The quietness of the Blooming Grove - Solo D&D minigame

©Critical Role

While certainly it is an oasis amidst the Savalirwood, the Blooming Grove is not devoid of danger. Corrupted creatures from the forest await outside of its boundaries and sometimes creep inside the rustying metal fence, in a somewhat unconscious attempt to desecrate that little patch of sacred ground. This is what the Clay family has dealt with during the recent generations. Now only Caduceus stands in defense of this cemetery devout to the Wildmother.

Ok, let's face it: Taliesin Jaffe's Caduceus Clay is my favourite member of the Mighty Nein. I think he is a fascinating character, starting with the art concept to his in-game portrayal, and I personally share very much of his views upon the world and nature. And I drink tea every day, so that's also a match. But funny things aside, I had the idea for this minigame while going through the Dungeon's Master Guide, stumbling upon the "Sylvan Encounter Table" at page 87. It is a nice and interesting table for starters, comes with my all times favourite illustration of an Owlbear and had me thought "how well could this represent a darker forest, like the Savalirwood?".

It turns out, it doesn't represent the Savalirwood very well, but it started something in my head. This is the work of multiple evenings and sunday afternoons of typing, reading monster entries from the books, wondering what would fit and what would be fun to play. But it's not just monsters or combat: I tried my best to diversify the things you can accomplish here, including skill challenges and resource management, without complicating too much the rules. I also wanted to leave it loose enough to allow customization, so everyone can take this as a base to focus on their favourite aspects. Bored of solo-combat? Why don't you skip the encounters entirely? Or instead, pump up the enemies for a harder challenge. Want to play as Nila, the firbolg druid of the Guiatao Clan? Why not! Give Caduceus a friendly pet to aid him in his endeavour? Sure! Sky is the limit.

"They say solitaire is a game for the death obsessed. There's an inevitability to every hand, most of them are doomed from the start no matter what you do".

Mollymauk Tealeaf

This is a solo game and its goal is mainly to spark the immagination of the player. It makes use of D&D rules, but has its own structure built upon them. The player is going to live a day (well, multiple days actually) in the life of Caduceus Clay, while he tends to the Blooming Grove, sips tea and fends off the abominations that threat his sanctuary.

Now, how do you beat this game? Well, there isn't necessarily an ending, neither good nor bad: you should play it as long as it entertains you, but if you want a start and an end, consider having a deadline set at any number of days you would like (20? 50? 100?). After that, the Mighty Nein arrive at the Blooming Grove and Caduceus departs with them.

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The game is structured in Days. At the start of a Day there's an activity named Prayer. After that you must perform three others: Chores, Encounter and Tea, which happen in a randomized order each time.

To randomize the activities, do as follows. Roll together 1d8 for Chores, 1d10 for Encounter and 1d12 for Tea. Then perform the activities following an ascending order given by the rolls. Here's a practical example.

Suppose you rolled 3 on Chores (the d8), 2 on Encounter (the d10) and 6 on the Tea (the d12). The ascending order is 2, 3 and 6, so you'll be performing Encounter, Chores, then Tea. But what if you rolled a 3 for Tea? Rolls that are a tie will see the "higher" dice go first. So following the previous example, the order will be Encounter, Tea and finally Chores. If you get the same roll on each dice though, you can perform the activities in any order you like!

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Activities

During Prayer you pick your spells for the day. Choose wisely! You can use them during every other activity, but try not to burn too much spell slots. At the end of this activity, roll for the others.

The Chores are multiple and randomized. When you roll the d8 to sort their order among the daily Activities, you're also determining which specific chore Caduceus will do:

• 1 - 2: Gardening. Roll a DC 10 Dexterity check, a DC 10 Nature check and a DC 15 Survival check. On at least two successes, the next time you harvest tea leaves you will gain one extra cup worth of tea.
• 3 - 4: Making Graves. Roll a Strength check and a Religion check. On an average result of 12, you prepare 1 fine grave, ready to receive a new occupant.
• 5 - 6: Temple Maintenance. Roll a DC 12 Strength check, then a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a success on the Strength check Caduceus restores 1d4+1 Structural points to the Blooming Grove, but only 1 on a fail. Also if you fail the saving throw, Caduceus gains 1 level of exhaustion.
• 7 - 8: Tea Harvest. Make a DC 12 Dexterity check adding your proficiency modifier for the Herbalism Kit. On a success you harvest enough flowers for a cup of tea. For every 4 extra points of success, you harvest enough tea for another cup (example: a 12 equals to one cup of tea, a 16 for two, a 20 for three and so on).

Encounter is what it promises: random encounters with various entities. To determine which one you will experience, utilize the results given by the d8 and d12 you rolled previously. Some of them are friendly and simply meeting them will grant special interactions or temporary power ups to Caduceus. Others are hostile and will try to destroy the Blooming Grove. Others are avoidable: an Animal Handling check vs Wisdom Saving throw will avoid conflict with beasts, while Persuasion vs Wisdom Saving throw will pacify any humanoid.

d12+d8	Encounter
2	1 Carrion Crawler (hostile)
3	1 Polar (Cave) Bear (avoidable)
4	1 Ghast (hostile)
5	1 Bandit + 1 Scout + 1 Thug from Shadycreek Run (avoidable): if fought and defeated, they will occupy a grave each. Caduceus can sell their weapons and armors to the merchant for a quarter of their value. They also have 1d4 gp, 1d6 sp and 1d8 cp.
6	The travelling merchant's cart (friendly): Caduceus can buy items from those presented in chapter 5 of the PHB and sell anything he doesn't need anymore for a third of the price.
7	1 Death Dog (hostile)
8	1 Ghoul + 1 Swarm of Rot Grubs (hostile)
9	4 Zombies (hostile)
10	1 Vine Blight + 2 Needle Blight (hostile)
11	Two ill/wounded wanderers reach the Blooming Grove, seeking aid. You need to heal at least 30 hit points with the spells/abilities at your disposal or pass a DC 15 Medicine check to help them out. On a success, they will repay Caduceus giving him two random trinkets or helping him with the next Chore (this means advantage on the check). If you fail, they will die and occupy two graves.
12	2 Worgs (hostile)
13	1 Ettercap (hostile)
14	No encounter today
15	8 Stirges (hostile)
16	A group of people came to bury a beloved one. They leave an offering of 1d10 gp. You need to have an available grave, which will be occupied from now on. If you do not have one at immediate disposal, the group will leave only 1d4 gp.
17	1 Giant Spider + 1 Swarm of Insects (Spiders) (avoidable)
18	1 Dryad (friendly): this fey creature needs temporary shelter from the horrors of the Savalirwood and repays Caduceus' hospitality with 1 Charm of his choice (see pag.228 of the DMG).
19	1 Awakened Tree (hostile)
20	1 Giant Elk (friendly): this majestic animal is a messenger of the Wildmother and a bringer of good omens. Caduceus gains 1 Blessing of his choice (see pag.227 of the DMG). This Blessing fades after 10 days.

The combat encounters are best played on a grid (square or hexes, your choice really). You will be controlling the monsters too, so make them act accordingly to their nature. If Caduceus loses the fight he will not die, but the Blooming Grove will be damaged by the attackers and lose 1d6 Structural points.

Finally we have Tea. During this activity Caduceus will consume some of the tea that he harvested, gaining Inspiration. If he has no tea at his disposal, he will not gain the Inspiration. If you already have Inspiration, you get one extra 1st level spell slot instead, which lasts until your next Tea.

©Critical Role

Special rules

At the end of the day: after all actvities are done, Caduceus finally gets a long rest. During the night the Savalirwood pushes against the rusted metal fence of the Blooming Grove, damaging it for 1 Structural point.

Structural points: if these points come to a zero for whatever reason, every check made during the Chores activity will be made at disadvantage until the Blooming Grove gains at least 1 Structural point back. The maximum number of Structural points that it may have is 100.

Unburied corpses: every dead humanoid body which is not interred may be resurrected by the sinister corruption of the Savalirwood. Roll 1d100 for each unteded corpse each day. It has a 33% chance to come back as a Zombie, joining the daily Encounter.

©Critical Role

How to start

Roll 1d100 for the Blooming Grove's Structural points, 1d6 for the initial stash of tea leaves and 1d4 for the already available empty graves. This game assumes that Caduceus provides food for himself in some other ways, so there is no need to worry about that.

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To play you need Caduceus' character sheet. You can find it via critrolestats. Note that this sheet lacks some bits of information, like the Domain Spells of the Grave Domain Cleric (you can find them on the wiki entry for Caduceus or in the Xanathar's Guide to Everything), the Decompose cantrip and the Blightstaff.

If you happen to need them, know that the rules for Firbolg were actually released as a preview of Volo's Guide to Monsters, you can find them here. They were presented in an article on D&D's official website, but I don't want to track it down anymore (is quite old and lost among the news section), so sorry but I'll just provide the direct link. If you are interested, you can also check the Unearthed Arcana rules for the Grave Domain here, but they changed quite a bit in the official release (although the list of Domain Spells is the same).

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Obviously this is just a fan game, treat it as such. It is not professional in any way, shape or form. Nonetheless, I hope that you found it fun to play! If you need clarification upon some of these rules, ask me in the comments or on twitter at @OrochiSpace (or do as you prefer). Based upon the response and the testing, I would like to release it as a free pdf with revised rules (and maybe some fan art, that would be awesome).

Be kind to each other.

Daniele