Jack's Dungeon

10/14/2026

🔍 THE SPORES OF SUSPICION — PART 3
Something Doesn't Add Up

With quarantine behind them, Spicy Meat Juice reported their findings to Rowan Ashvale.

And what they had discovered raised some very uncomfortable questions.

First, there was the enormous Sporebound creature.

The thing was MASSIVE.

So massive, in fact, that it couldn't reasonably have entered the cave through the available passages.

Then there was the missing hunter.

The evidence suggested that magical vines had strangled the unfortunate victim.

Not spores.

Not the creature.

Magical vines.

And finally, there was the missing caravan wagon.

Still unaccounted for.

With potentially contaminated animals or materials capable of traveling beyond the infected region, its disappearance was particularly concerning.

Three mysteries.

One devastating infestation.

And an increasingly disturbing possibility.

What if this wasn't a natural outbreak at all?

What if someone had engineered the entire thing?

For once, the members of SMJ weren't simply dealing with a monster.

They might be dealing with someone who deliberately created one.

🕵️ DUNGEON QUESTION:
You're investigating this mystery. Which clue concerns you most?

🍄 The impossibly large creature
🌿 The magically strangled hunter
🐎 The missing caravan

Tell us what YOU would investigate first!

NEXT: Part 4 — New Powers, Old Secrets

10/13/2026

🧪 THE SPORES OF SUSPICION — PART 2
The Unwanted Souvenir

Remember that terrifying fungus-infested cave?

Turns out, it had parting gifts.

And nobody asked for them. 😬

Following their return to Falte, the members of Spicy Meat Juice underwent magical examinations for possible spore contamination.

The results?

Aric and Vorn tested positive for trace infections.

Fantastic.

Because apparently fighting a giant fungal monstrosity wasn't enough. Now the fungus wanted to become a permanent traveling companion.

Fortunately, a solution was available.

A Greater Restoration spell could remove the contamination, but the necessary components weren't cheap.

The party faced a choice: wait until the next day to arrange the required gold-based components, or sacrifice something valuable.

They chose to spend one vial of Standard Resonance to secure magical treatment for both infected members.

Problem solved.

Two adventurers cured.

One valuable resource spent.

And hopefully, absolutely nothing growing where it shouldn't.

But with the party medically cleared, it was time to explain exactly what they had discovered.

And those discoveries were troubling.

🎲 DUNGEON QUESTION:
Would your character sacrifice a valuable magical resource to cure a teammate immediately, or wait and save the resource?

NEXT: Part 3 — Something Doesn't Add Up

10/12/2026

🍄 THE SPORES OF SUSPICION — PART 1
Home Sweet Quarantine

After surviving a nightmarish encounter with a massive fungal monstrosity, Spicy Meat Juice finally returned to Falte.

Surely, it was time for some well-earned rest, relaxation, and perhaps a celebratory drink?

WRONG. 😂

Instead, our heroes were greeted with something far less exciting.

Mandatory quarantine.

Apparently, wandering through a fungus-infested nightmare cave and fighting a creature that looks like nature's worst experiment makes people a little nervous.

Who knew?

To make matters worse, Aric discovered that the infection had spread much farther than expected.

An estimated TEN-MILE RADIUS of forest was affected.

The Verdant Accord had already begun using controlled fires to contain the spreading fungus.

Whatever had happened in that village wasn't staying in that village.

And the party was about to discover that some of them had brought home more than memories.

🍄 DUNGEON QUESTION:
Your adventuring party is placed under mandatory quarantine.

Who's following the rules, and who's already planning an escape?

👇 Tell us below!

NEXT: Part 2 — The Unwanted Souvenir

10/11/2026

🎲 AFTER THE DICE SETTLE 🎲
Some adventures end when the monster falls. Others are just getting started.

The dice have stopped rolling, the dust has settled, and Spicy Meat Juice has survived another encounter with something that probably should have stayed buried.

But victory doesn't always mean the danger is over.

Sometimes the biggest questions aren't about what the party defeated... but about what they discovered along the way.

And sometimes, the most terrifying words an adventurer can hear are:

"Before you leave, we're going to need to examine you." 😳

Let's just say that returning home isn't always as relaxing as it sounds.

🔮 DUNGEON QUESTION:

Your party survives a horrifying encounter and finally returns to civilization.

What's the FIRST thing your character does?

🍺 Find a tavern?
🛏️ Sleep for three days?
💰 Demand payment?
🔍 Start investigating the next mystery?

Drop your answer below!

Tomorrow, a new chapter begins. And something tells me SMJ isn't finished with this nightmare just yet.

Send a message to learn more

10/10/2026

🎲🔥 GAME DAY 🔥🎲

It's Saturday.

You know what that means.

THE DICE ARE COMING OUT.

Last time, SMJ went looking for the source of the Corpsebound outbreak.

We found:

🍄 A fungal-infested cave.

🦀 A massive Corpsebound river crab.

🤏 A crab that apparently considered Aric and Vorn carry-on luggage.

🌈 Several exciting new varieties of horrible spores.

🌿 A dead hunter who wasn't killed by the infection.

🔎 Evidence suggesting someone may have manipulated the plants that killed him.

🤔 A creature that seemingly shouldn't have been able to get inside the cave in the first place.

And finally...

🔥 ONE SLIGHTLY USED CAVE.

Okay.

VERY used.

Possibly still smoking.

But the important thing is that SMJ went looking for answers...

and came back with an entirely new question:

WHO DID THIS?

Because the Corpsebound outbreak is starting to look less like something that simply happened...

and more like something that may have been started.

Tonight, the investigation continues.

We have samples.

We have evidence.

We have questions.

And somewhere out there, we may have someone who really doesn't want those questions answered.

Fortunately, subtlety has always been one of SMJ's greatest strengths.
..
..

STOP LAUGHING.

😂

Last week, we found the source.

Tonight, we start looking for whoever lit the fuse.

🎲 IT'S GAME DAY.

10/09/2026

📰🎲 NEWS FROM OUTSIDE THE DUNGEON 🎲📰

Welcome back to News From Outside the Dungeon, where we briefly stop setting fungal caves on fire to see what everyone else in the D&D world is doing.

And this week, we're talking about something a little different:

🎲 HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY D&D ONLINE?

D&D's 3D virtual tabletop, Sigil, is approaching the end of its run, with its servers scheduled to shut down at the end of October.

The project was designed to let players build and explore 3D environments with digital maps and miniatures, but D&D has said it couldn't maintain the level of ongoing development the project required.

Meanwhile, development continues on D&D Beyond's other digital tools, including Maps, which has recently received improvements to things like Scene Prep and campaign organization.

So here's this week's question from outside the Dungeon:

What do YOU actually want from a digital D&D table?

🗺️ Simple maps and tokens?

🏰 Full 3D environments?

🎲 Integrated dice and character sheets?

📖 Better campaign-management tools?

Or are you perfectly happy with:

“Here's the map. Here's your token. Roll initiative.”

Because sometimes I wonder if we spend so much time trying to recreate the tabletop digitally that we forget what made the tabletop fun in the first place:

The people sitting around it.

Although in SMJ's case, better technology would mostly provide the DM with higher-resolution ways to watch us make terrible decisions.

🔥🍄🦀

What features would YOUR perfect online D&D table have?

Drop your answer below!

🎲 Until next time, keep rolling.

10/08/2026

🌿🍄 SOMEONE DID THIS 🍄🌿

The missing hunter was dead.

But not from the Corpsebound.

Not from the infection.

He had been killed by roots and vines.

The plants themselves appeared natural.

Their growth pattern did not.

Something had manipulated them.

Magic capable of controlling vegetation immediately became part of the investigation.

And then there was the crab.

SMJ had just fought an absolutely enormous Corpsebound creature deep inside this cavern.

There was one problem.

It was too large to have entered through the cave opening.

Which leaves some uncomfortable possibilities.

Did it grow there?

Was it somehow transported inside?

Was the infection deliberately introduced?

And if someone manipulated the vegetation that killed the hunter...

who?

SMJ collected samples of everything we could reasonably carry: fungal material, different spore types, material from the Corpsebound creature, and evidence connected to the hunter.

Rowan Ashvale would need to know what we'd found.

The surrounding region would need a cleanup operation.

But first...

there was the small matter of the cave itself.

After carefully investigating the scene...

collecting biological samples...

preserving evidence...

and documenting what we'd discovered...

SMJ employed its most advanced containment protocol:

🔥🔥🔥

WE SET THE CAVE ON FIRE.

Look.

Sometimes science requires controlled experimentation.

Sometimes it requires careful observation.

And sometimes it requires everyone to stand back while the adventurers burn the fungal zombie cave.

We came here looking for the source of an infection.

Instead, we found evidence that someone—or something—may have played a role in putting it here.

SMJ came looking for the source of an infection.

We left looking for a suspect.

🔥🍄🎲

TO BE CONTINUED...

10/07/2026

💀🦀 VORN SAYS NO 🦀💀

The giant Corpsebound crab had spent the battle grabbing members of SMJ and dragging them through clouds of hazardous spores.

Eventually, Vorn apparently decided he'd had enough.

So he did something very Vorn.

HE GRAPPLED IT BACK.

😂

By maintaining the grapple, Vorn kept one of the creature's claws occupied and limited what it could do to the rest of the party.

SMJ kept attacking.

The crab kept fighting.

The spores kept filling the cavern.

Until finally...

Vorn delivered the killing blow.

🦀💀

The cavern went quiet.

SMJ had survived another Corpsebound nightmare.

So naturally, we immediately switched from:

⚔️ MURDER

to

🔬 SCIENCE.

Samples were collected from the creature and the various fungal spores throughout the cavern.

Anything that could help SMJ—and Rowan—understand the Corpsebound was worth taking.

Then the party searched deeper into the cave.

That's when they found him.

The missing hunter.

Dead in the corner of the cavern.

At first, that seemed to answer another question.

Until they examined the body.

The Corpsebound hadn't killed him.

The infection hadn't killed him.

Something else had.

🌿

And suddenly...

this wasn't just an outbreak investigation anymore.

Tomorrow: SOMEONE DID THIS

10/06/2026

🦀🍄 GRAB. SQUEEZE. SPORES. 🍄🦀

The Corpsebound crab wasn't alone.

Technically.

It brought...

ATMOSPHERE.

And by atmosphere, I mean clouds of horrible fungal spores.

⚪ WHITE SPORES

Visibility disappeared.

Welcome to the Blinded condition.

🔴 RED SPORES

Fire damage.

Because apparently the cave needed MORE fire.

🔵 BLUE SPORES

Movement could drop to zero.

Which becomes particularly inconvenient when you're standing inside one of the OTHER spore clouds.

SMJ tried to maneuver around the battlefield.

The crab had another idea.

GRAB.

Vorn.

GRAB.

Aric.

Yes.

At the same time.

Then it started squeezing them and dragging them through the hazardous spores.

So for a portion of this battle, our tactical situation could reasonably be summarized as:

🦀 GIANT FUNGAL CRAB

🤏 Aric

🤏 Vorn

🍄 Poisonous nightmare clouds everywhere

Meanwhile, the rest of SMJ was desperately trying to turn the world's worst seafood encounter back in their favor.

And Vorn?

Vorn eventually decided:

Two can play the grappling game.

🦀💀

Tomorrow: VORN SAYS NO

10/05/2026

🍄 INTO THE DARK 🍄

SMJ finally had a destination.

The cave southwest of the village.

The same cave a hunter's dog had entered weeks earlier...

before returning infected.

So the party followed the trail.

Quietly.

Carefully.

Suspiciously.

You know...

all the things SMJ occasionally remembers adventurers are supposed to do.

The trail of mushrooms and spores led deeper underground until the party reached a massive cavern.

Pitch black.

Roughly 30 feet high.

And shaped almost like a giant bowl.

Nothing suspicious about that.

Nope.

Perfectly normal fungal zombie cave.

Then something moved.

Something BIG.

The creature waiting inside wasn't another zombie.

It wasn't an infected wolf.

It wasn't another bear.

It was a massive Corpsebound creature built around the host body of a...

🦀

RIVER CRAB.

Because apparently somewhere along the way the DM asked:

“What if fungal zombie...but crab?”

And nobody was there to stop him.

The creature moved.

The spores began spreading.

Initiative was rolled.

And SMJ learned very quickly that this crab had absolutely no intention of being dinner.

🦀🍄💀

Tomorrow: GRAB. SQUEEZE. SPORES.