Glowing meadow

A great cavern where grass grows under a light that is not the sun: patches of the vault glow like a pale dawn, from stones, fungi or an old magic nobody can name. The grass is short and soft, starred with small white flowers, a stream crosses it, and the folk of the depths pasture their goats here and cut hay. After the black passages that lead to it, the meadow seems bright and loud with crickets, and anything standing in it can be seen from far off. No such place is known in the real world: grass needs a good share of daylight, and here the glow gives it.

Light
Lit
Going
Easy

Going down

How warm the rock is and whether this place can grow there, under a temperate land: the deeper, the hotter.

Near the surface (50 m)
11 °C, it grows by magic only
A few hundred metres down (400 m)
21 °C, it grows by magic only
A kilometre down (1 km)
38 °C, nothing of it grows (too hot)

Hear it

Hazards

  • The dimming. Every so often the glow fades slowly to almost nothing, and the meadow lies dark for an hour or a day. The herders know when; strangers do not. D&D 5e: While the glow is out the meadow is in Darkness and Heavily Obscured: a creature trying to see something there has the Blinded condition, unless it has Darkvision or carries a light.
  • Seen from afar. In the only lit place for days around, the party stands out like a fire on a hill. The dark at the edges watches. D&D 5e (House rule): Our rule: out in the open meadow, a creature cannot hide from watchers in the dark beyond the glow unless it lies in tall grass or behind rock, and those watchers have Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to spot it.
  • The edge. The meadow ends where the light ends, and sometimes at a drop nobody can see. D&D 5e: A creature that walks off the edge takes 1d6 Bludgeoning damage for every 3 m (10 ft) it falls, up to 20d6, and lands Prone unless it took no damage.
  • Dazzled. After days of lamplight, the meadow is too bright to look at. Eyes water and everything is white. D&D 5e (House rule): Our rule: a creature that comes out of the dark passages into the meadow has Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight for 1 minute while its eyes adjust. A creature with Sunlight Sensitivity keeps that Disadvantage, and its other effects, for as long as it stays in the meadow.

Adventure hooks

  1. A goatherd of the depths has lost three goats this month, each dragged from the edge of the meadow into the dark. He wants a watch kept, and he cannot pay, but his cheese is the best under the mountain.
  2. One patch of the vault’s glow has gone dark, and the grass beneath it is turning yellow. The meadow folk want to know what is wrong with their sky, and the only way up is a long climb on the cave wall.
  3. A traveller who has crossed the black passages for weeks breaks down in tears at the sight of the meadow and refuses to go on. Her companions need her, as she is the only one who knows the way to where they are going.
  4. At haymaking, the meadow folk hold a festival, and a stranger has won the scything contest three years running. They would like to know who he is, where he comes from, and why he never casts a shadow under the glow.

What may happen

  1. A herd of pale goats grazes, and in the middle of it a boy sleeps with a sling in his hand.
  2. Men and women cut hay with long scythes and stack it on sledges to drag back into the dark.
  3. A stone the size of a fist lies in the grass, glowing like the vault above. It fell from up there.
  4. All the crickets fall silent at once.
  5. Thousands of pale moths rise from the grass as the glow brightens, and settle again as it fades.
  6. A small stone shrine with offerings of milk and cut flowers, facing the brightest patch of the vault.
  7. A line of painted stones runs across the meadow. On one side the grass is grazed short, on the other it is not.
  8. The stream comes out of one wall and disappears into another. Its water is cold and clean.
  9. A goat lies dead at the edge of the grass, half dragged into the dark.
  10. The white flowers open as the light rises and close as it falls, all together, like a breath.
  11. Beyond the edge of the light, a dozen pairs of eyes catch it and shine back, high off the ground.
  12. A herder walks out to meet the party, asking for news of the passages and whether they saw anything with too many legs.

Creatures

A town here

A city can live down here, fed by what grows below. Build it in Hearth

To bring back

Deep Gnome Nose, Mycelium, Chitine Silk, Drow Hair, Myconid Spores, Ankheg Antennae, Barghest Fang, Cranium Rat Brain, Drider Tongue, Flumph Hypothalamus, Grell Beak, Kuo-Toa Gill, Mind Flayer Brain, Beholder Eye, Deep Lantern Organ, Oblex Slime, Oni Liver, Tainted Quaggoth Soul, Aboleth Eye, Adamantine Dragon Tonsils, Alhoon Brain, Elder Oblex Slime, Purple Worm Bile, Sapphire Dragon Tonsils, Tarrasque Carapace Piece

Elsewhere below

Fungal forest, Doline jungle, Bare labyrinth, Lava tubes, Sulphur cave, Crystal caverns, The abyss

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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