Treehouse Boss Assassin Vine

A four staged boss battle against a monstrous assassin vine in a wooden treehouse that is being torn apart during the course of the combat. Worse still, the tree house is a hundred feet up in the tree canopy. At first everything seems normal, a nice treehouse replete with beds, fireplace, bookshelf and a lute... but all the wooden shutters are closed. The wooden shutters are closed because the whole treehouse in lovingly embraced by a huge vine and it has been oh so long since anyone has come back to the treehouse.

Off to the side of the map are location cards, where you can put a token that isn't immediately in the treehouse. The locations are (from the bottom): the roots on ground level, the rope ladder down to the ground, the maw of the assassin vine, the bough above the treehouse where the the final horrifying part is revealed: pods. 

The boss assassin vine has lair actions:   

1. swallow (send a swallowed victim to a pod after they've been in the maw for 1 turn) 

2. entangle (vines that grew in from the windows and gaps) 

3. break treehouse (Dex saves or fall prone, Dex failed by more than 5, possibly fall through the floor... last minute hang on to a vine that will immediately start to entangle the character) with each break move on to the next map.  

An occupied pod closes its connecting doorway to the vine root system and then begins to fill with digestive juices. These work very slowly, the person will drown before they are dissolved... but will burn skin, cause a rash and bleach hair. It'll take 4 turns to fill up. The digestive juices are luminous and so can be seen by anyone who looks up outside the treehouse to try follow their friend.  Anyone who thinks to try and follow via the mouth, will end up in a different pod. If you're generous... nearby to the first victim's pod. The pod walls are thick, supple and strong... AC20, HP20. Although smart players can pierce the wall to let it drain the juices... thus removing the time pressure.

If the assassin boss vine is defeated, the party finds other pods higher up in the canopy. Black and shrivelled, their function completed. There could be grand treasure in those pods if they can break through the thick chrysalis hide. 

To keep the characters from immediately escaping, vines over the trap door or waiting on the rope bridge can work. I added mindless zombies who heard the commotion in the jungle and were trying to climb up the rope ladder to get into the treehouse; just to further complicate my players' decisions.

Reach out if you'd like more details on how I ran this encounter.