Malfunctioning Planar Portal
The sky turns dark and purple as lightning crackles, converging on a pool of oily, swirling energy crackling in the middle of a 20-foot wide circle of stones. The planar portal has—through time or deliberate sabotage—become dysfunctional and the effects of the unstable magics are spreading. It is immediately apparent what has happened, and that if left unchallenged the portal will continue to expand with catastrophically lethal consequences.
Violent Weather. While the planar portal itself is relatively small, its effects spread across the landscape in a 10-mile radius, filling the area with high winds, rain, and lightning strikes. Adventurers can only hear sounds within 15 feet of them (except for loud, explosive noises). In addition, at the end of each minute a randomly determined adventurer makes a Dexterity saving throw , taking 35 (10d6) lightning damage on a failure, or half damage on a success.
What’s Broken? An Arcana check reveals that the reason the portal broke was because a stone around it fell within, breaking the magical circle that kept it intact.
- This challenge requires a group check using Arcana, Engineering, and stonecutter’s tools.
- Mending is not sufficient to repair the damage to the portal, but a fabricate or similar spell can recreate the stone needed to fix it, counting as a successful check from the adventurer casting the spell.
Potential Outcomes
Critical Failure: The portal expands and each adventurer suffers a level of strife . The party loses 4 (1d4+2) days going around it, each adventurer suffers a level of fatigue during the intensified storms, and over the course of the next month the area around the portal becomes a wasteland.
Failure: Each adventurer suffers a level of fatigue from trying to fix the portal and the errant magic strips the party of 8 (2d6+1) Supply, but they manage to stabilize it enough that it does not expand further.
Success: The storm ends and the portal collapses, forever turning the area between the stones into a void of magic (as the antimagic field spell but with a permanent duration).
Critical Success: The adventurers restore the portal to full functionality (where it leads is at the Narrator’s discretion). Roll on the Boons and Discoveries table.