Friday, December 30, 2022

Bugstiary Adventure Seeds: Elder Spider to Goblin Spider

This is the third post in a series of adventure seeds for my new book The Bugstiary, published by Gaming Ballistic for The Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

Previous: Astral Spider to Dauðaprestr

Elder Spider (p. 12)

The Webbed Way  In the course of a greater quest the delvers find they need to enter an area unseen by wizards, Álfar, demons, or perhaps even the gods. Fortunately, legends tell of a cavern or forest that leads where they need to be that is impenetrable to all magical detection. Unfortunately it is a realm full of spider monsters, and to cross it they must pass through the nest of the Elder Spider, Húnvefur who has dwelt there for centuries.

What the Spider Knows Much that once was known is forgotten, yet the elder spiders remember. The heroes find they need some information that is thought lost, but perhaps one of the elder spiders may still know it. One problem is finding her, they may need to journey to Jotunheim or into the branches of Yggdrasil itself. The other problem is finding something that will persuade her to tell them what they want, rather than just eating them. There is little an elder spider wants, but "little" isn't "nothing". This should require something of a mythic scale, that is both unpleasant and nearly impossible such as getting the Skyfather to apologize, or destroying something precious, beautiful and nearly indestructible.  

(Exo)Skeleton (p. 14)

All Your Cities Lie in Dust The-Scent-of-Autumn-The-Songs-of-Solace was always a strange, moody girl, taken to romantic notions and fascinated by dark magics. When she left her home colony-city of Beneath-The-Hills-The-Flowing-Waters to found her own demense, her queen-mother Victory-at-Dawn-The-Warmth-of-Loam had little hope that she would make it, and was unsurprised when it was reported that she and her consorts had been slain by a bjöllufólk clan who did not take to a new maurikappi colony in their territory. Little thought was given to her after this, up until the army of the dead arrived. The hollowed, animated, bodies of bjöllufólk and maurakappi now besiege Beneath-The-Hills-The-Flowing-Waters, serving The-Scent-of-Autumn, now both a maurakappi queen (p. 30) and a lich (Monsters p. 40 and The Nordlond Bestiary p, 130), who, no longer able to brood a colony of her own, intends to take her mother's subjects as her undead servants instead. Desperate, Victory-at-Dawn reaches out to her surface allies in the hopes of finding heroes more experienced with dealing with the undead.

God-Blooded Fly (p. 15)

To Die Fly Well On the road, the delvers encounter a very old warrior, (use the veteran from The Nordlond Bestiary p. 185 but add Ridiculous Luck and Serendiptity 2) who challenges them to a fight. The heroes recognize him as Hreggviður, a famed fighter who has a long history of surviving impossible odds in battle. He will fight with little regard for his own survival, but his luck and, if needed, the intervention of the god-blooded flies who follow him, will act to save him. He won't kill the heroes either, as long as they comport themselves honorably and will yield after a few seconds of fruitless combat. He begs the delvers to let him accompany them in the hopes that they will lead him to some battle which he cannot survive. Even if the party refuses, he will follow them at a distance, ready to come to their aid in any deadly fight. 

He's largely oblivious to the truly annoying flies that surround him, and their nature shouldn't be immediately be obvious to the PCs either. However the party will quickly find themselves the targets of tiny, annoying, distracting tricksters.

Hreggviður believes himself to be cursed to be unable to die in battle. The truth is that he is blessed by the Trickster, who has a plan for the old man. A plan that quickly comes to fruition when the delvers find themselves at an abandoned tower infested by a horde of baenadýrið (The Nordlond Bestiary p. 32), supported by three Sokkvári (Bestiary p. 167)  and led by a Hertogi Fluganna (p. 18). Fortunately the divine descended insects following the old man will form up into a swarm to even the odds.

Goblin Spider (p. 16)

The Shrine The heroes while boasting in a tavern are challenged (and wagered) to spend the night in a local abandoned shrine, rumored to be haunted. While there they encounter a lost maiden, a child, or an old priest, who gets into their confidence and tries to isolate them one-by-one in order to turn into a giant spider and eat them. If the spider is threatened, it will flee to the village. It turns out that the villagers have been setting up wanderers to be fed to the spider, who they have adopted as a local guardian spirit.

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