#dndideas

Maldrith, the Blood-Bound (CR 10, Large Monstrosity) & Sidequest: "The Beast Below the Monastery"

Looking for a different kind of Halloween one shot this weekend?

Beneath the Monastery of the Candescent Word, something old is stirring. The monks hear claws scraping through the stone at night, and the seal that once held the creature below is breaking. The last knight who faced it left his blade in the beast’s heart, but his magic is fading fast.

This side quest is designed for 6–7th level parties to add a bit of tension, mystery, and a slow descent into a remote monastery. And if you’re not running a Halloween session, the statblock still works perfectly for a deadly, mutated lycanthrope encounter with heavy Dark Souls energy.

Whether you use this as a short, spooky detour in your campaign, an entire horror arc, or a standalone one shot, tag a DM who may find it useful for this weekend's session, or tell me how you plan on terrifying your players this Halloween!

--- Special thanks to @mizomei letting me use her amzing artwork

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There is a red/white die and a white/black die. The red/white one leads to shops while the white/black one leads to services. They're both d6's.

Here's the lists

Red/white

1. Tavern

2. General Store

3. Library

4. Potion Shop

5. Tea House

6. Bank

White/Black

1. Inn

2. Bathhouse

3. Post Office

4. Blacksmith

5. Tattoo Studio

6. Casino

Caves and Deserts have their own ecosystems, even if they don’t have as much as a forest. Imagine cave druids, that can call upon bats, spiders, and maybe even some cave cryptids the dm make sin world building. Being able to interact with vegetation and fungus, so things like mushrooms or cave moss. Imagine being able to grow plants on bared ground because you can reach below to any caves that may be beneath you. They have excellent night vision and no one has ever met a cave druid without an excellent sense of direction, whether it be underground or catacombs.

Imagine desert druids, with lizards and snakes and scorpions. With vultures that circle above and warn of danger. They can interact with cacti and shrubs that to most druids would be too dead to use. They always seem to have a sense of where water is and what’s poisonous and what’s not.

Bard who can only play hot cross buns. On a double bass.

Noble rogue. It’s Red from rise of red.

a cat living in the characters head. Every now and then the cat takes over all bodily functions. The character will have no memory of this ever happening and lives in constant denial. They try to convince everyone else that they are living in a mass hallucination, and the character is the only one who can see the truth.

Seducing every inanimate object in the slight chance of it being something sapient or sentient. Or sophont.

Wood elf. But with a curse that everything they touch, turns to wood.