"More than five hundred years ago, clans of dwarves and gnomes made an agreement known as the Phandelver’s Pact, by which they would share a rich mine in a wondrous cavern known as Wave Echo Cave. In addition to its mineral wealth, the mine contained great magical power. Human spellcasters allied themselves with the dwarves and gnomes to channel and bind that energy into a great forge (called the Forge of Spells), where magic items could be crafted. Times were good, and the nearby human town of Phandalin (pronounced fan-duh-lin) prospered as well. But then disaster struck when orcs swept through the North and laid waste to all in their path. A powerful force of orcs reinforced by evil mercenary wizards attacked wave echo cave to seize its riches and magic treasures. Human wizards fought alongside their dwarf and gnome allies to defend the Forge of Spells, and the ensuing spell battle destroyed much of the cavern. Few survived the cave-ins and tremors, and the location of Wave Echo Cave was lost. For centuries, rumours of buried riches have attracted treasure seekers and opportunists to the area around Phandalin, but no one has ever succeeded in locating the lost mine. In recent years, people have resettled the area. Phandalin is now a rough-and-tumble frontier town. More important, the Rockseeker brothers - a trio of dwarves - have discovered the entrance to Wave Echo Cave, and they intend to reopen the mines. Unfortunately for the Rockseekers, they are not the only ones interested in Wave Echo Cave. A mysterious villain known as the Black Spider controls a network of bandit gangs and goblin tribes in the area, and his agents have followed the Rockseekers to their prize. Now the Black Spider wants Wave Echo Cave for himself, and he is taking steps to make sure no one else knows where it is." Extra Info from AL.com users: by @marcellarius. "There are a variety of locations in this adventure: the town of Phandalin, a gang hideout, a ruined keep in the forest, a destroyed village, and Wave Echo Cave (a dungeon crawl). The adventure is written in a sandbox style and relies on the players to choose their path. Phandalin offers several side-quests which could serve as hooks for continuing adventures. The premade characters have ties in their backgrounds to NPCs and locations. If you're not using these you'll need to consider other ways to introduce key NPCs."
Your party approaches a barrow at the base of the mountain. A raging storm brews overhead, and as you approach, a bolt of lightning strikes down on the peak of the mound, lighting up the world all around you. A thunderclap momentarily deafens you, and as your eyes adjust to the resuming grey of the dark day, you see a flicker of firelight emerging from the two gaping holes built into the side of the hill. You’ve found the pirates camping within the Barrow of the Raging Storm. As I delivered it to my players, the premise of this Midnight Sun adventure is that some pirates have been attacking ships returning from raids. They have been stealing the loot and the corpses of any slain Nords. Among their victims, a ship from Valthis returns to tell them that the pirates sailed upriver (to hex 506), where I placed the Barrow in my Shadowdark RPG campaign. The adventurers started from there and explored the dungeon thoroughly. The adventure was created using the tools described in the Shadowdark RPG core rules. I created it in about 6 hours between 2024-03-08 and 2024-03-09 and ran it for my group on the 9th. It took about 2.25 hours to play to completion. The party consisted of two level 1 characters and one level 2 character. I had so much fun making and running this that I will continue creating more Midnight Sun Adventures, so stay tuned!
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.
As an ominous comet passes over Toril, a young researcher from Candlekeep goes missing. In darker corners of the Realms, eldritch horrors stir, answering the call of a dead god. Will the heroes be able to save the scholar before they succumb to an Elder Evil from beyond the reaches of sanity? This single session adventure is perfect if you are looking to introduce science-fiction themes into your game or just enjoy Lovecraftian horror. It has copious references to the Spelljammer setting and could be used as a springboard into that campaign setting. The Call of Atropus requires Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes to run effectively.
Picking up where the adventures left off in Sordack Valley, the PCs gain information on areas with potential treasure. Several ruins are just within reach and at least one may be the burial site known as the Ossuary of the Bear! A magical crozier was said to be buried there and has never been found. Are your players ready to make themselves legends?
For years the Count of Durwall Keep ruled over the land fairly and with justice. That ended during the Bloodrayne Conflict when the castle was felled by troops loyal to General Bloodrayne. In the many years that followed the triangular keep has fallen into a sordid state of disrepair. The keep used to hold mighty coffers of treasure for the Count and for the Emperor as well. A stronghold was built under the keep to secure said treasure and perhaps some treasure may still remain in the depths of its dungeons. Recently it’s been said that the Snaggletooth tribe of kobolds has seized the fortress and is using it as their home. It is also rumored that there may still be undiscovered treasure located in the dungeon of the keep. Faint echoes of the missing Orb of Ruler ship are still heard.
In the deep desert lies the dead city of Yumar, the source of countless bizarre rumors. Was it destroyed by a demonic metal sphere? Did it sink into a pit of acid? Were its people transformed into cursed beasts? Is it ruled by vicious thieves or mad nuns? In fact, the only thing stranger than what happened to Yumar a century ago is what will happen a few days from now... ADVENTURE TYPE: Medium Sandbox City / Ruin DESIGN NOTES: This adventure is intended for characters levels 5 to 8. It includes a ruined city, shrine, wizard tower, menagerie, several factions, and the surrounding wilderness. Each area contains various encounters and unique items. There are many opportunities for combat, but it is possible for players to explore most areas and complete many interactions without any combat at all, depending on their choices. INCLUDES: Story hooks, dialogue prompts, random encounters, factions, illustrations, stat blocks, original creatures and treasures, and overview maps. KEYWORDS: city, ruin, celestial, angel, dwarf, dwarves, miner, thief, thieves, cleric, nun, shrine, adamant, adamantine, lycanthropy, mind control, nightmare, mutation, mutant, wizard tower, menagerie, body horror
Designed as an Introduction to the world of Eberron and is intended for a party of four 1st-level characters. This adventure takes place in Sharn, the city of Towers. It begins, as many incidents in the City of Towers do, with a corpse. A warforged assassin, a mysterious blank book, and an offer from a House Cannith heir leads the adventures into the depths of Sharn--eventually to an ancient ruin dating back to before the creation of the Kingdom of Galifar. Along the way, if the adventures are successful, they recover a lost schema--a part of a pattern used by artificers to craft magic items. They also learn that many different agencies are interested in this relic, including those loyal to the various House Cannith elders and agents of the infamous Lord of Blades. Pgs. 307 - 317
The Cost of Beauty Deep in the snake infested jungle of Serpent Isle stands an ancient temple. Rumour has it that something still lurks in that place. Something evil from a lost era of devils and darkness. Now fishing boats are going missing off the island’s coast and dark shapes can be seen moving through the undergrowth. Could something have remained on that cursed isle?
The lost Bloodtower has returned, arising from its earthen grave to stand as a mute sentinel over the fog-shrouded moorland. In the weeks since it's return, local travelers have spoken of new undead roaming the countryside. Pgs. 80-87
Fight on the Beaches is the second of a collection of plug-and-play combat encounters for your 1st-Echelon Draw Steel campaign. These encounters are not strictly contextualized in any narrative. They are not adventures themselves, nor are they carved from any over-arching adventure. They're adventure-agnostic, so that you can just plug them into your own adventures and PLAY! Two encounters are enclosed. Each encounter consists of: - A map ready for use in VTT - A reference map for the Director - Some number of victory point conditions and mechanics of the encounter - Three monster tables (one for each level) for parties of 2-6 heroes. - Tips for monster tactics at each level In This Set: 002A: Wash Out the Coastal Ruins - Fight above the waves in ancient ruins guarded by lizardfolk, bugbears and angulotls, or wode elves! Features a very dangerous new dynamic terrain object. 002B: Summon Goxomoc - Hold back hordes of demons while summoning the Protector of Ix! Multiple zones of control, waves of enemies, a very complex fight designed to take 5 rounds.
Ducklings. It's not too late too close this page, and go and find an adventure about happy-go-lucky halflings, or emotionally stable young adventurers. This is not that story. You can still walk away, and find some other engagement that your players will forgive you for running. Open this little document, and you will be introduced to the wretched streets of Elysium. Home of aberrations, mystery and futile quests for meaning in the drowned streets of the tortured city. Escape is unlikely. Enjoyment fleeting. I implore you, turn away and don't look back. Mind flayers stalk streets plagued by invisible death. Curses bubble from ancient evils sleeping beneath the water. Questions lead to questions, which evolve into answers you will only regret asking for. Go whilst you still can. There is nothing here for you but death. Prologue: Welcome to Elysium Chapter One: The Crooked House Chapter Two: The Broken Prison Chapter Three: The Temple of the Gaunt Silhouette Chapter Four: The Grand Library Chapter Five: The Adamant Asylum Chapter Six: The Dancing Spider Chapter Seven: The Undercity An adventure for characters of level 15+ Contains: An introduction to Elysium, a Ravenloft domain filled with eldritch mystery and drowned secrets, including Life In Elysium, The Rule Unspoken and the Marks of Horror that set Elysium apart. Guidance on Madness in Elysium, with Elysian Madness tables for your horror/amusement. A list of Elysian locations, some of which will be expanded in later releases. Elysian random encounter tables, day & night. An Elysian Wild Magic table, miserable magic items and tragic trinkets. The first installment - The Crooked House, in which we meet the Duchess and her parade of dead husbands. The seconf installment - The Broken Prison, where the shadows of gods walk amongst men The third installment, The Temple of the Gaunt Silhouette, where broken fragments of reality are reached by strange avenues. The fourth installment, The Grand Library, where the things we wanted to forget prove impossible to truly banish. The fifth installment, The Adamant Asylum, where medicine and madness meet. The sixth installment, The Dancing Spider, in which there is no rest for the wicked. The seventh installment, The Undercity, where your worst suspicions are confirmed. Three new character backgrounds: the Eldritch Detective, the Information Broker and the Tempter of Fate. The long-suffering Elysian character race, with two subraces. The first One Page Woes collection, included here for your convenience, which contains thirteen reasons to be thoroughly miserable.
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
This is not a Pay-what-you-want product, it's a DO-what-you-want product. An Overwhelming Sense of Loss - Or, The Occasion Of a Visit Into The Underworld By Way of The Grand Entrance To The Ancient Dwarven Fortress of Thrumi`Zud: SOMETHING brought down the mighty civilization. The sages say it was desperate invaders from below, escaping something even more horrible. Whatever it was, Thrumi`Zud was quickly overwhelmed and sealed, forgotten except in the stories of the old. The vast riches of the fabled Dwarves must surely be hidden within its depths. Perhaps you will be the one to rediscover them. Perhaps there are secrets better left unearthed. Horror lies within. You have been warned. ZH-01 is an adventure module for a party of five 1st through 3rd level adventurers and their henchmen. It has been exactingly designed to fit within almost any campaign milieu and to make running your players through it easy, providing just enough detail to spark your and your player’s imaginations into a wildfire of creative - collaborative - world-building. As long as you respect the OGL license and the Public Domain rules where they apply and the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license where it doesn't, do what you will with this module. The module is yours to play with, change, alter, remix, resell or whatever. Have fun with it, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th to 11th level characters (Tiers: 7–8 and 10–11). The fabled ruined city of Dokeran, deep inside the heart of the Mwangi Expanse, has been found and it's your job as a Pathfinder to explore it and discover how it fell. After fighting through fiends, enslaved warriors, and the damned spirits of Dokeran's dead, you find that the ruined city has a dark secret—one you might not survive.
The path to save Korvosa leads far beyond the ravaged city’s walls. In the burning plains of the Cinderlands the tenacious tribes of the Shoanti barbarians protect an ancient secret that might be the only way to save the Jewel of Varisia from ruin, but Korvosa has been their enemy too long for the proud natives to give up their knowledge freely. Only by learning the ways of the barbarians and facing their sacred trials can the PCs hope to save their city, but are the savage warriors’ ordeals impossible? Especially when the PCs already have angry natives, evil priests, and deadly assassins hot on their trail? This volume of Pathfinder includes: ► “A History of Ashes,” an adventure for 10th-level characters, by Michael Kortes. ► An exploration of the Cinderlands, a scorched wasteland where nature is as deadly as the monsters that stalk its blistered ground, by Jacob Frazier. ► Learn the trials and traditions of the Shoanti, Varisia’s fierce barbarian natives, by Eric L. Boyd and Michael Kortes. ► Eando Kline finds himself caught in the middle of an all-out orc war in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by Richard Pett. ► Five new monsters by Michael Kortes and J.D. Wiker.
A secret ruin has been discovered beneath the king's palace and the adventurers must seek out a missing wizard who went exploring. The royal palace was built on the remains of a keep that was abandoned many years ago. Recent renovations have uncovered a secret passage that leads deep beneath the castle, and the court wizard Dorja went down to investigate... he hasn't been seen since. What no one knows is that the ruins beneath the castle are actually a temple to a dark god. Inside, undead husks roam that once worshipped there before they were sealed in long ago. The high priest of the temple, wishing to elongate his life, made a pact with a dark god and became a vampire. Now he waits on his throne for the day when he'll be freed from his self-imposed prison.
The tomb of the ancient barbarian prince Hammon has overlooked the village of Hammon's Creche for centuries. None have ever pierced its haunted portals, and the bones of all who have dared circle the hilltop surrounding the tomb. Yet rumours persist of fabulous treasure buried with the prince, including his legenedary axe, armour, and shield. But recently, miners who dug into the base of Hammon's Tor were never heard from again, and villagers whisper that the mines are now haunted by barbarian spirits. Could a new way have been found into the tomb? And what of the sightings of white-clad figures near the mine entrance? An adventure for four characters of 7th level. For 5th edition Dunegons and Dragons. This adventure features the 5th edition write ups of: blood amniote, caryatid column, crypt chanter, dread warrior, mohrg, the swordwraith template, the tombwarden template, and the umbral creature template. Additionally, the adventure includes a 5th edition version of three homebrew legacy magic items.
Thomepreus’ curse is a classic crawl with elements of exploration, mystery and time travel. A curse has befallen the heroes and the source of their predicament is located in a buried temple. Here a forgotten cult have used a magical sand clock to curse their enemies. The temple seem empty but the arrival of the heroes appear predetermined and soon the heroes are propelled through time to arrive in the past. Here clues and objects are required to solve the mystery and to break the curse. However, they must hurry before cult members complete the preordained curse on the heroes.
Are you ready for some HACK 'N' SLASH action? Do you yearn to unveil the hidden mysteries of the DWARVES? Are you thirsty for some UNEXPECTED encounters? The long lost Dwarven Kindgom of Gleodemar holds a relic of the past, Svarogs's Anvil, a magical artifact that can boost weapon production. The Heroes are sent to reclaim it, but the ancient fort is not empty and the new denizens have settled for good and do not seem keen on sharing any treasures. Will the Heroes manage to overtake them in a direct (and bloody) confrontation, or will the try to slip through the shadows to reach their goal? Maybe they will be captured and the "cavalry" will have to save them? In this adventure anything goes and it takes only one mistake to unravel the Heroes' careful plans and make them prisoners of the Keep. In this slightly challenging 5e hack 'n' slash adventure for 4th level PCs you will find: - a detailed story behind the Dwarven Kingdom of Gleodemar - a powerful dwarven artifact - a back-up NPC party, in case the heroes require a "deus ex machina" intervention - an optional ethical dilemma, to spice things up - both DM and player-safe maps - 3 boss monsters that can be used as future antagonists - non-stop action and suspense until the last minute of this 3-act mad rash and if all of that still does not sound fun, there's ALSO a race against time before the curtain falls. Download away! (and don't forget to share your feedback, we'd love to hear it!)