Dragon Encounters

 

The faerie dragon is a small, colorful dragon that likes playing practical jokes, as discussed in the previous article. The adult is different from the young dragon in that he has access to two interesting spells, which will be the focus of this article. (And an extra +1 INT, which won’t.)
See also the last article for how to run practical jokes sensibly in D&D.

How to Use – Hallucinatory Terrain

Hallucinatory Terrain is one of those spells that feel like they were just added to provide the Player’s Handbook with enough spells. It creates an illusion of up to 150 square feet being of a terrain type of your choice. My brother once used it to cover the crack in the wall where they were hiding from a pursuing dragon, but that seems to be the limit of its use.

At least, the limit according to most people. I’m going to show at least three more uses, all well suited to the faerie dragon.

The Sort of Sacred Shrine

Hallucinatory Terrain is well suited to setting up a sacred shrine-looking area, from which the players, or anybody else who happens to visit, can easily be sent off on a realistic-seeming but actually utterly bogus side quest.

Creating a Fake Shrine

It seems that there’s some debate online whether the spell, which creates the illusion of any type of ordinary terrain, extends to ordinary terrain on other planes. If yes, then the Feywild is all the excuse you need for any kind of magical terrain, with the other planes available if you want to demonstrate your geek credentials.

Even if you rule that the spell is limited to earth-like terrains, terrain appearing where it shouldn’t be possible still feels magical, especially once you include illusions of climate (temperature) and scent. Think of a forest in the middle of a desert, or a mountain peak rising out of a swamp. Especially since you could specify an ancient oak forest, with oaks of vast size, or similar touches.

Complete the illusion of the shrine with a glowing orb of magical light (Dancing Lights). If you like, you can add some smells or sounds with Minor Illusion, as neither Hallucinatory Terrain nor Dancing Lights take concentration.

A voice coming from a shrine feels impressive, like something you should listen to. If they have to solve a riddle, they’ll feel like they earned it, and they’ll be even more likely to listen.

A Fake Quest

Once you have their trust, you can send them in any direction you like.

If the faerie dragon regards them as enemies, it will send them on a long and pointless path, likely ending inside a monster den. While they go on their way, the faerie dragon will do what it can to gather allies or lure monsters into their path.

Give them minor obstacles on the way out that can be made into major ones on the way back. For example, a crumbling path along a cliff face will be worse when a giant is hurling boulders that threaten to collapse the path entirely, or when flying monsters launch attacks as they try to climb along the side of the cliff.

If the faerie dragon is just aiming to prank them, it will send them on a path that keeps curving to one side, so that they end up going in a circle. Make their path just difficult enough that they have to figure out how to tackle the obstacles in their way. If they don’t spend actual time on the trip the joke won’t really matter to them. Narrated in-game time does not count.

Path of Many Annoyances

As an example, have the dragon send them down a flowery garden with hidden gopher holes and vicious bees, which they have to travel through quickly and quietly for some reason. (Fictional reason. The faerie dragon told them this, but it was pulling their legs.)

Next, follow the river of narrow banks, loose rocks, and fast-moving water. Finally, walk around the edges of the lake with deep mud and angry geese defending their nestlings. (If they kill the mothers, the babies won’t survive.)

This gives you an excuse to break up the number of times they turn in the same direction. The first will be an instruction they were given, the second the turning of the river, the third they’ll come to themselves as they get to the lake and have to choose whether they want to go left or right. (If they go left, you’ll narrate that they travel 3/4 of the way around before they find the landmark.)

Finally… they find themselves back at the “shrine.” Either they curse immediately, or if you’re very lucky, you can convince them that it’s a series of shrines, and send them off on another leg of their journey. (Since they entered from a different direction, you’ll want to send them straight, then gradually start turning to the right.)

Riddle for the third shrine: What is tired, sweaty, very, very gullible, and soon to be in a very bad mood?

Extra: Have the faerie dragon realize too late that it has important information to give them. Will they trust it? You could also have it try to ask for a favor, not having realized until now that they’re the chosen heroes of destiny. The favor is something that would be best for them to grant, such as preventing a great evil from happening, but will they listen to it at this point?

The Hidden Bridge

The classic way to use an illusion is to cover up a trap, to get them to walk into it. You could use Hallucinatory Terrain to hide the fact that there’s a cliff (or to make the edge seem much further away), but then the illusion will be exposed as soon as one person falls off. (Although that can also be fun. Now they have to find a way to rescue him, and if a monster shows up, you’ve effectively split the party.)

A better way is to target a spot where there’s a bridge. As a rule, people will generally walk in a straight line, especially when they’re in a hurry, so the faerie dragon just has to wait until they’re in the right spot before dangling its lure. Make the terrain springy moss, or loose rocks or sand, and you’ve covered up the bridge’s looseness.

Once they’re in the middle of the bridge, all you have to do is cut the rope and they all fall. If a hostile creature was using this, you’d want to drop them into a pit full of monsters that they have to fend off while working out how to climb out. If you go with the prankster, use a river, then have them get stuck in mud or be pulled downstream, and have an enemy choose that moment to show up.

Variant: This is also a wonderful way to get them into a mountain pass, and then start dropping boulders, sending a giant rolling boulder at them, or having them start to get shot at by archers hiding on the cliff heights.

The Celestial/Infernal/Whatever Appearance

A piece of terrain in the middle of a town or village suddenly changing into something drastically different can be made to seem like the appearance of a divine or infernal entity.

Prepping the Appearence

This works best when it’s set up properly. If the appearance is going to be celestial, that means mysterious and beautiful singing, lovely scents, and and small chores being completed on their own, such as lost objects reappearing and eggs being gathered on their own from the henhouses. If infernal, do the opposite. Both are easy for an invisible creature with Minor Illusion.

Ideally, you’d have the players investigating some kind of mystery or crime, giving them a chance to see one or two of the “signs,” and hear about others from talking to the villagers. (On the downside, this will throw any mystery investigation right off the rails.)

If you don’t have this, you can use the village as a quest hub for a few quests instead. This will mean that they have to go in and out of the village, letting you have them see and hear about the events.

Ideally, have a minor social encounter (a real one, meaning with choices and consequences) to give the village more prominence in their eyes.

You can also send them on a quest related to the faerie dragon’s activities, perhaps to get a sacred plant/animal/object to find favor in the celestial’s eyes or to protect against the curse that seems to be on the village in the infernal option.

Manifesting the Manifestation

Start the reveal by having an area of the village, perhaps the village square or any open area right outside the village, suddenly transform into a fragrant meadow or a desolate waste.

The 2014 version of the faerie dragon has Major Image, which would be a perfect way to let the angel or devil appear, possibly ghostlike to explain why attacks go right through it. The 2024 version doesn’t have this, so you’ll have to settle for an orb of light and a voice speaking out of nowhere. Apparently, it’s projecting itself, not manifesting.

Manifestation Consequences: Negative

The next thing you need is for this to affect the players. If it’s just an empty manifestation, then it’s basically wasted time.

The first way is to have the villagers react to this. Maybe have them try to offer a human sacrifice. I’d like to assume that any group of players would try to stop this, but if you don’t think yours will, have the sacrifice be someone they need, or at least someone who owes them a quest reward.

(The faerie dragon, not being evil, isn’t intending to let them go ahead with it, but it is willing to wait until the very last minute.)

Similar to the last, you could have the villagers offer up something the players need as a gift, or for the divine/infernal to issue a command to the villagers that will mess up the players’ agenda somehow.

You could have it issue a command that goes straight against the players, for example telling the villagers to sacrifice them, but I personally think that you’ll give your players more room for creative freedom if they aren’t directly targeted. (You also avoid the risk that they’ll just fight back and wipe out half the village without thinking.)

Manifestation Consequences: Positive

A different way to use this is if the faerie dragon is trying to help the players, and the players know this. For example, the players are after a certain item owned by one of the villagers, which has a curse protecting it from being stolen. The faerie dragon promises to help, but it doesn’t say how.

The players are involved, either completing quests for it in exchange for a vague promise to think about it, or handling something else, giving them a chance to hear the rumors of what’s happening and get involved, etc.

When the faerie dragon pulls its reveal, they’ll probably be able to guess what’s going on, given that the item being requested is what they’re after.

Then you need a complication that will force them to get involved, such as the villagers insisting on offering a human sacrifice first, or the person refusing and the villagers threatening to burn down their house, with the owner saying that it’s better for them to die than to let a demon have it.

Manifestation Consequences: Third Party Confusion

The other option is that the villains take advantage of the confusion to steal an object, or to take a hostage and demand something big in exchange.

Ideally, use both ideas in a row. The first makes sure that the event is big and dramatic enough to be interesting, and the second sends the plot in a new direction. Plus, now the faerie dragon feels guilty and will try to make it up to them, allowing for further chaos down the line.

Three Ideas for Polymorph

The standard ways to use Polymorph are either as a method to take one foe out of the fight until they finish killing the rest, whereupon they can gang up on him, or to transform one of the PCs or their allies into a beast of a matching CR, to gain a of a bucket of temporary HP. (See the end of the article for ideas on balancing this spell, if you find it OP.)

While effective, these basic uses don’t really capture the flavor that transformation should have. It turns it into a powerful combat spell with little dramatic appeal. I’m going to give three other uses, each with a variation.

The basic ways are powerful, deadly, ideal for D&D, and not so well suited to the faerie dragon. If you want to use them with a faerie dragon, make it so that the faerie dragon was left very angry about something, and probably considered the targets evil. The ideas below are well suited for the faerie dragon, and less so for making a campaign challenging.

Enough introduction. Let’s explore Polymorph.

Snake Among Snakes

The victim is transformed into some kind of animal, then dropped into a pit or other enclosed area in which there are many similar animals of that type. Ideally, the animal is something dangerous, such as snakes or scorpions, so that transforming them back while they’re in the pit is likely to get them killed.

The target loses its intelligence, but keeps its personality, so anything that the person likes or dislikes will still be true, assuming it makes sense for that animal. If the target is an NPC, make sure to give it personality traits.

(The only other solution is to try to break up the animals. If all else fails, you can have them break the spell and then rush to protect the victim. In that case, you’ll probably want the animals to start acting like a swarm. Use the fact that they’ve been disturbed as an excuse.)

Variation: The target is an NPC with only a handful of HP. In that case, you can just place it somewhere that will be hard to chase after it, such as a toad in a swamp or a deer where it has room to run. Give it some danger in the area, so that they can’t simply wait for the spell to end.

Rampage as a Diversion

The players are at a party or other event, and they need to steal something. The faerie dragon offers to create a diversion. (If they’ve spent any time with the faerie dragon, they’ll refuse. Have it offer and then zip away before they can refuse.)

Polymorph can change even a large monster into something small, inconspicuous, and easy to carry. The faerie dragon just has to find something large and vicious that can’t make a WIS save, turn it into a turtle, and then drop concentration when it wants to activate. Instant King Kong. Now the players have to decide between their goal and everybody’s lives.

Variation: The faerie dragon turns it into a bullfrog and releases it into a busy room. These frogs are really fast, jump like crazy, and everybody in the room will want to get rid of them. Then it tips the players off that the people had better hope they don’t hit one. Better act fast.

Combat Encounter: Bull in a China Shop (Difficulty 4)

Instead of turning the enemy into something small, go big. (Suggested animals: rhinoceros, elephant, triceratops, mammoth.) Then run away.

All you need is a reason why they can’t wait for it to turn back on its own, and you have trouble. No animal will simply wait calmly while people stab it. Being friends only goes so far. (The polymorphed person lacks the intelligence to understand that they’re trying to break the spell.)

The last thing you need to make this idea work is a time pressure element, to stop them from simply waiting the spell out. If they’re fleeing an enemy, that itself is the pressure, and you can have members of the enemy start trickling in to add pressure.

(The transformed party member will help in the battle, but won’t get attacked, as the enemies will be concentrating on the untransformed PCs. Once they attack their friend, then it will attack them. If they keep fighting the enemies, they’ll end up overwhelmed as the enemies keep coming.)

Bonus Option: Damaged Location

A more interesting way to run this encounter would be in a damaged location. The faerie dragon will be able to use Euphoria Breath to cause the animal to move in a random direction, which will cause the floor to crumble and pillars to become dislodged.

A battle map will be useful, as you’ll want to keep track of where the floor has already crumbled, as those locations will become pits, and places near them will be more likely to break. Pillars breaking will result in nearby PCs having to make DEX saves to avoid taking damage and possibly being pinned down by falling rubble, and nearby areas being more likely to fall, and to fall in greater amounts.

Consider giving the building itself HP, and letting it collapse. Give them warning when the building is running out of HP, and have a plan for what happens if it collapses. If you don’t want a “lose the battle” outcome, you can have the building running out of HP cause a large fissure to break open down the middle, and bricks to rain down onto PCs, causing damage.

Variant: Not really useful against the PCs, but if there are enemies pursuing, and the passageway is at all narrow, transforming an enemy into something that doesn’t have room to move is much better than any other transformation.

While he will keep his old allegiance, that won’t matter if he’s stuck in place, and all his fellows will be stuck as well. If the enemies are evil, there’s a good chance that once they finally manage to turn him back, he’ll be so irritated at having been stabbed so many times that he’ll attack his teammates, and the delay will become even longer.

(If you want to use this, play it with the faerie dragon helping the players, and give the players something they need to do in the chamber beyond. Maybe they can use the time to hide, or to solve a puzzle, and the time it takes to knock out the temporary HP of the transformed ally is the time limit. (Ideally, you want them present when he turns back, so you can describe the fight that breaks out as he attacks his former friends.))

For more creative uses and spells, and other monster tactics, see my Monster Tactics and Spells Page

Limits of Polymorph That Most People Don’t Know

Cast on an Enemy

The spell can be broken if the target runs out of HP, so if using it on an enemy or with enemies that are aware of that fact, the solution is to turn the target into something like a mouse that will run away before they have a chance to hurt it. As a bonus, this can delay the enemy from coming back into the fight if the caster loses concentration.

For DMs who feel that their players are abusing it, you should know that most animals won’t run all that far once they’re out of harm’s way. A small animal like a mouse or a bug calms down fairly quickly once safe, and given its small size, a few feet away will seem like quite a distance to it.

The only animals that will run far are the big ones, such as deer. Even they will stop after a few hundred feet to see if they’re being pursued. Also, limiting it to large animals means it can only be used outdoors, where them fleeing can have long-term repercussions. (Once it turns back, it can alert its allies, choose an optimal ambush time, etc.)

Cast on an Ally

If used on an ally, the ally should have its intelligence change to match its new form. Many people handwave that away, arguing that its personality hasn’t changed, so it should recognize the other PCs as its allies and help them. Also, forcing a player to give up control of his character leaves him with nothing to do.

In part because this spell is so powerful, I would suggest a compromise where the player makes a WIS save each turn. If he makes it, he can decide his action. If he fails by 5 or less, he selects three different actions and rolls between them, and a failure by more than five means the DM selects his action.

(The DC that he needs to roll should adjust based on how much damage he takes, as pain will cause any animal to act unpredictably. Perhaps 5 plus half the damage he took since the last turn, although the DC can also be adjusted based on his relationship to other party members, fire or other reasons to panic, and other elements.)

Summary: Six Ways to Use the Faerie Dragon Adult

1. The faerie dragon has powerful spells, but uses them as pranks, not as threats. The solution is to have a prank turn into a threat unexpectedly. Have it cast Hallucinatory Terrain, then have a monster knock out the faerie dragon and take advantage.
2. The faerie dragon has Hallucinatory Terrain. Aside from its normal use, this can trick people into thinking that a major spirit power just appeared. Use it to send players on bogus quests, or to really freak out an NPC village.
3. The faerie dragon has Hallucinatory Terrain. Common use: Conceal a cliff. Then, as soon as one person falls, it’s blown. Effective use: Conceal a bridge, then use a noise to lure them onto it without their realizing. Either ambush them, or collapse the bridge.
4. The faerie dragon has Polymorph. Often used to turn enemies into small animals that flee. Small animals don’t run far, so once concentration is broken, they’re nearby. A big animal won’t die easily, and will react badly to being attacked.
5. The faerie dragon has Polymorph. One nasty use is to turn someone into a scorpion and dump them among other scorpions. If they break the spell, the target will get killed. They had better not attack the caster, or the caster might lose concentration.
6. The faerie dragon has Polymorph. Often used to buff PCs, ignoring that an animal’s mind can get confused and attack friends. I’d require a WIS save each turn. For more fun, cast it on a target that’s alone, so the rest don’t know which animal is their friend.