The Hip Bone’s Connected to the…

We’re going back-to-back posts on our latest Tresendar Manor room so we can close the casket on another successful DM prep. All these bones have to fit together somehow!

Last week, we built out the Area 4 Crypt room inside D&D Beyond’s Acquisitions Incorporated dungeon delve. Now that we’re solid on the terrain, DM Ben perused our miniatures library to see what sort of fight our adventurers would have on their sweaty hands.

At first, the players won’t realize the various scattered bones are strung together with fine wire. They will need a DC 15 Perception check to discover that someone or something is having a little fun at their expense.

At some point, a Mimic disguised as a coffin will animate, but a single CR 2 monster for six level-five characters is a laughable fight, so this sticky creature will need some helping hands (and arms, legs, etc.) to join the melee. Some additional undead bad guys will definitely liven things up (pun intended).

Besides adding monsters, the original module description describes the coffin sizes and bones as humanoid, but DM Ben likes the idea of mixed races so that there’s a little more mystery as to what happened to the deceased. Are these victims part of the original Golden Mongoose franchise that disappeared, or were they here long before their arrival?

So, DM Ben grabbed a Dragonborn, an Orc, and even a gnoll to represent three of the skeletons. These Wizkids prepainted work wonderfully here, giving the encounter a little more flair. Featured minis here include: Gnoll Skeleton (Aberrations), Orc Skeleton (Underdark), and Death Knight (Monster Manual Savage Encounters).

From there, he also added a nasty Banshee so that it could be the fear of gawd in the party with its Horrifying Visage ability.  This Deathlock Wight from the Demonweb set is plenty spooky.

Lastly, longtime readers know how much DM Ben enjoys a good gameboard mini switheroo, so he’s got another trick up his sleeve here. As soon as two skeletons go down in combat, their scattered bones will frantically reassemble and form another multisword swinging skelly.

This time, we grabbed a WizKids Skeletal Tomb Guardian mini from the Dungeons of Dread set. We’ve been itching to get this particular miniature in a game so no time like the present!

Yes, we try to showcase DnD 3D-prints whenever possible, but we adore our TTRPG collection. It can be incredibly nostalgic to use some of our older pieces; besides, if we can use some pre-painted legacy goodies, that gives us more time to work on something else from our gigantic pile of shame.

So, we recommend these Skeleton Soldiers by EC3D Designs and their Beasts & Baddies II Kickstarter. No supports needed, and they print beautifully.

Now let’s see how our Challenge Rating looks for our six-player, level-five party of adventurers:

• Mimic: CR 2
• Banshee: CR 4
• Skeletons (3): CR 1/4
• Skeletal Tomb Guardian: 1

The Total XP is 4,875, so this is no gimmie fight. However, DM Ben might not introduce the Tomb Guardian depending on how challenging the battle becomes for the group. The collective ACs are pretty low, so the party’s condition before the fight begins becomes key.

Until next time!