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Description
I haven't submitted anything recently due to multiple factors - one of my campaigns is on hiatus, I had to to reinstall Windows 10 fresh, along with the rendering program I use, I got covid and haven't seemed to recover fully, and I invaded Yellowstone for a week. My pen & paper campaign has started back up, and I thought I'd share a one of the maps (made with Dungeon Alchemist), which has a series of tests to gain something of value to hold over the Queen of Spider's (Lolth's) head. In my Arros campaign, Lolth was just a powerful demon until she convinced the drow to make a pact with her so that they could defend themselves from an invasion from the Far Realm. The pact was written and hidden in a "safe" place. The PCs became involved through a third party, a collector who aided them for a small favor -- retrieving the set of scrolls and giving it to him to put in his personal collection.

On the way, they had to navigate the Demonground area (a set of maps I posted weeks ago) and have arrived at an old temple to Lolth. Having learned that they will have to confront her to gain the scrolls, and having had their godslayer artifact taken from them, they are now forced to delve into her temple in the Demongrounds in the hopes of finding something to use against her. For fear of giving away secrets, I am not going to go over the rest. The area leading to this one is here:

This map is not a vtt map - it is more for print, although it can be used as a vtt if properly scaled. It consists of a series of tests, which I will go through in case in gives you ideas for your own campaign or you wish to recycle mine. While the traps can be deadly, they are not meant to risk PCs lives unduly if they take reasonable actions, as the next session is meant to be deadly and this is a bit of a warmup and to get people in the mindset. If they are foolish, decide to muscle through the traps, or are exceptionally unlucky, death is a possibility. I run a notch over medium-magic campaigns but not super-high magic, and ran this at 8th level where the PCs had at least +1 equivalent items, a few very rare combat items, and a handful of miscellaneous items and consumables . For my group, none of these particularly helped with any of the encounters (aside from the boots of striding and springing), so I think a balanced 8th level party of 5 should be able to handle the traps. Note that if your group does not enjoy puzzles, you can of course let them make checks for their characters to figure things out -- there is no shame in that, as I myself seem to be able to create the insidious traps but cannot solve anyone else's LOL.

Area 1 (the first room (the lightning room on the left):
Read to PCs:
The stairs exit to a strange room. It is 30 feet across and over a hundred feet wide. To the left and the right of the stairs are pits that extend downwards past the range of your darkvision, with a 10 ft. square platform that has a lever in the middle of it.

Two iron statues of Lolth flank an open archway, beyond is another area with more green gas. Lightning rolls off the statues and into the iron plating that covers the floor, with the sparks jumping as high as 10 feet off the floor and around the statues. Two twenty-foot-tall iron columns are ten feet shy of the ceiling above and have a 5-foot-tall trio of crystals atop each one. Finally, there are some incomplete skeletons of those who braved the lightning spread about the floor, although their skulls seem to be missing.

DM Info:

Each time a lever is pulled, one of the crystals lights up. There is no combination that will disable the lightning – it is a dummy to get the invaders frustrated. The far iron square on the left-hand side of the room is warded against the lightning, with a secret panel on the wall behind it. A PC carefully examining the floor can make a DC 25 Perception check to notice this. You can lower the DC if the PC takes steps to get a better view or actually goes into the lightning field. Once on the tile, a DC 15 Investigation will uncover that the panel twists.

Going into a square of lightning does 3d6 lightning damage and requires an immediate DC 15 Con save or become stunned. Roll initiative – the damage occurs at the start of the PC’s turns along with a new save. Characters touching the electrified person take half the damage previously rolled for it but are not stunned.
While jumping over the squares is easy enough, magical flight will attract a bolt that can stun (and thus invoke falling), but physical flight can bypass the lightning. Anti-magic will temporarily disable the trap, as does a dispel magic cast at each statue (level 5 effect), although once 1d4 rounds pass in the case of dispel magic, the statues once again electrify the floor.

Area 2 (the poison room):

Read to PCs:
This seems to be yet another nightmare chamber which is 80 feet long, 20 feet tall, and 35 feet wide. Thick green gas obscures green liquid below it which pours from stone mouths on either side of the room, demon mouths on your left and skull mouths on your right, in ten-foot-wide channels. A channel also leads down the middle of the chamber, being roughly 5 feet wide but almost 15 feet wide at its terminus on the far end of the chamber, preventing easy access to a wheel affixed to a heavy vault door wrought of steel and adamantine. Eight braziers with magical green flames burning in them are atop the heads. Dozens of bones are spread about on the floor and even in the green liquid, although someone has taken the skulls. A pile of gold coins is on the third platform to your left, and your can just see the head of a gold scepter with a large sapphire affixed to it sticking out of the mound.
To your immediate right and left are two tables made entirely of iron, upon which are two sets of identical goblets crafted of precious metals. The ones on your left contain a liquid similar in appearance to wine – a quick sniff proves that this is likely the case, while the ones on your right contain blood. As you turn to and look at the entryway, there are runes engraved in Elvish that read,

“To worship our Queen is to drink with her. Imbibe as befits you, but only drain one of her sacred goblets once.”

DM Info:

The liquid in the channels is deadly poison, doing 4d6 poison damage with immersion and each round at the start of the PC’s turn (and the gas removes any poison resistance but not immunity) and requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or the PC is poisoned for one hour. Just touching the liquid does 1d8 poison damage and requires a DC 10 saving throw.
When someone passes in front of a mouth without having drunk the appropriate countermeasure on the same side of the room, it magically pulls the PC into the poison (DC 15 Dex). The blood from the right allows passage on the left, while the wine (which is very strong and may intoxicate at your discretion) on the right allows passage on the right. Those moving down the middle (flying) must make two saving throws (if neither liquid is imbibed), and if both fail they are pulled apart for 6d6 slashing damage and are pulled into the middle channel. The heads can even pluck teleporting characters out of the air - trace their paths and use your discretion as to what heads on which side they pass.

As wine (and alcohol is general) is often associated with death, this may provide the PCs with a hint that the death heads on the right are associated with the wine and the demon heads with the blood.

Anyone consuming more than one cup will take 10d10 poison damage, with no saving throw. If they are not in the gas, poison resistance will apply. They were warned.

The treasure pile contains 3,666 gold coins, with 3 soul coins among them. The golden scepter has a dove carved into its head and a large sapphire embedded in the dove’s eye, making it worth 2,500 gp. Anyone taking the staff, however, will have Lolth’s blessing dispelled and further saves to resist the heads’ pull are at disadvantage.

On the fourth platform to the right a large blood-red gem with a spider engraved on its face is hidden in the ribcage of one of the unfortunates. Anyone searching that area while in it finds the gem, otherwise a DC 20 secret Perception check is made for each person passing through the area. This gem is for the next chamber -- the key to unlocking the gate.

While the wheel is locked, a levitating, spider climbing, or character reaching the wheel by other means could easily pick the lock to release the wheel, a DC 15 check. Once the wheel is released, it takes an Action to spin it, which then opens the door to Area 6, the elevator room. Note that when the door is opened, the following is said in a booming, female voice:
Congratulations adherent, the final tests await you below. Do not use your head to find what you need to descend and then you must set things right.

Area 3 (The last room on the map is fairly complex, so make sure you read this carefully before trying to run it):

Read to PCs:
You have entered into a very large, square chamber, easily a hundred feet on the side. Within this chamber is an area walled off by iron fencing. It too is square, and roughly 50 ft. by 50 ft.
The room outside the fencing has columbaria with skulls and vases in some of their pockets that line the walls and large statues of dark elf warriors at attention between each set. The flooring is red tile along the walls, but then twenty feet of iron grating up to the inner room. The centers of the east and west walls bear shields that have coats of arms on them, but you cannot make out the details from the entrance. Across the room is a large statue of Lolth that towers above all else, perhaps 25 feet high. She holds a candle in each palm, and green light is shining upward from below, although what is emitting that light is a mystery for reasons that will be described soon.
The fencing of the inner chamber runs all the way up to the 30-foot ceiling, and there is no obvious gate into it, although one could be obscured on the side opposite you by the statues. The floor is made in dark marble, with 5-foot-wide strips of red tiling similar to the tiling around the edges of the room leading from the fencing to a statue. The four statues are of Exalted goddesses, stand eighteen feet tall, and face in each cardinal direction in the center of the inner chamber, with a large ball of darkness obscuring their hands. They are (from left to bottom to right) Mirium (peace), Griselda (agriculture), and Anshar (night), while you cannot see the details to identify the one facing away from you (Isadora – life). Between all of them is a circular platform with a lever in the center of it.

Once a PC moves where they can see the rest of the chamber:

Now that you have a good view of the Lolth statue, you can see that there is a large ornate hourglass on either side of her; the top of each is filled with sand. A crystal in a gold setting is attached to the top of each and glows with a sickly green light.
You can now see that there is a gate built into the fencing that seems to have an indentation in the shape of a gem.

DM Info:

One of the shields (both of which bear heraldic symbols of prominent drow houses that have fallen) hides a secret passage which leads out of the area. It connects with a collapsed stairway from my Lolth's Temple map and the passage is warded by multiple glyph of warding tiles. In any case, it merely provides a way out and does not necessarily have an impact here unless a PC is trapped on the other side when the trap is activated.

The test does not begin until someone touches one of the hourglasses, the crystals, or invokes Lolth’s name. Until the trap activates, opening or closing the gate or trying to manipulate the lever has no effect. The statues can attacked at this time and are treated as objects. However, any statue attacked will defend itself, and each statue adjacent to the first will activate the next round and so on until all 19 statues have been animated (one of them is broken and headless). A successful Arcana check (at a DC set by you) will reveal the folly of this action.

Once the trap activates, the doors into the area slam shut (DC 25 to pick, and either DC 30 (vault door) or DC 22 (secret door) to force.

Once that occurs, a female voice booms:

Find the gem that opens the way.

and the sand in the hourglass on the left begins to pour.

At the start of the 2nd round, the gas begins leaking out of the vents. On that round, it fills the entire vent area and does 1d6 poison damage. The next round it fills the entire room, and the damage raises by 1d6 cumulatively. By the 6th round it is so thick that it totally obscures vision. Gust of wind or similar spells can pause or blow away the gas temporarily, also possibly causing the cumulative damage to reset if dispersed, but the trap is mechanical and can only be accessed by pulling up a grate (DC 20 Strength), dropping 30 down into the pit below, and going to the central column where the elevator room is accessed and disarming the controls). Otherwise, the gas only stops when the gate is somehow opened.

The PCs might decided the gem is hidden in the columbarium or vases.

Each round a character can search a columbarium. Have them make a DC 18 Investigation to notice one of the skulls is a flame skull (found in the Monster Manual or basic ruleset). They can decide to search the columbaria as an Action (can roll but won’t find anything) but that will activate the flame skull, who enters initiative on the next round.

The vases take an object interaction to open, and each one contains a potion from the following table (each poison has 1d4 applications):
1- Healing
2- Greater Healing
3- Poison (contact) 1d6
4- Poison (contact) 1d10
5- Spiderclimb for 1 hour.
6- Haste for 1 minute.
7- Heroism for 1 minute.
8- Liquid that acts as Keoghtom’s ointment but is drunk.

Of course, the gem isn't anywhere in this room - it was in the previous one. Once the gem is attached, metal bars emerge from the lock area and embrace the gem and the gate opens. The lock can be picked (DC 25) or knocked (with a DC 15 spellcasting ability check as the lock is warded unless the PC expends a 5th level slot or higher), as well. If the PCs subsequently try to remove the gem, it requires a DC 25 tool check or Strength check, and a failure by 10 or more causes the gem to shatter. The gem's value should be based on your economy, but should be substantial (mine was worth 3,500 gp if recovered).

Once the gate is opened, any active flame skulls returns to their nooks and deactivate and the gas immediately dissipates as it is sucked back into the vents. The voice booms out a second time:

Corrupt goodness in my name and restore my honor to unlock your descent.

This time the righthand hourglass begins its countdown. The PCs have 8 rounds to accomplish this task.

Each of the goddess statues holds two candles of darkness that can't be seen but can be felt or the candles can be removed, and it will become obvious. Once that has been done, two of the candles must replace the candles on the Lolth statue for the lever in the central area to unlock.

At the beginning of the second round, two of the golems (the smaller warrior statues) becomes active, entering the initiative on the next round. If attacked beforehand, they are treated as object for the attack and then animate to defend themselves normally.

Each round thereafter, a random 1-2 statues animate and attack. While how you design the golems that will face your PCs is not all that important (I have provided a sample below), what is is the fact that they have metal-walking and can pass through the metal floor areas and the inner fence with ease, which may come as a surprise if the PCs decide to try to block the gate into the inner area.

On the 4th round, the gas begins leaking out of the vents. At the start of that round, it fills the entire vent area and does 1d6 poison damage. The next round it fills the entire room, and the damage raises by 1d6 cumulatively. By the 8th round it is so thick that it totally obscures vision. Gust of wind or similar spells can pause or blow away the gas temporarily, but the trap is mechanical and underneath the grates so can only be stopped by completing the puzzle.

Each of the "good" god statues must be "corrupted". Ways of doing this can vary -- removing the candles and placing one of the candles the Lolth statue will automatically corrupt a statue, and once that has begun it will spread to a new statue at the beginning of the PC's turn. Certain spells considered evil in your campaign, such as dispel good, possibly necrotic spells, unholy water, or even performing blood rites (DC 15 Religion check) can also work at your option.

Lolth's honor can be restored by placing two dark candles in her hands, casting darkness or unholy magic at the statue, etc.

Finally, the lever could be jimmied, but I would suggest the DC of such an action be well into the 30 range.

Once all the good statues are corrupted and the Lolth statue's "honor" is restored, the golems return to their resting places immediately, but will of course defend themselves if attacked again. The gas is sucked out through the vents, dissipating immediately. The room begins descending at a rate of 30 feet per round, arriving in the next area in 2 minutes (600 feet).

On the eighth round, if the conditions are not met, the lever locks and requires two checks to open - one high DC Strength check and a second high DC lockpicking check. You may want to modify the conditions at this point if the PCs haven't figured it out or had bad luck with the golems unless your group isn't attached to their characters, as they will likely all be blind, the poison damage will be up to 4d6 per round and rising, and the golems all have blindsight and are immune to poison.

Final Comments

It is almost a certainty that your PCs will attempt something not covered here. I cannot cover every situation that might come up and ever homebrew item -- that is your job as the DM, to adjudicate how actions not covered will be handled the way YOU believe the traps are meant to work. Further, if you believe something is over or under powered, change it! You are not beholden to me or anyone else in how YOU run your game. All that matters is that everyone has a good time, is hopefully challenged, and feels that they had the opportunity to participate.

The Stone Golems

A note on running the stone golems -- while not overly intelligent, they are brilliant by golem standards. They will prioritize attacking PCs becoming obvious threats, such as those using powerful spells, healing unconscious PCs, or dishing out tons of damage, but are not smart enough to understand that someone wearing fancy robes and a pointy hat is a mage until they fireball them. They will flank given the opportunity, but will not use advanced tactics such as dodging (although they will refrain from attacking PCs dodging if another target is available). Finally, if your PCs are high level, you can certainly buff them, or even extend their metalwalk to ignore metal armor.

Lolth Stone Golem

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)

Hit Points 60 (8d8+27)

Speed 30 ft., metalwalk 30 ft.

STR 18 (+4) DEX 12 (+1) CON 17 (+3) INT 6 (-2) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 6 (-2)

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from attacks made with metal or non-magical weapons

Damage Immunities poison, psychic

Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned

Senses blindsight, darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10

Immutable Form: The golem is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.

Magic Resistance: The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Magic Weapons: The golem's weapon attacks are magical.

Actions

Multiattack. The golem makes two sword attacks.

Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (2d10 + 4) slashing damage. On a critical hit, target must make a DC 14 saving throw or suffer one of the following effects:

    1-      Stunned until end PC’s turn (Con)

    2-      Prone (Str)

    3-      Disarmed (Dex)

    4-      Hurled 1d4x5 feet (Str)

Description
I haven't submitted anything recently due to multiple factors - one of my campaigns is on hiatus, I had to to reinstall Windows 10 fresh, along with the rendering program I use, I got covid and haven't seemed to recover fully, and I invaded Yellowstone for a week. My pen & paper campaign has started back up, and I thought I'd share a one of the maps (made with Dungeon Alchemist), which has a series of tests to gain something of value to hold over the Queen of Spider's (Lolth's) head. In my Arros campaign, Lolth was just a powerful demon until she convinced the drow to make a pact with her so that they could defend themselves from an invasion from the Far Realm. The pact was written and hidden in a "safe" place. The PCs became involved through a third party, a collector who aided them for a small favor -- retrieving the set of scrolls and giving it to him to put in his personal collection.

On the way, they had to navigate the Demonground area (a set of maps I posted weeks ago) and have arrived at an old temple to Lolth. Having learned that they will have to confront her to gain the scrolls, and having had their godslayer artifact taken from them, they are now forced to delve into her temple in the Demongrounds in the hopes of finding something to use against her. For fear of giving away secrets, I am not going to go over the rest. The area leading to this one is here:

This map is not a vtt map - it is more for print, although it can be used as a vtt if properly scaled. It consists of a series of tests, which I will go through in case in gives you ideas for your own campaign or you wish to recycle mine. While the traps can be deadly, they are not meant to risk PCs lives unduly if they take reasonable actions, as the next session is meant to be deadly and this is a bit of a warmup and to get people in the mindset. If they are foolish, decide to muscle through the traps, or are exceptionally unlucky, death is a possibility. I run a notch over medium-magic campaigns but not super-high magic, and ran this at 8th level where the PCs had at least +1 equivalent items, a few very rare combat items, and a handful of miscellaneous items and consumables . For my group, none of these particularly helped with any of the encounters (aside from the boots of striding and springing), so I think a balanced 8th level party of 5 should be able to handle the traps. Note that if your group does not enjoy puzzles, you can of course let them make checks for their characters to figure things out -- there is no shame in that, as I myself seem to be able to create the insidious traps but cannot solve anyone else's LOL.

Area 1 (the first room (the lightning room on the left):
Read to PCs:
The stairs exit to a strange room. It is 30 feet across and over a hundred feet wide. To the left and the right of the stairs are pits that extend downwards past the range of your darkvision, with a 10 ft. square platform that has a lever in the middle of it.

Two iron statues of Lolth flank an open archway, beyond is another area with more green gas. Lightning rolls off the statues and into the iron plating that covers the floor, with the sparks jumping as high as 10 feet off the floor and around the statues. Two twenty-foot-tall iron columns are ten feet shy of the ceiling above and have a 5-foot-tall trio of crystals atop each one. Finally, there are some incomplete skeletons of those who braved the lightning spread about the floor, although their skulls seem to be missing.

DM Info:

Each time a lever is pulled, one of the crystals lights up. There is no combination that will disable the lightning – it is a dummy to get the invaders frustrated. The far iron square on the left-hand side of the room is warded against the lightning, with a secret panel on the wall behind it. A PC carefully examining the floor can make a DC 25 Perception check to notice this. You can lower the DC if the PC takes steps to get a better view or actually goes into the lightning field. Once on the tile, a DC 15 Investigation will uncover that the panel twists.

Going into a square of lightning does 3d6 lightning damage and requires an immediate DC 15 Con save or become stunned. Roll initiative – the damage occurs at the start of the PC’s turns along with a new save. Characters touching the electrified person take half the damage previously rolled for it but are not stunned.
While jumping over the squares is easy enough, magical flight will attract a bolt that can stun (and thus invoke falling), but physical flight can bypass the lightning. Anti-magic will temporarily disable the trap, as does a dispel magic cast at each statue (level 5 effect), although once 1d4 rounds pass in the case of dispel magic, the statues once again electrify the floor.

Area 2 (the poison room):

Read to PCs:
This seems to be yet another nightmare chamber which is 80 feet long, 20 feet tall, and 35 feet wide. Thick green gas obscures green liquid below it which pours from stone mouths on either side of the room, demon mouths on your left and skull mouths on your right, in ten-foot-wide channels. A channel also leads down the middle of the chamber, being roughly 5 feet wide but almost 15 feet wide at its terminus on the far end of the chamber, preventing easy access to a wheel affixed to a heavy vault door wrought of steel and adamantine. Eight braziers with magical green flames burning in them are atop the heads. Dozens of bones are spread about on the floor and even in the green liquid, although someone has taken the skulls. A pile of gold coins is on the third platform to your left, and your can just see the head of a gold scepter with a large sapphire affixed to it sticking out of the mound.
To your immediate right and left are two tables made entirely of iron, upon which are two sets of identical goblets crafted of precious metals. The ones on your left contain a liquid similar in appearance to wine – a quick sniff proves that this is likely the case, while the ones on your right contain blood. As you turn to and look at the entryway, there are runes engraved in Elvish that read,

“To worship our Queen is to drink with her. Imbibe as befits you, but only drain one of her sacred goblets once.”

DM Info:

The liquid in the channels is deadly poison, doing 4d6 poison damage with immersion and each round at the start of the PC’s turn (and the gas removes any poison resistance but not immunity) and requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or the PC is poisoned for one hour. Just touching the liquid does 1d8 poison damage and requires a DC 10 saving throw.
When someone passes in front of a mouth without having drunk the appropriate countermeasure on the same side of the room, it magically pulls the PC into the poison (DC 15 Dex). The blood from the right allows passage on the left, while the wine (which is very strong and may intoxicate at your discretion) on the right allows passage on the right. Those moving down the middle (flying) must make two saving throws (if neither liquid is imbibed), and if both fail they are pulled apart for 6d6 slashing damage and are pulled into the middle channel. The heads can even pluck teleporting characters out of the air - trace their paths and use your discretion as to what heads on which side they pass.

As wine (and alcohol is general) is often associated with death, this may provide the PCs with a hint that the death heads on the right are associated with the wine and the demon heads with the blood.

Anyone consuming more than one cup will take 10d10 poison damage, with no saving throw. If they are not in the gas, poison resistance will apply. They were warned.

The treasure pile contains 3,666 gold coins, with 3 soul coins among them. The golden scepter has a dove carved into its head and a large sapphire embedded in the dove’s eye, making it worth 2,500 gp. Anyone taking the staff, however, will have Lolth’s blessing dispelled and further saves to resist the heads’ pull are at disadvantage.

On the fourth platform to the right a large blood-red gem with a spider engraved on its face is hidden in the ribcage of one of the unfortunates. Anyone searching that area while in it finds the gem, otherwise a DC 20 secret Perception check is made for each person passing through the area. This gem is for the next chamber -- the key to unlocking the gate.

While the wheel is locked, a levitating, spider climbing, or character reaching the wheel by other means could easily pick the lock to release the wheel, a DC 15 check. Once the wheel is released, it takes an Action to spin it, which then opens the door to Area 6, the elevator room. Note that when the door is opened, the following is said in a booming, female voice:
Congratulations adherent, the final tests await you below. Do not use your head to find what you need to descend and then you must set things right.

Area 3 (The last room on the map is fairly complex, so make sure you read this carefully before trying to run it):

Read to PCs:
You have entered into a very large, square chamber, easily a hundred feet on the side. Within this chamber is an area walled off by iron fencing. It too is square, and roughly 50 ft. by 50 ft.
The room outside the fencing has columbaria with skulls and vases in some of their pockets that line the walls and large statues of dark elf warriors at attention between each set. The flooring is red tile along the walls, but then twenty feet of iron grating up to the inner room. The centers of the east and west walls bear shields that have coats of arms on them, but you cannot make out the details from the entrance. Across the room is a large statue of Lolth that towers above all else, perhaps 25 feet high. She holds a candle in each palm, and green light is shining upward from below, although what is emitting that light is a mystery for reasons that will be described soon.
The fencing of the inner chamber runs all the way up to the 30-foot ceiling, and there is no obvious gate into it, although one could be obscured on the side opposite you by the statues. The floor is made in dark marble, with 5-foot-wide strips of red tiling similar to the tiling around the edges of the room leading from the fencing to a statue. The four statues are of Exalted goddesses, stand eighteen feet tall, and face in each cardinal direction in the center of the inner chamber, with a large ball of darkness obscuring their hands. They are (from left to bottom to right) Mirium (peace), Griselda (agriculture), and Anshar (night), while you cannot see the details to identify the one facing away from you (Isadora – life). Between all of them is a circular platform with a lever in the center of it.

Once a PC moves where they can see the rest of the chamber:

Now that you have a good view of the Lolth statue, you can see that there is a large ornate hourglass on either side of her; the top of each is filled with sand. A crystal in a gold setting is attached to the top of each and glows with a sickly green light.
You can now see that there is a gate built into the fencing that seems to have an indentation in the shape of a gem.

DM Info:

One of the shields (both of which bear heraldic symbols of prominent drow houses that have fallen) hides a secret passage which leads out of the area. It connects with a collapsed stairway from my Lolth's Temple map and the passage is warded by multiple glyph of warding tiles. In any case, it merely provides a way out and does not necessarily have an impact here unless a PC is trapped on the other side when the trap is activated.

The test does not begin until someone touches one of the hourglasses, the crystals, or invokes Lolth’s name. Until the trap activates, opening or closing the gate or trying to manipulate the lever has no effect. The statues can attacked at this time and are treated as objects. However, any statue attacked will defend itself, and each statue adjacent to the first will activate the next round and so on until all 19 statues have been animated (one of them is broken and headless). A successful Arcana check (at a DC set by you) will reveal the folly of this action.

Once the trap activates, the doors into the area slam shut (DC 25 to pick, and either DC 30 (vault door) or DC 22 (secret door) to force.

Once that occurs, a female voice booms:

Find the gem that opens the way.

and the sand in the hourglass on the left begins to pour.

At the start of the 2nd round, the gas begins leaking out of the vents. On that round, it fills the entire vent area and does 1d6 poison damage. The next round it fills the entire room, and the damage raises by 1d6 cumulatively. By the 6th round it is so thick that it totally obscures vision. Gust of wind or similar spells can pause or blow away the gas temporarily, also possibly causing the cumulative damage to reset if dispersed, but the trap is mechanical and can only be accessed by pulling up a grate (DC 20 Strength), dropping 30 down into the pit below, and going to the central column where the elevator room is accessed and disarming the controls). Otherwise, the gas only stops when the gate is somehow opened.

The PCs might decided the gem is hidden in the columbarium or vases.

Each round a character can search a columbarium. Have them make a DC 18 Investigation to notice one of the skulls is a flame skull (found in the Monster Manual or basic ruleset). They can decide to search the columbaria as an Action (can roll but won’t find anything) but that will activate the flame skull, who enters initiative on the next round.

The vases take an object interaction to open, and each one contains a potion from the following table (each poison has 1d4 applications):
1- Healing
2- Greater Healing
3- Poison (contact) 1d6
4- Poison (contact) 1d10
5- Spiderclimb for 1 hour.
6- Haste for 1 minute.
7- Heroism for 1 minute.
8- Liquid that acts as Keoghtom’s ointment but is drunk.

Of course, the gem isn't anywhere in this room - it was in the previous one. Once the gem is attached, metal bars emerge from the lock area and embrace the gem and the gate opens. The lock can be picked (DC 25) or knocked (with a DC 15 spellcasting ability check as the lock is warded unless the PC expends a 5th level slot or higher), as well. If the PCs subsequently try to remove the gem, it requires a DC 25 tool check or Strength check, and a failure by 10 or more causes the gem to shatter. The gem's value should be based on your economy, but should be substantial (mine was worth 3,500 gp if recovered).

Once the gate is opened, any active flame skulls returns to their nooks and deactivate and the gas immediately dissipates as it is sucked back into the vents. The voice booms out a second time:

Corrupt goodness in my name and restore my honor to unlock your descent.

This time the righthand hourglass begins its countdown. The PCs have 8 rounds to accomplish this task.

Each of the goddess statues holds two candles of darkness that can't be seen but can be felt or the candles can be removed, and it will become obvious. Once that has been done, two of the candles must replace the candles on the Lolth statue for the lever in the central area to unlock.

At the beginning of the second round, two of the golems (the smaller warrior statues) becomes active, entering the initiative on the next round. If attacked beforehand, they are treated as object for the attack and then animate to defend themselves normally.

Each round thereafter, a random 1-2 statues animate and attack. While how you design the golems that will face your PCs is not all that important (I have provided a sample below), what is is the fact that they have metal-walking and can pass through the metal floor areas and the inner fence with ease, which may come as a surprise if the PCs decide to try to block the gate into the inner area.

On the 4th round, the gas begins leaking out of the vents. At the start of that round, it fills the entire vent area and does 1d6 poison damage. The next round it fills the entire room, and the damage raises by 1d6 cumulatively. By the 8th round it is so thick that it totally obscures vision. Gust of wind or similar spells can pause or blow away the gas temporarily, but the trap is mechanical and underneath the grates so can only be stopped by completing the puzzle.

Each of the "good" god statues must be "corrupted". Ways of doing this can vary -- removing the candles and placing one of the candles the Lolth statue will automatically corrupt a statue, and once that has begun it will spread to a new statue at the beginning of the PC's turn. Certain spells considered evil in your campaign, such as dispel good, possibly necrotic spells, unholy water, or even performing blood rites (DC 15 Religion check) can also work at your option.

Lolth's honor can be restored by placing two dark candles in her hands, casting darkness or unholy magic at the statue, etc.

Finally, the lever could be jimmied, but I would suggest the DC of such an action be well into the 30 range.

Once all the good statues are corrupted and the Lolth statue's "honor" is restored, the golems return to their resting places immediately, but will of course defend themselves if attacked again. The gas is sucked out through the vents, dissipating immediately. The room begins descending at a rate of 30 feet per round, arriving in the next area in 2 minutes (600 feet).

On the eighth round, if the conditions are not met, the lever locks and requires two checks to open - one high DC Strength check and a second high DC lockpicking check. You may want to modify the conditions at this point if the PCs haven't figured it out or had bad luck with the golems unless your group isn't attached to their characters, as they will likely all be blind, the poison damage will be up to 4d6 per round and rising, and the golems all have blindsight and are immune to poison.

Final Comments

It is almost a certainty that your PCs will attempt something not covered here. I cannot cover every situation that might come up and ever homebrew item -- that is your job as the DM, to adjudicate how actions not covered will be handled the way YOU believe the traps are meant to work. Further, if you believe something is over or under powered, change it! You are not beholden to me or anyone else in how YOU run your game. All that matters is that everyone has a good time, is hopefully challenged, and feels that they had the opportunity to participate.

The Stone Golems

A note on running the stone golems -- while not overly intelligent, they are brilliant by golem standards. They will prioritize attacking PCs becoming obvious threats, such as those using powerful spells, healing unconscious PCs, or dishing out tons of damage, but are not smart enough to understand that someone wearing fancy robes and a pointy hat is a mage until they fireball them. They will flank given the opportunity, but will not use advanced tactics such as dodging (although they will refrain from attacking PCs dodging if another target is available). Finally, if your PCs are high level, you can certainly buff them, or even extend their metalwalk to ignore metal armor.

Lolth Stone Golem

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)

Hit Points 60 (8d8+27)

Speed 30 ft., metalwalk 30 ft.

STR 18 (+4) DEX 12 (+1) CON 17 (+3) INT 6 (-2) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 6 (-2)

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from attacks made with metal or non-magical weapons

Damage Immunities poison, psychic

Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned

Senses blindsight, darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10

Immutable Form: The golem is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.

Magic Resistance: The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Magic Weapons: The golem's weapon attacks are magical.

Actions

Multiattack. The golem makes two sword attacks.

Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (2d10 + 4) slashing damage. On a critical hit, target must make a DC 14 saving throw or suffer one of the following effects:

    1-      Stunned until end PC’s turn (Con)

    2-      Prone (Str)

    3-      Disarmed (Dex)

    4-      Hurled 1d4x5 feet (Str)