Characters undertaking this adventure will spend a significant amount of game time on the journey to the Monastery of the Distressed Body and the lost city of Daoine Gloine. You can help bring those weeks of exploration to life with random encounters—some of which might increase or decrease the length of the characters' journey, as you decide.
Chapter 2 of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything includes random forest encounters, Underdark encounters, and mountain encounters. Or you can roll for or select more detailed encounters using the following tables.
Wilderness Encounters
Reaching the foothills of the Barrier Peaks takes the characters through a broad range of wild lands—including woods infused with the power of the Feywild.
Wilderness Encounters
| d10 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1 | A pack of Sprite pester the party, playing tricks and attempting to steal small items until the characters leave their territory. If they are treated with deference, the sprites might help the characters find the correct path and hurry them along. If assaulted in any way, fifteen Sprite riding Stirge attack. (The sprites' invisibility extends to the stirges as well while they are mounted.) |
| 2 | The path leads into a lonely grove that serves as the grave of a former dryad queen. If appropriate respects are paid, the characters have a 50 percent chance to receive a supernatural gift (see chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide)—a charm that allows a character to cast the |
| 3 | A Treant and a Stone Golem were magically locked together during an ancient battle. Over the centuries since, fey gardeners have turned the two into a temple. Characters who explore the temple might inadvertently help the treant or the golem finally overcome its foe. |
| 4 | A leprechaun (use Quickling statistics from Volo’s Guide to Monsters) crosses the characters' path. If successfully caught without being killed, the creature negotiates its release with the location of its hidden treasure: 1,000 gp in brightly polished coins. |
| 5 | Gathering firewood results in a visit from an angered undead Treant. (Use normal statistics, but the creature has the undead type and cannot use its Animate Trees feature). The treant collects all such fallen branches to take to a hidden graveyard of treant remains, and it angrily attacks any characters who get in its way. |
| 6–7 | Some strange creature has wandered down from the Monastery of the Distressed Body. Such creatures might include an ancient security construct gone mad (use Oaken Bolter statistics from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes) or a Gibbering Mouther with a mechanical skull housing its central brain. |
| 8–10 | The characters come across a group of roving outlaws (five to ten Thug led by a Bandit Captain), who are heading to the monastery to join its ranks. They possess rumors and fragments of a map, and are keen to steal the characters' resources—especially if Gearbox the modron is present. |
Cavern Encounters
The caverns and tunnels of the Barrier Peaks are a treacherous maze that has claimed more than one adventurer. This challenging route might involve cavern encounters that can help flesh out the characters' journey to the Monastery of the Distressed Body.
Cavern Encounters
| d10 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1 | A Xorn and an Umber Hulk hunt as a team, with the umber hulk working to herd characters toward its partner. Alternatively, the xorn and the umber hulk are rivals, with the characters caught in the middle. |
| 2 | A small war machine built at the monastery has been claimed by three kobolds, which use it to attack any potential threats. Use the statistics for the Oaken Bolter (from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes) and the Kobold Inventor (from Volo’s Guide to Monsters). |
| 3 | The characters' tunnel route leads through the lair of a Froghemoth or some other exotic monstrosity escaped from another planar craft that crashed into the Barrier Peaks long ago. |
| 4 | A Galeb Duhr serves as a kind of door between passageways. Negotiating with it successfully allows access to a secret tunnel that cuts days off the characters' journey. |
| 5 | Roving outlaws (five to ten Thug led by a Bandit Captain) heading to the monastery to join its ranks are hopelessly lost in the tunnels. In gratitude for being rescued, they offer to help the characters in their quest, but betray them at the first opportunity. |
| 6–7 | Six prisoners (Commoner) escaping from the monastery look to the characters for aid. They are pursued by monks (five Cultist led by a Cult Fanatic). If the prisoners are aided, they can supply some knowledge of the monastery before making their own way safely out of the mountains. |
| 8–10 | A monastery work party—six humanoid prisoners (Commoner) watched by five Cultist and a Cult Fanatic—is seen collecting ore to fuel the monastery’s engines. If the prisoners are rescued, they can supply some knowledge of the monastery before fleeing the mountains. |
Mountain Encounters
The rocky trails and forbidding passes of the Barrier Peaks hold endless mysteries, and are ripe for random encounters as the characters make their way to Daoine Gloine.
Mountain Encounters
| d10 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | A party of monks (five Cultist led by a Cult Fanatic) either survived the characters' assault on the Monastery of the Distressed Body or were away from the monastery and returned to find it routed. They pursue the characters—to try to convince them to take on leadership of the monastery. |
| 3 | A party of surviving monks (five Cultist) pursues the characters in revenge, led by an escaped Brain in a jar using cobbled-together mechanical gear for mobility. (If the Grand Master was defeated and its brain survived any encounter in the treasury (area M10), that brain now leads this group.) |
| 4 | The characters discover signs of past expeditions to the Barrier Peaks—the remains of travelers crushed by fallen rocks. If searched, the bodies might still possess useful gear or fragmentary maps showing the layout of Daoine Gloine. But a close inspection shows that some bodies have had part of their flesh melted away (from encounters with wandering ooze-folk). |
| 5 | A Galeb Duhr (sibling to the one in the monastery tunnels) blocks a key route into the lost city of Daoine Gloine. A character must succeed on a DC 14 Charisma ( |
| 6–7 | A wandering Ooze-Folk appears, having accidentally trekked out of the city. |
| 8–10 | An isolated village clings to the mountainside, populated by Kenku descended from Daoine Gloine refugees who fled the city when it was flooded with ooze. The kenku still remember ancient legends their forebears told about a cult of the medusa, as well as Kwalish’s arrival and the “plague of ooze.” However, their ability to speak only in mimicry might make it challenging for the characters to communicate with them. In the course of the conversation, the kenku might mimic the sounds of destruction and screaming heard as the city was overwhelmed, relay the mad ranting of the medusa, and so forth. They might even repeat the words of Kwalish himself as he talks of his extradimensional experiments with glass baubles, and his efforts to hide his lab inside of one. |