Feb/Mar '21 Lite Challenge: Infested Cave
Hello friends.
Here's a sketch of the map I'm going to be working on. It's a cave.
### Latest WIP ###
Dangerous Wildlife Cave.jpg
About this map:
TLDR: This cave is full of mutated, aggressive wildlife, as well as other nasty surprises.
More details (2 page read):
The story:
You arrive at the village of Skywell after learning that the local population is plagued by mysterious attacks of unusually large, aggressive wild animals. At first the sheep grazing on the local fields started showing mysterious wounds around evening time. Then larger cattle. Then the shepherds found a few sheep dead and one sheepdog badly wounded. This was at first blamed on the wolves, but the pattern of the wounds struck locals as strange. A wolf would go for the throat and kill an animal, not bite it in several places and leave.
People started bringing their animals indoors earlier in the afternoons. For a while it seemed the problem was solved, but a couple of weeks later it returned. And things got so much worse. Huge bats could be seen in the afternoon sky, as early as 2 pm. At first the villagers thought them to be some kind of birds of prey, but quickly learned the truth after one of the locals got attacked. A few people got together to check out the nearby caves where bats would usually dwell, though those were always small, nocturnal and not known to attack any larger species.
They ventured out one morning to discover the small forest leading to the caves strewn with corpses of wolves, deer, and other animals. These weren’t just dead from bite wounds, they were bloody bones. Horror-struck, they continued on very cautiously. After reaching the caves they noticed giant spiders at the entrance. This was too much. Although one villager had summoned the courage to shoot an arrow at one of the monstrosities, it did little other than make the spider very lively and head towards the group. Everyone fled.
On the same day they sent messengers out to local towns and cities to find someone willing to help.
The next day, another group of villagers decided to visit a local herbalist who fashioned himself a druid. Maybe this man living in the woods, always enthusiastic about befriending wild animals would be of help too. But he couldn’t be found anywhere. His house looked like no one has set foot in it for a long time, though it wasn’t empty so they couldn’t tell if it was really abandoned.
They’ve concluded that perhaps the man met his fate in the forest.
The adventure:
When the players arrive at the suspected cave, they’ll have to clear out the giant spiders infesting the large first chamber. There is a small stream going through the place, and you can choose to follow upstream, which, after a short climb, leads to another cave full of mushrooms, but is a dead end. Some bats are indeed sleeping here, and they are both large and small, but there aren’t many of them.
The chamber downstream from the entrance cave is full of foul smelling water. Dangerous ooze type of monsters lurk here, barely visible. There are a few bats sleeping on the ceiling here too. One part of this cave has a desk, a chest and a few other man-made items placed around. Looks like somebody moved in here, but the owner of these things is absent. If you look, you can find a journal of the herbalist, and in it he describes his observations on the local wildlife and his concern about a dwindling population of bats. Apparently he came to investigate that. He isn’t around though, and the journal is filled to the last page. Perhaps there is another volume, but it can’t be found anywhere in this area, even if you search thoroughly.
Further on, another passage leads to a cave that has more bats sleeping on the ceiling. Again, some are large, and some are small. They’re more abundant than in the previous parts of the cave. More oozes can be found here, and they are quite aggressive. Players have to be very careful not to step into the pools of strange liquid here and there. It appears to be extremely corrosive.
It looks like there is another passage further on, but it seems blocked and set up with traps that would deter wild animals. The traps aren’t hidden and the passage isn’t blocked off completely. It could be cleared out with a bit of effort.
The next area is small, and contains a corpse of a man, who, if you search his belongings turns out to be the missing herbalist. He had begun a new journal and in it described how he spent several weeks in this cave, searching for a way to communicate with the bats, learning how to shapeshift into a bat, surveying the surroundings in his bat form, and finally finding this strange part of the cave.
And it turned out somebody else had been living here for a while. A wizard/entrepreneur/necromancer of some sort. He’s been killing the small, harmless bats for a time now, transporting them off, reanimating their corpses and selling them as pets and familiars to wannabe wizards. The herbalist found his notes and belongings while the other man was away on his business, but it seemed he would be coming back.
The herbalist decided to destroy all the magical equipment he found, and then confront the owner when that one gets back. No further entry about how it went, and no mention of giant spiders nor oozes.
The last part of the cave is a small area where the wizard used to keep his things. The wizard himself is present. He got back weeks ago but failed to notice changes in the cave. As he walked towards his laboratory area he stepped into one of the corrosive puddles and injured his foot. He got to the last chamber quickly, to try to find some first aid equipment, but found the place a mess, lots of things destroyed. It took him a while to find something to treat his wound, and he was tired from the journey already so he went to sleep.
The next day he noticed numerous oozes in the cave, and retreated into his chamber, as he wasn’t expecting anything like that. He tried to leave several times after, but it was too dangerous. He decided to try to salvage his equipment and maybe build something that could help him escape. Later he realized the bats have become aggressive, and decided to build a barricade outside the second last area. He then also noticed the corpse of the herbalist and concluded it’s a victim of whatever’s out there, but didn’t touch the body.
When the wizard sees the adventurers, he’ll plead for help, without offering any explanation as to what he was doing there, but perhaps he could be convinced to talk.
To discover what really happened and caused the abnormal, hostile creatures to appear, you’d need to examine the broken equipment, perhaps try to talk to the wizard about the components of his laboratory, and read the herbalist’s journals. While he was smashing the foul instruments, the herbalist accidentally released a dangerous mixture of chemicals into the air. Feeling that something toxic’s in the surroundings he tried to flee, but his legs failed him. As he fell down, he tried to save himself by shapeshifting into a bat, summoning all his ability, but the spell didn’t work, and its energy instead mixed with the polluted air from the laboratory. It spread throughout the cave, affecting the small, harmless animals, and turning some of them into overgrown, bloodthirsty monstrosities.
The strategy:
One of the solutions would be to clear out all the oozes and spiders, and kill off the mutant bats by waiting for them outside, or setting some traps. The unaffected bats would remain in their habitat until night time.
The players can also choose to kill all the bats, but at the time of the adventure the bats are sleeping on the ceiling, so they are hard to reach. Also waking them could just mean a lethal swarm would ascend on the party, so this is not recommended. A large area of effect spell like fireball is also not recommended, as it could damage more than bats, and the party might get buried by falling rocks.
If the party chooses to kill all the bats and have a druid among them, but the druid does not speak up against this strategy he/she should suffer some severe penalty. I don’t know much about D&D rules, but this seems logical.
A restoration spell could be created from the knowledge of the circumstances by a party member with good healing ability. It would turn the bats back to normal.
You can collect the reward from the village as long as the attacks stop. You can also turn the wizard in for dangerous practices, or you can leave him alone. He has a lot of coin.
Feel free to modify or come up with extra options, monsters, adventure for this map.
Any feedback is welcome. Do you think a DM could populate this cave with enough monsters for a 4 hour play? Let me know, I will probably be modifying the layout slightly anyway. Also I didn't put a scale on it yet, so some comment on that would also be useful.
I would have posted this sooner, but I'm having difficulty with getting things done at the moment. I'm going through something very draining emotionally, but I'll try to provide an update in a few days.
