💀 Overview

Recommended Level: 2–3
Tone: Comedic, tense, horror-tinged
Play Time: 1–2 sessions
Designed For: 3–5 characters
Starting Hook: “You wake up… and all your gear is jelly.”
Best Used As: A side story, downtime revenge arc, or spelljammer cadet hijinks gone wrong.

🍮 Setup: A Prank Gone Too Far

It begins with a prank war.

After being humiliated by rival students, rival adventurers, or rival anyones, the party gets even. Mayonnaise in boots. Reverse pickpocketing. A pillow that whispers romantic threats in the night.

But their targets—arrogant, smug, and resourceful—strike back.

The party is invited to a final “confrontation” in a secluded wing of the academy (or keep, or tower, or training grounds). There, just when fists are about to fly, the floor drops out beneath them.

They plunge into a forgotten sublevel—a labyrinthine storage vault, or a sealed-off dungeon, or a derelict cargo hold—and land in a pit of stone and silence.

Something is down there.

Watching.

🕷️ The Monster: Choldrith

“You are unworthy of the web. Yet you will feed it.”

The creature stalking them is a Choldrith—a spiderlike priest of the neogi. It speaks through telepathy, draping thoughts like silk over the characters’ minds. It’s intelligent, manipulative, and it’s not alone.

It has been feeding on intruders for weeks, drawing them in through psychic compulsion or mechanical trickery. And now it has new guests.

📜 Choldrith Stats Summary

• CR: 3
• AC: 15, HP ~45
• Speed: 30 ft. / Climb 30 ft.
• Darkvision: 60 ft., Telepathy: 120 ft.
• Languages: Neogi, Undercommon
• Innate Spellcasting:
  • At will: Detect Magic, Mage Hand
  • 1/day: Mirror Image, Hold Person, Spider Climb, Silence
• Attack: Bite – +4 to hit, 1d8+2 piercing + 1d6 poison

Optional Enhancements:

• It wields a magic item stolen from a previous victim
• Has neogi hatchlings crawling through cracks, joining mid-combat

🗺️ The Lair: Maze Below the Academy

The lair is a circular, web-filled maze—old service tunnels or ritual chambers long forgotten. Walls shift with illusion magic. Echoes bounce unpredictably. Webs clog corners and stairwells.

Use a hand-drawn maze map (like from a classic AD&D module) and populate it with environmental hazards instead of traditional traps.

⚠️ Trap Ideas (Clever, Not Deadly)

LocationTrapHallwaySticky Webs – Slow movement to half speed unless a DC 13 STR check is madeCrosspathIllusory Wall – Appears as an exit, but smashes characters back for 1d4 forceNarrow BridgeConfounding Glyphs – DC 12 WIS save or lose your next actionAlcoveTripwire Crossbow – DC 14 DEX save or take 2d6 piercing from auto-shotFinal RoomEcho Chamber – Any noise draws the Choldrith closer with +1 initiative next round

🎭 Encounter Flow

1. Fall into the maze. No light. A single arcane sconce flickers to life.
2. Choldrith whispers in their minds. “One of you… will die last. Which of you deserves it?”
3. Exploration + traps – The players try to orient themselves, avoid hazards, and navigate.
4. The hunt – The Choldrith watches. Then stalks. Then strikes.
5. Final chamber – A web-choked room filled with bones, broken gear, and twitching shadows.

🧩 Variations

• Set it in a derelict Spelljammer cargo hold instead of a dungeon
• Add a timer—they must escape before the lair collapses
• Allow the party to use environmental features to trap the Choldrith instead of killing it

🏆 Rewards

• Chitin-bladed dagger (1d4+1 piercing, ignores resistance to nonmagical damage)
• A sentient coin that only screams when flipped (once/day: Shield)
• A map etched into a skull revealing “The Punchline”, an ancient ship lost in Wildspace

🎉 Conclusion

If your party escapes, they do so smarter, scarred, and definitely stickier. If they fail… well, someone’s bones will be whispering to the next group.

Whether run as a standalone dungeon crawl or as a zany interlude in a larger campaign, The Gelatin Gambit gives your table a dose of humor, horror, and handcrafted chaos.