The Mushroom King's Stolen Crown: A Free Feywild Encounter

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The situation

The road is blocked by several hundred mushroom folk, and their king has lost his crown. Nobody leaves the clearing until it turns up. His guards have already caught their thief: a nervous boggart named Pip, currently tied to a spoon and awaiting trial.

There’s one problem. Pip didn’t steal the crown. He hid it, which as far as the Mushroom King is concerned is close enough.

What you need: this page and something to roll checks with. No special map or stat blocks required. Read it straight from the screen or a printed copy.

Read aloud

The path disappears beneath mushrooms, hundreds of them: red-capped and blue-capped, tall and squat, a few wearing tiny dented helmets. At the center of the clearing, a mushroom nearly three feet tall sits on a throne made from an overturned teacup, a bare patch circling the top of his head. Beside him, six guards drag a squirming prisoner toward a chopping block no bigger than a dinner plate, and the prisoner just spotted you.

“Perfect! Outsiders!” The Mushroom King rises. “Find my crown.” He points at the prisoner. “Or we chop off his hat.” The prisoner freezes. “My what?”

What everyone can see

• The Mushroom King is missing something important and has made it everyone else’s problem.
• Pip, the accused thief, is tied to an oversized silver spoon.
• Mushroom guards have blocked every obvious trail out of the clearing.
• A trail of golden dust runs from the throne toward a hollow log.
• Three enormous blue mushrooms grow beside the eastern path.
• Something inside the hollow log keeps sneezing.
• A crow watches the whole argument from a branch overhead.

Nobody here agrees on what happened.

The trial

The Mushroom King has already decided Pip is guilty. The party has four rounds of questioning, searching, bribing, or general interference before he announces a sentence.

The party doesn’t need to solve the mystery before the clock runs out. They just need to talk the Mushroom King out of doing something stupid.

Actions that matter

Use whatever checks fit your system. For 5e-style play, DC 11–14 is enough for most actions. Strong ideas can simply work.

• Question Pip. He admits he moved the crown. He insists he never stole it.
• Follow the golden dust. It leads to the hollow log, then just stops.
• Search the throne: tiny claw marks cover the back of the teacup.
• Question the guards. Most are useless, but one remembers hearing wings right before the crown vanished.
• Touch a blue mushroom and it repeats the last loud sound it heard.
• Talk to the crow. It knows exactly what happened, and it wants something before it says a word.
• Check the hollow log. Something in there knows more than the Mushroom King would like.
• Skip the investigation entirely. Bribing the king, challenging his authority, breaking Pip out, or just making a run for it all work fine.

Pip

Pip is guilty of hiding the crown. He is not guilty of stealing it.

That morning he watched a large black crow swoop into the clearing, snatch the crown off the sleeping king’s head, and carry it toward the hollow log. Pip followed, found the crow trying to pry a green jewel loose from the setting, and scared it off. He hid the crown, planning to sneak back for it later. Then the guards arrested him.

He hasn’t explained any of this because of where he hid it: the Mushroom King’s private snack cellar, which Pip found by accident a few days ago and has since emptied of most of the emergency honey cakes. Right now he’d rather be wrongly executed than admit that part. At least at first.

The hollow log

A tiny door is cut into the side of the log, opening onto a cramped pantry stocked with empty jars, crumbs, dried berries, and one very frightened mouse. The crown sits underneath an overturned honey pot.

The mouse saw everything, but it’s convinced Pip is its landlord, and getting anything useful out of it may take food, reassurance, a spell, or a genuinely lengthy conversation about rent. Once it calms down, it’ll confirm that Pip brought the crown here right after chasing off the crow.

The crow

The crow is still around because it wants the jewel. Offer it food or basic politeness and it’ll talk. It admits to taking the crown almost immediately, though it doesn’t consider that stealing. The king left it outside, and in the crow’s view, anything left outside belongs to whoever notices it first.

It’s holding onto one piece of evidence: a small bent gold clasp from the crown. It’ll trade that for something shiny, something edible, or a promise nobody throws anything at it. If attacked, it just flies off. There’s no reason this needs to become a fight unless the table really wants one.

The blue mushrooms

The three blue mushrooms beside the path repeat the last loud sound they heard. Touch the first and it produces a drowsy “Zzzzzzzzz.” The second lets out a sharp “CAW!” The third shouts “MY HONEY CAKES!” in a voice that belongs, unmistakably, to the Mushroom King.

He immediately claims it does not.

Other ways out

The party may simply not care who stole the crown. That’s fine too.

• Trade for Pip. The king likes unusual food, stories, shiny objects, titles, and anything he can be convinced is rare.
• Challenge the trial. Most of his laws were invented that morning, and a confident character can probably invent better ones.
• Steal the crown outright. It won’t improve the situation, but it will change it.
• Make a run for it. The mushroom folk are numerous but not fast, and a party willing to crash through the undergrowth can just leave.
• Overthrow the king. It’s excessive, and it will probably work.

If the party befriends Pip

Pip knows several paths through this part of the Feywild. Most are safe. One isn’t.

If the party asks him for the quickest route onward, Pip hesitates before mentioning an old path north of the clearing that almost nobody uses anymore. It cuts hours off the journey, but animals avoid it, tracks show up in the mud when nobody’s passed, and twice this week Pip has heard a hunting horn somewhere beyond the trees. He won’t take it himself.

If the party goes anyway, the trail narrows beneath the branches and leads into a noticeably darker stretch of the Feywild. That’s a natural place to end the session. If you’d rather keep going, it leads directly into The Huntsman’s Game.

Rewards

• The Mushroom King awards the party a royal mushroom badge that means absolutely nothing outside his clearing.
• Pip can guide them to a safe road through the Feywild.
• The crow remembers anyone who treated it well and may appear again with useful information.
• The king’s pantry contains one remaining honey cake. Eating it restores a small amount of health or provides another minor benefit appropriate to your system.
• Characters who resolved the dispute peacefully are declared “Official Friends of the Crown.”

The Mushroom King expects them to use the full title.

How to scale it

Easier: Pip tells the party immediately that he saw the crow take the crown. Harder: the crow has already pried the green jewel loose and hidden it elsewhere in the clearing, and the king won’t accept the crown back until every piece is returned.

For a more chaotic version, give each mushroom witness a completely different account of what happened. None of them are lying on purpose. They’re just terrible witnesses.