Shadow on a Shelf

It’s time to highlight another room in our Night Hag’s former underground cavern network. Buckle up, buttercups – this post will be a bit chilling.

A quick refresher: the evil Night Hag was causing a lot of trouble within Waterdeep. She was snatching up little ones to use their tears to make her look beautiful and display a false appearance. Our adventurers finally caught up to her at her cabin in The High Forest and chased her off. Now, the party has discovered what appears to be an extensive network of tunnels and rooms that seem to have fed a reign of terror.

Today, with an Investigation check near, we will focus on the creepy Trophy Room. In a previous post, we explained how the group tackled the tunnels at breakneck speed. DM Ben thinks he’s adding enough new content that they will reconsider this exploration tactic and take a little more time to explore each newly discovered area better. 

Side note: forgive the small pieces of paper in this wide-shot gameboard photo. We label rooms as we build them out so we can better map out the flow of the cavern.

So, we briefly touched on the Trophy Room earlier, but let’s flush it out a bit more. Sadly, this is the spot the Night Hag used to keep a trinket from each prisoner. Numerous 3DRPG staffers are crime documentary junkies, and this collection mentality is a super spooky bad-guy characteristic.

We have a couple of scatter terrain pieces by Cast n Play and STL Miniatures that fit snug as a bug here. However, we need to spice this alcove up a bit! 

Let’s start by clarifying the two scatter pieces. The first shelf is full of mostly tiny boots that she kept handy. Ongoing fans will recall that Terry the Troll requires unique items (containing a double letter) to pass over his infamous Troll Bridge. So besides saving freakish mementos, our wicked witch would sometimes just grab a boot if she knew she had to cross the bridge back into Waterdeep. 

The other shelf sadly contains all the collected trinkets, charms, jewelry, and toys. The Night Hag would pop down to this spot and just marvel at them like the nut job that she is.

Sometimes, DM Ben likes to poke the players’ imaginations and ask them what sort of things they might expect to find, and that’s his plan here. He always likes to kick it off with, “You see odd, unique items like a beat-up old locket and a toy top.” Your players have fantastic ideas, and an excellent DM always thinks of ways to extract their creative brilliance.

If the players are smart, they will gather the unique trinkets and take them back to town so that the grieving families of Waterdeep can have some closure. Certainly, a few citizens will show their thanks with some coins, right?

Where the mace meets the face here is that when the players attempt to investigate the trinket shelf and remove something from it, that will sprint a protective Ward Spell.

When that trap spell goes off, it will activate three spirits that suddenly and literally spring from the woodwork and attack the party! DM Ben is going to utilize these fantastic 3D prints by Loot Studios. Regarding their stats, the DnD 5e Shadow monster will be perfect: DC 12, AC 16, and +4 attack with 2d6+2 necrotic damage and Strength Drain. Yikes.

DM Ben used these very same miniatures once before as the group made its way through The High Forest and towards her cabin. Repeat monsters are totally fine, btw – don’t be afraid to re-use an awesome mini and scatter piece if the situation calls for it!

Until next time!