The Roper Wrangler

Monster BFF

Introduction: Deep underground, a pair on unlikely monsters strike a wicked

deal for mutual benefit. To continue breeding horrible creatures, one monster
weaponizes another and adventurers become the feed down on the farm. But
there is a chance for escape — for whoever survives the Piercer Pacer!

An Underdark encounter for 8th-13th level characters

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 The Roper Wrangler
Monster BFF

An Underdark encounter for 8th-13th level characters

Writing: David Friant, Doug Vehovec

Cartography: Nelson Vieira
Editing: Doug Vehovec
Layout and Design: Doug Vehovec

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Monster BFF
Because sometimes a creature’s gotta hit a creature
with another creature.
— Nerdarchy

Introduction
The initial concept for this pairing of monster BFFs
came about from the idea of one creature using an-
other creature as a weapon. In the original version,
a very big creature kept a smaller creature inside a
cage on the end of a pole. The big creature would
swing this long rod like a polearm, and the creature
inside the cage would use its natural abilities to
grapple or restrain the target.
During development, the caged creature went
through a lot of changes. It was some sort of ooze,
Suggested level
or a mimic with its adhesive trait. In the end, the Your mileage might vary depending on the particu-
weaponized creature became a truly terrifying mon- lar party. There are also variables in the encounter
strosity with a biological reason to act in tandem that could put certain characters at a significant
with the larger creature. disadvantage.

This weapon informed the wielder, based on its Difficulty

vel NNo. of characters LLe
natural environment, and so the Roper Wrangler Easy 4 13th level+
was created.
Medium 4 11-12th level
A fomorian and roper work in tandem. The formo-
Hard 4 10-11th level
rian pushes a large, wheeled iron box through the
Underdark searching for prey, while the roper rides Deadly 4 8th-10th level
in a cage on the fomorian’s back.
Cruel and twisted, the evil pair stalk the subterra-
nean world of the Underdark. Together they capture
unfortunate folk to serve as fertilizer and feed back
at their sadistic farm. The roper benefits through a
Monsters
Jutor the Roper Wrangler (fomorian)
steady supply of food for its piercer progeny, while
the fomorian simply gets perverse joy from inflicting Roper
pain and suffering on hapless victims. Piercers (20)
For good measure, a trio of sadistic, insane duergar
opportunists take advantage of the frightful farm
for personal gain. And so the Piercer Pacer contest
emerged, a deadly competition with no winners,
only losers. The Piercer Pacer takes place at an Treasure
Underdark waystation called the Grey Gauntlet, Jutor’s bag: iron cooking pot, bag of dried mush-
complete with its own bizarre hazards. rooms, 250 gp, 1200 sp, six gems worth 25 gp
each, a potion of greater healing, and a pendant of
golden stone engraved with a strange symbol worth
100 gp.

Environment Inside the roper’s gizzard, undigested treasure in-

cludes 400 pp, a dozen gems worth 50 gp each, and
Underdark/subterranean 1d4 magic items

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 Description
There are a few different ways to introduce this
encounter to the adventuring party. All of them as-
sume characters are traveling in the Underdark or
equivalent subterranean environment. The party
could be on a quest to discover the fate of missing
miners, lost within twisting tunnels or exploring
an unknown region for treasure or to further an-
other ongoing party goal.
Scenario 1
The party makes camp to rest after a long day of
travel in the perilous Underdark.
From a distance, a feared denizen of the subterra-
nean world spies the adventurers — a wicked and
hideous fomorian, Jutor the Roper Wrangler. With
all the Stealth Jutor can muster, he waits until the
majority of characters are asleep or at their most
defenseless. Once he is within 50 feet of the most
isolated character, he will use his Curse of the Evil
Eye on that character to severely hamper them.
After that, Jutor’s “pet” roper will use its tendril
to grapple and reel the cursed character in. Once
a character has been successfully reeled in, Jutor
places the catch into an large, wheeled iron box.
The iron box can hold 6 medium-sized creatures,
and latches automatically via a sturdy spring
mechanism. Opening the box from the inside re-
quires a successful DC 25 Strength check, or DC
10 Strength check to open from outside the box,
for a medium-sized or smaller creature.
Four victims of Jutor’s previous assault are al-
ready inside the box, dwarven miners from a
nearby basecamp. There were originally seven of
them on the crew, but the fomorian slaughtered
the other three. These miners are clearly shaken to
their core in recounting the horrifying encounter
and the screams of their fellow miners who were
torn limb from limb.
Captured characters are taken back to the Grey
Gauntlet, where they are forced to compete in the
Piercer Pacer.
Scenario 2
The party comes across the aftermath of Jutor’s
attack upon a group of victims.
The party is traveling the subterranean world of
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the Underdark, not too terribly far from a settle-
ment of dwarves. The tunnels are part of a min-
ing operation, with mine cart track laid down and
signs of recent work.
There are no miners around, and it isn’t long be-
fore the characters come upon a gruesome scene.
A tunnel opens up into a larger cavern the miners
used as a base camp. The cavern is roughly 60 feet
long and 40 feet wide. The low ceiling of the tunnel
where characters enter the cavern soars upward to
80 feet.
The first thing characters entering the cavern
notice is the stench of death. Swaths of the cavern
walls are painted in still slick blood, and a hor-
rifying mockery of life hangs above a large tunnel
leading out of the cavern on the opposite side from
where the characters enter.
Dismembered body parts are lashed together in a
deliberate way. Among the overturned carts and
debris from what appears to be a terribly violent
encounter are several large, sticky tendrils. Suc-
cess on a DC 18 Intelligence (Nature) check reveals
the tendril is from a roper.
A character who examines the body parts and suc-
ceeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check deter-
mines the body parts are all dwarven, from three
different individuals. A character who succeeds on
a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check recognizes the
profane symbol as an inverted form of an ancient
Elvish symbol for “beauty.” If the character speaks
Elvish, they make the check with advantage.
A successful DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation)
or Wisdom (Survival) check reveals wagon wheel
tracks much larger than the miners’ carts leading
off into the larger tunnel. Characters who succeed
on a DC 15 Intelligence (History) check will recall
a dwarven settlement is within a few days travel
from their current location. A successful DC 10
Wisdom (Survival) check determines the wagon
wheel tracks are a couple of hours old and can be
tracked through the tunnels.
If characters travel at a fast pace, they can catch
up to Jutor within two hours, but will have dis-
advantage on any Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom
(Perception) checks made during this time. At a
normal pace, they can catch up to Jutor in four
hours, just as he arrives back at the Grey Gaunt-
let. At a slow pace, characters can follow the tracks
all the way back to the Grey Gauntlet, but Jutor
will have already returned with his captives and a
Piercer Pacer is about to begin.
If characters catch up to Jutor and defeat him and
his roper before they return to the Grey Gauntlet,
the captives in his iron box are extremely grateful
for the rescue.
They can inform the characters about the Grey
Gauntlet and the Piercer Pacer event, which Jutor
maliciously gloated to them about during their
trek through the lightless tunnels.
The freed dwarves wish to return to their home
settlement, a few days travel from the mining base
camp, and from there to find this Grey Gauntlet
and destroy the place in vengeance.
Scenario 3
The party travels through the lightless tunnels of
the Underdark, and enters a region suffused with
strange energy called faerzress. The first clue that
something is amiss is the ambient glow coming
from a large cavern ahead where the tunnel the
characters are in enters into from the eastern side
and winds down toward the cavern floor 80 feet
below along the wall to the south.
Characters who succeed on a DC 18 Intelligence
(Arcana) check can recognize the area as being
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suffused with faerzress and recall information
about its effects. The information about faerzress
below originally appears in Out of the Abyss.
A vast cavern is filled with dim light that shifts
in colors with no apparent source. The cavern is
roughly circular, with a 500-foot radius. An under-
ground pond occupies the southwest corner of the
cavern.
In the center of the cavern is a waystation, essen-
tially a huge pavilion made of stone. Characters
who succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception)
check make out humanoid figures moving around
beneath the pavilion. A successful DC 12 Wisdom
(Survival) check reveals Jutor’s wagon tracks lead-
ing down this path.
In the northeast section of the cavern, a mush-
room grove grows thick among the stalactites
hanging low from the ceiling.
The pavilion is the Grey Gauntlet, a waystation
built and run by three duergar siblings — Fym,
Hrarn and Gyngra Doomfist.
Various denizens of the Underdark visit the Grey
Gauntlet primarily to for the Piercer Pacer, a cruel
competition run by the Doomfists. After striking a
deal with Jutor, the formorian roper wrangler, the
THE ROPER WRANGLER
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 Doomfists devised a form of entertainment that
pleased the wicked giant while also helping him in
his work as a breeder of ropers.
Captives brought back to the Grey Gauntlet in
Jutor’s iron box are stripped of all their equip-
ment and thrown into the Piercer Pacer arena. The
objective is to run the course and reach the other
side.
But the course is actually a feeding ground for the
ropers’ piercer progeny that scuttle along the un-
derside of the stone pavilion and drop down on the
unwilling participants of the race.
Spectators of the Piercer Pacer, who view the
torturous track from a mezzanine running along
the sides of the arena, often interfere in the race,
cruelly impeding participants for their own amuse-
ment.
Gambling on the outcome of the Piercer Pacer is
also lively. Occasionally spectators at the Grey
Gauntlet will purchase participants from the
Doomfists as slaves or servants, returning to their
own homes in Underdark with them.
Piercer Pacer
The arena is a rectangular pit 70 feet wide and
190 feet long, with black iron portcullises at either
end. Piercer Pacer runs consist of six individuals,
stripped of equipment, forced into the arena from
the western portcullis, which is slammed down
and locked behind them. The portcullis on the op-
posite side is open and leads out of the arena for
any runners who survive.
The surface of the arena is slate, but far from safe.
There are 13 concealed pit traps arranged across
the arena floor, each 10 ft. by 10 ft. and covered
with thin sheets of slate that break if more than
30 pounds is placed upon them and drop into 10-
foot deep pits.
Characters who take their time to check for haz-
ards and succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom (Percep-
tion) check notice the thin shale covering over the
pits. Characters with the Stonecunning trait have
advantage on this check. If a character moves with
the Dash action or is otherwise not carefully look-
ing for dangers, they must succeed on a DC 20
Wisdom (Perception) check.
Magical faerie fire torches line the arena along the
north and south walls at 20 foot intervals.
Along the underside of the stone pavilion that
forms the ceiling of the arena, 20 piercers lie in
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wait to drop on unsuspecting runners, providing
sustenance for the larval ropers. These piercers
never wait above one of the pits, meaning charac-
ters who detect and circumnavigate those hazards
are at risk of a piercer dropping on them.
In addition to the dangers of the pit traps and
piercers, remember the area is suffused with faerz-
ress, making spellcasting a dangerous endeavor.
Any runners who reach the other side and pass
through the open portcullis discover a long, duer-
gar-constructed tunnel that exits into the mush-
room grove in the cavern’s northeast section.
This area is Jutor’s roper farm, where an adult
roper lies in wait to devour any survivors of the
Piercer Pacer. Jutor always resides there, and any
equipment taken from characters will be
Like the Doomfists say…
“Here at the Piercer Pacer there are no winners
— only losers!”
On extremely rare occasions, survivors of the
Piercer Pacer are actually awarded prize money for
successfully reaching the end, and released back
into the Underdark with whatever gear they had
when captured. Longterm exposure to faerzress
has driven the Doomfists quite insane and unpre-
dictable. But make no mistake, no matter what
they are always reprehensibly evil.
If you want to make the Piercer Pacer even more
dangerous than it already is, consider adding some
of the following hazards, or make up your own:
• Part or all of the arena floor is covered in rubble,
making it difficult terrain.
• Portions of the arena floor are covered in slippery
mud, requiring a successful DC 14 Dexterity sav-
ing throw to avoid falling prone.
• Some or all of the pits have green slime at the
bottom.
• NPC runners in the Piercer Pacer actively pose
a threat to other runners, shoving them into the
path of piercers or spaces with pit traps.
• Spectators “cheat” by affecting the competition
with their own abilities. For example, a drow casts
darkness into the arena from the mezzanine (don’t
forget — faerzress affects them too!).
• Arena walls are covered in grease, and any at-
tempts to climb out of the arena pit are made with
disadvantage.
Faerzress
• Areas suffused with faerzress are always filled
with dim light.
• A creature in an area suffused with faerzress has
advantage on saving throws against any divination
spells. If a divination spell doesn’t allow a saving
throw, the caster must succeed on a DC 15 Con-
stitution saving throw to cast the spell. Failing this
save means the spell is wasted and has no effect.
• Any creature attempting to teleport into, within,
or out of a faerzress-suffused area must succeed
on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed
save, the creature takes 1d10 force damage and
the teleportation attempt fails. Even if the save
succeeds, the teleportation attempt can suffer a
mishap as if the destination was known only by
description, regardless of how familiar the destina-
tion actually is. See the table in the teleport spell
for more information.
• Areas suffused with faerzress have become taint-
ed by the chaos of the demon lords. When a spell
is cast in a faerzress-suffused area, the caster rolls
a d20. On a roll of 1, the spell has an additional
effect, determined by rolling on the Wild Magic
Surge table in chapter 3, “Classes,” of the Player’s
Handbook.
• Though faerzress can’t be dispelled, its effects
are temporarily suppressed in the area of an anti-
magic field.
Complications
Where to begin?!
In either of the scenarios that involve confronting
Jutor in the Underdark, characters have opportu-
nities to learn of the Grey Gauntlet and the Piercer
Pacer event. Fighting the fomorian and his wran-
gled roper can be a challenging enough encounter
by itself.
Running the Piercer Pacer in a faerzress-suffused
cavern without equipment then battling the pair
right after is a tremendous challenge, so be very
careful about how you deploy this encounter.
Characters who learn of the Grey Gauntlet and the
horrible activity there might certainly want to put
an end to such cruelty. In this case, any number of
dangerous Underdark inhabitants might be at the
waystation at any given time.
Jutor is only concerned with his roper farm. An
assault on the Grey Gauntlet would be of no im-
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portance to him unless his farm was threatened.
Spectators of the Piercer Pacer who purchase any
characters as slaves or servants can lead to dan-
gerous rescue missions in the Underdark.
If you want to build off this encounter, characters
could learn that the Grey Gauntlet is part of a
franchise chain of these horrible places in the Un-
derdark, and a quest to shut them all down might
ensue.
Captives held by the Doomfists to take part in
Piercer Pacer events who are freed by the charac-
ters will need escorts to return to their homes.
The strange symbol on the golden stone pendant
in Jutor’s bag could be a clue related to one of the
party’s ongoing quests, or lead to further adven-
tures you develop on your own.
There’s a lot of different hooks and directions you
could take this encounter at any point. Pretty wild
for an idea that started with the concept of a big
monster using another monster as a weapon!
More online
Check out the Nerdarchy YouTube channel for a video
where we discuss the origins of this Monster BFF here.
Nerdarchy also has a series of Adventurers League
Character Guides that include level breakdowns from
1st-20th level, plus a bonus for Dungeon Masters — a
brand new creature stat block inspired by the character
build for use as an ally, NPC or antagonist in your D&D
games.
• Mind Breaker Paladin
• Zen Archery Master
• Sewer Ninja Tortle
• Nature Possessed Warforged
Thank you to the Nerdarchy and D&D community for
continued support and until next time, stay nerdy!
THE ROPER WRANGLER
7
 The Grey Gauntlet and Piercer Pacer arena

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