A world unseen lies beyond a twisted, metal gate in a remote field of the Dhalpurna Mountains. Will the characters brave the alien monstrosities, technologies, and magic inside to learn the secrets that have been brooding in this strange place for millennia? Gate of the Lens Wizard is a science-fantasy exploration adventure and includes: -A gate that leads to the tunnels beneath a distant jungle moon -Intelligent spiders at war with glass-skulled astronomy wizards -An unfathomable artifact that can rewrite time itself -Combat cards for each monster, PC, and special treasure -High-quality digital maps for use with virtual table tops
Lord Blackmoor's son has been kidnapped, and is being held in the crypts beneath an ancient fortress. Can our heroes rescue the boy before he is sacrificed in a diabolical ceremony? The party responds to a plea for assistance from Lord Blackmoor, whose son Willet has been kidnapped. Blackmoor desperately needs someone to mount a rescue mission. The party journeys along the old East Trail, facing bandits and dangerous obstacles before delving beneath the ruins of Firestone Keep, encountering fearsome enemies and ancient magic. Finally, the party must fight for their lives as the truth about Willet’s abduction is revealed.
An investigative city crawl adventure for Shadowdark RPG (or any OSR-style system), designed for experienced players levels 1-2 Set in the decaying city of Brannam, players unravel a web of fear, blood, and buried secrets. A local alchemist has begun killing in secret, rekindling old fears of an old terror. The city's decline threatens to spiral into collapse, and far below, something older and hungrier waits to wake. This adventure includes: 3 separate dungeons (The flooded Sewers, the forgotten Catacombs, and the cursed Ruins of Edric von Braech's keep) Open ended design and layered mysteries with multiple outcomes and failure states A fully explorable city with random encounters, evolving factions and escalating panic. Custom rules for spell mishaps, nightly murder checks and decay events as Brannam unravels Modular content designed to drop into your campaign
A 1st-level dungeon crawl for Shadowdark RPG where the characters delve into a ruined citadel hunting for legendary treasures while avoiding the wrath of the infamous scarlet minotaur! Inside the citadel are secrets about the downfall of the warrior-cultists who once ruled it, three legendary weapons they wielded, and several factions of intelligent creatures to turn into allies or enemies. This adventure is part of the free, digital Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set, which comes with two 68-page booklets (Player and Game Master guides), 8 pre-made characters with gorgeous art, and a form-fillable character sheet. Shadowdark RPG is what classic, old-school fantasy gaming would look like after being redesigned with 50 years of innovation. It's the world's greatest roleplaying game in a whole new light! Download the free Quickstart set here: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/pages/shadowdark
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.
Numerous towns sit in the shadow of Rak’Sarn, a mountain of flames and death. Each day near sunset, the volcano lets loose a blast of molten rock and ash, and the ancient red dragon Dal’Sarnquin swoops down the mountainside. By the time dawn breaks, another settlement has been burned to the ground. The PCs must track the dragon to his lair and defeat him before more towns are destroyed. Pgs. 196-191
It's party time in Thyatis... And simply everyone is going to the magnificent Villa Osteropolus, home of the wealthy old senator, Helenites. Raucous fun, exotic food, and even advanced betting on the upcoming Arena games are expected. Even adventurers just in from the outlands may meet the powerful here. So don your festive togas, for in Thyatis City there are important connections to be made and deeds to be done, duels to be fought and fame to be won. (But beware, oh Adventurer! The politics of Thyatis can be as labyrinthine as mazes beneath the Coliseum...) This module is designed especially for the DM who wants to sharpen his interactive skills. Presenting the detailed layout of a Thyatian noble's mansion and maps of the multi-level Coliseum of Thyatis. Four four to six characters, levels 2-3 Brief guide to Thyatis legal system New optional class, the Rake Fast unarmed combat system, including disarming attacks Special appendix on creating Thyatian names Featuring the DM's Guide to Winging It TSR 9284
Many centuries ago, the dwarven kingdom of Sarphil stretched out across the Galena Mountains east of the Moonsea. They dug for the precious metals hidden beneath the rocky terrain, and they established numerous cities and settlements to aid in their excavation and manufacturing efforts. This was during the early days of Myth Drannor, the elven kingdom in the forest of Cormanthor, and the dwarves and elves initially clashed as each sought resources and expanded their territories. Myth Drannor and Sarphil eventually settled their differences, and many dwarves moved into the elven city to offer their services and expand their knowledge. In the Galena Mountains, Sarphil continued to flourish. Unfortunately, these days of prosperity did not last long. The last great king of Sarphil was lost in the dwarven city of Mount Throndor, beneath the mountain peak of the same name, and Sarphil withered under bitter clan disputes since no single family could claim legitimate lineage over the fragmented kingdom. What happened under Mount Throndor has been a mystery for thousands of years. Many attempts have been made to reclaim the lost riches and legacy of the last Sarphilan king, but powerful wards have prevented intrusion under the mountain, wards erected by the dwarves of Sarphil. Were the wards built to keep outsiders from intruding – or to keep something inside from escaping? An enterprising dwarven leader wants to find out, but she is going to need some help from a band of heroes. Horrors of Mount Throndor is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure of exploration, darkness, and terror featuring a lost dwarven city overrun by forces from the Far Realm and the journey to cleanse it once and for all. The adventure is designed for a group of 11th-level characters, and successful completion of the adventure should put the characters at 16th level. Here There Be Monsters Mount Throndor has become infested with madness from the Far Realm. During their journey to penetrate the ward and through the city itself, the characters are going to face gibbering horrors, unpredictable slaadi, fanatic stone giant cultists, degenerate star spawn horrors, mutant derro, undead dwarves, and countless golems. The ancient breweries of Mount Throndor have produced alementals who slither in the darkness, and a great dwarven war juggernaut named Big Hans stomps through the city. Legendary Villains and Epic Moments Though it has been sealed, Mount Throndor is not empty. The characters have opportunities to meet, interact with, and (likely at least) combat against powerful foes within the legendary dwarf city. A dwarf lich, a Far Realm spider goddess, an iron-encased demilich, and a melted flesh derro warlock monstrosity all await, along with a mind-bending force - Great Cthulhu! The characters have a chance to face an avatar of Great Cthulhu in the dwarven depths in the final confrontation of the adventure to free Mount Throndor and rid Faerun of a Far Realm invasion! An Adventure of Exploration Mount Throndor is a big, sprawling complex, a dwarven city with two major strongholds, a bridge system spanning a massive underground lake, and a deep mining complex. The scale is difficult to grasp and convey. Previous examples of adventures featuring these elements have included maps - usually lots of them, great spawling maps connected at ends to make huge subterranean dungeons. It is the classic image of a D&D dungeon crawl, and the map is a key component to its visualization. However, in this adventure, the maps are handled differently. There are certain areas, ususally outside the dwarven city itself, that include maps that are suitable for use at the game table, either in theater of the mind style or grid-and-miniatures. Mount Throndor itself is presented with an abstract map, and exploring it utilizes the exploration procedure outlined in Appendix A. Characters traverse the huge subterranean system using this abstract system, and during their travels they are going to run into random encounters and sites with more interesting and complex encounters.
"Far be it from me to impugn the mettle of adventurers such as yourselves, but daring the depths of Undermountain merely for fortune's sake is more absurd than kicking a sleeping dragon in the nose for sport. Even so, you've returned for another trip to the Underhalls, so be prepared. You stand to enter the Lost Level this time: Gird yourselves for diplomacy as well as destruction. You'll find the last stronghold of an extinct dwarven clan: Do be good enough to extend the greetings of the Blackstaff to Bandaerl. There's also a dark vampiress who enjoys a good hunt, and be sure to mind the beholders: They're trained to keep you from escaping. "Enjoy, and don't say Khelben didn't warn thee." TSR 9519
A series of small earthquakes have brought a sense of disquiet to the town of Daern Kelton and Roslof Keep. Against these strange earthly portents, the members of the Ivory Scimitar have claimed their place as a true Mithel Company, but even greater danger now awaits them in the second level of the Dungeon of the Black Fey Mithelvarn. What lost secrets will be revealed as they journey below? What new threats and adventures can be had in Daern Kelton? The town opens its doors to the brave new heroes of the Company of the Ivory Scimitar. Here continues the Roslof Keep Campaign in the pages of ROS2, The Tremors in the Machine. This adventure is formatted to both 1E & 5E gaming rules. Also available in PDF.
The first part of the Dreams of Red Wizards adventure path originally published for the D&D NEXT Playtest. Following the events Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, a new set of adventurer's will see some of the repercussions of that adventure. This adventure is intended to be continued in the Dead in Thay adventure (Note that they Dead in Thay 5e adventure featured in Tales from the Yawning Portal is missing a significant portion of interlude that links Scourge of the Sword Coast to the events within the Doomvault). The adventurers arrive when Daggerford is crowded with refugees from outlying lands. Goblins, gnolls, and orcs have been raiding the countryside. Now, food is scarce and tension is high. Blame for a theft has fallen on the refugees, and the Duke of Daggerford has forbidden more of the displaced from coming into town. After overcoming difficulties to enter Daggerford, the characters learn more about the raids. As they fight against the humanoids and delve deeper in the darkness that encircles Daggerford, the characters learn of Bloodgate Keep. After a final fiendish ambush, they’re ready to confront the real threat to the area. DM Note: This adventure points the adventurers strongly towards Bloodgate Keep but that location does not appear until the Dead in Thay adventure; at several points the party may feel drawn to explore that location rather than continue their investigations around Daggerford. However, since Bloodgate Keep is only eluded to as a source of great evil power, it can serve to easily segue to an entirely different adventure path. As a NEXT Playtest adventure, Scourge of the Sword Coast uses milestone leveling and the included stat blocks for creatures do not necessarily match or even appear in the 5e Monster Manual, nor do they have XP values or challenge ratings. In some places it will reference rules used in the Playtest but dropped or changed in the 5e release, these are unlikely to substantially impact gampley with 5e rules.
Three dungeons in one! The party is given a "dimension shifting device" and sets out to explore a 15-area cave, simultaneously occupied by the DEMON CORSAIRS, the remnants of an ASTEROID MINING OPERATION, and the MONASTERY OF TRANQUILITY & TRANSCENDENCE! The three dungeons are presented in three columns, so when the characters shift from one dimension into another, it's easy to find the corresponding area description. For use with old-school or OSR RPG systems. Recommended for character levels 3-4. Published by Eldritch Fields.
Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem is a Dungeons & Dragons 5E tier 2 adventure for three to five characters of levels 5-8. It is primarily set in a modron-designed research facility that has been abandoned by its creators but retains guardians that are still active. Additionally, two groups have broken into the facility with their own goals in mind; the githyanki and their red dragon cohort are antagonistic and provide the main source of combat in this adventure, while a modron traveling with a few mephits may prove friendly although ultimately troublesome. Inspired by adventure games in which the protagonists explore baroque, esoteric technological fortresses, and seeded throughout with factions that sport competing and often bizarre goals, Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem is sure to test the mettle of any group of players, and will provide endless amusement for Dungeon Masters seeking something different from the typical hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. This 70-page adventure features: *Two wilderness areas, random wilderness encounters, and a massive, interlinking 3-level dungeon filled with bizarre puzzles. *Ancient machinery powered by elemental portals, all of which can be activated, turned off, or manipulated by the player characters and the various factions within the modron facility. *Planar creatures like githzerai and githyanki, modrons, mephits, and elemental guardians, skillfully placed into the High Moor area of the Forgotten Realms setting. *Monsters and NPCs that have detailed (yet easy to run!) personalities and goals that will provide tons of roleplaying opportunities. *Notes and sidebars on running the NPCs with added complexity, or simplifying the NPCs' motives to make the adventure more straightforward. *Tactics notes for every single encounter! *An appendix that features all monster stat blocks, and both tagged (DM) and untagged (Player) versions of the dungeon maps. *Wilderness hex map by Elven Tower Cartography! Three interlinked dungeon levels by Dyson Logos...and one of them is a flying fortress! Cover art by Patrick E. Pullen!
FN11 – The Amulet of Dorian Beldor begins as a race to catch a fugitive from justice and quickly escalates into a much larger problem. With over 40 pages and 8 different maps this adventure has your party stumbling onto a former city covered by a rock slide now inhabited by a large group of humanoids. Buried deep within the complex is the ancient relic that controls elementals and will be quite useful as the Filbar North series winds down.
This is the second of the "High Forest Factbook" adventures series. The caravans have stopped arriving from the North. Lady Morgwais has asked you to investigate and help reopen the trade routes. What begins as a quick job turns into a race to save a queen. This module includes a detailed description of the Elven village of Reitheillaethor including it's NPCs. It can be run either as a continuation of the adventure started in "Menace of Merric", as an extended stand alone adventure or the three individual tombs included in it can be run as short one-off adventures.
Something strange lurks within the stony confines of an abandoned wizard’s tower. The sole surviving member of a forlorn adventuring party is desperate to find out what happened to his friends and is willing to provide a generous reward to anybody willing to launch a second expedition. Will the heroes uncover the secrets of the tower, or will they also disappear into the darkness?
An adventure for the world’s most dangerous role-playing game, Draw Steel! Designed for a group of five 3rd-level heroes. An elementalist’s experimentations have disrupted the chrono-stasis seal on an ancient tomb containing a cadre of time raiders. Freed from their temporal prison, these visitors from the Sea of Stars now gather to plan their revenge—defeat them before they regain their strength! Dive into this adventure inspired by the actual tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt to discover 5 unique treasures, several strange crystalline substances, 2 new kits, and 2 new monsters!
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?
Your sleek cloudskate skims across the Skysea. It is midnight. All day long, the glass sea soaked up the scorching desert sunlight. Now, that heat lifts your ship a few inches off the glass and fills its sails. The only sound you hear is the soft swish of the diamond-edged rudder as it cuts a path across the Skysea. One thousand years ago, the wizard Martek knew that you would come to find his Sphere of Power. Now, one of his glowing Star Gems shows you the way. The starlight, reflected in the glass beneath you, flickers peacefully. Suddenly, the Skysea before you bursts up into a thousand shards of splintered glass, showering into the moonlight! A horrible creature is silhouetted against the moon. You strain against the rudder to keep your ship upright. Too late! Your cloudskate tips onto one runner, and then tumbles over, skidding to a stop on the glass. As your companions struggle to right the ship, you turn and face the monster. You must hold the creature back to give them time. Without the ship, none of you can get off the glass before the sun rises in the morning. Martek's prophecy spoke of heroes, tests, and dangers. Are you the heroes? What are the tests? What dangers and riches lie ahead? This adventure can be played by itself, or as the third and final part of the Desert of Desolation series. For character levels 7-9. TSR 9054
The Premature Burial is the first in a series of four interconnected stories that recall the themes and atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror. Baldur's Gate, year 1492 DR, a dark and terrifying sect works secretly in the slums with the aim of punishing all those who have long oppressed, marginalized and killed the city's poorest and weakest citizens. The patriars, unaware of anything, are the cult's main targets, and a magical plague is about to fall on them that can cause a veritable slaughter. The characters will find themselves caught up in these dangerous events and will be drawn into a spiral of horror, blood and madness that will strain their bodies and souls. The Prior who leads the mysterious cult has "a special plan" in mind for them and will do anything to achieve his goal. Players will be forced more than once to question their morals and make difficult choices in a scenario of complex social conflicts, personal revenge stories and tremendous machinations. What repercussions would the cult's plan have if it were carried out? And what would happen instead if it were averted and the patriars continued to run the city as they always have? Shadows as black as night once again loom over Baldur's Gate, and this time they may change its face forever. - Adventure: story lasting 4 to 8 hours for characters ranging in level from 4 to 6 - Setting: adventure set in the famous city of Baldur's Gate but easily adaptable to any setting - Narrative: detailed descriptions and an emphasis on story immersiveness - Roleplay: in-depth characterization of NPCs with biographies, descriptions of their personalities and their physical appearance - Bestiary: 3 new customizable opponents with the mechanics "Affixes," which can add an extra degree of complexity to confrontations, and " Weak spots," which grant a strategic advantage to characters who manage to discover them - Magic: obscure and unknown spells used by cultists to carry out their plans - Layout: designed to make it easier for DMs to browse information, featuring special attention to color coding and visual immediacy of text boxes - Maps: 3 maps available in high resolution, VTT and printer-friendly versions - PDF: available in high-quality, interactive, printer-friendly print versions - Playlist: a collection of songs selected by the authors to create the right atmosphere during game sessions