No Prep Module: Ooze Rancher for D&D or RPGs
This adventure can be can be easily customized to a party of any size or level, or run as a level 4 adventure for 5 players. It can work as a small side adventure in an existing campaign, as a standalone one-shot, or the start of a new adventure. Use the links to the tools in their relevant section to customize the adventure to your party.
The party comes across a mage tower with dead bodies everywhere, all skeletons and no blood. A DC 12 Medicine check can determine that the skeletons are very fresh despite having no flesh. Further up the tower there's some lights on in the windows, and distant sounds of a scuffle and movement.
Within the tower are more skeletons and oozes, which can be avoided with a DC 10 Stealth check, or fought with a few quick clicks in the Encounter Maker.
The top of the tower is empty, except for a couple skeletons and a wand. A DC 13 Arcana check can determine that the wand is malfunctioning and on the verge of breaking, but could be repaired by a specialist.
After leaving the tower and continuing on their travels, the party eventually comes across a caravan of halflings.
10 Halfling commoner Ooze farmers with oozes in glass jars in their carts. They wear thick leather gloves, aprons, goggles, and other protective gear. They will sell grey oozes in a jar for 25gp. The ooze is used to make a powerful hallucinogenic drug. The drug has a 5% chance to turn you into a thrall of Juiblex.
A few of them carry wands similar to the one the party found, and if asked, they can repair the wand. If they're asked about the attack on the tower, or about all the oozes in the region, they can explain that this part of the world has an unusually high amount of oozes in it, making it dangerous for most travelers. The halflings have set up an ooze ranch and cultivate them for alchemical purposes. The wands can pacify oozes long enough to let you scoop them up into jars.
The halflings can give directions or escort the PCs to their ranch and are more than happy to have guests, especially ones that aren't instantly terrified of the oozes.
City ruins by a large river now serve as an ooze ranch. There's a large lake with huge growths of algae that float like icebergs. Many of the trees are instead giant mushrooms.
A Young Green Dragon hunts these woods. The players could try to avoid it, fight it, or convince it to leave them be.
If the PCs show interest, the halflings will ask if the players want to help out at the ranch. They can use find more oozes by using a Survival check to find oozes in the countryside (their result determining how long it takes and the type of ooze they find), then use the wand to pacify it, followed by a DC 12 Sleight of Hand check to put the ooze in a jar. Failure results in 1d6 acid damage as they burn themselves on the ooze's caustic flesh. Any captured oozes can be sold back to the farmers for 5 gp.
As they continue to travel, the PCs eventually come across a group of large oozes that emerge from the woods and encircle them. Attempting to use the wand causes it to become overloaded from the size of the ooze and break, spilling volatile magical energy on the ground around them.
Gelatinous Cube, Gray Ooze, 2 Ochre Jelly
Standing in the pool of volatile magic causes your attacks to deal an extra 1d6 force damage, but you also take 1d6 force damage each time from the magical feedback.
After defeating the large oozes, they find a small ooze that they can leave or keep. If they try to take it to the ranchers, they'll say it's too small for them and suggest keeping it as a pet. It can be used to clean surfaces or slowly decompose small organic matter. It's too small to cause any real damage, and holding it feels a bit like licking a battery (not that anyone knows how that feels, nor should anyone attempt such a thing).
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