Room 5: Monster Summoning Trivia
As you enter this room you feel a coldness as if a frigid vapor sucked the life out of the room. Then you see a nebulous cloud of energy which seems to be contained within a summoning circle engraved upon the floor. The 5’ square tile directly before the circle glows with an opalescent silvery sheen.
A plaque set into the floor reads:
“How well do you know the creatures that you may face? You will be asked questions about the creatures that you will see before you. A correct answer defeats the beast. Answer incorrectly and the beast may defeat you.”
Once a character steps upon the colored square, the energy in the circle will resolve into the image of one of the following creatures and a disembodied voice will ask a question related to the specific monster. A correct answer will cause the image to disappear and the voice to say “Correct!” With an incorrect answer, the creature becomes corporeal and is unleashed upon the adventurers.
DM Note: Choose a number of questions based on what you know about your players’ preferences, the session time and how well the players have answered the questions (for instance, you may not want to play out five successive combats). In my experience, players tend to answer 5 or 6 correctly and then end up fighting 1 or 2 combats. Once the creatures/questions are defeated (one way or the other), a fang key fragment will appear in the center of the circle. If you want your players to be presented with another challenge, explain that the circle is still active and see how they retrieve the key without being telefragged.
Sample Monster Trivia
Wail from this undead creature causes hearers to die on the spot • Banshee
Slimy scavenger that can flow through narrow openings and lives underground • Black pudding
Teleporting canine • Blink dog
Distant relatives of halflings; also name of a delicious desert • Brownie
Also known as the ‘landshark’ • Bulette
Half man, half horse • Centaur
Tiny creatures that drain psionic abilities • Cerebral parasite
Rooster-like creature whose touch turns flesh to stone • Cockatrice
Arch-enemies of devils • Demon
Humanoid shape shifter • Doppelganger
Can belch forth a cloud of scalding steam • Dragon turtle
Leaves eggs in creature’s head which hatch and eat host • Ear seeker
Giant-like creatures with two heads • Ettin
Purple mushroom with tentacles that cause flesh to rot • Violet fungi
Indistinguishable from ghouls except for their carrion stench • Ghast
Hyena-like humanoids • Gnoll
Magic servants made of clay, flesh or iron • Golem
Slimy horror that resembles wet stone or sedimentary cave formations • Gray ooze
Fire breathing dog • Hell hound
Larger tribal cousins of goblins • Hobgoblin
Multi-headed reptilian monster • Hydra
Evil Intelligent manta rays • Ixitxachitl
Jackal able to assume the form of a man • Jackalwere
Half woman and half animal, touch drains a creature’s wisdom • Lamia
formerly ultra powerful magic-users now non-human and non-living • Lich
Reptilian humanoids that dwell underwater • Lizard man
Disguises itself as part of the ceiling • Lurker above
Worm-like fish with poison spines • Masher
Psionic humanoid forth brains with its tentacles • Mind flayer
The ‘Wraith of the deep’ • Morkoth
Big cousin to the Otyugh • Neo otyugh
Water sprites/pixies • Nixie
Giant amoeba that is golden and sludge-like • Ochre jelly
Fiercely competitive bullies made popular by LOTR • Orc
Half owl and half bear • Owlbear
Lower bodies of birds and the upper bodies of stags • Peryton
Dragon-like with a flexible sting-equipped tail • Pseudo dragon
Giant polar worms • Remorhaz
Lives in poo, but burrows into live flesh • Rot grub
Humanoid eats ferrous metals such as iron, steel, and steel alloys • Rust monster
Fiery magic amphibians • Salamander
Half lion and half fish • Sea lion
Slimy, ambulatory, intelligent heaps of rotting vegetation • Shambling mound
Screaming fungus • Shrieker
Mosquito-like magical beast • Stirge
Horrid carnivore able to regenerate damage taken • Troll
Magical equine woodland creature • Unicorn
Feeds upon the life force of dying beings • Will o’ wisp
Undead with chilling touch that drains life energy • Wraith
Magically animated corpses • Zombie
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