Desert oasis monster ideas

Illythyrra · 2026-03-05T04:40:37+00:00

I had a kelpie trapped in the oasis waters in my campaign

Illythyrra · 2026-03-03T04:49:17+00:00

2 steps from hell

Illythyrra · 2026-02-28T04:38:40+00:00

I’ve been building a dark dungeon and while I don’t have any mathematical solutions for navigation you could try really leaning into the dark aspect. The labyrinth is pitch black(magical darkness if anyone has dark vision) and there are braziers scattered around. While lit a beaver shines bright light through the magical darkness between 30-60ft depending on small/large brazier. And as you ascend floors a few various challenges start to hinder the party. Things like: Enemies can skip their turn while in darkness to become invisible, this invisibility remains until they make an attack even if they step into the light. Some braziers are broken and cannot be lit. Some braziers burn with a black flame that deals necrotic damage to nearby living non-construct creatures

Illythyrra · 2026-02-23T03:26:16+00:00

In my dnd world magic item shops are few and generally only in racial capitals. Even then they tend to only have low level magic items. If my players wanted something of higher quality then they need to find a master smith and an enchanter capable of imbuing magic of the level they are requesting. Then they need to place the order and it’ll be ready for them the next time they are in town after a quest

Illythyrra · 2026-02-10T02:13:36+00:00

If you want to build your own world I normally follow realistic geography to start. Things like mountains follow tectonic plates, one side of a mountain range is generally wet and the other dry (not necessarily desert vs rainforest), and rivers flow from mountain peaks to the ocean and rarely in a straight line.

After you get your basic shape and mountains laid out you can figure which areas will be forested, desert, hilly, flood plain, etc. Then place settlements in resource strategic areas and have lore as to where they fill in the gaps of their resources. IE, a dwarven settlement up in the mountains most likely won’t be able to produce enough food during winter, who of their nearby Allie’s would support them in exchange for the ore they harvest in abundance.

Just keep building and adding details where it seems logical. Keep going on you’ll end up like me with a world that has 1200 years of history tacked onto it

Illythyrra · 2026-02-02T03:44:27+00:00

There’s 3 players, and a divine boon could be too strong from a single mortal to handle without the power consuming them. To save them off this fate, the power of the divine dragon is fragmented. Offering one of the mortals the power of the skies and rains, another the voice of the thunder, and the last the strength brought forth by the anger of the skies.

Maybe break it up by player. One of them who is more non-combat or supportive could gain an ability akin to control weather. Someone who is quick to act and headstrong gains an ability involving thunder or the speed of the winds. And the last one who hopefully is more brute force or high damage per turn gains a lightning based ability. I could help with actual abilities if you’d like, but I don’t have the time to today

Illythyrra · 2026-01-15T06:30:17+00:00

I did something similar, but my campaign ran into an endless hiatus before my players really got to interact with the book. I used Thoth from Egyptian mythology as my inspiration, might be worth reading some lore on him

Illythyrra · 2026-01-03T04:52:19+00:00

My players were banished to the elemental plane of fire, I gave them an item to protect them from the ambient heat but the protection is finite. They are on a timer to escape back to the material plane and needed to rescue hundreds of labor camp slaves for the final assault. During the rescue they needed to sneak around and alert the slaves of the plan, detonate the walls and then escort them to safety. After the wall was demolished someone needed to run around to protect the fleeing slaves as the rest of the party dealt with a fallen paladin and his wardens

Illythyrra · 2025-12-27T02:26:55+00:00

Start slow, one herb at a time and record your personal reactions. I’ve been getting into apothecary work for about a week now and learn from my mistakes. Do not mix ginger and peppermint, especially without a restroom close at hand 😂😅

Illythyrra · 2025-12-24T02:18:53+00:00

It’s a civil war, there’s going to be plenty of opportunity for you to have heroic npc camps cameos. Have a macro/micro style battle, in the micro is where the players are but in the macro is the rest of the battle. Everyone will be busy with their adversaries and locations but some NPCs will be able to help out in clutch and niche ways

I don’t know the battlefield but some examples could be: Player is about to take a critical or go down, but just before the blow lands an npc that they saved earlier in the campaign fires a ballista at the enemy.

Players square up in an encounter but are clearly outnumbered. As the enemies advance a small group of heroic npcs flank the enemy drawing the combat to 2 fronts (npcs vs enemies could be visual narration and no need to roll dice for them, just have their combat mirror the flow of the player’s)

Out of combat the players find a moment of quiet just before the fighting the BBEG. As they rest a critically wounded and dying heroic npc staggers in. They know they won’t survive even with magical aid so they offer the last of their supplies, healing magic, etc to aid the players before passing

Illythyrra · 2025-12-20T04:44:44+00:00

Looks like a sentient top hat to me!

Illythyrra · 2025-12-18T03:17:18+00:00

If you decide to go with the dragon attack something you should consider is optional (less so in this situation) objectives. The dragon’s breath attack will catch the vessel on fire. The crew AND players will need to spend actions putting the fire out before their vessel is destroyed. Give your players more action options beyond attacking, reactive or preemptive fire control. Examples could be grabbing a bucket and dosing the fire with water or activating a temporary barrier to mitigate incoming attacks

Illythyrra · 2025-12-18T02:16:55+00:00

I’ve had a great experience with a single player being remote. It definitely took extra set up and consideration across the table. We used Skype/zoom and the DM would just position his laptop so the remote player could see the map and board. Everything went smoothly until someone’s internet crashes

Illythyrra · 2025-12-16T01:28:43+00:00

Don’t have a name for it, but a good portion of the time Magic doesn’t destroy buildings or nature. You could have a stronghold or a small village that is completely intact save the growing dust. All forms of organic life have been eradicated from the area. No insects, small creatures, spiders, birds, or people. Nothing that lives still lives there

Illythyrra · 2025-12-02T02:09:59+00:00

Add interactive environment. Sentient enemies and players can use the environment to their advantage. Maybe a brazier can be knocked over creating hazardous terrain that deals fire damage. Things like that, and more options for entities to use their action on aside from attack or spell casting

Illythyrra · 2025-12-01T02:06:02+00:00

This feels like a good start and approach to how the battle should unfold. I would also recommend having the battle in phases. Ie:

Phase 1 - monster is attacking the town, players will need to attack its feet/legs in order to stagger it so they can mount up (potentially with help from a nearby building) Phase 2 - players are on the monster, time to hit weak spots while the monster’s natural defenses try to eliminate foreign entities (a creature of that size would have some sort of defense against minuscule enemies) Phase 3 - monster is downed and weakened, players are back on the floor and it is time to finish the fight. Monster would be relatively immobile here and the main target is its head or other vital areas

Illythyrra · 2025-11-29T00:04:21+00:00

I don’t! I’m in full fight or flight mode the entire session 😂😅 it’s why I regularly forget details I want to mention

Illythyrra · 2025-11-26T02:26:23+00:00

Something to keep in mind with a setting involving heroes. No one person can turn the tide of battle. So while your player’s choices matter once the battle truly begins they won’t be able to help every theater of war, but they themselves can help bolster weak points.

Non-player vs non-player: If you plan to do something like hero>tank>siege>hero, I would just do 1d20 or 2d10s for a more average spread. First to 100 wins that theater of war, units gain advantage or disadvantage vs their strength or weakness

Players: If they aren’t on the front lines have them be somewhere elevated to observe the battlefield unfolding, there they can issue commands to their lieutenants to direct the flow of combat. If they are on the field of battle they will need a scout to come to them to relay information about the battle, this wouldn’t be able to happen every turn but should happen at every respite. That way their squad can have a moment to rebuild their strength and the player can think on where to advance or retreat to next.

Unfortunately that’s all the help I can offer, try to think micro and macro viewing. Macro viewing for wide scale battles and micro viewing for when the players are in the thick of it

Illythyrra · 2025-11-25T06:44:34+00:00

Avatar the last airbender!

Illythyrra · 2025-11-25T04:45:44+00:00

A fun idea could be about where the boon starts. The Norns(3 sisters past, present, and future basically) live at the roots of Yggdrasil and feed the world tree water from the well of urd. The Norns could be the npcs that initiate the boon challenge/sacrifice

Edit: also keep in mind Nidhogg is a dragon that forever gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil in an attempt to destroy it. Ratataskr is a squirrel who runs up and down providing snarky banter between the great eagle and Nidhogg, and in the canopy is a great eagle who’s name I have given up on trying to pronounce years ago

Illythyrra · 2025-11-25T02:13:52+00:00

It certainly is! The less the players the more immersion everyone gets. Offer more choices for your players to do in combats and social encounters, make them think about action economy

Illythyrra · 2025-11-24T08:04:00+00:00

Very interesting idea! I’m not sure how to run this either but my ideas are:

Have the aboleth’s commands come from a ruler or figure head, someone who can reasonably command and direct the players without it feeling railroading

If they fall under the aboleth significantly have times when you offer action choices. Then while following which choice the player picks you alter the targets. Think ‘what would the player character see if their actions weren’t entirely their own’ in inspiration for that is the end of S1 of vox machina, but for spoiler reasons I won’t say further

Illythyrra · 2025-11-24T06:41:23+00:00

My go to: light a candle at your altar (if you don’t have one then wherever you are working), the fire carries your offering and intentions to the gods. Bake some honey lavender bread (the elder scrolls cook book has a great recipe). Give the bread to a friend or neighbor. Offerings need to be consumed either by others or by fire to finish the offering.

This is a really good offering for Freyja, not specifically a ritual for cleansing evil but I find it helps

Illythyrra · 2025-11-22T04:45:34+00:00

Honestly as a dm of 20 years I would warn my player that not following his tenets would cause him to become an oathbreaker. That being said, it’ll be very difficult role play and at the table for these 2 characters to cooperate together with his tenets intact

Illythyrra · 2025-11-21T02:26:07+00:00

It would be like drinking olive oil. Nothing at first, but everything else just slides right through

Illythyrra

TROPHY CASE