About: This encounter was cooked up in the Write your First Encounter workshop by the Storytelling Collective. It CAN be slid in as a side quest in any urban or sub-urban context, or be adapted to add confusion to any rescue mission you are presently running. Synopsis: Through the doorway a young woman shackled to the wall matching the description of Helena can be seen. Though disheveled and looking to be in great discomfort, her beauty is remarkable. But on closer inspection, there are other people here — three identical Helenas! Noble woman Elize Cleron has hired the party to infiltrate the catacombs under the Schaefer Estate and free her twin sister Helena. Helena is being held captive by the Schaefer family, trade rivals rumored to have ties to the underworld. Elize has been unable to free her sister herself because of her identical appearance. Rather than pay an unrealistic ransom, Elize has provided the party with what they need to break her out. This encounter is intended for 3rd level characters.
You have no friends here What can you do when the Mists deposit you in the city of Lekar? The militia is no better than a gang of sadistic bullies, the citizens are more contagious than a fleet of plague ships, and every foot of public space is covered with corpses of criminals who committed no crime greater than struggling to survive in the oppressive domain of Falkovnia. Danger haunts your every move A secret society of assassins, known only as the Ebon Fold, has been hunting down visitors to Lekar and killing them in a most grisly fashion; all that remains of the victims are desiccated husks that crumble to ash when touched... and you are their next targets. There is no escape When everyone who has befriended you is either dead or hunted by the authorities, you have no choice but to fight back. But the Ebon Fold is a numberless horde whose leader holds sway over death. How can you defeat enemies that won't stay in the grave? They strike from the depths of darkness and steal your life... one dagger stroke at a time. This 64-page adventure can be played independently, or as the opening challenge in the Grim Harvest series that continues with Death Ascendant and concludes with Requiem. Inside the package is a poster map that fully details asll 10 levels of the chilling complex known as the Well of Bones. TSR 9523
Swamp creatures! They surround you now as you move slowly through the gurgling muck. How will you reach Quagmire now? Each day, the hungry sea swallows more of the ancient port city. A fierce fever ravages its people, and now - these foul monsters! Their beady eyes glimmer from deep within the tangled vines. Are these the creatures that have blockaded the city, turning away the ships that are the city's lifeline? Are these the scum that are starving the people of Quagmire, threatening an entire race with extinction? These creeps? Let's clean this jungle out! Quagmire includes a large-scale map that expands the D&D world and introduces new areas to explore. The adventure also includes new magic items and a special, expanded monsters section. Hurry! Hoist your colors, saddle your horse - go, before the city by the sea becomes the city beneath the sea! TSR 9081
Can you survive the Madhouse of Tasha’s Kiss? Or will you go mad trying? A small village, empty of villagers except for one boy found sitting and weeping next to a jester’s pageant wagon. The boy explains that the villagers, including his family, followed a jester into the wagon and never came out. A portal to a pocket dimension is found inside the wagon, leading to a brass door with the word Madhouse etched into it. What lays beyond the door? What madness could the adventurers face? Can they save the villagers, or will they go mad trying? Published by Jeff Stevens Games
A Scarred Lands Adventure. Maghiel has learned the location of the staff of Zuvys and has devised a way to use its power to aid her in summoning some strange fiends known as the “Mouths of Vangal”. What purpose she has in mind, what part this plays in her plan, only she can say. She has sent her henchman, a twisted wizard named Anuzor Okalis, to fetch the staff of Zuvys by whatever means necessary. Anuzor has used his magic to charm, disable, or destroy the Order of Silver guardians, and has penetrated the inner sanctum of the shrine. A Vengeance of the Shunned Side Quest The Staff and the Secret Shrine is a side quest that can be played standalone or used with the Vengeance of the Shunned campaign. Over 20 community content creators have banded together to bring a full-length campaign to the Slarecian Vault! Vengeance of the Shunned takes your adventurers across Ghelspad on a quest to end the greatest threat to the world since the Titanswar! This campaign offers adventures from levels 1-15, and will be releasing new content weekly ALL SUMMER LONG! Vengeance of the Shunned continues with A Titanic Feast by Jeremy Hochhalter! Published by Onyx Path Publishing
"A curse has spread through Darkroot Forest! Plants are attacking people, and the very air seems poisonous once you travel deep within the woods. Your group has decided to investigate this area, and rumors have it that the abandoned town of Faeriewell is where this disease started spreading. Or maybe the people of a nearby settlement asked for your help? or perhaps a noble Lord that just inherited the land hired you to clear out his new forest? This part is really up to you." The Curse of Faeriewell is an adventure for a level 5 party that you can easily drop into a campaign or play as a standalone one-shot. It will last between 3 and 5 hours. It is setting agnostic, but best at home in a Fantasy world. This adventure can serve as an interlude from your main campaign, a sidequest or simply as a one shot.
The Puzzling Tiemple of Flummox Heist is a linear dungeon crawl utilizing word puzzles and riddles written in the English language. Challenge your players and their characters with a brainteasing mix of puzzles, combat, and roleplay in this one-shot adventure for characters of 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th level which will delight fans of escape rooms and solve-at-home mystery adventures. Characters travel through a mysterious underground temple packed with nine carefully-crafted original puzzles, each one presented as a beautifully illustrated graphic and all woven carefully into the narrative. By doing so they unknowingly prepare themselves for ritual sacrifice by Flummox Heist, a trickster cleric who lurks at the heart of the temple. This unique adventure also features two exciting combat encounters - each with a story-relevant twist to standard monster mechanics - and a set of interesting and original NPCs to create an immersive story for you and your players. The unique puzzles are all designed to be short, self-contained, and satisfying to solve. There's no need for trial-and-error, no grinding through fiddly codebreaking, and no need to pause your game to look up information. Instead, each puzzle is crafted as a complete short challenge with that rewarding ah-ha! moment when the solution clicks. If the characters need a nudge in the right direction, the adventure includes a full Hints Appendix with a series of escalating clues so you can help them without giving away the solution. Of course, full answers are also provided in a Solutions Appendix. Perhaps you're looking for satisfying puzzles to add to your own adventures and campaign? Although this product is a complete one-shot adventure, each of the rooms can also be used independently, allowing you to use this product as a source of puzzles, enigmas, and conundrums which you can easily drop into your own game. Treat your puzzle-loving players and their characters to an amazing crossover of D&D 5E and escape-room-quality conundrums with The Puzzling Temple of Flummox Heist.
The entity known as Oreiax is a gruesome, stunted monstrosity born of ancient death. Rescued from an eternity of petrification by Doresain the Ghoul King, Oreiax immediately pledged itself to the Ghoul King's service, and thus indirectly, into Orcus's service. Oreiax, born of stone and death, seeks to glorify Doresain by petrifying the world. Pgs. 112-119
This introductory level scenario brings a new group of players into an area formerly controlled by the Tunnmaa Dynasty. This group of rulers was rich in gold and gems before collapsing. It is well known that their kings, known as Ga Mantse, were buried in underground barrows that are well hidden and protected by traps. A few days ago a group much like your own found one of these hidden tombs and attempted to investigate. Sadly for them they were not up to the task. Can your party succeed where they failed?
Just beyond the fields of Orleans a small hole in the earth hides treasure and monsters. The townsfolk are far too scared to delve inside the abandoned cave, but the marquis needs its silver, and right quick. Just a couple of miles away from the town of Orleans, between rolling hills and well maintained forests, a small mine, long abandoned, lies in wait. Once a lucrative silver mine the “little cave” is now shunned by both the miners and its owners, the marquis of Orleans. Local whispers say that a few decades ago its miners stumbled upon something evil that lurked beneath the earth which killed the marquis’s son and twenty miners. Old people tell of a curse that lay on the mine which if reopened would cast doom upon the town. A few even tell of tiny demons, not taller than a housecat, that live in the mine and torment the smiths of the city. True or not these stories have all one thing in common: they have kept people from using the mine and extracting its precious silver ore. This that has plagued the marquises for three generations already and so the last heir of the family, Touvel of Orleans, is looking for brave adventurers, knights, sorcerers and all able bodied folk that wish to brave the mines and secure them from whatever evil may lurk inside them.
In a small hamlet, things are strangely becoming tidy in the night. Far from being pleased, the citizens are alarmed by these events. A local painter has gone missing, as has a travelling scholar. What is going on here?
A new megadungeon from Three Castles Award Winner (2018) and Barrowmaze author Dr. Greg Gillespie! HighFell: The Drifting Dungeon is a 246-page classic megadungeon for use with any old school fantasy role-playing games/clone. The pages of HighFell are crammed full with new material, maps, and art, including a colour cover by Ex-TSR artist Erol Otus (that matches Barrowmaze Complete and The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia as sister-books). HighFell: The Drifting Dungeon will keep your players on their toes and your campaign going strong for years. HighFell is brought to you by the Old School Renaissance (so don’t forget your 10’ pole).
In lieu of a monetary reward for their latest adventure, the PCs have been 'gifted' land ownership in the form of a former religious holding on the coast. While the party cannot collect taxes, they can rennovate the building and use it as a base of operations as they adventure around the Katorian Sphere. Best of all, it sits on a vineyard!
Centuries ago, a beholder named Yeryl fled from the place of his birth and wandered the countryside in search for a place to call home. After many sleepless nights spent carving out a safe nook for himself in the wilderness, he at last slipped into slumber. In his dreams, he found an ideal place for his lair: long-abandoned ruins hidden amidst a dull and barren valley. Yeryl spent years transforming the place to suit his paranoid designs. Visitors were rare enough, and the few that made it to Yeryl’s lair were quickly destroyed or forced into the beholder’s service, building the lair ever deeper and more magnificent. As time went on, Yeryl finally completed his task. Safe at last, but with nothing to occupy his mind, Yeryl was struck by melancholy; was this lonely and empty life truly what he had chosen for himself? On that day, Yeryl made a decision: next time an adventurer came to his lair, he would welcome them in. With this resolution in mind, Yeryl began to dismantle his traps and replace them with ones he considered to be more fun. Unfortunately, for all his good intents, Yeryl has not yet realised that killing people is a bad way of getting them to like him. Yeryl's Super Happy Fun Murder Dungeon is a highly obnoxious and mildly ridiculous collection of traps, combat and puzzles designed to test your players' wits and patience. It is optimised for a group of four to five 3rd level players, but the text also contains a guide for level adjustments for different sized groups.
A Heart in Mourning is a dungeon crawl and survival adventure that takes the party through the mists into the strange and dangerous Mournland, where they encounter threats both environmental and living. The party has been given a map with the task of retrieving the Steelheart from Ash Tower, where the Provost’s research has led them under direction by Guild Handler Lhara. Their destination lies in the middle of a manifest zone of Shavarath. Once there, the party will have to survive a tower climb filled with fiends, demons, and more in order to retrieve the Steelheart, a powerful artifact guarded by a powerful guardian.
In this prelude to the full Princes of the Apocalypse campaign book, adventurers face off against the influence of Elemental Cultists in the hills and canyons of the Dessarin Valley. The four mini-adventures within are only tangentially related to each-other, and instead serve as starting points and hooks for the plots of the complete Princes of the Apocalypse Campaign. Players start in the well-described town of Red Larch; first investigating a local necromancer, then uncovering cult influences within the town, and finally heading off to infiltrate or do battle with two small elemental cultist strongholds. All parts of this adventure can serve as great places to seed hooks for other campaigns.
The land lies under a curse. Fruit drops to the ground, its pulp black and rotten. Leaves curl and wither on the branches. Animals flee the parched vale, or starve. Long ago, the Downs prospered under the care of Druids, but the priests of nature have retreated deep into the woods and rarely show themselves. One old man claims that the Druids have the power to save the valley, if only someone could find their Oracle to seek help. Will you reach the Forest Oracle of the Druids in time? And if you do, can they really lift the curse? Or does the answer lie elsewhere? Only the most daring and cunning adventurers will save the Downs. N2: "The Forest Oracle" (1984), by Carl Smith, is the second AD&D adventure in the novice (N-) series. Unlike its predecessor, it is not intended for 1st-level adventurers, but instead for 2nd level and up. This conversion guide allows DMs to run the original module with 5th Edition rules and provides a reference sheet for encounters. Also contains suggestions for placement in the Forgotten Realms. To use this conversion guide you will need a copy of The Forest Oracle, originally available in hard-copy and now for sale in Digital format on the DMs Guild. Visit Classicmodulestoday.com to find out how you can create your own classic module conversions and sell them on the DMs Guild.
These are three one-shot dungeon delves. Each delve features nine rooms or locations full of challenges and interactivity. Each delve has only one type of monster, but they are complex, and there are lots of them! This volume of Wicked Little Delves includes three small dungeon adventures: - a tunnel complex full of dragons trying to eat each other, - a desert palace of sorcerous mummies trying to restore life to the wasteland, and - an ancient cathedral where zealots of Chaos try to summon unspeakable terrors from beyond the stars. SYSTEM: Each monster has stats for Fifth Edition, Old School Essentials, and Into the Odd. These adventures are intended for characters at levels 7, 8, and 9. They are mainly focused on exploration and combat, with some minor social encounters. Estimated run time for each: 1 session, or 2-5 hours. Each adventure includes one complex original monster and a variety of unique treasures. ADVENTURE TYPE: Mid Level / Combat / Exploration / One-Shot / Dungeon Delve DESIGN NOTES These adventures are intended for mid-level characters Level 7-9 9 unique encounter locations per delve (27 in all!) 3 original monsters with multiple abilities and weaknesses Dungeon maps and original illustrations
The Shades of Bodach Ridge Whitepeak has a dark history of black magic originating with the evil witch Skruul the Reaper. The dark rituals she conducted seemed sure to plague the region, until a plucky group of adventurers thwarted her plans sending her into a state of perpetual fractured undeath. Now souls scatter from her old haunt on Bodach Ridge. What could have set these souls free?
Ruins of the Grendleroot is a book of ten easy-to-prep and easy-to-run adventures for the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Designed for characters of 1st to 5th level, these adventures take place in the caverns, chambers, tunnels, and ruins of Blackclaw Mountain, within which lurks a strange otherworldly sentience known as the Grendleroot. Ruins of the Grendleroot focuses on the sense of mystery and wonder that comes from exploring ancient ruins and lost chambers. The central hub of these adventures, Deepdelver's Enclave, is a frontier outpost overlooking the ruined city of Shadowreach, set deep within the mountain. In Deepdelver's Enclave, adventurers and explorers recount tales of their explorations, trade treasure and artifacts, and enjoy their shared love of uncovering the mysteries of the mountain.