Adventure: Lost in Oldalth’s Labyrinth
A prison without walls for a king of forgotten halls
Setup: None remember whether Oldalth was a mortal king who earned the ire of a fey lord, or a fey lord who took umbrage with a mortal ruler, as the story is old and like many things that originate from the feywild the identities shift between tellings.
What remains of the truth is a patch of twisted trees somewhere in the feywild that become more winding and claustrophobic as you venture into them. Not merely content with leading travelers astray like most patches of enchanted forestry, the trees of Oldalth’s Labyrinth close around intruders like quicksand, their branches taking on erratic and unnatural shapes and interlocking with one another like puzzle pieces. The only sure way out of the tangle is to perfectly retrace your every movement through them (near impossible once the branches have closed so tightly around you) or to have some means of controlling the entangling plant matter. Otherwise one must simply wait in the timeless eternity of the feywild for something to come along and lead you out of the labyrinth, invariably ending you in a whole new form of trap.
Adventure Hooks:
While fleeing from a Hagga’s lair, the twisted creature calls up the magic of Oldalth’s Labyrinth to slow the party’s escape. This leaves them with two bad options: confront the creature they’ve just royally pissed off with their backs to a wall, or delve so deep into the fey-infused woods that they fall into the feywild and have to make their way back to reality the long way around.
Seeking to hide a secret/treasure/other sort of mcguffin, a powerful druid used powerful magic to cast the item into the depths of the Labyrinth where none but the most skilled could ever return. For added security, they then sealed the forest inside the semi-mythic “Vault of Fables”, a magical prison that was capable of keeping even ideas under lock and key.
Lurking in the heart of the labrynth is a formless shade known by some as “Oldalth’s Shadow” Possibly because it’s a guardian left behind by the original fey lord, possibly because it’s the only part of the mortal ruler that was able to make it out of where the maze had sealed him. Regardless, the specter hunts those who traverse the Labyrinth, seeking to drive them even deeper into the tangle and feed off their panic and agony as they struggle against their tightening wooden fetters.
Defeating the specter grants the heroes a powerful artifact which can guide them out of the maze:
The Crown of the Ensnared:
Legendary (attuned)
Effects: while wearing this crown, the bearer knows the thorn-whip cantrip and casts it as a druid of class level equal to their own, using wisdom for the save. If the bearer already knows the cantirp, then both the range and the distance targets are dragged is doubled.
The bearer also gains a proficiency dice on any survival checks made to navigate out of a space, or perception/investigation checks made to notice hidden doors.
Awakened State: The Crown awakens once the bearer has traversed Oldalth’s Labrynth or defeated Oldalth’s Shadow.
Once Awakened, the bearer gains the benefits of the inspiring leader feat ( although they may use wisdom in place of charisma for determining temporary hp), as well as the ability to cast “Find the Path” once per week.
They may also cast “Entgangle” using their hitdie as spell slots, and wisdom as their spell modifier.
Exalted: The Crown enters it’s exalted state only if the attuned creature possesses land and a noble title.
The attuned creature gets a +2 bonus to wisdom, and the areas affected by their entangle spell cast by the crown are under the effects identical to “hallucinatory terrain” spell save for duration. The Bearer can also cast Hallucanatory terrain using their hitdie as spell slots, and may treat areas affected by this spell as if they were also subject to an extended “Entangle” effect.
Hidden effect: While Exalted and attuned, the bearer suffers disadvantage on all mental saves vs magical effects produced by the fey or feywild. On any day in which a character uses the Exalted abilities of the crown, some time after they go to sleep they are confronted with dreams of tangling branches and spiraling paths. They must make a strength saving throw (affected by the crown), dc+the bearer’s wisdom score +their proficiency bonus, or be restrained by sleep paralysis. This paralysis persists for 10 rounds, by which point if they are not free, they will be dragged back to Oldalth’s Labyrinth back in the feywild.
A character cannot become unattuned to the Crown of the Ensnared once it has become Exalted.
