Muddy Be Trubby

Today we’re going to flush out what our upcoming prized pig encounter is going to look like. Let’s roll this baby up!

First, let’s catch you up! There’s a certain gnome tinkerer in town named, “Tink Urbelle” and she needs some precious lard from some rare Wooly Mangalitza pigs. It’s a key ingredient for all her cockamamie contraptions. If the group can hunt down a sow or two in The High Forest, she’ll reward them with a coveted Kinda, Sorta Portal.

Next, we need to figure out how the actual encounter might go down starting with why these particular pigs are so hard to get. Well, a couple of things here: (1) The High Forest is outside the protective zone of Waterdeep and beyond the Troll Bridge. (2) Rumors about as several other adventure groups have tried to capture these sows only to be never heard from again.

Well, pigs naturally love mud, right? Of course, they do. So DM Ben thinks these sows’ home turf should be protected by a big ol’ Clay Golem. These pigs love to roll around in that mud and that acts as a sort of back scratcher for our mean ol’ resident monster. And it would never allow anyone to just walk into its layer and take its prized possessions. Our premise conundrum is solved. 😉

Now we need to finalize our monster stats. D&D Beyond’s Clay Golem is a big hitter (AC 14, 133 HP, multi-attack +8/2d10+5) so we’re not exactly sure that’s the right monster pick here against a level four party of six characters. A CR 9 would be a bit of a bloodbath.

Instead, we found a nifty Mud Golem (AC 10, HP 27, multi-attack +4/1d6+2). Our home-brew twist though is that it can initially spawn 1d4+1 minions per round until it’s defeated. DM Ben wants the party to feel like they’re getting swarmed by the mud around them. We prefer more monsters on the board (even with lower HP) whenever possible as that creates different tactics and fight scenarios. Our spawning mud balls will have the same easy AC and attack as “Poppa Bear” but they’ll pack a punch at 1d10+2 only have 1 hp and act like minions from DnD 4e.

Nothing fancy about this encounter’s tactics. From a distance, the group will see and hear the precious pigs gleefully rolling around in the mud. As they approach, nothing will happen initially. At 20 feet, the mud will start to bubble angrily. The moment a player gets within 10 feet, the Mud Golem boss will begin to rise up and spawn its minions. Initiative!

So all we have to finish off this portly encounter is to pick out our miniatures. Our boss fig is going to be the Clay Golem from EC3D Designs and their Beasts and Baddies Kickstarter. Resident Painter, Kimmy Utah, just colored this one perfectly. Feels like it’s coming right up from the ground!

And for those spawning mud ball minions, we’re going to utilize our rebased MageKnight Animated Mud figs. We’ll also slip in this Brite Mini Clay Golem because well, we just can’t resist.

But there you have it – one pig-napping encounter ready to go!