes with fun encounters and directions to the main attractions on the map
4. travelers arrive at adventure site and adventure, maim, loot, burn and otherwise obliterify carefully prepped environment
• if/when the party ignores the main contents of the area but goes exploring, run a local hex crawl again
5. travelers wring information on the surrounding area from any surviving NPCs or structures
6. travelers choose their next destination on their journey

Ideally, phases 1 and 5-6 are the start and end of a gaming session, so that I can flesh out a new adventure site in between sessions.

More on the random generators that kick in when the party Wander Off Stage Left To Explore What Lies Beyond Yonder Shrub in my next post - a cute little jungle crawl kit.

Jungle Trek session 3: wyvern bait

Session three of the epic saga of a golem, a dogperson and two deeply scared humans making their way through scenic Xen'Drik. This time on Jungle Trek: trial by stone giant, wyverns on the fornicating plane, mutating altars, Dr. Pepper orchids, and Very Dumb Ogre Mages.

Our noble, heroic, stalwart explorers:

• Drake - male human healer [non-player character, hireling]
• Eorie - female human rogue [non-player character, hireling]
• Santash - male kalashtar psion who shoved his mind into his psicrystal [non-player character]

And their decidedly less Good-aligned fellow travelers:

• Indiana Gnoll - male Gnoll ranger. Whip. Deranged laugh. [player: Robert]
• Woody the Warforged Wizard, who shall hereafter be known as Speaker-to-Cows [player: Bas]

Last session, the group introduced themselves to a tribe of stone giants who had issues with the local Drow tribe. Also a flying fortress/tomb hanging over the lake, Wyverns to watch out for, and not-so-subtle hints that three stone giant teenagers were behind the disappearances all along.

Damn kids

After a fight in the ruined school for gifted giants (last class: 40.000 years ago), the party discovers that Annoying Giant Kid #1 (hereafter known as Nephew, because I couldn't be arsed to name him) could not only shoot off invisibility spells, he was also cloaked in a big fat illusion.

Although why you'd want to hide a face like
this is beyond my understanding. Source.

Balancing weight-of-evidence against weight-of-corpse, the team decide on the happy compromise of just taking the head as evidence of Nephew's deep moral issues. They head back to the giant camp, escape a curious wyvern by summoning a magic pony, and are welcomed back...

...with, duh, accusations of having murdered Nephew and working with the despicable Drow all along. Quick talking and even quicker showing of their war trophy means they don't get smashed into a pulp just yet, just thrown into a guarded cave until the chief can go to the ruined school and check the story. The giant kids escape on the magic flying boat that makes endless rounds along the shore and to the floating mass of rock above the lake. Party decides not to pursue in the dead of night.

Briefly going back to school

Signs definitely point to there being something wrong with the giant teenagers, but just to make sure, the party treks back to the ruined tower in the lake with giant chieftain Yrthag in tow. They show earlier finds - a hexed murder-site where the three teenagers jumped a cow herd, dude's corpse near a sacrifice-o-matic magic altar, Nephew's grossly mutated headless corpse.

Chief is convinced and asks the group to bring the kids to justice.

Just one complication. The flying boat they escaped on is falling apart and can't take an adult giant's weight anymore. Could the hilariously undersized visitors, perhaps...?

Wyverns on the motherfucking plane

Party gets unceremoniously dunked into the flying funeral barge by Chief Yrthag when it briefly stops at the ruined tower. Barge groans under the load but doesn't immediately disintegrate. Did I mention the ever-curious wyverns before? I'm pretty sure I did. And the party sure wasn't surprised - displeased, but not surprised - when one of the flying beasties landed, severely damaging the barge but even more severely grabbing hold of NPC Drake and flying off.

That's the party's sole healer being carted off through the air by a highly poisonous semi-dragon, for those who are having trouble picturing the scene.

Adorkable beastie. Found here.

What's my character's motivation? Oh, crap.

And Indiana Gnoll's player, poor Robert who at the start of the campaign confessed he often has trouble deciding on his character's motivation, knows exactly what his Indiana Jones knock-off would do. Try to whip-catch hold of the Wyvern, tame it in mid-air, and wrestle it back to where it needs to go of course!

Some good rolls, even better use of action points and lucky not-getting-stabbed-in-the-guts-with-insta-death-wyvern-poison later, Indy manages to force the wyvern, the healer and himself back to the floating barge.

Which is just then passing through the forcefield hedging out dangerous beasties from the floating tomb. Wyvern gets zapped and flies off shrieking, Warforged party member gets zapped again by giant magic, and the psicrystal with the mind of their NPC telepath buddy in it gets quietly turned to ash. Yeah, that's why the archeologist wasn't commenting on the beautifully preserved giant architecture.

I kept forgetting to have the archeologist-psicrystal dude weigh in. Even when he should be speaking up, he just slips my mind. Problem solved with a fair and square save and 3d6 electricity to the face. Leading facet. Whatever. 

Yes, you can use his dusty remains as a magic component.

The flying tomb fort

Awesome. Source.

Lifted from the awesome Trilemma Adventures, upscaled to fit the size of the previous giant owners. The fortress / tomb is a huge floating d8 with a vertical cylinder drilled down the centre, connecting the three floors. The flying barge docks at the bottom, but the levitation elevators for the cylinder burnt out long ago. It's climbing time for the ranger, rope-wrangling for the NPCs, and then we have to pause and look up how much a sentient golem actually weighs when the wizard can't be arsed to spend his Fly spell on a 30 foot ascent so the ranger needs to haul his ass up. 400 bloody pounds of deadlifting later, the team are on the bottom floor.

Bottom floor: illusion/tapestries of the awesome Giant Wizard Radamenus, who kicked mucho ass 40k years ago, and prepped this tomb/fort for when she would eventually kick the bucket. The bound Djinn and caretaker Ak checks that at least one party member has a honking big gold amulet that identifies them as a bona fide student, informs them that their fellow students are upstairs in the map room, and introduces them to an automatic healing altar powered by radioactive white pearls. Uberfast miniature Drow zoom around the place and clean up scattered pearls so that the party can safely investigate. The altar has a basic 'heal injuries' setting, replacing wounds with pearly white flesh, and more advanced biomantic options.

An exploratory surgery theater next door holds all kinds of sicko scalpels, and one table near the window slit has been cleared to grow funky ashen lotus which pick you right up. Party does not immediately partake of the stuff. Wusses.

Can't wait to inflict my mutations chart on 'em. Found here.

Players immediately decide this is like a real life version of the "customize my character" sliders in e.g. Skyrim and describe how they're going to fuck up their bodies later. I cannot wait.

Seriously happy with finding Trilemma Adventures. These adventure sites consist of a beautiful map and suggestions for locals and contents, which gets my creative juices flowing faster than equally beautiful Dyson's maps. Easier to modify than to start with a blank sheet, I guess.

I've reworked this site a bit to fit into my campaign, added a bound Djinn caretaker that really wants to be set free, foot-high Drow/quickling servants that race around the tomb and repair stuff. Also added a little drug lab on the lower floor, added mutate-the-fuck-out-of-me buttons on the healing altar, and looked up the Pathfinder radiation rules to flesh out the magic white pearls that power the entire site. Finally, some treasure and surprises on the middle and top floor, which haven't been properly explored yet.

Central floor: session is dragging on, I want to end on a bit of excitement, and luckily the noisy climb is enough to finally bring the two remaining giant kids investigating. A fight follows in which they are too angry to properly use all their Oni powers, NPCs go down with a hit of their clubs, and grappling moves almost manage to dump a player character down the tomb's central cylinder and then further down 500 meters to the lake surface. But then the wizard lays down serious damage via summoned elementals and the tide turns.

Ak the Djinn. Stuck in a tomb for
40.000 years and fed up with giant
teenagers hanging around on his lawn.
Source

All-out combat turns into a rout for the two giants, who try to levitate or fly down to the healing altar. It turns out being nice to bound caretakers is a smart thing, as Ak the Djinn conjures up an illusory wall of flames cutting off their entry to the healing room. Arrows and air elementals make short work of the giants' remaining hit points.

A last bit of exploration on the mid level shows the players a huge map room, with floor-to-ceiling illusions of the continent, crossed by ley lines and with 'site of interest' at the intersection.

"Go here for your next adventure." I'm a hack.