The Mirage Canyon

• A1 × Giant Vulture (CR 1, 200 XP)

XP

200 of a 200 XP low budget

Party

4 characters of level 1

The canyon floor opens into rippled sand, and the dunes themselves are humming: a low boom you feel through your boots. Ahead, a great stone head juts from a dune, its carved eyes half-buried, its brow crusted with droppings. Below it, a shallow oasis pool glints, ringed with gnawed bones, a split shield and a torn pack. On the dune crest above the pool, something heavy shifts. A shadow spreads ragged wings and turns a bald, blood-stained head toward you. It hisses, and a bone rolls down the sand to stop at your feet.

Setup. A giant vulture has made its nest in the shade of the buried stone head. It stays because the hunting is easy: travellers stop at the oasis, and someone keeps leaving fresh carcasses on the head's brow. It is well fed but territorial, and right now it sees the party as thieves come for its water and its kills. It understands Common, so it reacts to shouted threats, offered food, or its feeder's name.

Terrain

• Dune crest: creatures on the crest have high ground; the far side is a 20-foot slide.
• Oasis pool: the water is shallow and Difficult Terrain, but a creature drinking from it regains 1d4 Hit Points once per day.

Tactics. The vulture opens from the dune crest, using the high ground before gliding down to Gouge whoever stands nearest the pool. It hunts alone, so Pack Tactics gives it nothing here, and it relies on reach and flight instead. It focuses whoever wounded it most recently, wheeling away to circle before diving back at that target. It drags fights toward the oasis pool, where difficult footing slows the party. Badly hurt, it flies up the canyon toward its feeder rather than dying.

Twist. Someone has been feeding the vulture on purpose. Reveal it mid-fight: the vulture breaks off to snatch a goat haunch tied with red cord from the stone head's brow. Afterwards, sharp-eyed characters spot more corded offerings staked along the canyon, each a little fresher, leading toward the source of the hum. Whoever leaves them wants travellers kept away from the head, or wants them herded somewhere.

Adjust on the fly

• Easier: Give the giant vulture its minimum Hit Points and drop its strongest action for the first round.
• Harder: Add one more giant vulture (400 XP total, high for this party).

Treasure. 50 gp and 150 sp.

Afterward. Among the bones and broken gear lie the remains of past travellers and a sodden purse holding the party's coin reward of gold and silver. A drink from the oasis pool soothes wounds. The red-corded offerings lead deeper into the singing dunes, and one bears a carved charm shaped like the stone head's half-closed eye. Whoever made it is expecting the vulture to return tonight.