Add Worms To Your Next Sandbox

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0847


STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND PUT GIANT WORMS ON YOUR WANDERING MONSTER TABLES

That was what I read in all caps on a G+ post by Arnold K last week.

Intrigued, I read on:

Whenever a giant worm shows up, so does a dungeon entrance.  It doesn’t even matter if you fight it — there’s now a giant hole in the ground that leads someplace cool.

Cool idea Arnold! I love this.

It makes me think my monster manuals would be a wonderful resource to mine for more such ideas. I am always looking for new ways to locate and trigger 5 Room Dungeons!

Arnold finishes with these last great ideas:

Big vehicles (like pirate ships and zeppelins) can also do this. What else?

I mean, you could just say **** it and put the haunted tower on your wandering monster table. From now on, that’s where the tower is located. Has anyone else done this?

As the conversation wends on, you come across some additional ideas for wandering 5 Room Dungeons.

Here’s a quick d12 table of dungeon ideas I like:

  1. City golems (or any huge golem really)
  2. Cloud giant with a fishing line trying to catch land leviathans
  3. Travelling circus (staffed by undead)
  4. Malfunctioning teleporter or Living Teleport spell
  5. Wizard tower that can retract into the ground and thrust itself out in a different location
  6. Tornado that sucks people away into the cloud kingdoms
  7. Turtle with a lighthouse on its back
  8. Anytime anything blows up in the background, you can stick a dungeon at the bottom of the crater
  9. Paper wasps that made a giant nest out of spellbooks and now the corridors of the nest lead to Elsewhere
  10. Giant with parasite dungeon
  11. A rope going up into an invisible flying castle full of dwarves being hunted by demons
  12. Roc egg eaten into by a bulette

Hopefully one of these inspires you next game session!