Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rikkuna 12-05-03, 05:27 PM	My players are joining a caravan to travel across the waste (A large expanse of marshland and dense foliage). Anyway, what are some hazards besides bandits that could befall them on this journey. (Side quests are welcome :) )
Elendur 12-05-03, 05:38 PM	Bandits sound boring. Weird monsters, plant creatures, ancient Inca temples, and getting hopelessly lost sound better. A perfect opportunity to go all Raiders of the Lost ark if you want.
Sweet Steph 12-05-03, 05:53 PM	More information about the PCs and setting would be nice. Where are they headed? What is the object of their journey? Do they have any enemies? What is the climate like? Is there any ongoing political or military struggle in the campaign?
Rikkuna 12-05-03, 06:04 PM	Oops, sowwy :P Okay there are six players. All 10th level. They are: 1. Liraina Boyer, Female Human Ranger 1 / Cleric 6 / Wind Walker 3 2. Heolim Cathra, Male Elf Monk 10th lvl 3. Gruim Bearbane, Male Half-Orc Barbarian 10th lvl 4. Horil Benedor, Male Human Fighter 1 / Spellsword 2 / Bard 7 5. Melisandre, Female Human Sorcerer6/Elemental Savant(Air)4 6. Tumblefoot Quickfinger, Male Halfling Rogue Lvl 10 This will acctually be the start of these characters adventures so they have no enemies yet. They are headed to the town of Millith Bend where they will use the Deep Road (Underground road) To reach Underlost, City of the gnomes. The climate is temperate, its currently early summer in game. There are no political struggles currently since everyone is far to concerned with a supernatural tempest thats been ravageing the land of Illes for as long as the oldest elf can remember. The eye of the Tempest is the players ultimate gaol right now. The gnomes are going to help. :)
illiterate 12-05-03, 06:10 PM	what level are the characters? in marshland/forest, lizardmen are an obvious choice. Maybe they're paying "protection" to a green or black dragon, who is lazy and doesn't like personally getting into combat. perhaps a group of gobins led by a druid or adept, with a symbiotic relationship with a colony of giant ants.. they coat themselves in the pheromones of the colony so the ants believe they are friendly.. they send the ants out to forage, perhaps leading scouts to food source, and they have learned to cook ant vomit (the way ants share food-- look it up!) into a very edible porridge. The ants and goblins do a good job of covering one another's weaknesses. the goblins can attack at range, negotiate with neighbors, make intelligent planning decisions. the ants have better physical attack, industriousness and efficiency in construction and food harvesting. will o' the wisp can be deadly, if no-one in the party has darkvision. or if those elements of the party get separated. They are bastard fighters, but they generally don't want to fight. and if you want a very nasty undead encounter, zombies that have been sitting still for a long time could easily contain a wasp nest. not giant wasps, just regular wasps. that can be very nasty for a low-level party.. a swarm would be able to do a poison attack equivalent to that of a giant wasp's, but with only d3-1 hp in damage. fire, smoke, poison gas, etc would be needed to disperse them. swinging a sword at a swarm of insects is singularly innefective. Mostly it just annoys them. you can fairly easily give your players the choice between wading in highly suspect water or going a good bit around.. now, leeches don't do much damage, but again, for lower level characters they're nasty. "snake oil" peddlers would be an interesting encounter.. that potion of healing you get cheaply is probably not worth it. but still, that man was a smooth talker. i'm sure it's okay..
Rikkuna 12-05-03, 06:28 PM	Oh those are some good ideas :) As stated in my last post the characters are all level 10
Woas 12-05-03, 06:53 PM	Hmm lets see here... As far as enemies to encounter other than the regular ol' bandit stand-by that would be challenging for a party of level 10's could include in a swamp marshe land: Chaos Beasts. Even though their CR is at 7, they give any level party a run for their money. Barbed Devils. These guys are CR 11 and fit a swampy theme. Could also be a BBEG of a side quest in which the the barbed devil controls lesser beings (goblins, lizardfolk, kuo-toa, yuan-ti). Hezrou. Along the same lines as the barbed devil. Could become a side quest. Illiterate's idea about the green dragon is pretty good. An adult green dragon has a CR of 13, so maybe a juvenile? Ghosts. The sample ghost is CR 7. You could easily bump that up to the 10 area. Or have several lower level ones. Gray Render. The MM mentions that they are naturaly found in temperate marshes. Seems like a perfect match at CR 8. Liches are always fun. :D ;) :behold: Medusa. Like the gray render, they are listed to being home in temperate marshes. Another BBEG candidate. Rakshasa. Heres one that you could make a whole campaign around. They too live in warm marshes and are naturally evil. Slaad. Same deal as the devils and such. Tolls. Range from CR 7 to 16. Umber Hulks. Same as trolls. Yrthak. Terror from above is always a nice way to mix things up. As for side quests. Are the PCs able to break from the caravan and adventure by themselves or must they stay with the 'van until they reach the gnome city?
Rikkuna 12-05-03, 07:41 PM	They can break away and go off on side quests, but the main plot can not continue until they reach Underlost.
Sweet Steph 12-05-03, 08:40 PM	Mmmm...juicy. Unfortunately, the lack of political conflict means no chance of running into a military checkpoint or a legion of soldiers heading into battle, and since your PCs have no enemies, that rules out all sorts of potential encounters. There are still more than a few possibilities, though. If the area the caravan journeys through is rarely traveled, a run-in with any aboriginal civilizations wouldn't be surprising, especially in an uncivilized area. Summertime in marshlands means lots of insects. Annoying your PCs with swarms is to be expected. Marshlands also breed disease and decay, so there should be plenty of opportunities for infection. Swamp gas is a deadly hazard. It's hard to detect and a tiny flame is enough to set off a tragic explosion. Should you decide to use it, I'd first have the PCs make Survival checks to detect its presence. If somebody attempts to light a fire or torch, roll damage for everyone in the area (a couple of d6s should do), with Reflex saves for half damage. Plants are an obvious choice for encounters. A shambling mound or tendriculos would be well-suited to a marshland or forest, but if you really want to challenge the PCs, have them take on a grove of treants. In the wilderness, evil druids are an old standby, even if they are a little cliché. A wicked druid with a horde of pets can make a nasty encounter. Remember the Dead Marshes from LOTR? Undead spirits make fantastic encounters in swampy terrain. There are plenty of other good marshland encounters. Search through the SRD or MM for creatures that make their homes in such areas. This might also be a chance to drop in a new plot hook. For example, an assassin or saboteur may strike in the night, prompting the PCs to guess where it came from. An unknown mage could harrass them from afar. They might discover that they are being followed by a strange shadowy figure. There are all sorts of possibilities.
illiterate 12-05-03, 08:42 PM	you could fake them out with a higher level evil druid with a high charisma and lots of bluff. PCs see a great opportunity for a side quest and help nature, do good and stuff.. Druid sees a great opportunity to feed his mythic sized animal companion.
illiterate 12-05-03, 08:43 PM	Originally posted by Rikkuna Oh those are some good ideas :) As stated in my last post the characters are all level 10 yeah, there weren't any replies when I started typing that.. there were FOUR when I was done.. heh.
Woas 12-05-03, 09:36 PM	Sounds good. Lets see if I can get the creative juices going... (it always seems that I can come up with quests and story lines for everyone elses campaign, but never my own ;) ) The swampland that the PCs and caravan are traveling through used to be a lush temperate plains/forest area and the home to a lost Kingdom of <insert name>. (side note one: The kingdom may have been the last gnomish city above-ground before they were forced underground. This is just flavor, could be any race). The kingdom had fallen onto hard times/catastrophy may have hit, severly cripeling the kingdoms economics and military strength. Using this as an advantage, a black (young) dragon seeking revenge from when his/her parents were killed by adventures of the kingdom and exiled away from his/her home at a very young age, destroyed several dams and created a flood-plain, putting the last nail in this failing kingdom's coffin. The people of the kingdom fled for their lives. Many did not make it to safety alive, for the black dragon had manipulated several war parties of Yuan-ti to sack the kingdom. Years past and the Yuan-ti met a similair fate as the people after the dragon back-stabbed them. The kingdom slowly deteriorated and the flooded plains slowly drained, leaving the swamp that remains today. Ideal for the black dragon to live in. The black dragon who has set up his lair in the former citadel of the late king. From the outside, the citadel looks very run down and over grown with vines and small trees growing out of the many cracks in the walls. What looks like the source of the old moat is now a large but shallow swamp lake. The entrance of the citadel is in disrepair and where the main gate once was, now is covered over in a heavy pile of crumbled stone. To enter the citadel, the PCs will need to find an alternate route or try to scale the walls (which shouldn't be possable just yet). The outside of the citadel is guarded by a Hag Covey at the lake discribed above. (Possable plot hook: The PCs recieve a dream spell from the hag covey that seems plesant or tells of a magical item here.. but is really meant to be a trap). The Hag Covery has several (1d6) Lizardman guardians who have been brain-washed by the hags to do their bidding (Lizardmen shouldn't pose any real threat. The hags are the real enemy). After the battle with the hags, the PCs should obviously see the citadel (its right in front of them!). To enter the citadel, they must find that alternate entrance. Possable entrances: In the shallow lake the hags guarded, there is a door that leads to the basement of the citdal; about 200 feet away, there is a small shrine that also looks very run down. In it is a secret entrance that leads to an underground hallway to the basement to the citadel; Somewhere near the citadel is a tree that is really an permanent illusion of a tree, that is on top of a hole that leads to an underground passageway to the basement of the citadel. Once the PCs find the entrance, they make their way through a windy hall way. The length would be determined on what entrance you used. The small temple 300 feet away would make the hall way roughly 300 feet, etc. If the entrance was under the water, you could by-pass the hallway and have the other side of the 'door-way' under water come out right to the basement. Possable enemies along the way could include: ghosts of the victims slain here long ago; chaos beasts; Ettercap (with posse of some type of spiders; carrion crawlers; bodak (fits the ghost theme well); or maybe some vargouilles. At the end this hallway, the PCs find a secret door in the wall that opens to the basement. The basement from here you could make any type of castley/dungoen crawl you'd like. I'm having so much fun that I'm going to keep going if nobody minds. The basement would have a main hallway with several rooms and other hallways branch off of it. Once room would be the 'sewer.' The PCs would find two Otyugh here to fight. The other rooms would be dungeons, with ghosts and general undead ready for the PCs. At the end of the hall is a heavy set of stone stairs that lead up. The stairs go up to a heavy iron door that (knowing me) would be trapped. Through this door would be the first floor of the citadel. The door would actually lead to a small side room that would would be off from a large open ceilinged court-yard type grand hall (there is a cieling, but its on one of the higher floors). The court-yard would by over grown and have a shallow (1 foot deep) stagnet pool in it etc. The PCs would find an Assassin vine here, along with several venoums fungi. Through some investigation, the PCs would then discover several rooms off to the side that served as quest rooms, libraries, etc. Each one would probably get a random encounter roll for ettercap, chaosbeast or a bodak. One of these side rooms would lead to another stair case going up to the second floor. The second floor mimics the first floor in that the 'center' of the floor is a hole looking down onto the first floor. There is a walkway around the perimeter with more rooms and random encounters. One of these rooms would lead to another stair case going to the thrid floor. This floor is not like the other two. There is no open center and acts as the ceiling to the other two floors. Here we find an anti-chamber with mirrored walls that have tarnished, broken and lost there shine over the years. Many of which have been stolen. There are 4 rooms along the side and one door at the opposite end. The 8 rooms are a mix of dinner rooms and 2 kitchens. The PCs would find ettercaps with spiders in the dinning rooms, carrior eaters in the kitchens. There are several holes in the floor where the wood framing gave way. The door at the other end of the anti-chamber leads to another staircase. The staircase is heavly trapped (and should look obviously trapped). A 20 foot section of the stair case has collapsed and would require a ladder or grappling hook to get over. If the PCs investigate one ofthe dinning halls they will find large windows. Under them is an overhang that could be walked on. The overhang wraps around a little bit and the PCs can find a place to scale the walls with little effort that would bring them through a window at the very top of the staircase that they had the section collapsed. The door is not trapped (the PCs would notice that the traps are only on the other side of the collapsed stair section). The door is locked however. Once through the door, the PCs find themselves in the throne room. The throne room is very straight foward. There are statues that also act as colums along the walls who obviosly are missing many componentes (jeweled eyes, actual weapons in hands, armor since there would be no clothing really worked onto the statues, etc.) the floor is smooth marble, or at least was. Now it is very uneven and broken up. There are mosiacs of the former owners that have fallen a part and remnece of tapestries still hang on the walls. At the opposite end of the room is a a stand that once the throne sat. On either side of this raised platform are doors. On the left, the PCs will find an empty room with 2 bodaks (king and queen). The other door leads to another staircase. The door is trapped. After climbing the stairs, the PCs find themselves on the roof/rampart. The floor has a 5 foot perimater that is level with the door the PCs just came through. In the center, the floor dips down about a foot to a foot and a half and has been transformed into a swamp. There is no roof, and about even with the canopy of the swamp trees, with an open sky above them. Obviously, this is the dragon's den. The PCs notice the mirrors taken out of the anti-chamber very quickly. They are place around the den in a mish-mash patern. The dragon is here and begins the fight. After the fight, (if the PCs are the victors) there is a horde of wealth that the dragon has, well, horded :D . I'm not going to list all the treasures and such, since thats up to you and what type of world you have (magic heavy, magic light, etc etc) I would suggest some nice items though... phew, my fingers are getting numb ;) enjoy!
BRJN 12-05-03, 10:02 PM	Dense foliage: run into something at point-blank range that you would rather shoot arrows at (such as a hive of Killer Bees). Quicksand would be a good thing to have in a swamp. Maybe on the bank of a good source of drinking water. Normal birds, animals, &c can travel through the forest easier than can the party. Give the villian du jour a Ring of Animal Control and let him use the beasts to follow or harrass the party. If you know enough botany (I don't), you can create several types of forest. (A) thick on the top and empty below. (B) thick on the ground with fewer trees standing up above it all. (C) thick only at head-height with clear ground (to crawl) and clear at about 12 feet up. (D) long-ago gardens and farms and orchards now abandoned. The boring old bandits can set an elaborate ambush. They pick a fight with the caravan, then run away leaving lots of tracks. They head towards an obvious 'looks like an ambush point to me' location. Before actually getting there, they drop off a few archers or other snipers with orders to shoot at the caravan and fall back towards the obvious spot. The main body of bandits then circles around to a hiding place between the fight and the obvious ambush, erasing their tracks as they go. When the caravan goes past them and encounters the snipers, the main body - now behind the caravan and with the caravan's attention fixed firmly the other way - can attack again, this time for real. This may work better if the bandits are boring old bandits for a few encounters first. There was a discussion a while ago about interrogating bandits. The ideas put out there may help you create some one-shot encounters. For instance, 'This bandit tells all freely, but has no sense of direction. He cannot distinguish north/south, even his own left/right hands.' (And so you can direct the PCs into something else.) My contribution was 'This bandit thinks he is G. Gordon Liddy. He WILL NOT talk.' (Pull this on an interrogator who has just cast Speak Languages on himself.) :)
BRJN 12-05-03, 10:19 PM	Oh, I forgot The PCs come over a range of little hillocks and see a big open plain of grass. As the PCs move into the grass - which is a flat field perhaps a mile or so square - they notice that the ground is slowly sinking beneath them, and the grass stalks are getting taller as they go. After not long, they are back in swamp conditions (standing water on the ground, mud underneath). At the middle of the field, the mud is up to the horses' knees, the water touches the horse's belly, and the grass is so tall that you can reach out to both sides, grab a blade each, tie the two blades together, and still ride on a horse underneath the knot without knocking off your hat. (This is an IRL description of a NW Indiana prairie before the pioneers plowed it.) Now, have the caravan lose touch with a few of its members. Send the PCs out to find everybody and bring them all back together. Remember that they cannot see more than an arm's length away due to the grass. They may have to burn that Potion of Flying they've been saving for emergencies. Maybe you could put a small meandering creek in the middle of the field, flowing across the PCs' path.
Twisted Puppy 12-05-03, 10:34 PM	Well, depending the party's alignment, maybe the caravan itself is illegal - all smuggled and stolen goods, with these guys unwittingly protecting the BBEG's loot. Or, if they're evil, willingly protecting it and valuing the coin he pays...
Winsome 12-06-03, 06:10 AM	Slaver Fungus. Marvellous stuff. Use as many as you like, remember to carry off some civs as I guess your party will massacre a large portion of the enemy. Unturnable undead(ish) really puts the damper on a cleric's day.
Rikkuna 12-06-03, 12:14 PM	Woas: HOLY CRAP!!!!! :eek: Thats magnificent, thats going in for sure, the players will have a ball. (I didn't give them much starting gold :smirk: ) BRJN: Your second post gave me an idea for a little later on in their travels. :ayyyy!:
Twilly 12-06-03, 12:25 PM	Some options are: - Every day somebody (from the caravan) dies/dissapears. Who is the killer? Is it someone within the caravan or someone from outside? - Maybe there is a saboteur within the caravan? Who stole the trailrations? Where are the horses? - A random encounter
PaladinSix 12-06-03, 12:55 PM	Despite the obvious observation that Woas has way too much time on his hands, I like the Hag Covey idea especially. Easily the best swamp encounter I ever ran was a single green hag (we call them shellycoats in my world), using it's mimicry ability to maximum effect. If you can locate it, there is an Ecology of the Green Hag article from a really old Dragon Magazine (maybe mid to late 1980s) that was outstanding for this sort of thing.
PaladinSix 12-06-03, 12:58 PM	Come to think of it, you could combine the Green Hag idea with Twilly's idea about someone disappearing every few days. A Green Hag using it's mimicry to lure unsuspecting people away from camp, gradually whittling down the party. Of course, if the party isn't traveling with others, then you may not want to do that, unless you really like killing off PCs one by one.
Woas 12-06-03, 05:17 PM	Well, theres was a foot of snow on the ground when I started this post, and about another 5-8 inches when I finished and its still coming down... so I'm not going anywhere for awhile ;) Hmm, lets see what else there is to do.... The PCs and caravan find themselves in an ambush! The ambushers are a band of a dozen or so Kuo-toa. The begin the ambush with a volley of javelins and/or arrows, then follow that up with a charge, short swords and pincer spears in hand. The ambush should be fairly easy (Kuo-Toa are only CR 2) and ultimately fail. The PCs should be able to catch site of several of the Kuo-toa fleeing, and (hopefully) give chace. Because the PCs will probably be able to catch up, have to fleeing Kuo-toa jump down a secret door not very far from the ambush site, thus keeping the PCs from running them down or having enough time to show them with any arrows from long range. After inspecting the area the PCs will the secret door (could be hidden or in plane site). This secret door will lead down a steep flight of stairs and lead into a short underground hallway. There is little to no light here and it is very moist. The hallway then opens up into an large underground cavern which seems to act as a way station for the Kuo-toa. The PCs should encounter the fleeing Kuo-toa again and notice them going down another hallway. Along with this hallway there are two other door ways. If the PCs investigate these other areas, they find some shocker lizards and a giant fungi, along with mundane items, arrows, bullets, mundane items, etc (basically supplies the Kuo-toa keep there) The hallway that the Kuo-toa went down leads to another staircase going up. If the PCs followed the Kuo-toa, they hear a door open and get slammed shut. If they went to one of the other doorways with the supplies, they hear a door slam in the distance. This door is locked and wooden so it could either be lock-picked or broken down. After going through this door, the PCs find themselves in a small room (aprox. 15x10x10). The wall that the door the PCs game through is made of masoned stone. The wall opposite isn't really a wall really, but a series of small windows (about half a foot acros and 8 feet tall. Think of a stereotypical jail cell, but with glass between the bars) To the left is another door and to the right is more of these windows. Some of the glass near the ceiling is broken.But for the most part the glass is whole. The PCs will see on the other side of the 'window' a very large room. It is difficult to see well through the windows however because the glass is fogged over from old age, and there is a fairly good layer of mold on the other side. The PCs would only see blured views and shadows. The PCs do see that there is water against the glass around the bottom 3 inches of the windows. The second door is unlocked and leads into another room slightly larger (20x20x10). This room also has 2 'regular' windows. They are boarded up and the glass is gone. The room also has a small desk/table in a corner and two chairs that don't look to safe to sit on. Across from the entrance the PCs came in is another door. However waiting just to the left of this other door is an Ochre Jelly that will suprise attack the first PC that walks next to it. If the PCs do a spot check they should be able to find it as normal. After the jelly is dispatched, the PCs go through the next door. They find themselves in a long hallway (60x10x10). The hallway is much like the first room they entered and the one wall has the thin bar/windows along it that are fogged over, etc. on the same side the other windows have been on in the last two rooms. The hallway however has several Kuo-toa in it (2d6 soldiers, 1d4+1 clerics.) They PCs should notice they all act like automitons, seeming to do their own job as if they are programed. This is because all these Kuo-toa have been subjected to the control of a Harpy who has taken up residence in this building, and controls them all. The hall way itself has more broken/bad shape chairs. Along the other wall without the windows are bookshelves. They line the entire wall (all 60 feet). Although a few are knocked over. Most of the books are damaged and unreadable. They are in elven and anyone who reads them will find them to be religious texts. At the other end of the hall way, there is a staircase off to the right on the side of the windowed wall. The stairs lead to another hallway. This hallway is smaller than the last and is only about 35x10x10. The wall facing the large room has large floor-to-ceiling bay windows that have all been broken and are damaged. Through these bay windows the PCs will finally be able to see the large room that they could not make out from the other, smaller windows (assuming they didn't break the smaller windows). What they find is a huge open room about 100x100x60. The room has very open, with a huge glass atrium of a ceiling that is also in ruff shape, exposing the room to the sky above. In the center of the room is a circular platform and on the platform is a huge dead tree that has grown a little to large and is poking out of the atrium roof. There is a winding staircase around the trunk of the tree, but the PCs can't see what it leads to. The area around the platform is lower and has stagnet water in it. There are some places where the roots of the massive tree has come through the flooring in places. The PCs see a a large number of Kuo-Toa mindlessly going about their business in the stagnet water. Any person with a knowledge religion, a druid, or anyone who worships the diety of Obad-Hai (or your equivelent) will relize that this is a ruined temple of that god. On the other end of this hallway is another door. Through it is another room just like the last one (35x10x10) but the floor has collapsed. To get across it the PCs will have to use spells, rope, etc to get across it. However the metal framing of the bay windows is still intact and goes across to the other end. The PCs could use it and 'shimmy' across it with a proper climb and/or balance check. If a PCs fails, they fall 15 feet down into the large room they saw and into the water, effectively getting the attention of the Kuo-toa (:behold: ;) ) although I might give them a reflex save to 'catch' themselves and prevent a fall. If the PCs do make it across to the other side the reach another door. Through this door is a third hallway (35x10x10) just like the other two. There are borken chairs and a table along the non-windowed wall. The table is a mimic and attacks the PCs when they pass by. At the end of the hallway is a staircase leading down. The staircase leads to a hall way like the one that the other stairs was in (60x10x10). There are no Kuo-Toa waiting here though. There could be some random encountered oozes, fungi or assassin vine. At the end of this hallway, there is a wodden foot-path that goes over the water and onto the platform. At the base of the tree is a staircase that winds up around the trunk about 2/3rds the way up. A stair or two are trapped. At the top of the stairs is a large platform that the PCs could not see from the other side of the tree. This platform is the altar of the temple and has several torches and a altar table. This is where the Harpy Archer (CR: 11) awaits them. She should be able to fly around the tree and use it to her advantage. The Kuo-Toa should try and attack the PCs with what range weapons they have. If you hide your dice rolls, fudge them so they don't hit as often. They are there mostly for cannon fodder. However there are several Kuo-toa clerics that can aid the harpy and can use their lightning attacks along with other spells. When the harpy dies the Kuo-toa all seem to fall over and they are freed. Although they are evil, they understand that the PCs have saved them and do not attack due to their evilness. They don't thank them, they just kinda give them a 'what on earth just happend' look and kinda leave. The harpy should have treasure on her, and if thats not enough, you could always through in some treasure chests she kept at the altar. Some side notes: If the PCs don't take the hook and follow the PCs, you could riddle them with Kuo-toa ambushes very often. If they do take the hook and kill the harpy, the ambushes stop. Although you could still have the occational random encounter. If you want to make it a little more difficult, give the Kuo-toa a few warrior or fighter levels to bump up their CR.
Rikkuna 12-06-03, 06:32 PM	Thats really good too but I like the first one alot better. Since your so good at this and you seem to enjoy it. How about an encounter for the Deep Road. Its a long underground road that goes under a range of mountains. There is a single fork in the road where travelers can split off from the main road and journy to Underlost (this is the road the PCs will take. The other road leads eventually to the town of Willow Falls on the other side of the mountains.
BRJN 01-02-04, 09:14 PM	Originally posted by Rikkuna How about an encounter for the Deep Road. Its a long underground road that goes under a range of mountains. If this road is intended to be a busy trade route, it will have to be patrolled vs goblins, orcs, &c. So they could run into the patroller. Say, a knight who doesn't get a village full of peasants to feed him but instead gets to charge everybody 1 gp to pass (sort of like a toll booth). You could pick something that is more underground-friendly, maybe a dwarven knight or something from the Monster Manual. Or maybe they could run into the thing that was tough enough to beat up that patroller.