What if you could punch the sun?
Record-breaking heat waves in Europe and the American Midwest might mean your players need some catharsis. Here are three encounters you can build around the solar deer spreading its antlers over the cover of Book of Extinction.
The Mornhart is the great solar deer of sun-drenched forests and vineyards. Its antlers convert sunlight into magical radiance. Wherever the Mornhart goes the sun always follows.
You can find the stats and lore for this monster, as well as the real-life history of the extinct bush-antlered deer that inspired it, in our 5E monster manual Book of Extinction. (It’s also a great resource if you’re grappling with the reality of climate change right now.)
Here’s how to build an encounter around the mornhart for players sweating through the hottest summer on record.
True Believers
Your characters might enter the temple of a sun god to find its priest has captured a mornhart. Worshippers of the sun god see the mornhart as a sign of divine blessing, and the priest is taking advantage of his supposed favor to demand precious gems and other valuable tribute from his followers.
Can you free the mornhart and stop the priest’s extortion?
Knocking Down the Door
With the shed antler of a mornhart, a skilled artisan can craft a mornhammer—a weapon powerful enough to slay the shadow-touched necromancer that has been using the town as his own personal spare parts bin. The mornhart, however, is smart enough to guard its own shed antlers until the magical radiance goes out of them. (The creature has an Intelligence score of 8, better than some Barbarians!)
Can you convince the mornhart to give up a piece of itself and save the town?
Total Eclipse of the Hart
If you roll a 9 or 10 on Book of Extinction’s table of adventure hooks, you’ll get this: “A permanent eclipse presides over a small valley as a duskhorn and a mornhart enact a months-long battle to the death.” Match the mornhart with its lunar companion the duskhorn (based on the extinct bluebuck) for a party of level 4 or 5.
The enduring eclipse has already taken up most of the planting season; if it goes much longer, the people of the valley will starve in the coming winter. The party has no hope of defeating even one of these creatures in a straight fight, much less both. You’ll have to ally with one of the deer to drive the other away.
Which will you choose, endless summer or forever night?
Dozens of adventures inspired by real-world creatures and ecology await:
You can find me building more encounters in our Discord, where the nature nerds of D&D keep showing up to talk Book of Extinction games. Let’s hang out!
–Lucas
