Friday Encounter: The Ankheg Nest

This encounter should take place while the party is traveling through a modestly settled area, albeit it is best if it is one on the margins of society. As always, feel free to adjust NPC names and other details to fit the setting you're using it in.

Background

If traveling along a road, the PCs cross paths with a horse-drawn carriage headed in the other direction, driven by a haggard-looking farmer; seated in the back is his wife and infant son. This man is Gunther Fleischmann, a free peasant who has fled his homestead not far from here and is seeking shelter with his relatives. If questioned by the PCs, or if he sees any look strong or are carrying weapons, he will explain his situation.

For the past few days, Gunter's farm has been plagued by a strange infestation. It started with deep furrows appearing haphazardly through his fields, like the tracks of something large tunneling beneath the surface. Then his crops began to go missing, and then a few sheep vanished from the flock. Yesterday, though, when turning one of his horses out to pasture, he saw a great set of jaws erupt from the earth and pull the beast beneath the surface as soon as its hooves beat the ground at a gallop. Fearing for his safety, he decided to desert the farm.

Should the PCs decide to deal with the source of his trouble, Gunther promises to reward them with a pouch of 60 SP, and they will be welcome in his home forevermore. The farm is a journey of two hours along the road from where the cart was encountered.

Alternatively, the PCs may come upon Gunther's deserted farm themselves.

The Encounter

The ground all around Gunther's farm is covered with trails of raised earth, as if something very large was digging beneath the surface. A DC 15 Nature check will determine these are likely the tracks of ankhegs.

The homestead contains a large wheat field, a smaller turnip field, a barn that opens into a small pasture, and a modest farmhouse. All the areas have since been deserted of both people and livestock.

There are a total of 10 ankhegs that have made a nest of Gunther's farm. For each of the four areas the PCs explore, there are 1d6-1 ankhegs that may be found beneath the surface at that time (if you roll a number that would make the total more than 10, subtract the difference from your final result). The ankhegs are not immediately hostile, but they can sense the vibrations of passers-by through the ground. For each minute the PCs are walking through or around one of the areas, there is a 20% chance the nested ankhegs will erupt from the ground and attack, attempting to grapple their targets and pull them underground to eat them. PCs wearing heavy armor or creatures of Large size or greater have a 50% chance per minute of awakening the ankhegs instead.

Gunther has cleared most valuables from his house, but there is a carved drinking horn worth 30 GP (a family heirloom) located above his hearth, as well as 10 SP in coinage scattered throughout. The horn is important to Gunther, and if it goes missing he will implore the PCs to let him know if they have any knowledge of its whereabouts.

Buried beneath a corner of the barn are six ankheg eggs. Each of them weighs five pounds, and they are cumbersome to carry, requiring at least one free hand. A DC 15 Arcana check will tell a PC that these eggs are sought after by alchemists for their properties. If the PCs can transport the eggs safely to an alchemist without them breaking (or hatching!), they will fetch a price of 50 GP each. Alternatively, some dwarven holds breed ankhegs for their hides and to dig tunnels, and there they will fetch a price of 100 GP each.

Within one furrow of the wheat field is buried a strange totem - a DC 25 Perception or Investigation check, or a careful search of the area, will reveal this. It is made of a burlap sack wrapped around a crude frame of wooden sticks and topped with a carved wooden head of some sort of insect, and stuffed with live worms, ants, flies, and beetles, which send a wriggling motion beneath the cloth as they move around. A DC 15 Arcana or a DC 10 Religion check will identify this as a representation of a local god of the Old Faith, associated with pestilence and vermin.

Further Developments

If the PCs return to Gunther with proof they have cleared the area, he will pay them as promised and move back into the farm. He will also allow the PCs room and board at his house free of charge from then on. You may wish to mark the hex or point this encounter was obtained on, if using such mapping schemes, in case the players want to return to the homestead. However, as long as the totem remains buried on the property, another swarm of ankhegs will return in a month and the cycle will repeat.

As it turns out, Gunther's predicament is no accident. A few months ago, he sought the aid of Velika of the Woods, a green hag living in the forest north of his homestead, when his sheep were stricken with a coughing sickness. Velika cured the animals, but demanded the farmer's then-unborn son as payment. When the child was born, Gunther reneged on the deal, and Velika planted the totem in his field in the night as punishment. He does not know the nature of the curse, and is reluctant to talk about his dealings with the hag, but will confess if pressured or if presented with the totem.

If the totem is removed from the field, the ankhegs will not return to the homestead - but another 1d8+2 ankhegs will attack the PCs at the first new moon of every month the totem remains in their possession. If the totem is destroyed, it will reappear in the possession of a random PC in 1d4 days. If the totem is buried in the earth, a nest of ankhegs will materialize at the next new moon, centered on the spot it was buried. The only way to destroy the totem permanently is with a remove curse spell or by burning it in a consecrated fire and scattering its ashes at a crossroad (a DC 25 Arcana or a DC 20 Religion check can determine this).

Alternatively, if the PCs are willing to track Velika down themselves, she will agree to lift the curse on the totem in return for a powdered unicorn horn, which she needs for a potion she is brewing. She can point the PCs in the direction of a unicorn living deeper in the forest. But that unicorn is sacred to the tribe of wood elves living there, and they will seek vengeance if it is harmed...