What is the pickled head of that wizard good for? (d12)

1. His treacherous apprentice will pay a handsome price for its return - he belittled and ignored her, and she will gloat over the results of his hubris.
2. It's leaking uncontrolled arcana, a remnant of his catastrophic end. Dangerous to carry around, but you could probably use it as a bomb or something. Every time a spell is cast within 30 feet of the head, roll a d20 against the spell's level +1, or SL+3 if it's targeting the head, the person carrying the head, or cast by the person carrying the head. If you roll under (d6): 1 the spell is negated, 2 the spell is cast 2 levels higher, 3 caster takes 1d10 per SL force damage, 4 everyone within 30 feet takes 1d6 per SL force damage, 5 spell is redirected at a new target of the original target's choice, 6 spell is replaced by a random spell of the same level. If you roll over, the head returns to life, screams for a few seconds, then dies again.
   
3. The head is alive and talking. It can act as your familiar, and tells you to conduct secret and dangerous rituals. (Knows ritual forms of 4 spells of level 1d6+1)
   
4. Its former owner is wanted for crimes against magic in another country. They will pay a large bounty for proof of his death, but they will also ask a lot of pointed questions about where you got it. If they suspect you may have learned anything of his work, you will be imprisoned.
5. The head can be used as a spellcasting focus. It can replace consumed or costly components, but degrades when it does so; once it's replaced 1,500 gp of components, it's too spent to be useful.
   
6. It's absolutely delicious. It's like mummy crossed with ceviche. Adventurous culinarians will pay out the nose for a nibble of nose, but it's forbidden by all known laws, gods, and ethics.
   
7. The head knows a lot of embarrassing secrets about the wizard's former associates, many of whom have gone on to positions of great power. If you want to hear about the fearsome warlord's frilly panties, the bishop's crippling gambling addiction, or how the king's vizier plagiarized her thesis, he'll tell you. If you don't want to hear it, he'll tell you anyway. (When you meet someone, roll a d20 - if under their level, the wizard knew them, and has some bit of gossip.)
8. It's cursed! And pronounces curses on anyone it sees. Use your favorite curse table, or simply take -1d6 on a particular saving throw until the curse is broken.
   
9. It's work is unfinished - the ritual was merely interrupted, you see, and if you could simply aid me with these small requests, I shall bring it to completion and conclude my ascent into lichdom! Be wise, adventurer, for it is no small thing to have a lich in your debt - nor to spurn one and make an enemy. For mark my words, I shall complete my ritual, with your help or no, and I shall well remember my friends and my enemies...
10. It's the crux of a powerful ritual sealing away a great evil. If it's destroyed, a CR 17 bull demon will be awakened in the labyrinthine bowels of an unsuspecting city. 1d8: 1-3 the nearest city, 4-5 the biggest city on the continent, 6-7 the other side of the world, 8 on another plane of existence.
11. It can control golems, statues, undead, etc, that it's touching. It's currently being carried around by the skeleton of its former body, but is looking for something more dignified... and powerful.
12. It gets prophetic visions at random times. They're terrifying to witness - its eyes roll up, every source of light is snuffed out, whirlwinds are conjured up, and beams of light shoot out of its mouth. Usually, it's tormented by visions of calamities and apocalypses from d6: 1 the ancient past, 2 the distant future, 3 an alternate reality, 4 another plane of existence, 5-6 somewhere & somewhen actually useful. It's been driven mad by its visions, and by its inability to share them or prevent them from happening - it's missing a tongue.
    

2023 Advent Calendar Christmas Bonus! The Naughty List (Magic Item Monday)

The Naughty List

Wondrous item, legendary

As an action, you can write a creature's true name on this list. That creature must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or its alignment becomes evil, and you are protected from it as if by a protection from evil and good spell. You can use a bonus action to cast Command (DC 15) on a creature on the list, filling its mind with guilt. The command can be more than one word, but must be to perform a good deed, such as giving away a possession, sitting in time-out, or apologizing for naughty behavior. Once a creature on the list has atoned 3 times, its name disappears from the list, and its alignment becomes good.

2023 Advent Calendar Day 23: The 22 Birds of Xmas (map)

 

"Behold, a map!" - Diogenes, holding a plucked Christmas goose

Scale: 3 miles (1 hour) per hex. I like this one-page system for random encounters: once per hex, roll a d20; it determines whether an encounter occurs, and which nearby hex you should look in to see what it is. v2, at the bottom of the page, is much easier to understand. Jack Frost shows up anywhere on an encounter roll of 19.

2023 Advent Calendar Day 21-22: The 22 Birds of Xmas (adventure)

I lacked inspiration for a couple days, but now it's time to start pulling all these weird things together into weird Christmas adventures. This is a small-scale hexcrawl adventure for around 3rd-5th levels, with options for nonviolent resolution. Map is coming tomorrow!

What are you doing sir, there is nary a pear in sight
(JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Holly the Druid lives in her orchard with 12 Awakened Pear Trees and her pet partridge Perry (1d4). She has lost her birds, and if you bring them all back to her, she will create the Spear of Baldr for you.

2023 Advent Calendar Day 18: Five Golden Rings (Magic Item Monday)

Ring of the Hibernaculum

Ring, rare (requires attunement)

While attuned to this heavy golden ring emblazoned with a sleeping bear, you can bank surplus food for future use. Each day's worth of food you eat beyond your daily requirements adds one charge to the ring. You can spend a charge from the ring to forego eating for a day. On a day when you are not eating, you can not engage in strenuous activity (such as traveling or adventuring) for more than 4 hours; if you exceed this limit, you must eat a full day's nourishment or face starvation, as normal.

Additionally, you can expend one charge to cast sleep as a 5th-level spell.

If the ring has no charges remaining, you become irritable and aggressive until it is refilled.

Ring of Adaptation

Ring, uncommon (requires attunement)

This magic ring is made of light electrum and set with an uncut rock crystal. While wearing it, you treat temperatures as one category warmer for determining exposure. (supernatural cold > extreme cold > mild cold > comfortable > mild heat > extreme heat > supernatural heat)

Ring of Many Colors

Ring, very rare (requires attunement)

This dark golden ring is studded with seven brightly-colored gemstones evenly spaced around its band: a ruby, sapphire, emerald, amber, periwinkle, amethyst, and diamond, which glow brightly to indicate the number of charges remaining. The ring holds 7 charges, and regains 1d6+1 daily when the first star is visible at sundown. You can expend charges from the ring to cast the following spells: dancing lights (0 charges), color spray (1 charge), darkvision (1 charge), see invisibility (2 charges), hypnotic pattern (3 charges), crown of stars (7 charges), prismatic spray (7 charges). You can also expend all remaining charges in the ring to cast prismatic wall, but the ring has a 20% chance to be destroyed after doing so, plus 10% for each charge missing.

Ring of Snowballs

Ring, common

These little trinkets, designed for harmless winter fun at wizarding universities, achieved unexpected deadly success after the advent of firearms. When you make a ranged attack, you can choose to gain a +1 bonus to the attack roll in exchange for a -2 penalty to the damage roll. Additionally, your throwing distance is doubled, applying to the regular and maximum ranges of any weapon with the Thrown property. (Typical throwing range for other items is 20'/60'.)

Ring of First Bloom

Ring, legendary (requires attunement)

This ring is worn by the Great Chieftain of the Tribes of Spring, elected at their yearly Moot. It contains the power to banish winter and usher in the next stage in the worldly cycle. It is a wide band of rose gold, set with a ruby carved in the shape of a rose which buds, unfolds, and wilts with the seasons, and mixed with veins of jade in the shape of vines. A creature with resistance or immunity to cold damage who puts on the ring takes 6d10 piercing damage from the thorns, and 2d10 piercing damage per round until it is removed. To attune to the ring, you must brew a tea of pine needles harvested on the winter solstice, boiled in water from the last snowmelt of winter, over a fire from the last fallen leaves of the previous year, and share it in a ceremony with at least three other people. No other creature can then attune to it for at least nine months.

You are immune to cold damage while attuned to the ring. You can use an action to touch a creature and allow it to expend a hit die, regaining hit points equal to its Constitution score. You can cast banishment (DC 17) at will, targeting an elemental. A target with resistance or immunity to cold damage has disadvantage on the saving throw. You can also cast plant growth at will, and reincarnate once per day. When casting reincarnate, you can expend any number of hit dice and apply them as a bonus or penalty to the roll to determine the target's new species.

2023 Advent Calendar Day 17: Ice Cube (spell)

The Incredibles (2004)

Ice Cube

1st level conjuration, 1 action, 30 feet, VS, Concentration up to 1 minute 

You trap one creature in a blast of icy mist. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw or become trapped in a block of ice. On a failed save, the target takes 2d6 cold damage and is restrained for the duration. While the target is restrained in this way, you can use a bonus action on subsequent turns to deal 1d6 cold damage to it automatically.

The mass of ice is an object with an AC equal to your spell save DC and 5 hit points, immunity to acid and cold damage, and vulnerability to fire and thunder damage. When the ice is destroyed, the spell ends.

At higher levels, its hit points increase by 5 for each slot level above 1st. (5hp/lvl)

2023 Advent Calendar Day 16: Miscellaneous Monsters (monster)

Winter Sprite T ♥13 ⟁12 ☺3 ↟20'

{-3 +2 +2 -3 +1 -3}, Stealth +6, [V] fire, [R] BPS/magic, [I] acid, cold, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, stunned
Insubstantial. Perception 13 to see, end inside object: 1d10 force
Freeze +4 ⍟ 3 C, Protective Re: ally damaged, Freeze attacker, Gust ⍟ ≤M STR 11, ≤5lbs pushed 10', False Life (3/day) ⍟5' 1d4+4 THP 1hr, Armor of Agathys (1/day) ⍟5' 5 THP, † 5 C, Cure Wounds (1/day) 1d8+1 HP, Druidcraft

Winter sprites are errant scraps of elemental cold energy that appear as faint whisps or clouds of icy crystals. They often piggyback on greater elementals when they are summoned to the material plane. Less experienced conjurers usually don't notice or care about these unimportant hangers-on, and so they are rarely subjected to the rituals that bind summoned elementals to service, leaving them to make their own way freely through the world. Winter sprites have the intelligence and personality of a particularly clever dog, vigorously protecting the creatures they see as friends, and readily imprinting onto new friends. They have no sense of tactics or preserving their abilities for later, and will immediately use them the first time they might possibly be useful.

Winter sprites can be used as familiars. They are enthusiastic, loyal, and playful, but are easily distracted and shouldn't be trusted with complex tasks.

Frost Heave H ♥115 ⟁16 ☺15 ↳30' (snow)

{+4 +0 +4 -3 +0 -2}, [V] fire, thunder; [R] acid, BPS/magic; [I] cold, poison, exhaustion, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, unconscious
Ice Skate (don't disturb ice, snow), Jagged Shards (B, thunder 5': 1d10 C)
MA Slam 1/arm, Slam +7 †10' 1d+4 B + 1d C, BA Malleable Form Slam: 1x d20, 2x d10, 3x d6, 4x d4, +20', B↔P

A frost heave is a hulking mass of ice and snow arranged into crude, malleable limbs and held together by magic. Their bodies are often protected by thick sheets of ice and jagged icicles. They have the ability to extrude and retract new limbs at will, with fewer arms giving more powerful attacks, as well as reshaping their bodies in other ways, like extending their reach for a round. The elemental spirit isn't tied to any particular body of snow or ice, so it can move freely through snowbanks without disturbing them, jettisoning its old form and reforming anew when it leaps out to attack. 

Frost heaves are probably the most durable creature in the armies of the Princes of Winter, except possibly the ice golems with their full immunity to weapons. They are incredibly strong, and can take out large groups of mortal soldiers, but are mainly used as siege monsters to tear down and breach walls (they're the only thing the Princes have that really can).

White Pudding H ♥92 ⟁8 ☺2 ↠10'
{+4 -2 +5 -5 -2 -5}, [V] fire; [I] acid, cold, blinded, charmed, deafened, exhaustion, frightened, prone
False Appearance (snow), Spider Climb
Ooze Pool. Fills space, enter → Engulf ᵂ⁄ disadv
Engulf move, DEX 14 grappled (escape 14, others: 2d6 C to attempt) 2d6 B + 2d6 C per turn, 𝕊 moved, BA Crystallize AC, escape 18, ↠0', no Engulf, Spider Climb, 𝕍 thunder; also revert, Drain Heat grappled CON 14 4d6 C 𝕊 ½, 0 HP: petrified (frozen), Pseudopod +6 †10' 1d6+4 B + 2d6 C

White puddings are arctic ambush predators. They bury themselves in piles of snow and lie in wait for unwitting wanderers stumble into them, then quickly spring up and swallow them. Once it has a victim ensnared, a pudding will freeze itself solid, trapping the unfortunate creature inside as it slowly leeches away its body heat. Puddings leave their meals mostly intact, but frostbitten and shriveled mummies. If a meal fights back too much, or if it has friends that try to save it, the pudding will rebury itself and try to spring its trap again. If its victims persist in attacking it, it will flee once it reaches half health.

They may also be magically summoned from the icy corners of the multiverse, often in tandem with other icy elementals. The pudding isn't intelligent enough to coordinate with its "allies" or follow orders, instead continuing its ambush hunting. More intelligent elementals will use white puddings as traps, flitting about near them and trying to lure adventurers into their gooey snares. Allies may be able to convince it not to flee when it's losing, but maybe not; they are more effective keeping other morsels away from the pudding so that it can digest unmolested.

2023 Advent Calendar Day 15: Ancient Blizzard Dragon (monster)

Ancient Blizzard Dragon

Huge dragon, lawful evil
Armor Class 18
Hit Points 422, bloodied 211
Speed 50', fly 50'
STR 24 (+7), DEX 18 (+4), CON 27 (+8), INT 22 (+6), WIS 23 (+6), CHA 22 (+6)
Saving Throws Str +14, Con +15, Wis +13, Cha +13
Skills Perception +13, Stealth +11
Damage Immunities cold
Condition Immunities charmed, frightened
Senses darkvision 120', passive Perception 23
Languages Draconic, Primordial (Glacian), understands Common but will not deign to speak it
CR 22

Traits

Ice Walk. Unaffected by difficult terrain made of ice or snow.
Freezing Winds. Any creature that ends its turn within 5' of the blizzard dragon is pushed up to 15' to a space of the dragon's choice.
Sudden Flurry. When the dragon takes cold damage, each enemy in its Freezing Winds aura is moved up to 10' to a space of the dragon's choice.
Clumsy Flier. While flying, the dragon has disadvantage on attack rolls, and Strength and Dexterity saves.
Legendary Resistance (3/LR).

Actions

Multiattack. 1x Bite + 1x Claw, or 2x Claw.
Bite. MWA, 15' reach, +14 to hit, 2d8+5 piercing + 1d8+5 cold and target's speed reduced to 0 until the end of the dragon's next turn.
Claw. MWA, 15' reach, +14 to hit, 2d6+8 slashing + 2d6+8 cold, and target is pushed up to 20' to a space of the dragon's choice.
Deep Freeze (1/SR, must be bloodied). Each creature within 25' of the dragon must make a DC 22 Constitution save. On a failure, it takes 3d10+5 cold damage, and its speed is reduced to 0 and it has disadvantage on Constitution saves (save ends, DC 15). On a successful save, it takes half as much damage, and the effect lasts until the end of the dragon's next turn.

Bonus Actions

Rising Winds. If the radius of the dragon's Freezing Winds aura is less than 25', it expands by 10'. If it is 25', each creature within the aura must make a DC 22 Constitution save. On a failure, it takes 4d8+12 cold damage and falls unconscious (save ends, DC 15). The radius then resets to 5'.

Reactions

Chill Rebuke (1/SR, recharges when first bloodied). When the dragon is hit by a melee attack, each creature of the dragon's choice within 25' must make a DC 22 Constitution save, or it takes 1d10+16 cold damage and its speed is reduced to 10' (save ends, DC 15).

Legendary Actions (3/round)

Wing Blast (costs 2). Each creature in the dragon's Freezing Winds aura must make a DC 22 Strength save or be knocked prone. The dragon then flies up to half its speed.
Detect. The dragon makes a Perception check.
Cantrip. The dragon casts a cantrip.

Spellcasting

The dragon's spellcasting ability is Intelligence (+13 to hit, save DC 21). The dragon knows the following wizard spells:

Cantrips:
 - Frostbite. 60', CON save, 3d6 cold & disadvantage on next weapon attack
 - Ray of Frost. 60', attack, 3d6 cold & speed reduced by 10 until start of dragon's next turn

5th level (Recharge 4-6):
 - Expeditious Retreat. CONCENTRATION, BA Dash when cast and for duration
 - Thunder Step. Teleport up to 90', all within 10' CON vs 5d10 thunder, save 1/2
 - Counterspell. 60', negate spell cast of 5th level or lower, roll (+6 vs 10+spell level) for to negate higher levels
 - Magic Circle. (Only affects humanoids)
 - Absorb Elements. Resist triggering elemental damage, +5d6 of same type on next melee attack

Lair Actions

Falling Icicles. 3 icicles fall down from the ceiling, targeting points in the lair. A creature underneath a falling icicle must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 piercing + 1d6 cold damage. If the target fails by 5 or more, it is also restrained until the icicle is removed (action, DC 10 Strength check) or destroyed (AC 13, HP 13; immune acid, cold, psychic, poison; resist bludgeoning, slashing, radiant; vulnerable fire, thunder).
Ice Spikes. A 10'x10' area in the lair grows jagged ice spike. A creature in that space when the spike appear, or that enters the space, must make a DC 15 Dexterity save or take 2d6 piercing + 1d6 cold damage, or half as much on a success. A creature that ends its turn in the spikes takes this damage automatically. If the target fails by 5 or more, it is also restrained until it is broken free or the spikes are destroyed (as icicles, 18 HP per 5'x5' section).
Summon Minion. The dragon summons an icy minion to a space in its lair. A minion is accompanied by 1d4-1 Winter Sprites if none are already present. d8: 1-2 Ice Mephit, 3-4 Ice Golem, 5-6 Winter Wolf, 7 White Pudding, 8 Frost Heave.