“Mirror Mirror” Out of the Box D&D Encounter # 9

July 1, 2016

Introduction:

This encounter brings up two points that are commonly overlooked.

When anyone makes a campsite, there’s always some kind of preparation. No one simply makes a fire. There’s wood collection, digging or preparing a fire pit, and the like. These activities provide an opportunity for a DM to drop clues or create an encounter. Taking such common activities and making them uncommon can change how players behave during these moments. It might even make them look for things in new ways in other settings, making clues easier to pass on.

Secondly, players, especially experienced ones, are jaded when it comes to monster motivations. Goblins are thieves. Orcs are savages. Undead are mindless. Sometimes it pays to make a player question what they know. It makes them think in new ways and consider new directions. Overall, it may help them grow as a player. Many assumptions are correct for good reasons. Taking these assumptions as a solid rule all of the time can lead players into traps.

The following encounter can turn what would normally be a cut-and-dried combat encounter into a social one. It questions judgement, honesty, motivations and greed.

For your consideration, I present…

Out of The Box D&D Encounter #9 – “Mirror Mirror”

Environment: Wilderness -Forest/Swamp
Suggested Level: 4

One night as the party settles to camp for the night, the normal activities with making camp are interrupted with a strange discovery. As the party makes their fire pit, they uncover a small hand mirror that was buried in a shallow home of leaves, dead grass, or whatever surface in which they are digging. The mirror is covered in dirt and such, but once it’s cleaned up, anyone who peers into it’s reflective surface will see their reflection looking back at them – but as if they were a child version of themselves. The mirror will detect as magic, but possesses no other unusual properties. Later that night, conversations and such that occur around a campfire are added to with the distant sound of sobbing.

It will be obvious that a woman is sobbing, but her direction will be hard to ascertain given the echoing nature of the wilderness setting in which they are camping. A Survival (DC 14) will certainly help determine the direction.

What they will discover after a period of searching is the ghostly figure of a lady in fine robes with long braided hair. Her ghostly face weeps into her equally ghostly hands.

“It’s gone. It’s all gone..” she sobs.

The players can engage the spectral figure socially if they like. The figure is a Banshee. Normally such elven undead attack the living, but in this case all she wants is her mirror back. Resolving that should not be as easy as flatly asking and getting a straight answer. She has been dead a long time, so her social skills are foggy and long forgotten.

What should be required is either an Insight (DC 17) or even Investigation (DC 17) to determine this. To add to the event, the DM can optionally add a Wisdom (DC 13) saving throw for those within 20’ of the sobbing figure. Those that fail will also begin to cry. Crying characters will make the above mentioned Insight or Investigation rolls at Advantage, as they will feel her pain of loss. Characters are allowed to make a save at the end of each of their turns to end the crying effect.
If the characters realize that she is looking for the Mirror of Childhood and return it to her, she will cease crying and fade away, never to return, mirror and all. If the players try to trick her with another mirror, she will become enraged and attack.

Encounter Monsters:

Banshee – as per page 23 of the Monster Manual, except as noted in the description of the encounter.

Encounter Treasure:

Mirror of Childhood – Trinket. To the right buyer it might fetch anywhere from 25 to 250 gp (Roll 1d10 and multiply by 25)

Encounter Complications:

Unless the Banshee is destroyed, if she knows the players have the mirror she will not rest until she has it. This could lead to a number of pursuit-type encounters, or the Banshee turning on the friends or loved ones of the players to see its return.
It’s even possible that the players might find the mirror and ignore the Banshees cries. If that’s the case, it might become necessary to have the wailing occur each night until it gets results.
The players might even think that destroying the mirror is the answer. If they destroy the mirror in the presence of the banshee, the DM could have the Banshee descend into a rage and open with her Wail attack.
If the players sell the mirror to anyone, that new owner might inherit the nightly sobbing, which might then lead to having the players hired to deal with it yet again.