Finder’s Archives – Cave of Temptation

February 11, 2022 Kim Frandsen Finder's Archive 1

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.

In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.

The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we head underground and try to resist succumbing against our better judgment.

Cave of Temptation

The Cave of Temptation is the land of false promises, where all your false beliefs and hopeless dreams come to life… And turn into nightmares. For here, the proverb “If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee” comes true. The legends say that the one who is strong enough will be able to wrest power and more from the cavern, but those who fail will end their days there, staring into oblivion, caught in a dreamscape (or nightmare) of their own making.

Lay of the Land

The Cave of Temptation lies several miles beneath the surface of an unknown land. No one is quite sure which land, and it is possible that it moves. Those who have been there once, and been lucky enough to escape, are never able to find their way back — even if they wanted to.

The Cave itself lies at the end of an extensive cavern network that stretches on for hundreds of miles and is so labyrinthine that even creatures who should be able to navigate this without fail, such as minotaurs, find themselves unable to do so. Only those with the greatest despair clutching to their chests, those who dare hope beyond hope, those unwilling to let go of their sorrows, greed, and sheer possessiveness. Whether this is for material objects or people doesn’t matter. Whether it’s to restore a loved one back to life, or the will to become a king doesn’t matter. All that matters is that only those who WANT something beyond all reason can find their way here.

Dangers

There are plenty of creatures who live within the Cave of Temptation, but all who come here are stuck in their own dreamscapes, nightmares created from their deepest desires, and unable to escape without outside help. And many do not want to even then, believing that this unending punishment is what they deserve.

Getting caught here should be a short death sentence, but it seems as if those who are caught linger on for years, beyond the point of starvation or death from thirst — as if some malevolent entity keeps them alive, draining them of all emotion. Only when the last drops of despair have been extracted from these poor souls do they draw their final breath.

The question becomes — who will go there next, and will they finally be the one to escape the clutches of the Cave of Temptation?

And that concludes this week. Were you able to escape your innermost desires, and will you be back next week?

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Kim Frandsen

40 years old, and a gamer since I was 13. These days I freelance as a writer for various companies (currently Fat Goblin Games, Flaming Crab Games, Outland Entertainment, Paizo, Raging Swan Games, Rusted Iron Games, and Zenith Games), I've dipped my hands into all sorts of games, but my current "go-to" games are Pathfinder 2, Dungeon Crawl Classics and SLA Industries. Unfortunately, while wargaming used to be a big hobby, with wife, dog and daughter came less time.
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