An upcoming dungeon in my 5e campaign. Long story short a group of rogue mages are experimenting with a homebrewed Bloodstone. It holds enchantment well but is volotile with any type of destructive or evocation magics. I have 3 level 5 players and they have a familiar who I have allowed an action.(Usually doesn't live long) Room 1- (A changing room of sorts. Chests filled with belts, swords, rugged leathers. On the other side of the room clean, slate grey robes.) Room 2- (Records room, Notes showing quantity and general weight of deliveries. From the records the can gain information on the frequency of shipments and where they come from. Perhaps an arcane trap guarding these records?) Room 3- (This door remains locked, within is a storage room filled with barrels upon barels of Bloodstone. I was thinking 5 locks on the door and attempting to pick the wrong lock/use the key on the wrong lock will cause a trap to trigger. Maybe the torch next to it will act like a vine/whip of sorts. A DC 15 Dex save or take 1d6+5 or so fire damage, also restrained by the corded flame? Start of their turn they could attempt the save again or their companions could cut it. ) Room 4- A testing room for Bloodstone, along the north wall are desks lined with notes and gems, there are around 4 people in arcane robes, some taking notes in tomes.(Cr 1-2 mages with cantrips and a few lvl 1 and 2 spells as well as misty step. Maybe one has the key to the storage room?) Along the south wall(next to the door the players enter through) are a number of pedistools with glowing red stones on them. Room 5- My thoughts here is this room was testing Cone of cold and other cold spells, but they couldn't predict how much the bloodstone would amplify the spells. Thus an accident occured freezing the entire room. Inside are 2 guardian statues as well as 2-3 arcane scholars, but all are stuck in place, frozen in whatever their last acts were during the event (reading notes and such). Walking into this room the floor acts as a grease spell and they make Dex saves or slide 15 feet in the direction they were moving. Difficult terrain of course. Maybe icecycles and if they slide into anything the icecycles could fall cuasing another dex save or take like 2d6 dmg? Also a pedistol in the center with a frozen bloodstone pulsing. I was thinking the southmost door could be frozen shut, possibly the north one as well. The middle door leading to room 4 is simply taped off? If they destroy the stone in the pedistool the ice melts? Or simply use fire magic on the door. This is of course all open to changes. Room 6- In the vein of them experimenting I thought maybe a room where they are attempting to create weapons enhanced by the stones. I opted for a kidnapped dwarf smith, that way after this encounter they could have an npc that could give them information that wouldn't make sense laying around in notes (The ruthlessness of the groups leader.) The weapons could be very, very volatile. As in they hurt the weilders more often than not. In the north they could have a caged ogre with bloodstone enfused guantlets or armor? If broken free from the 1-2 arcanist/guards in this room I need to create a statblock that shows as it's using the power of these weapons it is almost destroying it body. Think Thanos arm after using the stones kind of dmg. Room 7- This room is similar to one previous but without the people, statues stand a good 10-15 feet from glowing red bloodstone gems placed in sconts of sorts on the wall. The floor between the gems and the statues are blackened from some powerful fire spells, and parts of the statues are chipped/broken or in some cases even melted. I'm thinking some CR2 arcane statue guardians, but where they've been used as targets their HP varies based off how damaged they are? Room 8- (Rycroft's Study. The leader of this sect of mages. A short staircase raises 5 feet to a 2nd level where he sits, and the players enter at the base of these 2 staricases. As of now its just him in the room, and I'm unsure if I need more. I'm using the spellsword statblock for him from 'Versitile NPCs'. So as long as he uses a contrip/1st level spell he can attack with his longsword(+6 to hit) as a bonus action. If not 2 longsword attacks. My players have a decent amount of magic items. AC-16 HP-71 4th lvl spellcaster Cantrips: Fire bolt, True Strike. 1st(4 slots) Grease, Shield, Thunderwave. 2nd(3 slots) Flaming sphere, invisibility. Feel free to help me with encounter design as I am still newer to Dungeon and combat encounter design. Constructive critisims welcomed, and thank you for any input! I think I've given it enough character but feel a little weak on rooms 4 and maybe the final encounter?
