The Blood War is spilling out onto the Material Plane, and there is one way to close the portals to the Nine Hells and Abyss, respectively. To close the gate to the Nine Hells, a chaotic evil outsider of 10 or more hit dice must be sacreficed at the Nine Hells portal. To close the gate to the Abyss, a lawful evil outsider of 10 or more Hit Dice must be sacrificed at the Abyssal portal.
Most of the devils have cleared away from the area, though, but one LE outsider remains: a lesser barghest. Now, if the party could only find something to feed it to have it gain power and hit dice, so that it would be easily used for the sacrificial ritual: something like a village.
Will the party slaughter an entire village of innoncents in order to quickly prevent the widespread destruction the Blood War will eventually bring. Or will they instead take their chances to find a 10+HD LE outsider; if so, how far will the Blood War get before the task is complete? Which option will save the most lives?
And, there's still the matter of closing the second portal...
A collector of "monster art" wants a petrified person from a basilisk's lair, but refuses to deal with any party that would harm a creature that can "do such a beautiful thing."
The behir hides under a collosal mound of copper, releasing a charge of electricity when it is disturbed by footfalls of an adventuring party...
Here's a side-view map of an encounter:
_________
| _______| <- Mommy's lair
| |
| |
| | <- Chimney
_____________| |___
/-> __________________| <- Daddy's area.
entrance
The party is hired to clear out the lair of a Behir, as ye standard template of save-the-village from the evil-monster story. The lair is a fairly straight-forward affair, just a cave in a cliff-face, with the behir laired up at the end. After dealing with the blue monstrosity, the party find a pair of Slippers of Spider Climbing in the treasure.
Then, they notice a vertical shaft leading up higher in the cliff-face. Should someone try to fly or (spider) climb their way up to investigate (motivated by greed for more treasure?), then they get a nasty suprise. Turns out, the behir had a mate, who is nursing a clutch of eggs at the moment, and is none too happy with an intrusion.
At this moment, the unlucky PC's find out what happens when a behir breathes a 7d6 lightning bolt down a narrow chimney, which is possibly just narrow enough to penalize or even prevent Reflex saves.
A sage, working on a device to prevent his tower from being destroyed by lightning, is interested in capturing a behir.
The party can make a Diplomacy DC 18 check to convince the behir that it would be well treated with the sage (experience reward as per a CR 4 creature). Optionally, the party can eliminate the two shambling mounds in the area to gain the Behir's trust. Of course, killing the behir is always an option!
People are disappearing in a nicer part of town. When the party investigates, they have a 30% chance of seeing the belker that resides in the sewers emerge; hiding in the fog from the street drains, it looks for prey.
A group of belkers has invaded a dwarven mining city and has taken up residence in the forges. They live in the smoky interiors of the chimneys but away from the damaging heat of the forge fires. The dwarves have suffered several casualties from the belkers and want them cleared out. Thus, the goal of the PCs is to go in and remove the belkers from the forge chimneys.
Now, for the DM, think about this: dwarves are masters at carving stone. They are efficient in their work. They are amazing engineers, especially when it comes to forges... including chimneys for forges. For efficiency's sake, to help vent the smoke from the fires and to prevent a blockage in one chimney from producing an obstacle to ventiation, the dwarves have linked all the chimneys together, on various levels.
What follows is a three-dimensional cat-and-mouse game between the PCs and belkers through the maze of dwarven smoke-shafts. Oh, don't forget about the belkers' "Smoke Form" for added tactical maneuverability.
Blink dogs, normally wary of human settlements and respected for their intelligence, have been showing up in a local settlement late at night, acting like mad dogs. There are only 3 of them, but they have been infected with mindfire, which is in their fur and takes to the air on a successful physical hit against them.
Mindfire (disease):
Inhaled
DC 12
Incubation period: 1 day
Damage: 1d4 INT
The PCs encounter a bodak lurking on the outskirts of a city they've visited before. During their first encounter, something about the PCs sparks a memory in the bodak (which is not in and of itself unusual). Unfortunately, when that happens, the first PC to get a close look at it recognizes it in turn! The bodak is the undead spirit of someone the party was unable to save in a previous adventure. (This takes a bit of planning in advance.)
It's carnival time in the big city, and a band of bugbears have managed to infiltrate the community, avoiding detection by wearing large pumpkins on their heads...
A city uses a bulette for trash removal. The bulette sits in the bottom of a pit and the trash is dumped in. Since the bulette will eat anything, all is good. However the bulette escapes and goes on a rampage! The party will gain extra reward money if they capture the beast and even more if they discover it was set free, perhaps by someone who hoped it would charge into a specific shop nearby the pit....