Oubliette, Rot Grubs and Minor Magic Items

Sorry for being quiet this month. Work has been kicking my ass. Big time. This coming week, at the end, I start vacation. And usually when I don't have work clogging my head I seem to become a creation beast. I want to take the time and start organizing what I've written. Then I can organize a schedule. Yes, you can stop laughing now. I know, me and schedule don't ever jive. But I can try.

One of the element I want to include in the sandbox is random set of ruins to populate the sandbox. Not sure how many I'll include or what format that's going to take (another reason why I need to organize my material this vacation).

Oubliette is a forest discovery. One of those many things found in the Komor Forest. While the premise is simple and short, this can be extremely dangerous. Rot grubs are a serious threat to a character's life span. 

And while I have dipped below the GM Advice goal you still can shut me up. I'ma gonna giv'ya my ardvice anaway. 

Atmosphere
The pit is dark, and quiet. If a torch is dropped down, just for a moment the party might catch a glimpse of the shackled skeletons before it hits the water and extinguishes. If your party is anything like the groups I run, their imaginations are going to go through a Rolodex of horrible things waiting for them in the dark. And even when they get to the bottom and see the skeletons they are going to freak out that the skeletons will animate. The atmosphere and the possibilities are the distraction from the real horror.

Rot Grubs
These wormy bastards strike terror in the hearts (literally) of adventurers young and old. And in a system where hit points are so few and precious, burning the rot grubs out could be as lethal as allowing them to squirm their way into your big, heroic heart. If the player heat up blades and try to do a controlled kill of the grubs I'd allow them to do only 1d3 damage. And for a character that has a half dozen or more on them, short of a Cure Disease spell, that player should be reaching for a fist full of dice for their next character.

Non-Heroic Deaths
Dying by a rot grub sucks. There is nothing heroic about it and that's something as a GM you'll have to decide. I prefer my games gritty and death by a dozen rot grubs is a perfect reward for those adventurers who don't take precautions. But I am not an unmerciful GM. Say the character has five rot grubs drop on their arm, I would allow someone to dismember that arm to save the  adventurer. The character gets to live, earns a background story and a nickname.

Awarding Minor Magic Items
One thing I love to see is players making use of minor magic items in unusual ways. To solve or create problems. Within the Oubliette, the party has a chance to discover a leaky Water Flask of Endless Water. A hand utility item, but I am sure the party could find uses for it that I haven't imagined. 

That's all for now. I have a batch of these short found places, micro-locations written. You'll see a couple more this month. And of course I am working on my next NPC card. 

Thanks patrons for the support and the fact you guys are a blast to game with and talk to on G+.

Enjoy!