The Medusa's Lover

The medusa was born with three names like any other elf, one for each goddess of the trinity, shared evenly between friends, family, and church. As a princess, her full title was Maeryllen Slyfenna Lunesh of the Sunlit Court. The other dungeon factions know her as Lady Marble. Her lover calls her Marianne.


Ramos Hansom has been courting the medusa for three months now. He’s a drifter from a distant land and an excellent liar. His smile is wide and earnest, and his beard is much too grey for his age. He carries a walking stick, a wicker basket, and a small pouch of coins. If you ask him how he lost his eyes, he’ll tell you a different story every time.

No one would notice if he went missing.

You might meet him in town panhandling, or buying cheese and eggs at the farmer’s market. Lady Marble has no difficulty feeding herself in the dungeon, but she craves variety, and Ramos likes feeling useful.

this but backwards
by Levi Hastings

Lady Marble controls the upper levels of the now-defunct elven temple, and demonstrates great disdain for the tunnel-dwellers below. She enjoys easy access to the outside world, including an open-air amphitheater full of petrified elves, still scrambling to escape their seats. When Ramos is out running errands, she can be found lounging in the amphitheater, napping in the sunlight or rearranging her collection, waiting for her lover to return.

Lady Marble hoards her fair share of treasure—mementos from her homeland as well as loot salvaged from previous adventurers—but most adventuring parties will want to seek her out for her blood. There’s a huge petrified wurm a few levels down blocking an entire wing with its girth, and some of Lady Marble’s statues may hold useful information in their petrified brains. Medusa blood only retains its depetrifying properties for a few hours post mortem, so acquiring a vial from Lady Marble herself is highly preferable unless you have time to visit the local alchemist.

[Sidenote: I want to get around to writing about some alternative medusa(e?). Things to consider: a water medusa who turns you into a puddle/ice sculpture; a gold medusa who turns you into cold hard cash; a sound medusa who petrifies you with her voice.]


Lady Marble’s specialty is tattoo magic, a long-held social taboo among the high elves. She can cast spells like any other wizard, but her tattoos allow her to cast as a reaction under certain conditions. Ramos has two spell-tattoos coiled around his arms, which emerge to defend him when he is in danger (stats as twin cobras).

it took a lot of time for the snakes to get used to him, but they're chill now
by Jonah Lobe

Their relationship is toxic to the core.

Ramos is not a fool, but he is forgiving to a fault. He knows Lady Marble has killed before, but he believes she can be changed. Ramos is unaware that Lady Marble can reverse the petrification; she always finds a reason to send him off to market when she needs to feed. If he has suspicions, he does not let it show. He’ll defend her to the death, though he isn’t beyond reason.


Lady Marble loves Ramos, just not enough to change her behavior. Perhaps she could stop killing if she really tried, but her compulsions always get the better of her. She is a collector by nature, with a certain disregard for living things, and she simply cannot resist the prospect of adding a brand new sculpture to her beloved amphitheater.

How to Run Her


Treat Lady Marble as any other medusa. They're the easiest monsters to telegraph early on in a dungeon, and most people know the story of Perseus well enough to figure out a basic strategy before they meet her.

If you want to beef her up, give her more spell tattoos. Charm Person and short range teleportation are ideal. Deafness can really fuck with the PC’s communication if they’re trying to keep their eyes averted, but you need to actually enforce this at the table.

Lady Marble can be a social encounter, a combat encounter, or a mix of the two depending on how the party wants to approach her. Don’t bother treating it like some complex moral dilemma; the inner workings of a toxic relationship are more than confusing enough.

3 Monster-Factory-Inspired Monsters to Spookify Your Small Town

The Pink Man

When the Pink Man is near, accidents happen. Children go missing, or come home covered in injuries. Cats and dogs wander off unnoticed, never to be seen again. Infants are left swaddled on street corners, crying out to absent-minded mothers. Passerby complain about the bawling, but see no need to pick up the child. Most return to their senses before sundown, when the painted wolves arrive, but by then it may already be too late.

The Pink Man does not hunt; his legs are too short to run and his nails are too round to claw. Besides, the painted wolves bring him all the food he wants. When the pack must travel, they take turns carrying him in their mouths. Otherwise, he remains in the den, clumsily manipulating regurgitated meat into his mouth with a simple wooden bowl. When he is not eating, he cries. It sounds like an old man being strangled. He cannot speak, but he doesn’t need to; the dogs understand him all the same.

If you find him, he will not be alone. The painted wolves will see you first, but they loathe a fair fight. Instead, they’ll quietly move the Pink Man from one den to another. They have learned to imitate his strange half-cries, and will attempt to separate would-be rescuers from one another. Look for the Pink Man’s toys instead; he will come back for it with pack in tow, toddling through the underbrush and sobbing.

The Pink Man’s presence dulls empathy, particularly the natural instinct to care for children. The party must save vs. charm or disregard the wellbeing of their teammates. If enough characters fail, an NPC or even a PC may be dragged away by the painted wolves. If a PC would disappear this way, save the reveal for the most dramatic moment: “Pass me the bear trap… wait, where’s our Cleric?”

Stats as a human toddler, which is to say no stats. The party must save vs. charm or shun the Pink Man; their eyes skip right over him, and they ignore his cries. If you use a system for Trauma/Insanity, this is probably a good place to use it.

Snakel

Everyone knows about the creature living in the church basement, although she asks them not to speak her name in the open air. Expectant hunters with bloody baskets enter through the back door, looking to do business with Snakel. The line moves slowly; Snakel loves small talk, and she has all the time in the world to complete her work.

Snakel claims to be an angel of economic fortune and heroic blessings. She also claims that her god (Which god? She can’t say.) sent her to the mortal plane to instruct humans in proper etiquette. Snakel claims a lot of things. The truth is that she does very little instructing and a lot of eating.

Snakel prefers to appear as a swarm of golden butterflies. Her voice sounds like a wind chime and her laughter is a gentle breeze. She can create gold from thin air, which she claims to withdraw from an Interplanar Vault, and exchanges this for goose necks — “abominable worms,” she calls them. She eats them when you aren’t looking.

A fair number of eccentrics flock to Snakel to learn from her. She regales her followers with tales of the Celestial plane, the Oozing City and Brightspire. She also teaches them rituals for communing with her god (again, classified information), which she encourages one conduct every night before bed for maximum holy energy. Keep in mind that Bleeding Tooth Fungus is a suitable replacement for human blood, even for an “angel”’s ritual. Practicing the ritual leads to good fortune (reroll any one die that day) with a substantial chunk of fine print.

Stats as three eagles taped together. She’s a shapeshifter, but she won’t let on unless she is threatened. Her true form (as seen through wizard vision and some scrying spells) is much smaller, faster, and toothier. If you upset her, she’ll turn all the gold she gave you into sand, wherever it is. She can cast invisibility, feather, and heat metal. If you’ve been feeding her or performing her ritual, she can also cast summon minor infernal.

Faxin

The morning after the general store fire, all hell breaks loose. All throughout town, rats, cats, dogs, and oxen are walking on their hind legs. Beasts of burden accost passerby with frantic braying, forcing their natural vocalizations into a perversion of Common. The mayor’s dog, a pampered old hound long past his hunting days, opens the latch on the barn door before hopping the fence. In his strangely disjointed paw, he holds a brilliant burning torch.

Faxin are less like traditional beast-men and more like normal animals contorted into human shapes. They range in size and species from parrots (stats as really smart goblins) to elephants (stats as really smart ogres) and speak accented Common via a combination of growls and guttural moans. Most have opposable thumbs. Only some are clothed, but all express shame towards their unsightly bodies.

Faxin travel in mixed-species groups (2d4, typically from the same pack/village/forest) led by the most intelligent. They adore fire; you’ll see their campsite from a mile away at night. They’re here for a reason, and won’t leave until all the domesticated animals in the area have been “liberated”. They may be willing to trade (most of their supplies are stolen or salvaged), but keep in mind that your horse should be blindfolded before you approach, lest it be exposed to Igniscience.

Igniscience

Igniscience is a memetic virus, an idea weaponized into a plague. The dwarves call it Fire-Eyes. The naga call it Human Disease.

All Faxin carry Igniscience in their minds, bearing the flames of forbidden knowledge on their torches. Those afflicted with Igniscience are compelled to light fires. These are unlike any natural flame, flickering hypnotically with cyan streaks that messages cryptic patterns on the insides of your eyelids. Any animal that witnesses a flame of Igniscience risks contracting the curse.

For as long as the flame’s image persists in an animal’s memory, their mind will gradually transform to accommodate it. The better the animal’s memory, the more likely the curse is to progress to its later stages. Mammals and birds are most at risk for this reason, and dogs are particularly vulnerable. Humans and other “intelligent” races are immune to Igniscience, which has sparked many theories among arcanophilosophers.

The process begins in the mind, not the brain. The animal soul must be reshaped entirely, unlearning and suppressing its basest instincts. In its place, a seed is planted: a fascination with the flame of Igniscience, and an irresistible drive to recreate it. The brain then iterates on this new drive, wrinkling and reorganizing its neurons just so, quickly approaching human cognition. Eventually the body adapts to accommodate its new intelligence, creating a Faxin.

The Feast of Saint John by Jules Breton

All Trolls Are The Same

4e trolls are my favorites, even if they're a lil generic

Trolls are huge, hunchbacked, hook nosed humanoids with mottled green skin and matted black hair. They rarely wear more than a loincloth and resemble big, ugly, bloated babies with premium gym memberships. They can regenerate lost limbs in seconds, and are always accompanied by a horrific stench that never comes off. They eat spools of intestines, raw onions, and soft clay, hoping in vain to fill their cavernous bellies. Trolls are surly, reclusive, quick to anger, and profoundly unkind to all things, including each other — they hate everyone, and the feeling is mutual.

Trolls exude an ungodly odor called Trollstench, a combination of everything they’ve ever smelled over the course of their long, disgusting lives. Though they do not actively mark their territory, you can always tell whether a troll lives nearby by smell alone. Because no creature with a sense of smell can tolerate Trollstench, including other trolls, trolls live solitary lives in unsettlingly silent forests devoid of bug- or bird-song. Removing Trollstench from an object requires fire, acid, and/or holy water.

early trolls look a little too much like marge simpson for my taste

Trolls have perfect photographic memories — they remember everything they’ve ever heard, seen, touched, tasted, or smelled, and can recall any detail with perfect mental clarity. This is why trolls always ask for family names first; they probably know something about your lineage that even you are not privy to, and will use this information to taunt and insult you. Despite their potential for infinite learning, trolls prefer to squander their gifted memories by harboring grudges like no other creature can. When conversing with trolls, don’t bother getting them to like you — figure out who they hate more than you, and you might be able to manufacture some leverage.

1d6	Troll Grudges
1	A party member’s long-dead ancestor, for writing an insulting song about them.
2	The tavern wench two towns over, for rejecting (i.e. screaming and running away from) their advances.
3	The ruler of the nearest kingdom, for decreeing that all trolls be slain on sight.
4	A faerie lord, for cursing the troll with squeaky shoes.
5	A unicorn, for being beautiful.
6	Another troll, probably their twin, for existing.

Trolls can also share memories by smelling one another’s Trollstench. This occurs involuntarily, as not even a troll appreciates catching a whiff of their brethren, and is the primary means by which trolls communicate their many resentments to each other. Even after a troll has been dead for many centuries, others can still learn from the lingering odor on the corpse. Those who dare to slay trolls should be careful to burn the body, as well as anything the troll might have touched in their final moments, lest they be visited years or even decades later by a mob of furious trolls, rallied to exact their cruel revenge.

Because troll culture has existed for so long with perfect retention, many of Rumenan’s oldest gods exist only in their memories. Trolls do not love these gods, but they do maintain a type of symbiotic relationship with them, trading loveless worship for divine protection. Trolls who lean towards shamanism cultivate their fair share of spells, many of which are so twisted by the troll’s influence that they resist the minds of kind-hearted wizards.

1d6	Troll-Warped Spells
1	Lazy: The spell has an 100% chance of failure when cast by a non-troll, reduced by 20% for each wizard level.
2	Wild: The spell chooses targets randomly when cast by a non-troll.
3	Spiteful: The spell deals damage to its caster when cast by a non-troll.
4	Greedy: The spell requires 10 gp of additional casting components when cast by a non-troll.
5	Foolish: The spell never refunds casting dice spent on it when cast by a non-troll.
6	Cruel: The spell deals necrotic damage to allies when cast by a non-troll.

"homey, don't forget to pick up bart from school"

The lives of trolls are dominated by cruelty and spite, but their nature is not entirely monstrous. Trolls are much more intelligent than common knowledge gives them credit for, and they have an insatiable appetite for gossip. They enjoy conversation even if they resent their partner, which is why they prefer to abduct live humans; a troll will probe its prey for chitchat and debate over many days before finally giving in to its hunger.

As a troll ages, it’s hatred for the outside world begins to turn inwards, manifesting in a deep sense of self-loathing. Despite their inability to feel love or companionship, they still feel the absence of these connections. When a troll’s self-hatred and loneliness reach a fever pitch, they are invariably driven to reproduce.

All trolls are male. They reproduce asexually by splitting themselves cleanly down the middle with a makeshift guillotine. Getting a clean cut takes quite a lot of trial and error, but a lonely troll has nothing but time on its hands. When the troll finally succeeds, its two halves each regenerate into an exact copy of the original beast. The “newborns” are identical in every way, and hate one another just as much as the original troll hated itself. If they fail to kill each other, the trolls will part ways to spread vitriol elsewhere. A troll’s “birth” is both traumatic and cathartic, allowing them to externalize their loathsome natures and recover some sense of self.

see what i mean?

The Northern Ugyu will tell you a story about trolls, but few will corroborate it.

All trolls are the same. They have green skin, hook noses, hunchbacks, and black hair. They are covered in boils, stink like sin, and see poorly out of their left eye. They stand 8’11” tall with their hunch (a full 11’ when stretched out), grind their teeth as they walk, and exhibit brachydactyly of the middle and ring fingers. Although they may differ in the mottling of their skin or the styling of their tangled hair, they are on the whole identical. Trolls are not a species; they are clones of a single individual.

Before the first end of the world, the old gods created a race of giants to serve them. These creatures were perfect retainers: tall, intelligent, athletic, and sociable. They were gifted with immortal bodies and minds, such that they could stand by their masters for endless millennia. They exuded the sweetest perfumes and were painted in a peacock’s array of vibrant colors, all to match the desires of their ancient masters.

This is not to say that all giants were born perfect. Many were discarded in the pursuit of perfection, deemed unfit for the heavenly courts and cast into the sea. The Ugyu believe that many of these cast-off giants lie in the deepest trenches of the ocean, where their regenerating corpses feed all manner of aberrations. Only one escaped into the wild, a deformed and ugly runt named Troll.

After the Extinction Mages brought about the end of the world, the servants of the old gods were hunted to the last man. Only Troll evaded capture, hiding in a deep swamp, his heart blackening with hatred for his people, his masters, his hunters, and soon the entire world. It was his life in solitude that tainted his immortal mind, filling it with obscenity and debasement and the disgusting nature of the world, until eventually his loathsome thoughts began to seep through his pores.

Perhaps Troll was born strange, for he was blind to the kindness of others and hyper-sensitive to their cruelties. He hated the birds for singing when he was away. He hated flowers for dying in his hands. He hated humans for hunting him, setting bounties on him, rejecting him, and so on. But most of all, he hated his own wretched existence.

And so it was that Troll cleaved himself in two, so that he could hate another more than he hated himself.

a pretty chill troll by John Bauer

as opposed to these very not chill trolls

art by Justin Gerard
imo the best monsters tell stories just by existing

1d20 Pseudo-Fictional Plants

hanging man orchid

1d20	Pseudo-Fictional Plants
1	Monkey Flower. A yellow, five-petaled flower, said to look like the face of a laughing monkey. Grows around hot springs and volcanic plains. The stems can be stewed to increase one’s heat tolerance for a few hours. Tastes bitter and musky.
2	Bleeding Tooth. An off-white, asymmetrical fungus that grows on the temperate forest floor. Secretes a dark red, bitter fluid easily mistaken for blood. Can be “““milked””” for its pigment, which acts as a human/animal blood substitute in certain rituals (devils and outsiders can’t tell the difference, but animals can).
3	Rockrose. Evergreen plants with pink and white flowers native to chaparral regions. When pressed, the fruit bursts violently, emitting tiny sparks capable of lighting small fires. The seeds grow best in wet ash.
4	Touch-me-not. A shade-loving creeper with pink and white flowers. When touched, it retracts into a bud, then signals nearby flowers to do the same. Distance of signal travel is based on force of impact. Used by hunters and fae alike to pinpoint activity in the forest. Sometimes cultivated by eccentrics as short-range noiseless communication systems.
5	Corpsevine. A hanging creeper with a heavy ballast-like fruit. The vine contains a fluid which smells of decomposing meat, attracting seed-spreading scavengers when the fruit falls (or a machete cleaves the vine). This fluid can be drained and bottled as an insect/wandering monster attractant.
6	Miracle Berry. A red berry found in warmer climes. Chewing these berries makes everything taste like the sickly sweet berry for 1d4 hours.
7	Sandbox Tree. A jungle tree bearing fist-sized brown seed pods. The pods explode with a loud crack when ripe (or thrown), sending seeds ricocheting at high velocity in all directions. Functions mostly as a noisemaker, but could deal damage per DM fiat.
8	Gympie-Gympie. A plant with broad, serrated leaves and magenta berries. Covered entirely in tiny hairs containing a potent neurotoxin, except for a few stiletto-like red thorns at its base. The toxin causes intense, debilitating pain at the point of contact, lasting 1d4 years if untreated. 1d4 rodent corpses are impaled on the thorns, driven in agony to fertilize the plant.
9	Mirror Orchids. A nearly translucent five-petaled orchid, but you’ll never see them like that. Smell like oranges or apples. Grow near pools of clear water and mimic the shape/color of the last living creature reflected in the water after 1d4 hours. Taste like glass.
10	Bat Flower. A dark purple flower with many long, hanging filaments that exclusively grows on dungeon ceilings. The flower and its seeds fall upwards rather than towards the floor. Small objects wrapped in its filaments do the same.

a bat flower
it even looks like an OD&D monster

1d20	Pseudo-Fictional Plants
11	Well Moss. A thick, scratchy green moss often found clinging to wet stone. It sticks to everything except metal, and can be used to scrub metal objects clean. It does, however, stick to human hands (gross), as well as silver and other outsider metals.
12	Skeleton Flower. Tiny, six-petaled white flowers with huge green leaves the size of buckler shields. All parts of the plant turn translucent when wet and revert when dry. Entirely odorless and tasteless.
13	Bladderwort. A carnivorous yellow flower which floats above water. Traps and digests prey in fist-sized “bladders”, which can be harvested and filled with air (after being cleaned of organic debris). Half as effective as normal air bladders.
14	Rusty Duckweed. Tiny green plants that quickly grow over water and metal. Edible, but you’d need to skim a small pond for a decent ration. Proliferates quickly (1 ration/hour) if you “feed” it silver (1 sp -> 1 ration). Dies when it dries out.
15	Bear’s Head Tooth. A rare white fungus that grows on the sides of dead trees. Extremely delicious if cooked properly, a delicacy wherever you find it. Serves as a catch-all offering to anyone with a sense of taste: nobles, faeries, infernal patrons, etc. all love the stuff.
16	Victoria Lily. A giant water lily which can grow up to 10 feet in diameter. Can support one small, unarmored humanoid, but anything more will plunge right through. The red underside of the lily is covered in small spikes to dissuade fish from eating it. Holds its shape enough to be a great hat but a crappy shield.
17	Butterwort. A fist-sized, carnivorous plant with sticky leaves for catching small insects. Once stuck to a surface, the butterwort sticks until it dries out and dies. Easily uprooted. Occasionally blooms into a delicate purple flower.
18	Sloth Moss. An unassuming green algae which readily clings to animal hair and skin. Completely harmless. If properly cared for and allowed to flourish, sloth moss will disguise its host as a plant with its chemical language, protecting them from the ire of Shambling Mounds and Snapdragons.
19	Strangler Fig. A parasitic plant with broad pointed leaves and necromantic origins. Uses its roots to drain nutrients from its organic host (tree trunks/plant roots/corpses), enveloping them in a wooden husk. The roots are stiff and lightweight, even after the host has long since decomposed. Its fruit are large, gummy, and full of tiny seeds, one of which will grow into a close approximation of the host organism. Smart adventurers won’t allow corpse seeds to grow.
20	Walking Palm. A palm tree standing on spear-like roots. Moves at a glacial pace, or at a walk if no sighted creatures are looking directly at it. Can be guided with fertilizer and rich loam. Capable of galloping when infuriated, goring anything in its path with its roots.

Sidenote: Plants don’t like being stepped on or chopped for lumber, but they don’t get mad either. To infuriate a plant so much that it uproots itself, you need to really get vulgar and personal, speak their language, and present an existential threat to everything the plant loves and holds dear.

monkey orchid

Use these plants to add dynamic environments to a dungeon, spice up your travel time, or give the tree-hugger herbologist player something to get excited over.

 

Oh, and if you have flowers in your dungeon, you’ll probably want some pollinators.

Melhemeret’s Mole
HD 0 (HP 1)  Defense unarmored  Claws 1d4
Move 5  Dig 10  Int 2  Morale 2
Special can smell color

A furry, fist-sized mole with paws like shovel blades. It is nearly blind, but can “smell” brightly colored objects through the earth. It consumes its own weight in grubs and beetles each day, but has a particular taste for flower nectar. Often accidentally digs into dungeons, lured by colorful gems and the belongings of fallen adventurers. Named after the infamous illusionist who bankrupted the Dashiran military with counterfeit gold.

Burrowbees
HD 2 (swarm)  Defense as leather  Sting 1dX (where X is the swarm’s current HP)
Move 2  Dig 1  Fly 15  Int 8  Morale -
Special blindsense

White bees with red eyes. They burrow through dungeon walls at half speed by spitting up acid and digging with their overdeveloped mandibles. They dig sprawling hives in dungeons with flowering vegetation and supplement their diet with anything that wanders into their thousands of tunnels. The queen is huge, about the size of a small dog, and buried behind 10 feet of rock. If you manage to avoid getting stung to death she might be willing to barter (of course she speaks Common, why wouldn’t she).

No morale; they’ll die for their hive. Their intelligence is their queen’s intelligence. A wooden door might stop 1 bee, but it won’t stop a swarm for more than 2 rounds.

1d4	Burrowbee Queen Loot (roll twice)
1	Royal Jelly. A month’s supply for 10 gp (doesn’t count as a full meal). Consuming Royal Jelly every day leads to the development of various facial features common to the region’s nobility (at least 3 elements that fit your setting, e.g. blue eyes/attached earlobes/Hapsburg chin). +1 Cha if eaten every day for a month, +2 Cha if eaten every day for a year (doesn’t stack). The people will be more likely to believe your claim to the throne.
2	A yellow leather-bound spell book. Contains Grease and Grow Beard. She’s not sure where she got it from, but she’s sure she doesn’t need it. The inside cover says that it’s 15 years overdue at Our Lady Sorrow’s Library.
3	The Maguffin Rose. An extremely rare and delicate flower in a glass vase. It’s worth 60 gp aboveground, but she’ll give it to you for 5g or a favor. Doesn’t need sunlight, but must be watered every 2 hours. Refracts light like a prism through its crystal leaves. Try not to drop it, you clumsy clod, or the stem will shatter and it will be worthless.
4	An Apiomancer’s Monocle. It’s a little sticky. Plant buds viewed through the hexagonal lens will bloom in 2 days time with no ill effect on the plant.

a male digger bee

Rivers with Personality

Rivers have names, mouths, and banks, which makes them pretty much 99% human. Here are three examples of rivers with human personalities.

a river, for reference (by Amir Zand)

Easybrook is a stream of no great repute. It runs once around the waterwheel of an old man’s mill, through a secret village of halflings, and is eventually absorbed into the rushing Wyrmtail River. Easybrook can whisper into her big brother Wyrmtail’s ear, convincing him to slow his current for those in need. She’s not the only being who will help you cross the rapids, but she is definitely the most agreeable. She collects a tidy sum, which she plans to spend hiring a wizard-engineer to divert water upstream and transform her into a more destructive force than her brother. If you find her treasure trove, she’ll try to drown you. If you threaten her, she’ll alert the halflings. They’ll defend her with their lives, unaware of her secret ambitions.

The Misra is a stream trickling through a dry riverbed. It claims to have once known the location of every gold piece lost in its banks, but its memory of these treasures is sealed away in an underground aquifer that it hasn’t the strength to reach. If you restore its flow (destroy an abandoned dwarven dam, cause an avalanche, open the lich king’s aqueducts) and return to the Misra with proof, the river will gladly shower you in coins. It will, of course, keep its most valuable treasure for itself — the one it discovered as the waters carved the riverbed for the first time in centuries — but a clever party can surely find a way to access it.

This is Haku. He is a river.

Montegrum is a fledgling trade city built on the banks of two great rivers, the Tressent and the Krahm. These bodies of water, colloquially known as “the twins”, meet only once, in the center of the city, before splitting unnaturally to go their separate ways. The twins possess an odd property that prevents their waters from mixing; a drop of ink in the Tressent will never flow into the Krahm, and vice versa. You can tell them apart by temperature: the Tressent is hot and the Krahm is cold. The townsfolk postulate that the twins have been in a minor dispute for several centuries, which is why they refuse to mingle. To take advantage of this phenomenon, merchants guilds in Montegrum employ “river politicians” — gangs who perform favors for the rivers in exchange for swifter trade ships.

1d6	Montegrum River Politics (is this is what D&D blogs do?)
1	The river wants you to dump a few tons of garbage in its twin’s waters. Watch out for rival river politicians.
2	The river wants you to halt construction of a dam upstream. Could be humans, could be dire beavers.
3	The river wants you to start a conversation with the other river, then pull a nasty practical joke on it. It suggests defecation. It doesn’t mention what happened to the last person who did this.
4	The river wants you to destroy a bridge for offending its decorating sense. Its a rickety wooden thing that connects two local gang hideouts. They run Blue Lotus shipments over it, so its heavily guarded.
5	The river wants you to drown a fisherman or two, to send a message.
6	The river wants you to remove an old anchor from its bed. The thing is cursed, and also sixty feet underwater, and also the river is not very clean.

Monica Antonie Meineche

Talking with rivers is pretty easy. First, locate an auspicious feature of the river, such as a peculiar eddy or school of iridescent fish clustered near a pier. This is where the river’s attention is most likely to be located (1-in-6 chance of success, 4-in-6 if you are particularly familiar with rivers/fae/augury).

Next, provide an offering to gain its interest. Offerings that are foreign to their waters are generally well received, such as igneous stone crafts or a pinch of desert spice. They also appreciate irony, and will accept drowned land animals as a kind of backwards fishing. If all else fails, rivers like gold as much as any intelligent being.

Now ask your question. Are you looking for something that was lost? Do you want to know a sailor’s secrets? Deliver your question, in written form if possible, and wait. The river might create a nymph-like form to converse with you. It might chuck a note right back. It might communicate in swirls and eddies (in which case, you’ll probably need a local river politician to decipher). It might simply whisper in your ear. Regardless, it wants something in exchange, and you probably won’t be able to threaten it; swords and shields do very little against a localized tsunami.