Ydersius Yawning

This trap, or perhaps more specifically trial can be run at relatively any level. DC and damage numbers have been provided for a level 1, 4, or 7 party, but the level DC can reflect whatever challenge you want. It should be noted that the trap damage is one level lower than the actual level of the trap to balance the fact that some damage will be unavoidable.

Inside a shrine dedicated to Ydersius, the players must offer a blood sacrifice or face certain death in the poison-filled following room.

The hazard area is a large room containing 16 pillars carved in the shape of serpents, each with an open mouth and razor sharp fangs. These pillars are arranged in a 4x4 pattern each depicting different color schemes. Only one of them properly depicts what Ydersius looks like (similar to how a Coral snake and a Scarlet snake can be very hard to tell apart visually)

A DC 15, 19, or 23 Religion check can eliminate several of the false idols. Each player that succeeds at a check may eliminate one of the three groups as possible candidates based on certain colors or patterns they determine are incorrect. [1,5,7,9,12], [2,4,6,8,16], [3,10,13,14,15] leaving idol #11 as the correct answer. GMs may want to consider condensing down to 2 lists if the group has a low number of PCs trained in religion.

Following the religion checks, any snake idols that have not been eliminated must be tested manually. Sticking one’s arm into the mouth of the snake will cause it to bite down upon you dealing 1d6+2, 1d10+6, or 2d8+9 damage.The correct snake’s bite will inject you with an antidote to the poison in the next room.

This hazard was originally designed to to be encountered in an ancient temple of Ydersius designed to test acolytes, however, it can pretty easily be rethemed to fit elsewhere. Combinations of runes for a complex spell in a dungeon/temple of Nethys, Depictions of the trials of Iomodea featuring incorrect sequencing or fake trials, or even perhaps something to do with animal kingdoms or political hierarchy if you want to change the knowledge check required.

Should you not wish your players to simply brute force the trap and heal up with medicine checks after each failure you could implement a time constraint such as the room is already filled with the poison gas which will kill them quickly rather than have the poison in the next chamber.