“The Jungles of Chult are a dangerous place, full of horrors people never dreamed of. Piles of gold and jewels lie down in the Temples of Old – waiting for brave adventurers to pick them up, or morons to be lured to their deaths.”

Nameless barkeep from Nyanzar Port

This is a simple recipe for one time adventure in DnD 3,5. Of course should the players live through the obstacles every DM may feel free to expand it to longer campaign or rewrite it to suit DnD 5 system mechanics.  

Introduction:

Players start at 3rd level of chosen profession. Their wealth is worth 3000 GP but they do not have any coins in their pockets.

Players met each other on the continent – in this case Baldur’s Gate. But DM may choose any suitable location as long as it has access to sea and it’s a vibrant port with loads of merchants coming and going. 

Players were engaged in protecting the shipment of wine to Nyanzar Port – and they succeeded. While in Nyanzar they are offered highly profitable work as caravan escort. The caravan transports iron tools for miners deep in the jungle. It is vitable for it to reach the mines because lack of tools may stop the gold production.

The adventure starts at small village deep within the jungle called Shie. Right next to the village there are the mines, where caravan ends its journey and players get paid 2000 gold pieces each. They are met by mines overseer Javelton Regler, who happens to be friendly middle aged man, dressed practically and a little bit cleaner then all the miners. Javelton engages in a friendly conversation with the players, askes how the journey with caravan went (it was surprisingly peaceful), and complains about his teenage daughter Cllaire who apparently hates the jungle, and would love to go back to Naynzar.

Javelton informs players that the nearby village was created at  the crossroads of a few caravan trails. That is why there is as many continent people as native inhabitants of Chult. There is even a tavern called “The Drunken Raptor”, but he warns the players that the barkeep, named Breg is a miser, and they need to brace for unusually high prices. Javelin also asks the players to return tomorrow to discuss what are their next plans – as maybe he can find some new job for them if they are interested.

This is the key fragment – MG must make the players stay in the village. For instance Javelton might say he has another well paid job for them. 

The Shie Village

Meanwhile our heroes go back to the village – from the mines (15 minutes walk). It is up to them what will they do. They day is hot and humid, as always this deep in the jungle, and the players already start to feel very, very thirsty.

Therefore most likely they will go to the tavern to have a drink. The tavern itself is literally placed in the middle of the crossroads. The barkeep Breg is short human, with little to none brown hair and very small piercing blue eyes. He’s very proud of his little tavern and its sigil. A stuffed raptor head nailed to the wall just above the bar.

Tavern is the only building built entirely with wood. It even has a roof covered with tiles instead of leaves. Despite the barkeeps appearance the tavern is fairly clean and welcoming.  It is also packed with people – mostly miners who come from work to have some dinner and enjoy a beer mug during break time. Should the party choose to order the MG should add +25% gold / silver / copper coins to all services. The barkeep is indeed very greedy.. Tavern serves beer, cheep wine and very good food – mostly exotic fruits, batats, maniok roots and spicy meat. For 80 gold pieces the players may order The Drunker Raptor’s best dish: Large salamander stuffed with roots and spices and baked in palm leaves. Salamander is served on red hot stones just from the oven and it could feed 6 people. 

Besides the tavern the village does not have any important buildings. It consists of 15 to 20 small round houses build with stone, clay and leaves and a big well right in the middle of the village guarded by a drunk named Frasnal. The village inhabitants are small indian tribe, mixed with miners from continent and few merchants, and Tabaxi tribesman. The village is small but is seems always on the move as the caravans keeps coming and going. The huts have jungle right behind their backs.

The Drunken Raptor

As soon as the players enter the tavern DM should inform them that it’s packed with people – mostly miners. When they order drinks DM may tell them to roll for perception, and if they succeed they will notice a weird figure tucked in the darkest corner of the tawern. A man or a woman dressed in black worn out robes that cover him entirely. Before the stranger lays a plate of fruits yet he doesn’t seem to eat them. 

When they sit down the DM must describe an unexpected event. Riled up man enters the tavern and starts talking loudly and angrily to the barkeep. This conversation look as follows:

Stranger: I can’t believe this shit!

Barkeep: What happened now Reiner?

Stranger: That damned frog-legs hurt Tain. Luckily we stamped upon a caravan that will take him to Nyanzar. Thank the gods I selled the rest of iron!

Barkeep: So you’re going back?

Stranger: As soon as I can get out of this shithole!

The DM may test players to check how much of this conversation they heard. But if any player would want to talk to Reiner – as soon as the player would get up from his sit the Reiner will get out angrily. And since the day is coming to an end the players should decide on where to sleep. They can choose overpriced tawern or rent a mud hut or set up camp in the jungle. All options, except of tawern carry a risk of being bitten by snakes or insects.

The Next Morning

The players are being woke by barkeeper or messenger – depending on where they slept. They are being told to visit Javelton at once, because he has an urgent high paid errand for them.

As soon as they visit the mine, they are being redirected to Javelton’s house – that is right next to the mines. The house is a one story hut built from clay and wood, it has a small garden surrounding it with vegetables and flowers. It looks to be clean and kept in order, with curtains in clean windows.

When they knock an old housekeeper Gertruda opens the door. Gertruda introduces herself as Javeltons cousin. She seems to be an old grumpy woman with a very unpleasant tone of voice. She askes the heroes to wait for Javelton in the library and gives them very sour water with lemon juice. (It’s extremely hot, the DM must take track of players who wear armour).

Few minutes later Javelton walks in and players immediately see that something is off – he is nervous, tired and has bags under his eyes. Javelton explains that his daughter Cllaire was abducted last night. And he wants our heroes to find her. Here is the list of informations he may give to the players.

– He has a small portrait of his daughter. She has blue eyes and long blonde hair, also she has a deep cut in her left ear – souvenir from playing with fathers dagger, as a child.

– Javelton want the heroes to take the job because they have just arrived here and the have no connection to his mining competition in this area of Chult

– He has already sent two patrols formes of miners to look for her on main trails, but he thinks something is off here and wants adventurers to check this as well

– Javelton is afraid that she was kidnapped by grungs. Frog-people who have their village two hours ride from Shie Village. Apparently grungs have been aggressive towards people, and also they crave steel, which is why they have been stealing tools from the mines.

– He wasn’t able to find out how she was kidnapped – the doors were shut and he had the key. Also the windows were boarded up so there was no way she would get out by herself. 

– He and housekeeper did not heard anything at all through the night, and discovered she was gone in the morning

– They weren’t able to find anything strange in the room, except of weird red powder lying on the floor.

– All her belongings are still in place

– If the players ask why windows and doors in her room were shut Javelton admits with shame that yesterday he quarreled with his daughter once again. Cllaire threatened that if he did not let her leave with the nearest caravan, she would run away and reach the Nyanzar Port on her own. That’s why he nailed the windows shut and locked her for the night. To make sure she wouldn’t escape.

– Javelton tells players that he will also leave immidiately to get help from Flaming Fist garrison, but it’s a 3 days ride, so he wants heroes to start looking for her as soon as possible.

– The grumpy housekeeper will stay in the house just in case if Cllaire should return on her own.

And finally Javelton offers the players 13 000 gold pieces should they find Cllaire, and will add another 2 000 GP if she is unharmed. At this point the players should accept the offer. If they would try to bargain the DM should play on their feelings explaining through NPC’s lips that this gold is his live savings and that he simply doesn’t have anything more.

The next step is the investigation process – there are a few scenarios in which the players can proceed. In my case the players went through all of them before deciding where should they go to look for Cllaire.

Cllaire’s Room

Players can ask Javelton to show them Cllaire’s room, where probably kidnapping took place. Should they inquire the DM should ask them for Tracking or Perception roll’s. Depending on the outcome they would find:

< 10

– The room looks normal, there are no signs of entry, all the windows are locked. No one got in or out of the room.

– There is weird substance covering the floor. Red dust of some kind.

< 15

– Doors and windows are shut completely but it looks as though someone has been trying to get out. Players spot notches and cavities in the vicinity of locks,  clumsily made with some sharp object.

– There is weird substance covering the floor. Red dust of some kind – even under the bed.

– There is smoke-like stain on the ceiling in the center of the room

<20

– All mentioned before

– This red substance seems to be mineral – when touched it leaved stain that is very hard to clean, even on human skin.

– After examining the furnitures it seems that, they were misplaced and than put back in order. The players find fresh scratches on the floor confirming that.

– All of Cllaire’s belongings are in the place, nothing has been taken

20 +

– All mentioned before

– Players find a small splash of blood that someone tried to wipe unsuccessfully, behind a small cupboard

When the players end their investigation, they would probably head out to look for clues in the village or search for grungs village. If they still don’t know what to Javelton may suggest them above solutions.

Reiner

Should the players decided to visit the grungs village, they would need directions how to get there. Most of NPC’s in the village and in the mines would tell them to speak to some of the merchants who have been trading steel with frog-people. Barkeep and Javelton would direct the players to speak to Reiner Idle, who rents a mud-hut in the village. 

When the players visit Reiner, his hut has open doors and he is lying drunk on the pallet. They may force him to wake up but if the players threaten Reiner he would start a huge commotion in the village. If the players are nice to the trader DM will ask them for diplomacy check. DM may decide on difficulty level, however if the player soffer Rainer by giving him alcohol the difficulty level should drop by 5. If the players would start drinking with Reiner he will happily tell them everything without diplomacy test:

– Frog-people are called Grungs

– Their village is called Breghks

– They have a clan led by queen mother

– They are divided in casts (counting from lower to highest of them):

• Warriors (green)
• Artisans and domestic workers. (blue)
• Supervisors (purple)
• Scholars and magic users (red)
• Elite warriors (orange)
• The Mother (gold)

– They are often aggressive towards humans, roomers say they eat them

– They trade poison which can be collected from their skin (expensive in some regions of Faerun)

– They crave steel, mostly for weapons

– They don’t speak common tongue and will drive away anyone who doesn’t know their customs

At this point the players should understand that they will need Reiner to enter the village. And he will eagerly help the players – for something in return. 

Reiner should tell the party that he grew weary of local barkeep Breg and his greed. Apparently the barkeep has been raising payment for food and drink every day since Reiner has arrived at the village. So Reiner will ask the players to extract revenge. Not to kill the bartender, but maybe demolish the tavern or something like that.

Reiner will also ask the players to acquire some steel to trade with/bribe the grungs for some information. The players can easily acquire that from Javelton – he will give them 15 steel bars (1 kg each).

All that’s left before departure is to extract revenge on Reiner’s behalf. DM should let players do creative shit at this point. When we were playing the party decided to vandalize the stuffed raptors head in the night. BUT the players cannot get caught in act or they will be forbidden from entering the Shie village.

Grung’s Village

When the deed is done, the Reiner will take the players to Breghks. Journey will last 2 hours and right before entering Rainer will make some kind of reed on a high stick and lead the party to forrest.  After 15 minutes they will come out into the clearing between jungle and the lake. The lake is surrounded by very tall strange trees connected by bridges. The whole area is full of croaking sounds of frogs and crickets. 

Reiner will then approach to the middle of the clearing and make a few strange moves, and croaking sounds. And after some minutes he will order the players to follow him. After passing through a row of trees, the team will see an island on a lake with a village full of very strange houses covered with leaves (smoke is rising from some chimneys), surrounded by a wall of wooden piles.

Both shores of the lake are covered with perfectly pure white sand and the lake has large colorful blooming flowers in which eggs are laid. You can’t see any bridge or crossing on the lake.

By the shore you are greeted by one purple and two blue grungs. Should the players check for perception they would see more grungs (green) on the tree bridges. The Reiner would go talk to them first and than ask for one of the players to join him with steel cargo. The party would have to choose which player should it be. 

Grungs do not speak common and Reiner does not speak grung language. So chosen player will be told to ‘ask his question’ by drawing it on a sand. At this point DM should give the player white piece of paper and ask him to draw the question. 

The player will only be able to ask questions with drawings and body language and the DM will have to answer the same way.

Depending on creativity level of this player the grung may respond with below images:

– long-haired woman

– man wrapped in robe

– temple shaped like piramid

– monkeys

– magic

– stone circle + north

– jungle

– two rows of statues with huge faces

– waterfall

– stone altar

The important thing is that DM would draw this images himself so they would not be obvious and might be difficult to decipher. It will ultimately turn into a guessing game. And every quesed image should be paid with steel by player.

Searching For Clues

After the party return to village they may search for other clues around the village:

Examining the road between the mines and the city (depending on how good the player perception check will be) may reveal that there is small masked pathway leading directly into the jungle, on the left side of the trail

Barkeep may give the party some valuable information in return for gold:

– Yesterday a masked stranger has stopped in the tawern for a meal. He was fully covered in black robes and his finger has left weird red marks on the table he sat at. If the players searched Claire’s room they discover that it’s a similar stain, to the one left by the red powder.

– Masked man got acquainted with three adventurers, who also stopped for a meal during their travel. And than left in their company

– For additional gold the barkeep may reveal that one of his bollards has seen the three of them disappearing into the jungle on the road leading to mines

Fragal, the village drunk, for a bottle of alcohol will tell the party that he though he heard woman scream in the night – coming from the direction somewhere between the mines and the jungle.

Departure Into The Jungle

When the party will collect all the above information they should be ready to depart into the jungle. After discovering the trail they would travel for 5 to 6 hours to reach small clearing in the jungle with stone circle. 

At this point players should be exhausted. After all they are from different continent not used to to traveling into the jungle. They would drink a lot of water, sweat and tire quickly – especially if they wear heavy armour.

If the players would look for tracks they can easily discover that five people recently have been camping here. Higher score in tracking roll may reveal traces of red powder lying on one place where possibly someone has been sleeping.

There are three roads leading from the clearing not counting the one players used to get here. They can use tracking abilities or trust the grungs information to choose the right path (image with stone circle + north).  DM should however warn the players that it’s late and it’s getting dark.

The party would spent this night in the jungle peacefully, however they would feel certain unease since they are camping in the jungle full of deadly animals and plants. 

On the next day the party would leave for north. The journey would last a day and I recommend that DM would set some attractions along the way to keep players alert and anxious. Poisonous flowers, mosquitoes, lack of water or a deadly Tabaxi trap set for dinosaurs would do nicely. 

The Moment Of Horror

Just before dawn the players would smell a campfire. And as they would approach it, they would see hooded and cloaked figure standing in front of bloody stone altar. This would be the mystery man they already saw at the inn. However this time his face would not be covered. The players would see that we’re his face should be – there is a terrifying muzzle of a gorilla, with red glowing eyes. 

Players could also see gruesome decorations on nearby trees. Human organs hung on various branches, still dripping with blood: kidneys, lungs, hearts, and limbs cut off. The monkey demon, however, leans over the body lying on the stone altar, from which he cuts something. The other two bodies are thrown aside, like used puppets.

This is the moment for DM to create some horror and suspension. And for players to get their fight. The opponent – servant demon – is Barlgura, tanari demon. His statistics are in the Book of Vile Darkness. But one thing is of note. For this session purposes I changed barlgura’s ability to teleport for ability to perform specific ritual curse.

Should the servant demon be able to perform a successful melee touch attack he will be able to curse any humanoid. The player can also make will saving throw to try not to get under the curse, but the difficulty level is 19.

The curse inflicts 1k8 damage at once and will last for as long as the party will not deal with final threat. The touch of demon would leave a mark on the body – a red stain. And:

– If it’s a female player, there is a 50% chance that the character will start to sleepwalk and will be tormented by terrible nightmares

– If its a male player with each day of the journey the player would first feel the mark itching and then it will slowly start to cover in thick black fur

When the players will kill the servant demon, the DM should describe that the moment it died, the fur started to fall of, and a demon like figure would change to a human.

The Monkeys

The next part of the journey should last for day and a half. The players would get deeper in the jungle. Tracking or perception check at the stone altar would reveal remainings of the ancient road leading deeper into the north, covered in red powder more intensely with each step.

And if any of the players would be cursed the party would not be traveling alone. The curse would attract a monkey packs behaving very weirdly. The monkeys would just follow the players keeping safe distance, and showing themselves. Should the players fell asleep on guard the monkeys would instantly steel their food, pierced their water skins, and trash their stuff. No wizard or druid would be able to talk to this animals. All they would feel if they’d tried would be emptiness.

The monkeys would not attack, and if the player would want to attack them they would just let them be killed. But if the players would kill one monkey on the next day number of the monkeys would double. Their main job is to creep out the players. And I invite any DM to come up with creative ways for them to do so.

Before the final destination the players would pass a giant glade in the jungle with 5-6 m statues at both sides of the ancient road. The statues would portrait half- human , half-beast warlords of the jungle. For instance a warrior, carrying long spear with gorillas head, another with jaguars head etc., etc.

The next step would the a waterfall flowing into a wide but shallow river – the road would be in the riverbed, crossing it to the other side.

The Evil Statue

Finally the road would get them to very dark part of the jungle. By each step the amount of the red powder on the ground would increase. And finally they would realize that this red powder is made of local vegetation that looks like it has been infected. All vines and trees would be covered with crimson stains and strange bubbles from which sticky blood-like goo would seep to the ground. The whole area would look like it got contaminated by something evil.

The road would lead them to a clearing – hidden by the treetops that the light would hardly penetrate trees. Hundreds of the strange monkeys would gather in the tree lines , and 6 other paths would go out of the clearing. An old little temple would stand on the very glade of the clearing.  It’s shape would resemble a Mayan temple and it would be covered with red dust almost entirely.

When the players would approach the temple the jungle would fell unnaturally silent. The entrance would be blocked by a solid thick stone wall, too heavy to lift or move.

The walls of the temple look smooth and they have a fresco depicting three monkeys – one that covers their eyes with their hands, the other that covers their mouth, and the third that covers its ears. Also, just before entering the platform, there are three stone bowls directly opposite the figures depicted on the fresco.

This is a riddle – solving it would of course allow the party to enter. And in order to do that the players would have to do a gruesome thing. They would have to slay three monkeys – and from each one carve out a different part: ears, eyes and tongue. This offering should be placed in the bowls. Only then the door would open.

Good perception and tracking rolls may ease the quesing a little. Players, with a good result, can find the remnants of blood in the bowls and also on the stairs leading to the temple. A really good tracking throw will allow them to find among the vegetation, dead bodies of killed animals, with cut out organs.

When the door will finally open, all will see dark room with no windows and in the middle a statue depicting huge gorilla with bat like wings and horns. Statues eyes would be made of glowing brightly huge rubies. At its feet would lie a fortune.. Thousands of gold pieces, jewelry, and gems.

All players would also see the statue and would look into its eyes – and all of them would have to roll for will saving throw (difficulty level is 17) – not to be cursed:

– If any player would without question run to collect the gold he would have -4 disadvantage for this roll

– If a player would refer from running into the room , but still kept looking at the statue, from afar he would have -1 disadvantage for this roll

– If a player would be extremely suspitient and cautious about the statue he would have +1 advantage for this roll

All players who would fall for statue’s curse would fell unconscious on the ground for 1k8 rounds. If all of the players would fell under the enchantment the battle would be lost. The male players would feel their body changing to demon servant forms – they would literally turn to barlguras. And female players would serve the Evil Statue with their life force feeding it by connecting them to the red vines.

The only way to destroy the demon statue is to crush the rubies in its eyes:

– To crush them player would have to inflict 25 points of damage to each eye

– Melee weapons would not work on it

– Energies would not work on it, except for two

– Healing would temporarily block the statue from cursing them, for 1k4 rounds

– Frost would double the damage done to an eye for one round after the spell was cast.

If the players would manage to destroy the eyes they would see that the wealth at the foot of the statue was really an illusion. The floor of the temple is all covered tightly with red vines, and among them lie human bodies, some of them still breathing. As the heroes began to look around the chamber of vines in front of them, they would begin to dry and wither. Among the living people the party would find Cllaire, emaciated and in a very bad condition.

That is the end of an adventure. The rest is up to you, DM 🙂