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Grotto of Nightmares | New Fifth Edition Adventure for 20th-Level Characters
🕑 Added 2020-09-16 16:24:45 +0000 UTCGrotto of Nightmares is a Fifth Edition adventure for four characters with an average party level (APL) of 20. The adventure takes place at the edge of an enchanted forest where strange, ancient eldritch dangers lurk, then moves to the Deep Ethereal Plane. In the Legends of Omeria campaign setting, you can place this adventure somewhere in the Wallingmiotta and then in The Dream. Fair warning: the adventure is built to be deadly, even for high-level characters.
Backstory
Crimson Crazuk is thousands of years old. In fact, Crazuk is so old, it hardly remembers a time before it was a lich. Crazuk is genderless and free of ethnicity. Even its moniker—Crimson Crazuk—was adopted at some point in its storied history, with no memory (or care) for its previous name.
Thousands of years ago, Crazuk created the ultimate weapon—the Grotto of Nightmares. This displaced cavern travels through the Deep Ethereal, occasionally touching the borders of other planes of existence. When it arrives, it attracts the attention of the planes’ greatest challengers—typically creatures close to “ascension”, such as demigods and high-level heroes.
So far, over 990 visitors to the grotto have perished within its indestructible dream walls. The souls of these visitors are then locked into a pink-glowing candle Crimson calls its soul candles. Not even the nigh-immortal creatures who work in the grotto know why Crimson Crazuk is collecting soul candles. However, the serpent person sorcerer supreme Zsoasku, Crazuk’s closest ally, theorizes that the ancient lich hopes to collect 1,000 candles as an offer to its goddess, The Black Goat.
And it just so happens that the souls of the characters will bring the candle count to exactly 1,000.
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Comments
Jackson Sinnenberg
Yeah follow up here would be great
Is the idea with the Skullbound that they just keep dropping to 1 hp until they turn into a dark young or does that just happen once? Can they be killed without turning into a dark young?
DM Dave
I guess just banish their goofy asses then 😂
"...If the characters persist, Crazuk attempts to plane shift them from its grotto." ... this is a 7th level spell, which can be cast no more than 3 times by a lich between long rests. It requires a melee attack, and on a hit, a Charisma save. And if the PC remains below the upper limit of the anti-magic field, will fail. But yeah, desperate times.
