The king requests your presence in the honorable kingdom of Norwold. If you're worthy, you may be appointed lord of a dominion filled with friendly villages, sturdy fortresses, and raging band of monsters. Raging bands of monsters? Well, yes, and you may have to lead your forces into a war or two. But you'll be ready for the challenge. You'll be ready for treacherous spies who conspire to steal you land. You'll be ready for a foul band of giants that raids your dominions. And you'll be ready for the inevitable clash of empires, the outcome of which may alter the fate of millions. You'll be ready! Won't you? Test of the Warlords includes a complete campaign setting, several new NPCs, and dungeon and wilderness encounters, and guidelines for running a war between empires. TSR 9117
The ancient world of Harth withers beneath its dying sun…but it’s not dead yet. Welcome to the strange and dangerous city of Carcassay, huddled below the skeleton of a titan rat, sprawling above the ruins of countless dead civilizations. This is where folk come to find wealth, power, revenge, secrets, oblivion… and everything in between. Carcassay is a sandbox city adventure. There are many locations to explore in, around, and under the city. Players can explore any place at any time, and may radically reshape the city’s politics, economy, religions, and physical existence. There are standard dungeons stacked under the city, and GMs are encouraged to keep adding more dungeons… all the way down. Tone. It leans more toward low fantasy or sword-and-sorcery. Most shops look like real shops. Most people look like real people. But strange and horrible things lurk everywhere as soon as you start to scratch the surface. This is my Lankhmar. Carcassay is a vast, bizarre city. It has over 100 locations where you can meet Chaos cultists, Lawful knights, retired adventurers, shopkeepers, brewers, musicians, artists, scientists, hermits, royalty, beggars, doctors, space vampires, eldritch horrors, machine priests, crab colonists, mushroom farmers, mummies, assassins, and diplomats from distant lands… and the moon. And every one of them has goods or services to sell, and a quest (or three) to offer. What sort of quests? Fetch a relic, assassinate a rival, find a relative, steal a soul, implant an agent, cure a disease, stop a riot, solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet, hunt a thief, locate a shrine… the list goes on. And for every Quest, there is a specific Reward: money, weapons, relics, Chaos mutations, exclusive memberships, information, Angelic miracles… the list goes on. This is a place where you can make a lot of money, but also where you can spend that money on interesting goods and services. Factions? We have a few. Seven Chaos cults, five knightly orders, two mercenary companies, four wealthy families, six (seven!) Corpse Lords, foreign diplomats, rival innkeepers, rival tavern owners, plus all the dungeon-delving gangs currently mucking about underground. When you grow weary of all the adventures at ground level, there are three classic dungeons buried under the city to explore. This book contains months (if not years) of campaigning. Enjoy the Chaos.
A hundred miles off the Chelish coast lies the remote island of Deepmar, where the House of Thrune sends prisoners to work in crystal mines, wresting valuable spell components from the depths of the earth. A month ago, all contact with the penal colony ceased, and now someone must discover what mysterious fate has befallen the prisoners and guards of this isolated mining operation.
Something is killing people in Palebank Village, and if the party does not stop it they could be next.
If the PCs are to avert the Age of Worms, they must invade the heartland of Kyuss' power, the Wormcrawl Fissure, and destroy one of the world's most powerful dracoliches before the Wormgod awakens. "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure" is the eleventh 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. Issue #343 of Dragon presents statistics for some extraplanar entities the PCs may wish to call upon to aid them in the Wormcrawl Fissure. Pgs. 54-89
A Maze of Tragedy and Mystery. While investigating a mysteriously abandoned mansion, the adventurers stumble into a tangled web of kidnapping, theft and murder. From a mansion with a deadly secret to the blood-stained waves of the high seas and an ancient, cursed citadel, the adventurers face a succession of deadlier and deadlier foes, with the rescue of innocents and the recovery of fabulous treasure as their ultimate rewards. A Family Affair includes a fully-developed town setting, numerous unique NPCs and a wide range of challenging opponents.
A mysterious tower beckons. Recently a strange tower hidden in the forest was rediscovered, but only one scout returned to tell the tale, but a strange tale of cults, bandits and ghosts it was. Dare our heroes explore this forgotten place? Originally from the Danish convention Fastaval as part of the living campaign, Hinterlandet. Now presented here for the first time in English. It is an adventure with emphasis on exploration and meeting the unknown.
Will the adventurers be able to thwart the machinations of a mad dragon in the hopes of saving the city of Sharn from certain destruction? Is the slinky elven maiden really in trouble or working for the enemy? Is the body in the morgue really the center of this whole puzzle or merely one piece? This adventure, in the style of a Dashiell Hammett novel, will certainly test their skill and resolve. This is the first full adventure for Eberron with the 4th edition D&D(R) rules. This adventure builds on the sample adventure provided in the Eberron Campaign Guide but is also playable as a stand-alone adventure.
Citadel by the Sea is an AD&D gaming module for 4-8 characters, each of 1st to 3rd level. The fewer the characters available, the higher their levels should be. Characters should be well equipped, with at least one magical weapon apiece, but do not need any particular game experience. It is recommended that at least one ranger character and one elf character be members of the adventuring party, and that no player character be a half-orc. The Dungeon Master should read the entire module carefully before running this adventure; the events are laid out in the approximate order in which characters would normally encounter them, and the text builds the adventure as one reads through it.
"Few brave souls dare to visit the City of the Dead at night. Some might say that tales of nighttime horrors are for children, but the wise folk know better" Three members of the Jackals gang, a famous grave robbers, are found murdered in the City of the Dead cemetery in Waterdeep. Their wounds are horrible, and their jaws are completely destroyed. City Watch is looking for heroes who are willing to stand up for their city and investigate this murder which has a clear supernatural influence. This adventure can be used as a faction mission for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as well as a standalone one-shot. Sins of the Past features: - Investigation of a mysterious murder, which leads to uncovering one of Waterdeep’s families dark secret - Old family mausoleum full of dangers and secrets - Famous Mirror of Life Trapping with enemies trapped inside, which adventurers should face - Encounters with various undead creatures like will-o-wisps, zombies, specters, and ghosts - Moral dilemma characters should solve and two possible outcomes
You and your cohorts have their first adventure under their belts and are now recognized heroes of the realm! You plan on building your reputations but one of your henchmen has promised his love that he would marry her. You and your group are happy to attend and quickly discover that danger lurks everywhere as bandits crash the celebration.
The Hag's Hexes is a 66 page guide designed by Dungeon Masters Guild luminaries like JVC Parry and Janek Sielicki alongside rising stars and old stalwarts like Matt Butler, Matthew Gravelyn, and Tim Bannock. It was created with one thing in mind: to make hags more than the sum of their (often meager) Challenge ratings, giving them the mechanics, roleplay potential, and weird magic that can inspire campaigns, lay low kings and warlords, and potentially ensnare unwary Player Characters into campaign-changing curses or long-term bargains that force them into terrible moral quandaries! Split into five chapters, the authors have provided everything a DM needs to terrify their players for years to come. The Bestiary features over a dozen monsters; some are new hags, some are their minions or even their mobile lairs, and one of them -- the Shaitan AKA Desert Hag -- was featured in Monsters of the Guild! Bargains & Curses is a chapter filled with ideas that can kick-start campaigns, threaten valued NPCs, or put Player Characters' very existence and morality at stake. Chapter 3 includes two dozen items of wonderment, weirdness, and dread, ranging from fairy tale-inspired items of whimsy to terribly cursed items of horror. Chapter 4 is titled "Filthy, Vile & Downright Dirty" and provides dozens of roleplaying tips to make hags come alive, new mechanics inspired by and expanding on Volo's Guide to Monsters (coven spell lists, aunties, grandmothers, alternative coven members), and ends with useful combat tactics for each of the hags from the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide, as well as tactics for covens. Finally, Chapter 5 presents five encounter groups (with sub-encounters) to give you quick story seeds and monster lists that you can put together in minutes to create a single encounter or to inspire a full campaign, and ends with three full-length adventures -- each with 3-5 encounters -- that showcase many of the new monsters, rules, magic items, and so on that appeared in earlier chapters. Each of these adventures comes with an encounter map meant to act as inspiration for hag lairs, and they include useful mechanical ideas for terrain effects and descriptive keywords listed directly on the map for added inspiration and easy customization! Designed by Tim Bannock. Written by Matt Butler, JVC Parry, Janek Sielicki, and Tim Bannock. Edited by Matthew Gravelyn and Tim Bannock. Cover Art by Elena Naylor. Cartography by Tim Bannock using Inkwell Ideas' Dungeonographer (Dungeonographer is copyright Inkwell Ideas). Layout & Graphic Elements by Elena Naylor with Tim Bannock. Interior Art by Arcana Games, Bruno Balixa, David Lewis Johnson, Dean Spencer, Earl Geier, Filip Gutowski, Jacob E. Blackmon, Joyce Maureira, Petr Kratochvil, Jayaraj Paul, Brian Brinlee, and Wizards of the Coast.
An older man named Mars Barz approaches you and your associate as you wander the small town of Senja. He is a local alchemist and purveyor of elixirs and has a delivery mission he needs fulfilled. You’ve got time to kill…why not!
A horror fantasy adventure for 3-5 1st level characters The hunched beast prowls the forest, sniffing at the still air. The roiling sky flashes and thunder breaks the silence. The time is near and the beast senses it. The monstrous form bounds toward the darkened village, a demonic howl in its throat... Shipwrecked on a perilous shore, a group of adventurers stumble into a blighted land and come face to face with a great black beast with a terrible curse. Can they unravel the mystery and solve the Barghest's curse before it’s too late? - 58 pages, 10 locations, 10 dungeon rooms - 2 new spells and 5 new monsters - Over 20 original illustrations - Inspired by English folklore - Emphasis on exploration, interaction, and usability
The Heartland Scouts – brave defenders of the Coast Way – have been captured! What their captors haven’t counted on is the adventurers’ feisty animal companions. Left behind, they are nevertheless bound to spell trouble! In this entirely unique adventure, players take on the roles of trusty animal companions and familiars on a quest to rescue their adventurer masters. Surely leaving behind a druid’s harmless badger friend is no threat to one of the great evil powers of the world – or is it? Rescue: A Familiar Tale features a story and challenges designed especially for the animal companions. Players choose and customize their animal companion from over 20 options, with illustrated character sheets included for each one. This adventure does not require existing player characters and can be enjoyed by players of any experience level with the game. While it makes for a perfect “something different” one shot, Rescue can also serve as a session zero for any new campaign and includes guidelines for a fun and surprising way to create inspired new characters at the adventure’s end!
Expect a surprise when you open a magic jar. The evil wizard had a fail-safe plan for survival. It worked perfectly - almost... Pgs. 58-71
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.
In the city of Waterdeep rests a tavern called the Yawning Portal, named after the gaping pit in its common room. At the bottom of this crumbling shaft is a labyrinthine dungeon shunned by all but the most daring adventurers. Known as Undermountain, this dungeon is the domain of the mad wizard Halaster Blackcloak. Long has the Mad Mage dwelt in these forlorn depths, seeding his lair with monsters, traps, and mysteries—to what end is a constant source of speculation and concern. This adventure picks up where Waterdeep: Dragon Heist leaves off, taking characters of 5th level or higher all the way to 20th level should they explore the entirety of Halaster’s home. Twenty-three levels of Undermountain are detailed herein, along with the subterranean refuge of Skullport. Treasures and secrets abound, but tread with care!
A museum of the Mad Archmage, it contains curiosities and treasures from all over the multiverse, and the challenges of the Watery Caves, which are a series of living caves connected by an underground river. This adventure can be used as an expansion to the Castle of the Mad Archmage mega-dungeon adventure, or as a stand-alone adventure. Published by BRW Games
A fiend lurks among the Black Blade goblins. A shapeshifting barghest fashioned by the General of Gehenna to exact revenge on all goblin-kind. It’s aim: to kill as many goblin leaders as possible… A masked goblin approaches the party asking for help. Two tribe leaders are dead. But a rival for chief has control of the crime scene. Will the party discover the barghest among the goblin ranks? Can they stop this imposter before it strikes again? Adventure Overview The adventure’s story is spread over 4 parts and takes approximately 4 hours to play. The adventure begins with a Call to Action scene. Part 1: Goblin Politics. Krill sends his emissaries to implore help from any strong intermediary. The party is asked to investigate the murder of Thrawn in Dringly’s lair. This is Story Objective A. Part 2: The Opposition. Gain entry into Dringly’s lair and investigate the murder of Thrawn. Gather enough evidence to find the killer. This is Story Objective B. Part 3: To The Lair! Now that the players have determined the barghest (Yeep) is to blame, they need to get to Krill’s lair quickly as he is in imminent danger. This is Story Objective C. Part 4: The Barghest.When the players arrive at the lair, they need to get to Krill and expose and defeat the barghest. This is Story Objective D. Adventure Background A barghest named Yeep has begun its onslaught of attacks against the Black Blade goblins. Starting with Chief Gnar, then his second in command Thrawn, the barghest is moving methodically down the line of command. Krill is now chief. But he has some problems: Two leaders of the Black Blades are dead. Who killed them and why? Is he next? Dringly, the next in command, has decided to take his lair for himself, declaring himself Chief of the Black Blades. Who are the Black Blades? The Black Blades are a tribe of goblins in the local area. They are known for dipping their blades in a dark black substance. It is rumored these blades are poisonous. The Black Blades regularly attack passersby on the road to rob them. The Black Blades have two lairs, one run by a chief who leads the whole tribe, and another overseen by a boss lieutenant. The Black Blades have a well-established pecking order which is how Krill stands to become chief. The next in line is Dringly, who has also declared himself chief and wants Krill dead. Krill suspects that there is something suspicious about two leaders being killed within a day of each other, but he has already burned Gnar’s body without any investigation. He needs to investigate the body of Thrawn, but it is in Dringly’s lair. Krill wishes to avoid direct confrontation with Dringly at the present for three reasons: 1) Any violence would only kill his own tribe members and further divide the lairs. 2) He believes there is still hope for negotiation to reunite the Black Blades. 3) He believes that if he were to attempt negotiations himself, Dringly would kill him. This adventure features: Two maps. Ready for your favorite Virtual Tabletop. A full color pdf. A black and white pdf. One custom monster, a reprint of barghest, all others available in the Monster Manual. Four hours of entertainment involving: roll playing a goblin bard, investigating a murder scene, tracking down a barghest before it strikes again. Applicable to any setting.