A D&D Encounter for Your Game Night

We recently built a D&D encounter around the miniature sent to us by channel sponsor Pacesetter Games & Simulations. As a side note, right now there is a staynerdy15 promo code over at Pacesetters that you can use to save 15 percent off your purchases. Not to mention there is plenty of free stuff to download on their site. The paints to paint the mini were supplied by Vallejo Paints. There is also currently a give-a-way to win the painted mini, unpainted mini, and paints to go with it here. The mini is a sculpt of Baphomet from the Pacesetter’s Demons and Devils miniature line.

Here is the paint job by folks over at Pacesetters. You can compare their paint job to Intern Jake’s.

It’s game night. You are the DM but don’t have material. No problem!

In the case of our minotaur miniature we decided to demote him a bit. Instead of the demon lord Baphomet himself we’ve decided to craft an D&D encounter idea around one of his beloved servants — the first spelleater minotaur. Below you can checkout the video where we discuss the encounter. You can also pick up a copy of the D&D encounter on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

After the video you can find Intern Jake’s paint job as well as more thoughts on creating your encounter’s for game night.

Deadly D&D Encounters – Horris the Horned Lord

Here is the narrative Intern Jake built around his minis.

Thr spelleater minotaur was a creature we came up with awhile ago for one of our Patreon rewards. So when coming up with this encounter we decided to do a little more with our previous creation. What if there was a more powerful spelleater minotaur? What if Horris was the first of them? While Horris the Horned Lord gets billed as a single encounter, a skilled Dungeon Master could easily turn this into a full session for game night.

The minotaur has been a favorite monster of mine ever since I was introduced to the hobby. My love of these mythic baddies probably began with them as heroes from Dragonlance novels Like Kaz the minotaur.

D&D encounter or villain design — where to start?

I feel like a great place to start is asking yourself if you could imagine this villain or group of villains as the heroes under a different narrative. The easier it is, the closer you’ve come to creating more than stat blocks. Every encounter needs its own center piece. That could be the villain, the set dressing (where the encounter takes place), or even an idea or concept. The idea or concept could be disrupting or completing a ritual, solving a riddle or puzzle, or defending important NPCs during the encounter. Ideas and concept can be a little interchangeable with set dressing.

The idea is to pick the focal point for your encounter and build out from there. In the case of the Horris the Horned Lord we chose a specific monster, in this case a D&D minotaur. Then we spruced him up a bit with backstory and cool abilities that others of his kind doesn’t have. We added a cadre of cursed minions and yes, even a fancy party for our adventurers to attend.

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