art by: PavelTomashevskiy
Wading through the midnight fog you search for respite from the bitter, cold wind. With your perception you hear a soft choir singing in the distance, slowly followed by the sight of a warm yellow glow peeking through the mist.
Welcome to Lolth’s Graveyard, a dynamic combat encounter that you can run for your next game. Lolth is the drow deity of spiders, trickery, and war of the forgotten realms, but you can substitute the Queen of Spiders with any of your own deities that may fit these themes.
THE HOOK
Maybe your players are burning the midnight oil on the road to the next town or maybe they’ve shown up to the next town to find this encounter in place of a normal temple. Regardless, your players are going to hear and see signs of a lively place of worship. Following these signs will lead them to a beautifully elegant elven temple. Make sure to describe its warm atmosphere and the relief that may come to your players finally finding a place to rest up, because what they don’t know is that this temple is an illusion made by the spell Mirage Arcane.
If your players investigate the temple make sure to have some knowledge of the deity you choose this temple appears as, so that you can give subtle clues that things may not be as they seem. Maybe the symbol on the door is reversed or the elven script has letters that appear more abyssal than elven. And if your players use detect magic, reward them by noting that there is a magical effect, but tell them it’s Divination as the Mirage Arcane spell is being masked by Nystul’s Magic Aura.
THE PRIESTESS
Hopefully your players go inside. What they’ll find is the inside of a warm elven temple. However, any singing they may have heard is gone. But don’t draw too much attention to this as there still is a warm presence and an elven figure praying in the front pew. This figure is a beautiful high elven woman that appears to be the priestess of this temple. But here’s where things start to turn. If your players attempt to talk to her, she will simply continue praying. While they’re trying to talk to her, tell them that they suddenly notice a casket at the altar and next to it a portrait of a male drow.
THE ILLUSION
This next part could play out a million ways, so you're going to have to improvise depending on what your players do. Maybe they immediately attack the priestess or try to run. Maybe they continue talking to the elf and maybe you show signs that she’s actually trying to communicate back but can’t. Whatever they do, it’s about to go down.
The walls begin peeling away as if shedding its skin, turning into a purple transparent dust that fades away. The priestess grabs the arm of the nearest player as her face peels away as well, revealing the dark skin of a drow. She whispers through her teeth, “Help us”, before fading into dust herself. You all find yourselves standing in the ruins of an ancient temple in the middle of a large ruined graveyard.
THE GRAVEYARD
Describe to your players that the ground of the ruined temple is now adorning some sort of ancient runic circle that if identified with a successful DC 15 Arcana check, can be found to be a series of runes for a ritual that is designed to imprison a high deity. Surrounding the ruined temple are tombstones that extend far into the fog in all directions and behind the temple is a cobwebbed mausoleum. Let your players snoop around for a little before unleashing the trap that they have found themselves in the middle of. Depending on where they are located, there are several ways you can kick off combat. Maybe a zombie's arm grabs their ankle as they walk through the graveyard or maybe they discover the undead drider a little earlier if they go near the mausoleum. Regardless, it's time to roll initiative.
THE FIGHT
Zombies and Skeletons begin to rise from the graves in all directions. Have each of your players roll a d4. This will determine how many zombies and skeletons appear at the start of combat. Here’s the catch, whenever one of the zombies gets killed, millions of spiders are going to burst out from its corpse causing each space within 5 feet to be under the effect of the web spell.
While your players are slaying zombies and skeletons make a note to a couple of the players that they hear mumbling coming from some of the undead. If they spend a bonus action making a DC 15 perception check they’ll not only hear the words “help us” but also “sorry mother”.
At initiative count 20 of each round have 1 or 2 of your players roll another d4 as the ground is going to constantly spit out zombies and skeletons.
At the start of the second round, go ahead and secretly roll initiative for two other monsters that will be joining the fight shortly. An undead mage and an undead drider. For the mage we’ll be using the Deathlock stat block from Monsters of the Multiverse and for the drider we’ll be using our homebrew Zombie Drider stat block that can be found on DnDBeyond. On their turns describe them coming out swinging from the mausoleum in the back of the graveyard.
Describe to your players that the undead mage appears to be wearing tattered but similar robes to the priestess from the illusion. And if your players investigate the appearance of the drider, they’ll draw similarities in the bone structure to the drow man in the painting.
THE MAUSOLEUM
When the Undead Priestess is reduced to 0 hit points, describe a mirage of the drow woman that appeared in the illusion slightly separating from the skeletal form before getting sucked back in and falling unconscious. But the Undead Priestess will not be dead for long. On her next turn, describe a green tendril of smoke coming from the mausoleum and revitalizing the Undead Priestess as she rises to undeath once more. Continue this cycle until your players find a glowing medallion in the shape of a spider on a pedestal inside the mausoleum. Keep in mind, the Undead Drider is a protector so any player that advances towards the mausoleum will find themselves a primary target of the drider. Whether your players destroy or dispel Lolth’s medallion, this will release the souls of the Drow Priestess and her husband from their undead forms.
EPILOGUE
Further investigation of the area can reveal a few things, such as the undead priestesses tome describing the ritual as being designed to trap Lolth specifically. Maybe her tome also serves as a journal that describes what her and her husband were trying to accomplish by trapping Lolth. Maybe they were trying to gain her power or maybe they saw her dark ways while being followers of her. Instead of perfectly wrapping up the story for you, I encourage you to build the story into your own world and carve it into something that serves your campaign and your players.
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