I cannot speak for every Dungeon Master, but I can admit some of my favorite references in D&D are the Wild Magic Surge table, the Wand of Wonder table, and the Potion Miscibility table. Why? Players do not accept the endangerment of their characters at most times unless, it seems, it is by one of these tables. This random fun seems to delight both the player it affects and the DM who witnesses it, regardless of who rolls for it.

Placing one of these moments in a game can take a bit of setup unless you have a Wild Mage sorcerer in the party. Some players may not be open to this sort of chaos as well, so it’s important to know your group. If they are indeed open to this, feel free to interject these sorts of events in weird and unusual ways. They might be through environmental effects, the actions of others, or a simple trap. The combinations are practically endless.

In this particular situation, I am drawing from a situation at my own table. In the very first adventure I DM’ed for my daughter, the characters were charged with investigating a hag’s tower that sunk into the ground for mysterious reasons. The hag in question was a master alchemist and infamous potion maker. The terrain would occasionally be affected by her mysterious mixtures as they seeped through the soil and gathered in pools, affected wildlife, or animated deep roots. The circumstance below became a challenge to the characters as they had to deal with an unknown terrain feature, negotiate a trap, and concern themselves with the repercussions of what failure meant. As this encounter begins, the player characters will be in transit in some sort of subterranean feature – be it a dungeon, ruin, or cave complex.

Dungeon/Ruins/Caverns

Any

The rough hewn path before you twists and turns. It’s a 10 foot wide and tall roughly circular passageway with a rounded ceiling speckled with tangled roots projecting randomly from above. The surfaces around you are damp and reek of a mixture of wet earth, the sharp odours of metallic compounds, the funk of rotted organics, and strange exotic notes.

Here and there grow tiny mushrooms of various colours, all glowing in bright greens, blues, pinks and yellows. The combination of the smells and the bioluminescence make for an alien atmosphere.

PCs so willing to make and succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check or who have proficiency in alchemist’s tools will divulge the area has been bio-organically altered through long term alchemical seepage. A successful DC 12 Intelligence (Nature) check may also add the mushrooms may have been natural at one time, but their bioluminescence in these shades is not through natural means.

Ahead, the passage turns sharply 90 degrees to the left and appears even more slick with seepage. Those who turn the passage without care will have to deal with a downward slope in the passage of a steep 30 degrees for about 20 feet. The dripping is greater over this slop, and it has exposed a slick, smooth, stony surface. The walls and ceiling are still earthen and rough, and strange roots of varying sizes and twisted shapes poke from the ceiling above.

Traversing this slope is tricky at best, as the surface is not only slick, but has a constant slight dripping of fluids of varying colours. Anyone wishing to walk unassisted (by any reasonable means the DM agrees with) will have to succeed on DC 15 Dexterity check or fall prone and slide down the length of the slope and into the pool of fluid at the base.

This pool is filled with iridescent water fed by the constant drip from above. It is roughly 15 feet in diameter, only 1 foot deep, and is surrounded by a “faerie ring” of tiny bioluminescent mushrooms of varying colours. Anyone who lands in this pool or walks through it willingly will have been considered to have taken one dose of a random potion (consult Magic Item Table C, page 145 of the Dungeon Masters Guide, ignoring all results that are not a potion). This potion will not take effect until the second half of this “trap” takes effect. If that second half is never encountered, then the original effect will evaporate off the PC in question after 1 hour.

The passage below this slope hooks back toward the right again, and widens out to 20 feet wide. This lower passage possesses a 10 foot high ceiling as well, and is roughly 30 feet long, sharply ending in a tapering of the room down to another 10 foot exit. This exit is ringed with another thick batch of bioluminescent mushrooms. These are larger and more mature, but do not impede the access to this exit.

The floor below this exit is carpeted in tiny bioluminescent mushrooms in roughly a 10 foot diameter circle centred on the exit. If a PC steps upon this tiny mushrooms, they will puff out a tiny cloud of spores. If the larger mushrooms above or around the door are damaged, they will spray out a mixture of spores and absorbed fluid. The effect of either the spores or the fluid spray are the same as the pool – a random potion result. Like the pool before, if these spores or mushroom fluid will become inert within an hour if not activated.

The “trap” of this room will only be sprung if a PC is exposed to both the pool and either mushroom effect. The trap is essentially the two alchemical byproducts intermingling on the PC causing its own alchemical misadventure…or possibly boon.

Note each separate character who enters the pool or is exposed to the mushrooms gets their own secret potion(s) roll. Roll separately for each PC so exposed. This may result in a lot of rolling on charts. If the DM so desires, they can predetermine a list of possible potion results from these tables and simply write them down on slips of paper, then have affected characters draw from a hat.

The real roll – the trap – will be when a character gains two random results combining the pool and the mushrooms. That roll will be on the Variant: Mixing Potions/Potion Miscibility table (Dungeon Masters Guide, page 140). Each PC has a chance to explode, have no effect, gain one or more potion effects, or gain the effect of one of the potions as a permanent effect.

This room’s pool/mushroom mixture can only affect any one given PC once ever, so there’s no “double dipping” into this room to see if a PC can try again. The mushrooms and the pool have their own nature preventing such an occurrence

The exit to the room leads to another earthen passage further into the adventure. This is but one room.

None, except a possible trap.

Possible free potion effects.

This room might eat up a lot of time. When I sprung this one on my own players, they took a long time to work out a way down the slope and negotiate around the pool without touching it. Expect and plan on this. Allow for that kind of time. I have DM’ed tables where players would intentionally roll about in such pools hoping for something to happen. Each table is different.

The second challenge the DM might face is the concept of one PC either exploding, having their potions become a poison, or a PC gaining a permanent power. If the power is permanent “gaseous form”, then the complications get more intense. Dealing with the balancing of permanent giant strength is something to watch for as well. It would be advisable to expect and plan for this as well.

The fun of this room is the chance to watch the PCs problem solve, as well as injecting the randomness RPGs can hold. If this sort of “live by the dice” room would create dynamics the DM or the players are not comfortable with, then the DM can either avoid this room or replace the random effect with a more predictable “potion of healing” or other easily accepted result. The intention is random fun. Sometimes that’s not for everyone.

[amazon_link asins=’B076QF8YCP,B01KMA6NJE,B00KIZL6VE’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’nerdarchy-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’a16512a9-e0a9-11e7-bedc-676a7b7e2dc0′]