“The Menagerie”- Out of The D&D Encounters Box #20
September 16, 2016
Introduction:
It’s always important to read the flavor text. For monsters, magic items, and spells, the flavor text can turn a blase encounter into something more. This very encounter is based upon the little details of one spell – Polymorph. (Page 266 of the Player’s Handbook) However, instead of just using that spell as written, what if you created a special region affected by the spell, and tweaked it in such a way as to give the players more agency within the confines of this encounter? What if that special region was a Wild Magic zone? Mayhem!
Environment: Wilderness.
Suggested level: any, but it should be high enough to justify the possible treasure.
The party might be travelling along a lonely road or twisting path through dense woods, and the foliage seems to abruptly open into a single but large glade. The glade is enormous, and appears for all intents and purposes to be roughly circular. At the centre of this glade is a thick and tangled copse of trees, vines, and brambles. The central tree is an ancient oak, twisted and enormous. It’s branches both reach to the sky and bend to the ground like an umbrella. Woven within these branches, innumerable vines twist and turn like a green tangle of webs, dotted by large white lily-like flowers. Shooting from the ground and entangled among the vines and trees are an equally abundant number of thorny brambles.
Standing next to the mass of vegetation is an elephant – very much out of place – and feeding on leaves and flowers. It seems to be unaware of your entrance into the glade. An eagle soars at treetop in a circle.
This imposing and tangled growth is not the most surprising feature, however. Starting from within the growth, and spiraling outward toward the edge of the glade is a dimly glowing and ever sparkling spiral of light upon the glade floor. Shifting through the colors of the rainbow, it gives the glade a fey-like nature. The air seems charged with some sort of energy.
The area is a Wild Magic zone, centered on the trunk of the oak tree and ranging 150’ outward like a sphere in all directions. This, however, is not the main concern. The main concern is the Wand of Polymorph that was lost decades ago by a Wizard and has been grown into the centre of the base of the tree canopy. The oak grasps it without intent, and yet, grown into the centre of the Wild Magic zone, it now powers this Wand eternally so long as it remains lodged into this tree.
Both the Elephant and the Eagle are not native to this zone. Both are merely Goblins who wandered into the zone and were changed by the Wand in the tree. A third Goblin is among the brambles in the form of a Rat.
The fun begins when the players get to within 60’ of the tree. Once per turn, the “Polymorph Tree” will act. Each one that closes to this range must make a Wisdom (DC 15) saving throw or be Polymorphed randomly into either an Elephant (MM, p. 322), Eagle(MM, p. 322), or Rat (MM, p. 335). Every time someone becomes one of these creatures, whomever was that creature beforehand is released from the spell. However, should another creature be released from any other form, that creature can be considered a viable target for a new form when randomly determining who makes a save.
Should any character be transformed, they will retain their mental attributes and personality, unlike the spell. Otherwise the spell behaves like in the Player’s Handbook. Furthermore, should any character move more than 150’ from the tree in any direction, the spell ends. Re-entering the glade does not make the spell reactivate, but closing to within 60’ of the tree will certainly make that character a viable target in the Polymorph lottery.
The Goblins, however, have been here for so long that they have lost all sense of self and will not behave like anything other than their animal counterparts – until they are released from the spell. At which point they will try their best to flee from the region and never return. Should they be captured alive, they could be questioned about why they were here, and then may divulge that they know about the Wand.
If the party lets the Goblins go without questioning, they might yet discover the Wand.
If they are in Eagle form, they will be able to discover it with a Perception check (DC 20) at Advantage, using +4 to the roll in place of their own should they so choose by flying above the trees and looking down.
A character in Rat form could navigate the brambles with ease and would not require an ability check to do so. They could find the Wand by taking a full minute to navigate the tangles and would have to succeed on a DC: 17 Investigation check.
Once per turn, any character could make a Strength check (DC: 20) to pull branches away to search the foliage. Each check, successful or not, requires a DC: 15 Dexterity saving throw or suffer 1d8 Piercing from the massive thorns. A character in Elephant form will make the Strength check at Advantage, and will have Resistance to the Piercing damage due to their thick hide even if they fail the save. Spending one full minute doing so might allow the character to make a Investigation (DC: 17) check to find the Wand.
Once the Wand is removed from the tree, the random Polymorphing will stop as the Wand will be out of contact with the Wild Magic source. The Wand will then become a standard Wand of Polymorph.
Monsters: Depending on the state of the Goblins, there could be up to 3 Goblins (p. 166 of the Monster Manual), up to three Elephants (p. 322 of the Monster Manual), up to three Eagles (p. 322 of the MM) and up to three Rats (p. 335 of the MM), not counting what happens to the player character party.
Treasure: Wand of Polymorph (p. 211 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide).
Complications:
Holy smokes, the complications. Since the target of the Wand is random, the chance exists for a character to be involved in an activity possible and safe for one form to be changed into a form for which that is no longer safe. A character in Eagle form who flies over 150’ away from the tree at any height risks the fall from that height when they change into another form or back into their normal form. That could be significant. Even if they are transformed into an Elephant, depending on the damage taken, any damage that takes them to 0 hit points still carries over into their normal form.
It’s important to remember that any damage that reduces a character/creature to 0hp or lower carries over into their normal form and dispels the magic. Since a Rat has only 1 hit point, a fall caused by changing from Eagle to a non-flight form could be significant, as only 1 hit point would be removed from the damage.
A character who is within the brambles in Rat form who gets changed into a larger form will have to deal with those series of Strength checks and Dexterity saves to free themselves, along with the associated damage.
A character who is among the brambles in Elephant form will lose any advantages and resistances of that form if they are transformed. A character in Elephant form who may be engaged in dangerous Strength related activities within the Wild Magic region could endanger their safety if they are transformed into a smaller form. Holding a large branch, rock, or other heavy item over themselves at the time of this possible alteration could be in a lot of peril.
With all this in mind, the intent of this encounter is not to kill or overly endanger the party. The intent is to have an encounter with the sort of mayhem that only existed in vintage Bugs Bunny cartoons when words like “Abra-ca-pocus” are invoked.
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