The coastal village of Caer Garrion has mysteriously depopulated, and the only survivior, a lone prisoner in the local jail, has gone mad. What does this village's sinister fate portend for the Moonshae Isles?
Player characters attacking the lair of monsters that have been menacing the local village is a common D&D trope. This adventure turns the trope on its head. In Goblin Defense, the players create goblin PCs, and have to fight off repeated attacks by adventurers who are stronger and better equipped than they are. Starting at level 1 and running until level 7, this module encompasses 16 battles against unique and typically themed groups of adventurers built using player character classes and rules. The module is designed for 3 players, each of whom takes on an individual role within the tribe, granting unique bonuses or options for actions outside of combat. Goblin Defense can also be played with 4 players, but is not recommended for 5 or more players without substantial revision. The players aren't alone. Each commands a squad of goblin minions who can help in combat... but goblins are fragile, and adventurers hit hard. Life as a goblin is often brief and violent. Many will die, but as long as some survive, the tribe will carry on. A simple ruleset is provided for managing actions during the downtime between each attack. During this time, players can work to train their minions to use better gear, hunt for food for their tribe, recruit replacement warriors, brew potions, and - most importantly - improve their lair and its defenses by adding walls, traps, tunnels, doors, alarms, and anything else their creative minds can come up with. As the exact layout and placement of defensive features is critical, this is designed to be played on a grid. A PDF is included with the map scaled to print on 24"x36" (Arch D) size paper, available at most print shops. DMs may enjoy the chance to briefly try out many different character class and subclass combinations as they attack and eventually fall to the goblin pests they're trying to eliminate. Page count: Information for the DM only 6 Information for the players 4 Adventurer statblocks 37
Years ago the valley was green, and animals ran free through golden fields of grain. The princess Argenta ruled over this peaceful land and the people were secure and happy. Then one day a warrior riding a red dragon appeared in the skies over the princess’ castle and almost overnight the tiny kingdom fell into ruin. Now only ruins and rumors remain, and what legends there are tell of a fabulous ruby still buried somewhere within the Palace of the Silver Princess TSR 9044
The lizard men are just pining for the fjords. A plague of locusts is bad enough, but when the locusts are each a yard long, the farmers need professional help! A swarm of giant locusts has been eating all the grapes and leaves from the vineyards of Vineyard Vale! In addition, lizard folk have attacked and destroyed several steads in the vale. The farmers are desperate, but what they don't know is that these events are linked! A mage known as Rhungold the Trickster has been orchestrating the attacks and locusts to try to scare the farmers off the land so he can claim it as his own. The players slowly piece the story together by investigating a fairly linear story through a cave, a marsh, and finally to a compound owned by the wizard Rhungold. Pgs. 6-16
A Ravaged Land... Villains that really are larger than life... A time for heroes... A decade ago, the land of Geoff was overrun by a horde of giants, ogres, and evil humanoids, its people either slain, enslaved, or driven into exile. Now at last the tide has turned. The time to free the people of Geoff from their servitude to the giantish tyrants has come! But don't forget to watch your step when you confront the true masters behind the giant Clans! Contains the full text of three classic adventures by Gary Gygax: G1, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief; G2, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl; and G3, Hall of the Fire GIant King. Details Eighteen new encounter sites in the war-torn land of Geoff, linked together to form a grand campaign. Provides dozens of hours of gameplay as the heroes struggle to free an entire country from the grasp of giant overlords. TSR 11413
"Terror by night! The village of Orlane is dying. Once a small and thriving community, Orlane has become a maze of locked doors and frightened faces. Strangers are shunned, trade has withered. Rumors flourish, growing wilder with each retelling. Terrified peasants flee their homes, abandoning their farms with no explanation. Others simply disappear. . . No one seems to know the cause of the decay -- why are there no clues? Who skulks through the twisted shadows of the night? Who or what is behind the doom that has overtaken the village? It will take a brave and skillful band of adventurers to solve the dark riddle of Orlane!" TSR 9063
Who Do You Trust? In the cool streets and blazing bazaars, the word is out: a great treasure has gone missing in the Everlasting City of the Cat, and some very ambitious people have set their sights on it. Many paws and claws are out, and everyone is sniffing around for something rich and strange. It’s an odd time for a catfolk thief and a gnoll merchant to make very tempting offers to strangers in town. Or, perhaps it’s not odd at all. Get caught up in the hunt with Cat and Mouse by Richard Pett and Greg Marks! A perfect introduction to the Southlands campaign setting, and it fits neatly into any desert city where cats are sacred and rats are cautious and sly.
The PCs must infiltrate a city ruled by monsters to search for the spymaster that holds the key to saving a besiged nation. Pgs. 26-50
Sinister Forces Terrorize a Town The town of Brindinford is in the midst of its annual street fair. Joy and merriment abound - until calamity disrupts the celebration. Are rival gangs responsible? Is the government sliding into tyranny? Or is a nightmarish plot about to come to fruition? "The Speaker in Dreams" is a stand-alone adventure for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game. Player characters are in for a wild ride in this river town. Leave the dungeon behind: the terrors lurking in Brindinford are more challenging by far! In The Speaker in Dreams, the town of Brindinford is besieged by evil forces under the command of Ghaerleth Axom. A street fair is interrupted by an attack, which serves as a distraction for the villain's forces to attack the keep of the local baron. This provides an entry point for the player characters into the main quest to discover the secret alliances trying to take over the town. The Speaker in Dreams is an event-based, rather than site-based, adventure.
The trouble began several weeks ago when a duergar excavation team went to work in a long-abandoned temple. Drawn to the temple by stories of riches and artifacts, the duergar hired several giants as laborers before cracking the temple’s sealed doors. The largest of the giants, a loathsome Thursir mutant named Huppo, used his acidic vomit to expedite tunneling into the temple’s collapsed hall of worship. Then, Huppo found the horn—an unusual instrument made from a single piece of stone, with a mouthpiece so intricate only a master carver could have made it. The horn became the giant’s obsession. Seeing only the horn’s potential sale value, the dwarves demanded Huppo turn it over to them, but Huppo refused. To force compliance, the dwarves stopped feeding the gluttonous brute, but Huppo had already found his own source of food; in deep areas of the temple, worms were chewing out of the rocks, and Huppo ate them by the fistful. He also played the horn. Then, after several days of blowing the horn and devouring the strange worms, Huppo released a belch so noxious the dwarves had no choice but to lock him in a sealed chamber and carefully consider their next move. The horn’s call, however, had caught the attention of passing nomadic orcs. They set up camp outside the temple entrance in the hope of finding the horn and its player. That’s the current situation at the temple: the giant refuses to stop blowing the horn and belching out deadly clouds of stomach gas; the dwarves are frightened and edgy while their leader is obsessed with malevolent whispers; orcs are threatening to overrun the place; and the population of worms grows steadily as something awakens deep in the stone beneath the sanctuary of belches.
Excitement and unrest grip the land of Pellham. Two hundred years ago, the royal line of kings was deposed and replaced by a High Council. The current council is well-meaning but hopelessly incompetent. Everyone agrees that a drastic change is needed for the kingdom to survive. The ancient Prophecy of Brie foretells that in Pellham's darkest hour, a king from the past will return to restore the kingdom. The time of the prophecy is now. All is in readiness: the symbols of the ancient kings have been recovered, the keys to the royal tomb are in hand, powerful magics to revive the long-dead king have been secured at great cost. Only one problem remains... no one knows where the king is buried! The Bane of Llywelyn concludes the epic adventure of the Prophecy of Brie -- can YOU insure that the quest will be a success? The adventure can be played as a separate adventure or as the second part of the Prophecy of Brie series. TSR 9109
Chaos reigns outside Roslof Keep, and the spread of the violet corruption runs deep within Mithelvarn's Dungeon. Now, the Company of the Ivory Scimitar must not only face the challenges of the Roslof delve, but will also find the dangers of the Kelmalin Wildlands must be overcome as well if they are ever to get to the bottom of the deadly plague that ravages the land. Time is running out, and only those brave enough will be able to face the horrors of the Glade of the Burning Dead and the dark recesses of The Hill. This adventure is formatted to both 1E & 5E gaming rules. Also available in PDF.
Some time ago, the wind began to sing of death in the Sision River Valley, and if purgatory was a song, Glovakians are now listening to it. The source of this soul-crushing music was tracked to about 90 miles northwest of Ambir. What was found? A massive, oddly built stone tower that wasn't there before. Word quickly spread and the curious set out in droves. Many turned back however, as every passing day the music got worse, but a brave, or foolish few, managed to make camp and eventually go inside. If anyone's made it out, no one really knows, but there's no shortage of rumors as to what's really going on in the place that's come to be known as, Sision Tower. Sision Tower is an OSR styled, vertical dungeon-crawl where the PCs explore an odd domain of Holy origins. Here, they will test their survival skills as well as their Faith. Here, they will meet Saints and Seraphs. Here, in the struggle between Law and Chaos they have to decide.....Plunder??......Sacrifice??......or Both!!! Sision Tower includes: All original black and white art. Over a dozen, fully illustrated, new magic items. Unique monsters and a sample setting. A vertical dungeon-crawl of 35 rooms. A spiritual setting in the same vein as Praise the Fallen. Sision Tower is designed to challenge character levels 3-5 and is easily used with most tradtional fantasy role-play systems.
The adventure takes players from a town devastated by an unexpected flood, through a drowned land where nature is turned upside down and desperate families cling to the roofs of their ruined homes, hiding from the monstrous products of a disordered world, through the strange tomb of an ancient race, to a profundal zone, hidden for millennia and now exposed, and finally to the Observatory itself, an eerie abandoned treasure palace, where they will encounter a pale and unexpected terror which will seek to claim their lives. The adventure is suitable for a lucky mid-range party, a stupid high-level party or an exceedingly clever low level party. It is difficult, with a meaningful possibility of character death. Should you find them, and defeat their guardians, the treasures of an ancient culture will be yours. At the final point of the Observatory is a glimpse of another world. Published by False Machine Publishing
A tribe of evil norkers led by a human illusionist threaten the town of Nolivari. The heroes must brave the wilderness, find Grakhirt's lair, and defeat him to ensure the safety of the local villagers. A straightforward dungeon crawl against lots of norkers! When do you get to see those guys in an adventure? Lots of monsters from the AD&D Monster Manual II as well. This adventure features a little bait-and-switch; the titular bad guy Grakhirt is assumed to be a norker, or gnoll, or some other monstrous humanoid, but is in fact a human illusionist/assassin! Note: The adventure doesn't feature caves AND a dungeon, but since the caves are treated like a dungeon with doors and numbered rooms, this is listed as a dungeon adventure as well. Pgs. 28-37
The whispered worries grow more fanciful and terrifying by the day... where has the loremistress gone?... what's wrong with the master smith?... who-or what-stalks the marketplace?... The questions need answers, and heroes are needed to do the asking! But the only thing worse than what hunts the mist-shrouded streets is what lies beneath them... Adventure in Dun Eamon: Demons roam the streets of the city of Dun Eamon, criminals rule the night and an important local power figure has gone missing. Can your heroes unravel the clues that lead through every social element of the city, into the hearts of its inhabitants and far below its streets in search of answers? Or are some mysteries better left unsolved? Uncover An Artifact: The Grey Citadel is a mini-campaign of urban detective work and dungeon exploration designed for four or more characters of 5th level. Set in a rain-soaked, rough-and-tumble frontier city, The Grey Citadel offers numerous colorful NPCs, a richly unique location, new monsters and magic items plus enough plot twists to provide hours of role-playing and door-kicking adventure where your wits must be as sharp as your swords!" This adventures mixes dungeon crawl with city investigation, keyed encounters and timed encounters.
Red for love, white for purity, black for death. He was thoughtful, obedient, and trustworthy - the epitome of a traitor. All he needed were some heroes. A powerful undead knight, Agrovale, wants to be released from a necromancer named Talakara. He sets in motion an elaborate plan to get the players involved in overthrowing Talakara in her bid to become a goddess. He frames the necromancer for a kidnapping and murder and leaves a trail of clues to lead the players to her stronghold. The party travels through an extensive stronghold filled with many different monsters, finishing with a fight with the demigod Talakara and subsequently the freedom-seeking Agrovale. Pgs. 38-63
The player characters are contracted to go on an expedition to discover the fate of a long-lost tribe of Elves (the followers of King Thiondar). This is a lengthy adventure across several locations. Roleplaying is stressed, as some encounters will be very deadly if resolved through combat.
"The creatures are just too intelligent, too crafty, and too strategy-minded to "rampage." Rampaging brings the wrath of oath-bound knights, powerful mages, and divinely-protected priests. Why would a dragon want such attention, unless it had some special secret, or unless it was insane? Or both. The northern reaches of the Derideth Swamp were once plagued by a rampaging dragon. This black dragon, named Storamere, took a mad glee in attacking human villages, wiping out orc camps, driving off the lizardfolk, and decimating farmland. He met his untimely end, though, in an ambush devised by the monks of the Order of St. Chausle. Storamere died with a curse upon his draconic tongue: "you could not have defeated me in my lair," he told his slayers. "I am forever invincible in my lair." Now Storamere is back, with a horde of his misshapen half-dragon offspring, to have his vengeance. All that remains of the once-heroic monks are two old men driven mad by their last encounter with the black dragon, so it falls to a band of adventurers to again defeat the mighty dragon -- this time in his palace, where the boastful Storamere claims he is at his strongest." Includes maps and damage rules for navigating Storamere's lair, a semi-solid palace made of a dangerous, corrosive liquid five feet thick and located on the ethereal plane. Most of the monsters in the lair have the Half-Dragon template applied. Published by Atlas Games
A handful of would-be adventurers gathers to explore an ancient tomb, eager to trade their discoveries for a ticket to a better life. What they find within presages the advent of the Age of Worms, an era of darkness, decay, and writhing doom. "The Whispering Cairn" is the first installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path, a complete campaign consisting of 12 adventures, several "Backdrop" articles to help Dungeon masters run the series, and a handful of poster maps of key locations. For additional aid in running this campaign, check out Dragon's monthly "Worm Food" articles, a series that provides additional materials to help players survive this campaign. Pgs. 14-47