1d6 Additional Dire Desert Encounters Table For X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield For Expert Dungeons and Dragons & Your Old School Campaigns

So Sunday night I was a game & a friend asked me what deep desert encounters I'd do for a higher level party of adventurers from Red Arrow,Black Shield. So here are a few of the ideas I've had swirling in my head over the last few days. These are made to create the Lovecraftian veneer over the X10 chassis of the adventure. X10 has a more then slightly dangerous higher level range within the confines of the adventure.


1d6 Additional Dire Desert Encounters Table

1. 1d6 3rd level warriors whose oasis settlement was destroyed by the forces of the master; they're blue dragon patron/god was forced out of the area by a lengthy battle. These warriors are on a suicide run after their way of life has been completely disrupted, there is a fifty/fifty chance of them attacking or helping adventurers. A side quest might be to help track down their dimensionally traveling patron whose actually been forced deeper into the desert environs by the Master's forces.
2. Dune Stalker called The Bloodless One a monster of deadly aspect that loves to hunt both the master's forces and the locals. It was called to the area by  a botched spell by a local shaman to slaughter the master's forces and instead began to take out everyone it runs across. The thing loves to ritually arrange the belongings and corpses of its victims in weird patterns to attract more prey to its five mile territory. This thing has an evil alien mindset and a weirdly twisted sense of humor often mocking its prey before the kill. It enjoys playing with its food. 
3. A pack of desert dwelling Ettercaps, these things have been gated into the area by a dimensional rift because of the wrecking of the elemental balance in the area. These horrors dwell under the sands until night fall when they begin tracking and killing prey, they have very good dark vision and are capable of tracking prey up  to six mile on the smell of blood alone. They leave nothing but husks and dried up corpses behind unless they have time to bury their victims in the sands. 
4. A scene of desert violence and sheer horror greets the PC's as they come upon twelve of the 'Master's warriors slaughtering a bunch of desert tribesmen. In actuality this is four apparitions that were created by the events replaying their death scenes to attract the attention of passers by for prey. There are several minor treasures  that the Master's raiders wanted and they will surface at the end of the scene of horror. 1d4 minor treasures are here of 10,000 gold pieces value, the entire livelihood of these people. 
5. Two phantom stalkers have been sent out by a black sorcerer from deep within the desert sands to find sacrifice victims as offerings to his demonic master. A'Cru The Cruel is a minor black wizard in a local warlord's court who has been reduced down to blood sacrifice by the Master's machinations and seeks revenge. He may actually add the PC's if they can convince him to spare them from becoming blood sacrifices to a minor demonic lord of the eighth level of the Outer Darkness. 
6. 1d8 desert dwelling former human tribesmen mutated into twisted Gnoll mercenaries by an evil spirit of Chaos freed by the Master in his assent to power. These things are dangerous and very unpredictable at best.