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D&D 5eGM Resources

Monthly Encounter #21: The Goblins’ Honeycomb (lvls 1-4)

All art is by Jose David Cifuentes Ulloa

Here at Tribality, we’ve decided to provide our readers with Encounters ready to be added to your table. I’ll be creating new ones monthly for you to have a big collection to look through when you run out of ideas for your game. If people end up liking them we may start releasing them in easy to print PDF format.

Don’t forget to comment feedback or possible variations for others to see and/or possibly implement when running this encounter. Without further ado, hope you enjoy it:


Setting: Agnostic
Location: Forest
Lvls: 1-4

Encounter background

Myak of Many Teeth, the leader of the goblin raid group, encountered a giant honeycomb in the entrance of a forest deeply tied with the Feywild.  When he ate the honey from it, its ties to the Feywild made Myak develop a fascination with it. All he cared about was the honey. In order to have more honey, he needed to protect the giant bees that created it.

Papya, the tactician and barghest trainer from the raid group saw something else in these bees. If properly trained they could be used as fantastic flying mounts. Myak, being the leader, ordered he was the only one that could eat the honey while the rest continued raiding and protecting the honeycomb. Those who managed to try out some honey were destroyed by Myak and fed to the bees.

The Goblins’ Honeycomb

Adventure Hook

The adventuring party may get to know of the Myak of Many Teeth and the rest of their group in a number of ways:

  • A goblin who tried out the honey and escaped without being seen wants it all for himself. He looks for an adventuring party that can help him accomplish that.
  • A town nearby seeks an adventuring party looking to put an end to the ongoing raids from the flying goblins.
  • The player characters encounter a swollen corpse in the ground. Following a blood trail, they are able to find the giant honeycomb as the tactician is preparing to lead an attack to a close village.

The Honeycomb

The honeycomb is where Myak of Many Teeth resides with many of his bee friends. Circling the honeycomb are wooden walls that stand 7ft tall

Wooden walls. The wooden walls have an AC of 15 and 7hp. Applying brute force can knock one of its sides with a successful DC18 Strength (Athletics) check.
Honeycomb walls. The honeycomb can be destroyed from the outside. This has Myak shout in panic while all goblins come in his help. The walls are AC18 and have 10hp.

DOWNLOAD THE HIGH-RESOLUTION GRIDDED AND UNGRIDDED MAPS HERE

1. First post

3 goblins and 1 giant bee wait here.

  • 2 of the goblins are playing with dice on the table while insulting each other, which distracts them enough to have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.
  • The other goblin is seated (prone) backed up to the wall to the north, keeping watch while cleaning her nails.
  • The giant bee is resting next to the seated goblin.
  • The goblins on the towers from section 2 are keeping guard on section 1

The moment the goblins detect the PCs they get ready to attack them, and the closest goblin to the giant bee jumps to it to start riding it.

Adjusting the encounter: If the PCs are level 1 or 2, remove one goblin.

2. Wooden towers

Standing on the weak wooden towers is one goblin on each of them, with two other goblins on the base of the tower on the right and one other goblin on the base of the one to the left.

  • The towers stand 10ft tall but were terribly constructed and look like they can be easily collapsed. They have an AC of 12 and 4hp.
  • The goblins in the towers are overseeing area 1.
  • The moment one of the goblins in the towers detect a PC they signal Papya in area 3

On the right side, one of the wooden walls is broken from a bee that ate it. PCs can move through that space as if it was difficult terrain.

Adjusting the encounter: If the PCs are level 1 or 2, remove the goblin in the tower to the left.

3. The bees’ nest

Outside the honeycomb is Papya training 3 goblins on how to ride bees. There are 4 giant bees with them, ready to be used as mounts.

  • If alerted by a goblin from area 2, Papya grabs one of the bees and rides it to help those in area 1 and 2
  • If Papya goes help the other areas, the goblins hide behind the giant bees and ready attacks towards the PCs.
  • From the 3 goblin riders, 2 fly high to shoot arrows, while the rest remain low and fight 5 feet from the ground using their scimitars.
  • 1 round after Papya dies, Myak comes out from the honeycomb accompanied by two giant bees.

Myak only cares about the honey. He can be persuaded to remain in the honeycomb and stop the raids with a successful DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. This check is made with disadvantage if one of the PCs attacked Myak. Myak cries in pain every time one of the bees dies, insulting the PCs in Goblin for doing so. If only one bee remains alive, no matter how many other goblins remain, Myak surrenders.

Adjusting the encounter: If the PCs are level 1 or 2, remove one goblin and one giant bee.

Inside the honeycomb

Inside the honeycomb lies the queen bee, who is unable to battle, and who Myak likes to cuddle with. The honeycomb has enough honey to fill 10 buckets. Upon eating this honey, the PC must make a DC17 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed to only want to eat this honey for the next 1d4 days. The PC can repeat the saving throw at the start of each day.

Additionally, there is the corpse of an elf with 60gp and a ring of evasion.

Conclusion

If the PCs are defeated by the goblins, they will be taken to raids as hostages alive while the goblins shout at the townspeople that if they do any wrong movement they kill the PC. This allows the player characters a chance to escape and regain forces.

If, on the other hand, the adventurers defeat the goblins, the near villages thank them with free stays in all their taverns.

Additional information

The giant bees use the giant wasp stat block. They fly at half speed while carrying a gnome. Goblins can’t use their Nimble Escape feature while riding the bees.

Papya is a female goblin who lost her right eye and is missing two of her fingers. She uses the goblin boss stat block and has 1 legendary action that can be used once per round:

  • Stop looking at them! Attack!. Goblins in a 30ft radius around Papya can use their reaction to make an attack.

Myak of Many Teeth is a goblin with an extra set of teeth in his mouth, like a shark. His eyes are bloodshot and is completely covered in honey. He uses the goblin boss. Additionally, he has the following abilities:

  • Sticky body. Myak has advantage on checks to grapple targets, and disadvantage to break from grapples.
  •  Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit:(1d8 + 2) slashing damage.
  • Vomit Spray (recharge 6). Myak unleashes yellow vomit in a 15ft. cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw, taking  14 (4d6) acid damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Want more encounters?

If you liked this encounter and would like to see more check out the index I created with all the monthly encounters I’ve created so far, listed by tier lvl and environment:

MONTHLY ENCOUNTER LIST BY TIER AND ENVIRONMENT