Monsters beneath the mountain

inspiration

#1

As we approach Christmas break I am working on our semi annual merging of the three school age groups I run for work and I am looking for some ideas for creatures and monsters to encounter for the lead up.

In game they are all loosely looking into The Heart of the Mountain which has been stolen in attempts to resurrect one of the colossus. Normally the Heart gains thrall over anything that lives on, in and below the mountain and acts as a safeguard if the mountain comes under attack using them as its army. The Big Bad of the game has stolen the Heart and has attempted to sway the minds of giants as a warm up to see if she could control a colossus if she were to resurrect it. They are currently in Ire and the conflict will take place on the Eastern shore and will (hopefully) lead them to make chase to Khett where the Big Bad has gone leaving behind all sorts of obstacles and enemies along the way to slow them down.

Story wise they are entering the escalation of conflict where all of what they have researched in there little towns is (quickly) coming to a head. I have used Agnar, Dwarves ( those that had fallen under control of the mountain) and have hinted at stone men. Skeletons and undead have also been resurrected in droves too (including a king who fought in the Age of Snakes hinting towards next years crisis)

I am hoping to see if anyone has cool ideas for ‘underground’ type monsters or encounters that they have found people like to encounter while they are on the way and one big big monster with some henchmen (maybe ant men) for the Christmas group encounter (roughly 20 players at the table -__- )

any tips or suggestions are appreciated and thanks in advance!


#2

I always like the Umberhulk that burrows and ‘bursts’ through a tunnel wall to surprise the party. My fall back monster for tunnels is the good ole giant spider.

But to give it a Christmas flair, maybe a grinch. Give it a slightly different name, a big hairy Grink, that hates the colours red and green. It will target any players with those colours. It also makes a noise that sounds like “Bhar Hum Bug”. It could also be using a club made from a pine tree…?


#3

I think it was one of the Baldur’s Gate (or was it Icewind Dale?) games that had gnomes working in tunnels with gems that gave off deep red light, and the narrative explanation being that umber hulk eyes couldn’t perceive that wavelength of light and therefore the gnomes could work in relative safety.

A string of red light gems plus maybe the occasional green marker lantern sound like Christmas lights to me! Pretty sure umber hulks hate Christmas as much as they hate anything else. :laughing:


#4

I like these ideas, the limited vision is a really cool effect.Mind you it doesn’t need to be Christmas themed, we are just doing for our pre break fun day. That said a little festive flavor can’t hurt right?


#5

That would be great! It doesn’t need to be Christmas themed but with that said I might go with it because that’s a lot of fun!


#6

i love using umberhulks too!

I had all of my umberhulks work in concert with each other like a beehive to protect the “Umberqueen”. She was basically a highly intelligent Umberhulk with a humongous egg spewing abdomen on her rear end. i had her communicate telepathically to the players using her antennae, but she controlled her Umberhulk offspring silently with pheromones.

obviously the players could not reconcile their differences with such a foul creature (they already sided with the myconids who were being harvested by the umberhulks to use as feed for the larvae) and eventually they killed her by blasting a bunch of stalactites on the ceiling to impale her.

but using them the way they are straight out of the book is plenty satisfying too! it is just fun for me to use ecosystems and ecological biomes that occur in the real world as bases for fantasy creatures


#7

Bore worms or a version of the bigger purple worm is always a classic.

Territorial dwarves maybe. They are usually on the good guy side so switching it up could be fun.


#8

Good underground D&D flavored stuff:

As mentioned myconids and umber hulks.
Ropers (Look like a stalagmite but then open up mouth, eye and webshooting tentacles!).
Gricks (Stony skinned worm monsters with four squiddy tentacles and chompy beak).
Grells (Floating giant brains with beaks and jellyfish tentacles).
Gargoyles.
Purple Worms (BIG armored worms with shark teeth that tunnel through rock)
Grimlocks (Skinny gray goblinoid looking monsters with no eyes, big teeth and claws).
Oozes.
Cave Fishers (Translucent crablike critters cement themselves to ceiling and let down a hard to see sticky strand of webbing, when something blunders into it they reel it in and chow down).
Molepeople.


#9

Christmas themed umber hulk? I hear that I think Krampus.


#10

This is an excellent list, thank you


#11

Just wrote this as a hazzard for one of my settings. Maybe its something you can use.

Lava River
A river of lava flows through the room blocking the exits. Cooled lava has formed on the serface of the slow moving magma but its impossible to tell which cooled serfaces go deep enough to support the players weight. It takes three movements to cross. On each of the players turns they can make a movement and pick a number 1-4 which indicates which rock they chose to jump to. If players move at the same time they can not pick the same number as another player. The rocks are only wide enough for one player at a time. After selection the DM rolls a d4. That rock does not support the players weight and the player takes 1d6 fire damage.


#12

Plus magma hurlers are just wonderful D&D monsters that would be a great add to something like this. They’re these hulking lava monsters that barf out gobs of hot magma and toss them at you!


#13

awesome, thank you very much


#14

Gnarly, I will add these in for sure.