Back here on Earth, I occasionally step in a pile of shit. Sometimes, it’s because someone doesn’t clean up after their dog. Other times, it’s having a run-in with toxic client at the office.

Today was the latter. And since the experience is still on my mind hours later, I may as well work with it to fertilize my creative garden (since making shit into shitade just doesn’t have the same ring to it).

A tinkling stream of cool, clean water offers the party a chance to refresh themselves as they plod along the Triboar Trail. The scenery is picturesque.

Across a sea of endless green grass to the south, the Sword Mountains rise up like a wall, their distant peaks crowned with snow. Somewhere along those frozen and inhospitable peaks, it’s said, are the ruins of strongholds belonging to Dwarven clans and human warlords.

As the party takes in the sight of the mountains during their respite, the character with the highest passive Wisdom notices that the character with the lowest passive Wisdom is unknowingly standing in a sizeable pile of shit.

A successful DC 10 Intelligence (Nature) check is sufficient to determine the pile was produced by a large creature. A check that succeeds the DC by 5 or more is enough to deduce the type of monster due to the size of the pile, as well as other clues in the vicinity.

For example, the size of the pile accompanied by a spike driven into a nearby tree would suggest this was the excrement of a manticore. Or soiled leaves within arms reach of the pile smeared with feces might suggest a large humanoid such as an ogre. Or perhaps switch the Intelligence (Nature) check for an Intelligence (Arcana) check instead, where a check that succeeds the DC by 5 or more notes a pungent, irritating odor in the area suggesting a young green dragon, or the frozen, half-eaten carcass of an elk that points to strong evidence of a young white dragon.

Which type of monster you choose is completely up to you. By stumbling onto (or stepping into) a clue like this in the wild, there’s potential to set up a future encounter with the actual monster itself. Hearing a character describe what they know about a monster before they actually encounter it could be a useful primer for an encounter you have planned.

That, and poop is funny.

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