Dwarven Trial of Fire: A D&D 5e Encounter

Originally Published July 25th 2020

Your players have been invited into a contest run by dwarves with the goal of testing their mettle, called the Trial of Fire. It is a well-respected competition amongst the local dwarves and people who win it are held in high regard. The contest involves 32 people all getting together around a table with enough flatbread to feed them. Round after round the aspirants are given a small bowl of progressively hotter and hotter sauce that they must dip the bread into and eat. The contest goes on and on until there is one person left capable of stomaching the spices. The winner then receives a golden yarn to weave into their beard, if the winner has no beard it can be displayed on their person. Any local dwarf will treat them with some respect if they notice the yarn on their person.

Bird people of any feather are not allowed to partake in the contest as they cannot taste spicy things.

The sauces:

Running the encounter

This could be incredibly tedious if you narrated every sauce. I recommend starting at the round equivalent to the lowest constitution score of anyone in the party. The characters don’t need to make checks until their constitution score is reached round wise. At one round above that, the character must make a DC 10 constitution check to remain in the competition. For every round after that +2 is added to the DC. If they fail they are given some spare cooking fat while not tasting great does help a lot with the heat.

By round 12 half of the dwarves should be out of the competition. By round 15 it should be only the remaining party members and one dwarven woman. By round 16 the people bringing out the sauces are wearing gloves.

The woman is named Blatti Zerca and her beard is a deep black that seems to shimmer blue. The beard has three braids in it each with a golden piece of yarn woven in. She is proud and loud but very sweet when not in a competition. She will automatically get through to round 16. 

If it is just her and a single party member left they do a constitution contest and whoever wins is the winner. If it is two party members left they do a constitution contest and whoever wins is the winner.

The winner is given the length of golden yarn discussed earlier.