Long rumored to be haunted by eerie specters, Kincep Mansion has stood for years, mostly untouched by nearby townsfolk. Now something is preying on the local villagers—something that comes from the house. Pgs. 46-69
The adventurers have delved into the Abyss to strike at the Demon Lord of Undeath, Orcus. On the layer of Thanatos, the Blood Lord has many outposts from which he spreads his corruption. One of his primary lieutenants is Doresain, the Ghoul King. If the PCs kill Doresain in his lair, they will strike a real blow against the foul demon lord. Pgs. 174-179
A cold winter wind blows from the Scourge Mountains, but its origins are not of this world. And with it come horrifying stories of a fey who walks the land. Cold, beautiful, and deadly, she turns every mortal she touches into a statue of ice, and she seems determined to blanket the entire north in a blanket of frost. It is the Winter of the Witch…and if the archfey Koliada is not stopped, it could be the world’s last. “Winter of the Witch” starts with the PCs receiving an urgent but somewhat cryptic message from the skeletal knight, Sir Keegan. They find the skeletal knight a helpless victim of an aggressive interrogation by an undead minion of Orcus and his demonic thugs, who are attempting to extract the location of something called the Sun’s Sliver from the stubborn knight. The PCs fight their way into deep ruins, defeat the demon lord’s toadies, and retrieve the Sun’s Sliver. Once the PCs have recovered the Sun's Sliver, they must confront the Winter Witch in Winter's Heart, the witch's icy sanctum in the Feywild. Only there can they confront the cold-hearted archfey and save a section of the world from a wintery doom.
Long ago, before the arrival of civilized humanoids, a large colony of ogres thrived in the local area. When a great invasion from another dimension threatened this colony, their king, Koptila, prayed for his people to be spared. The gods heard these pleas, but commanded Koptila to sacrifice himself. The leader did so, and the clan disappeared—whisked away by the gods and lost to time. Over the years, a city grew up above the former subterranean home of the ogres, and no aspect of Koptila’s ancient bargain was preserved or remembered. Even so, the stars are aligned for the return of Koptila and his people. These powerful repatriates are unlikely to appreciate the changes in their old home. A sage has found dusty documents prophesying this return, and he asks the PCs to investigate the catacombs to defeat the potential threat to the city. The PCs travel down through city sewers and subterranean passages before finding the catacombs that the ogre colony once called home. Pgs. 48-53
The rough ground on the outskirts of the village of Col Fen once served as a graveyard for an evil temple destroyed long ago. A recent disturbance released some of the ancient evil buried here, and now the dead in this graveyard are beginning to walk. Several villagers have already vanished and more will die if the undead are not put to rest. Pgs. 56-63
When the PCs stumble into the Feywild, they find themselves in the middle of Mithrendain— a glorious eladrin city of grace and beauty. But as the heroes find themselves the target of mysterious attacks, they begin to discover that something rotten lurks in the city’s heart. Sunlight bathes the soaring towers of the eladrin city of Mithrendain. Gentle breezes swirl through wooded parks and along well-kept streets, and in the ancient settlement whos golden hues have seen it named the Autumn City, thousands live in peace and prosperity. For centuries, the fomorian chasms deep beneath the city have stood silent below the great magical seals that closed them in the wanting days of the eladrin empire. Over long years, the folk of Mithrendain have forgotten the dark threats of old, becoming complacent in their tranquility. And so none suspect that corruption lurks at the heart of the city, spreading out from the shadows to taint all it touches. Pgs. 104-128
E2, following up on Death's Reach, the PC's first travel to Sigil following the smuggled remains of the primordial Timesus. The pursuit then leads into the Abyss, through the White Kingdom to face Doresain, the Ghoul King, exarch of Orcus. The module certainly is epic, placing the PCs up against powerful monsters like greater demons, death knights, and a demilich. It may be frustrating that the PCs arrive too late to disrupt the plot (have to allow for the finale in the next adventure) but taking out Orcus' right hand ghoul may be satisfying. Includes a skill challenge for crossing a portion of the Abyss For environments, City refers to Sigil.
The Raiders’ Hideout is a series of underground chambers (or perhaps the interior of a pyramid) that serves as a base of operations for a band of gnoll desert raiders. The PCs have come to exact a measure of justice for recent brutal caravan raids. They’ve tracked the gnolls to their lair, where they intend to end the threat to desert trade once and for all. Pgs. 30-35
Your PCs are reaching the upper end of the heroic tier. New worlds are opening up to them—they might have already ventured to the Feywild, for example, and made contacts with inhabitants of that magical plane. Now they are ready to take their first steps into the darkness. The Shadowfell awaits... Vandariel, a shadar-kai witch who calls herself the Voice of Pain, is a fanatic devotee of the Raven Queen. She has founded and become the self-proclaimed high priest of a bizarre cult, the Lords of Pain, whose purpose is to bring more fey into the shadow pact with that goddess of death. Although the original shadar-kai entered this pact voluntarily, and the race breeds true, Vandariel is consumed by what she sees as a divine mission to reveal the mystery to all fey—whether they wish it or not. Those who do not come voluntarily to the truth are brought against their will. Dark stalkers move like the night, seeking out and abducting suitable subjects. This Side Trek can serve as an introduction to the dangers of the shadow realm. It works well for PCs who are approaching the paragon tier, since it presents a reasonable challenge for characters of 10th level. It is suitable as a climactic encounter for lowerlevel adventurers, as well. It consists of only two encounters.
Uncover a Hidden Legacy A lost passageway on the upper level of the most infamous dungeon in Faerûn has recently been uncovered. When a patron hires a band of adventurers to brave the dangers of Undermountain, a search is on to uncover secrets of an apprentice of the dungeon’s lost creator – Halaster.
The Raven Queen’s servants often seek out mighty allies. One of these is the black dragon Quetzallus, who resides in a deep cavern on the Shadowfell guarding a stream of souls flowing into the Raven Queen’s realm. But a death knight named Raxikarthus, betrayed by the Raven Queen in life, now seeks to enslave this dragon for his own purposes. He madly believes that he can stand against the Raven Queen, and seeks allies of all stripes—even her own servants—to do so. The death knight has found a pathway into the Shadowfell thought closed by mortals. Beneath a decayed keep, the undead dragonborn has reopened this portal and led his forces into the Shadowfell itself. The PCs are called in to beard the death knight in his lair. They find it abandoned, but discover a strange passage in the lower reaches. Pgs. 162-167
In the aftermath of AD&D Second Edition's "Return to the Tomb of Horrors," the demilich Acererak was thought destroyed. In truth, his spirit lingered and now after eons he schemes once more to achieve divinity. The characters must travel to three extraplanar dungeons, in addition to the remains of the original Tomb, in order to stop this from coming to pass.
Death slithers across the Dunes. Nightmares of desert horrors trouble the dreams of the innocent while raiders grow ever bolder beyond the walls of the great city-state of Tyr. Bandits and merchants chase rumors of a temple hidden in the desert, an ancient shrine to the primordial Ul-Artha said to safeguard a fragment of the artifact known as the Crown of Dust. Can the heroes recover a caravan lost in the wastes, repel the threat of vicious raiders, and win the relic form the perilous temple? Now that Tyr is free of Kalak the Sorcerer-King, opportunity abounds in the city and the surrounding wastes. But some see Kalak's fall as the beginning of Tyr's end, and the unpatrolled deserts nearby are rife with danger. Outlaws openly defy the city's Revolutionary Council and threaten outlying holdings. If Tyr is to thrive, heroes must arise to tame the lawlessness and evil that threatens the free city.
"Blood Money" is a caper adventure in which the adventurers work outside the law to pull off a major robbery. Good planning is essential, and the characters need to stay cool under pressure.
A flameskull lord that calls itself the Bright Lord of Everburning Fire has taken control of a primordial node deep within the Elemental Chaos. It long ago shrugged off the control of its original creator and now follows its own plans and desires. Top among these is the desire to tap into the power of a fire primordial and increase its own status from undead creature to demigod. Pgs. 156-161
The necromancer Tal Lorvas has unearthed an underground tomb that dates back to the height of the ancient tiefling empire. Lorvas has been terrorizing the surrounding lands with his vile experiments, and now he hopes to find a ring, hidden in the tomb, that is tied to a ritual he wants to perform by the rise of the next full moon. The PCs must enter the tomb of Empress Nemeia, deal with the servants of the necromancer, and confront Tal Lorvas before he can claim the ancient relic and move one step closer to ultimate power over the undead. Pgs. 36-41
Beyond the mortal world, somewhere outside the bounds of the Astral Sea, the Far Realm yawns immeasurable. Beyond the reality of gods and mortals, this plane is a realm of contradictions, a mad place of fevered creation checked only by pointless extinction. The Outside is a sea of diseased possibilities, where the stuff of madness seethes in a soup of the incomprehensible and the unnamable—shuddering, squirming, and sentient. The Stormcrows, responding to the psychic cry from the stone, dispatched a force to retrieve it. The attackers descend on Wellspring, slaughtering and destroying in the search for their treasure. PCs can come to the town’s defense and repel the horde. A priestess of Ioun then turns to the heroes to find the item the monsters were seeking. From the recovering town, the heroes cross the wilderness to the Kaorti Temple. The trail ends at a ruined tower overlooking a deep ravine. Inside the tower, the heroes must overcome the terrible creatures in their search. In the end, they find the relic has been stolen.
The seaside town of Ashenport has a troubled past and a dark secret. If you spend a night in Ashenport, you just might not wake up the next morning. "The Last Breaths of Ashenport" is an adventure of survival and alien horrors. The adventure is self-contained and can be placed in any setting. Pgs. 70-105
A Conspiracy of Doors is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for five player characters of 11th level. It can serve as an introduction to Sigil, the City of Doors, as well as a group of adventurers' first taste of action at the paragon tier.
Something stirs in the dark heart of the Warwood, and in response something stirs in the stars. A simple encounter with bandits on the road leads the PCs to a frightening place where even dreams are deadly. Cultists seek to free the soul of a terrible entity from beyond the stars. The PCs must retrieve the soul vessel of a long-dead evil paladin to stop cultists’ plan from coming to fruition. Pgs. 60-92