A terrible and unnatural fear has come over the people of Waterdeep. In a matter of weeks, dozens of people are missing, and more disappear each night. Rumors tell of curses, phantasms, demons, and possession. In truth, these are the victims of tiny parasitic brain maggots unleashed by the illithid dragon called Brainstealer. The fate of its victims fall on your shoulders, as you discover his lair and prepare to raid it.
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.
It’s been a long few days of travel and the adventurers are tired of eating rations and sleeping on the ground. The road opens to a small town with an inviting tavern. The smells of grilling meat and ale fill their nostrils and the sounds of laughter and music float out the tavern’s door. Unlucky for the adventurers, they’ve stumbled upon Dragon’s Breath Tavern. What starts out as a pleasant evening of food, drink, and entertainment soon evolves into an adventure that takes the party into and under Dragon’s Breath Tavern. The adventure includes roleplay, exploration, combat, and a dice game called Demon Dice. Although written in a non-specific location, this adventure could be run as a one-shot during the WoTC official campaign – Curse of Strahd. The adventure includes an isometric map and a top-down map of Dragon’s Breath Tavern. Available as PDF or for Fantasy Grounds.
There have been disturbing signs over the last few months, signalling that something is wrong in Humblewood. The troubles appear to originate from activity in the Scorched Grove, an ashen plain that was ravaged many centuries ago by a destructive fire. Whatever caused the fire has scarred the land with elemental magic, making it inhospitable to all but strange fire-based creatures. Of late, the Grove has begun to expand. At first, it was hard to notice the slow expansion, but those in tune with nature (especially the Tenders) could see the imbalance in the elemental forces of Humblewood. For many common folk, this imbalance has been experienced as unseasonal dryness, which has led to crop failure and an increased frequency of forest fires. There have also been a number of unusually aggressive emberbat clouds reported far outside of their natural ranges. The true nature of the danger still remains hidden from the people of the Wood. A corvum necromancer named Odwald Ebonhart has stirred the elemental aspect of fire, which has lain dormant beneath the Scorched Grove since its first burning. The aspect’s energies have begun to empower fire-based creatures within the Wood. The increased range of emberbat swarms have brought fires that have expanded the Grove. Many forest-dwellers, who have been left without homes, have turned to banditry to survive. Soon the elemental incarnation will break free, and players must find a way to stop the aspect of fire before it reduces the Wood to ashes.
A terrible thunderstorm batters a seaside port, yet thunder and lightning are nothing compared to what is about to be unleashed by the diabolic crew of the Rabid Dawn. Casters with access to control water, control weather, or control winds will prove especially valuable, as will characters with strong Swim skills. The adventure is best suited to a predominantly good or neutral aligned party of PC's. Strike on the Rabid Dawn takes place in the port city of Hardby (Dungeon #109). As most of the action takes place within a lighthouse and on a ship at sea, however, any suitable port from your campaign makes an appropriate substitution for Hardby. Pgs. 12-32
Wild transmutation magic suddenly blasts through the sleepy town of Pinebrook Dell, turning the inhabitants into classic D&D monsters! Can the party reverse the effects as they too begin to slowly mutate? This one-session adventure is a love letter to classic D&D. Every monster the party might encounter dates back to the earliest days of the game... and the players are slowly turning into monsters themselves! Mechanics are provided for players to start turning into monsters (Gelatinous Cube, Beholder, Mind Flayer and more!) as the adventure progresses, with fun puzzles tailor-made to highlight their monstrous new abilities. This module is for 4-6 characters at level 4.
The Wizard's Assistant is a Tier 1 adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 5e. This adventure is designed to be accessible to both new and experienced Dungeon Masters, as well as players of all ages. Characters start at level 1 and end at level 5 - with plenty of possibilities for continuing the story after! The Wizard's Assistant starts simply, in the lonely village of Newfall. The wizard Iolanthe lives in Newfall with her assistant and romantic partner Diana, but Diana's hidden past is closing in. Adventurers come together over a seemingly simple task, only to find themselves embroiled in the machinations of a sinister gang. Can they locate Diana before her secrets tear her and Iolanthe apart? This game includes details of several locations, but can easily be adapted to nearly any setting.
The village of Saxham has been struck by a terrible curse! Or perhaps it’s being terrorized by demons, ghosts, and the undead? Or… was there a terrible storm? Maybe? No one seems to know exactly what happened here. But the villagers are terrified, bizarre monsters roam the forest, and strange lights strike the woods every night at midnight… ADVENTURE TYPE: Small Sandbox Mystery DESIGN NOTES: This adventure includes a small village, several wilderness areas, and a simple network of tunnels to explore. Each area contains various encounters and unique magical items. There are many opportunities for combat, but it is possible for players to explore every area and complete every interaction without any combat at all, depending on their choices. INCLUDES: Story hooks, dialogue prompts, original creature stat blocks, original treasure/items, area overview map, and illustrations. Produced by Dungeon Age Adventures
The beginning adventure to the Dragonlance, War of the Lance series of adventures, upon which the Dragonlance novels are based. The companions meet in the Inn of the Last Home to discover a barbarian couple with a mysterious staff. The PCs journey to discover the staff's history which leads them to a ruined temple to the Forgotten Gods. Includes a full map of Xak Tsaroth and overland maps, some color. Art by Jeff Easley. TSR 9130
Deep in the wooded wilderness, the village of Grimmsgate is an outpost town on a seldom-traveled trail, right at the edge of nowhere. The village’s half-ruined temple of Law, dilapidated inn, drunken blacksmith, exiled trader and a few fur-trappers are enough to keep the bloody-minded denizens of the dark forest at bay, but nobody really expects the village to still be there in another ten years. The woods have become too dangerous for the trappers who once caught animals for fur, and merchants no longer travel the poorly-maintained road. What great evil and what fabulous treasures are to be found in these lands? A brave band of adventurers might make their fortunes here. Or perhaps they might never return… Grimmsgate is an introductory adventure for the Swords & Wizardry tabletop roleplaying game. The Swords & Wizardry rules are needed to play this adventure.
"This is a beautifully bleak hex crawl around an island smothered in oppressive darkness and fermenting wickedness. The Sluagh and their foul fog and maddening miasma are inscrutable and unknowable, but you must investigate the Island; discover the secrets buried within and without. Collect the scraps of information and open your heart and help these people tearing each other apart and worse, or become dark and hard as flint; indulge the mercurial machinations of men lost to madness of the mists and consent to cruelty. Worse still, lose yourself completely in the blanketing fog of yore; stumble blankly into the eternal night of truly annihilating nihilism... There is still faint hope that your investigation can illuminate the mist’s mysteries, lifting Man to the light, but it’s not for the fainthearted." - Curse of Sebs The Isle of Endless Fog is a 5e adventure for characters starting at 1st-level and ending at 4th-level. It's a sandbox adventure with a small setting for The Isle of Man, a location from Fallen Camelot setting. It features all three pillars of a 5e game: exploration, social interaction and combat. CONTENT WARNING: Mental Health Issues, Depression, Disassociation, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Human Experimentation, Drugging and Abduction, Cannibalism, Murder of Civilians and Children, Clerical Abuse of Power through Tyranny. Background The Isle of Man was by no means a safe place, with sporadic assaults from the troll, Buggane, trickster fey, and conflicts of resources with the local giants, but it is still a place where local folk can live their lives in relative peace. All that changed when the sluagh came. They flew free from an ancient tower, a storm of wailing ghosts that swept across the land, carrying a blanketing fog across their backs that choked the land, the sea and the sky. The Death Mist warps all that it touches, inviting death into the homes of all things, whereupon the sluagh swoop out of the skies, snatching up souls on the verge of death, carrying them away from their bodies and into a new horrid existence as a fellow sluagh. In packs they fly, swooping through villages on the westerly winds, carrying away the souls of half its denizens, leaving the rest to starve, whereupon another wave will come to claim the rest. Over time, the mists drained the life from the earth. Fields turned barren, forests petrified, infants were born malnourished and shriveled. Yet, its hunger only grew. The sluagh called beyond, drawing travelers to Man. Sailors will see the fog first, rolling in from the horizon, before the wailing of the sluagh deafens their ears, and the mist blind their eyes. After what feels like hours, the sailors open their eyes and see Man on the horizon. The explorers will quickly find that they cannot leave this place. They must either banish the mist from this place…or destroy it. Published by Realmwarp Media
A little beer, a little trouble, a little party on the rubble. Can't a half-ogre find a little peace in the riverside town full of adventurers, bigots, and thieves? "'Trouble at Grog’s' presented something no one ever expected to see: a sympathetic half-ogre. All Grog wanted to do was settle down as proprietor of the Happy Half-Ogre Inn and Tavern. Little did he know his success would rub the competition the wrong way, leading to some 'inn-fighting' with the owner of the rival Dagger Rock Tavern, Yuri Kineron." - Christopher Perkins Pgs. 41-64
Silent crawlers with a venomous bite. Web spinners, creating sticky, beautiful homes that double as deadly traps. Nature’s most artistic killers. What fools would grow these tiny killing machines into the size of ponies or even larger? Gnomes! Opportunistic dark gnomes, looking for profit, who stumbled upon an inter-dimensional substance—experimental, yet undoubtedly powerful. Then something came creeping down the strand that connected the spiders to the inter-dimensional world, a shadow—the Shadow of the Spider Goddess! This adventure is designed for 5e for 4-6 characters of 6th level. The adventure is designed to link to the Lands of Lunacy setting from Fail Squad Games, but has been adapted to be run in any setting with no additional GM or player effort. The hold of Nevnooblin contains steam technology and creatures.
Pridon's Hearth is Sargava’s newest colony, pushing the country’s borders further south than ever before and attracting treasure-hunters, fortune-seekers, and troubled souls hoping for a fresh start. But unnaturally powerful storms rock the tiny settlement just as the local lizardfolk tribe declares war on the colonists within. Are these threats somehow related? What became of the heretical cult of Gozreh that journeyed to the region a century ago, and do its corrupt teachings hold the key to calming the growing hurricane? Can the heroes protect the growing community from raging tempests and hostile monsters alike? And what role does the shadowy Aspis Consortium play in these recent dangers? These challenges and more await heroes willing to face down the Ire of the Storm! Designed for use with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, this adventure is packed with excitement and unique personalities! Written by rising star Thurston Hillman, Ire of the Storm is a deluxe adventure for 1st-level characters, and includes 64 action-packed pages of tropical dangers, jungle ruins, and two new monstrous foes, plus a gorgeous double-sided poster map featuring the Sargavan colony of Pridon's Hearth and an exploration map providing an overview of the entire surrounding region. Players can expect to reach 6th level upon completion of this adventure—or wind up food for all manner of scaly menaces!
The Iron Route, an important trade road east of Phlan, is beset by competing bandits. An exiled Black Fist officer leads his band of mercenaries turned cloaked ruffians, while a mysterious dragonborn sorcerer commands screaming savages from the north. In this war over the trade route, the beleaguered merchants are the victims, and Phlan suffers from a lack of supplies. It’s up to adventurers to strike out and reopen this vital route.
The sleepy town of Karpad in shadow-haunted Nidal has long been overseen by the Boroi family, and until a few weeks ago, the citizens under Baron Stepan Boroi's rule have lived uneventful lives of relative peace. Recently, however, the outbreak of a virulent and fatal disease and a number of mysterious disappearances have left the people of Karpad paranoid and fearful. Even Baron Stepan has been acting strangely, and now the tenuous balance of racial tensions between Karpad's human and fetchling populations stands on the verge of collapsing into total anarchy.
The Curious Tale of Wisteria Vale is the script of a play written in Common. It is split up into three acts, telling the story of a heroic bard before he becomes corrupted by evil. A wizard named Ryllia Liadon donated the book to Candlekeep as an entrance gift. She didn't tell the Avowed that the book contains the secret to accessing Wisteria Vale, a magical demiplane created by the Harpers to imprison a bard named Arrant Quill until they could free him from the influence of an evil artifact. The book has been hidden in the Candlekeep archives for three years, but the Harpers have finally discovered a cure for Quill's corruption, and the time has come to visit Wisteria Vale once more.
Nightmares that kill, a mysterious thief that only steals knick-knacks, tales of a huge beast terrorising fisherfolk, an inn with disappearing guests, discoveries of hidden magic portals and rumours of an assassin at large: None of these things are enough to stop the ever-flowing tide of traders and travellers crossing the Bridge of Fallen Men, but its protectors - Cormyr's Purple Dragons - are short on time, and courage... ...will adventurers answer the call?
A sickness has come unto the simple mining community of Duvik’s Pass, poisoning their wells and blighting their crops. With the pestilence leaving the strongest men of the town’s guard a few short days away from death, the burden of descending into the mines and purging the wellspring of whatever evil has settled there falls to an intrepid band of adventurers. Can these noble heroes prevail within the depths of Duvik’s Pass, or will they too fall victim to the perils of The Burning Plague? The Burning Plague is a DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventure designed for a party of four to six characters of 1st level. Dungeon Masters (DMs) should feel free to adjust the adventure as necessary to accommodate groups not falling within this range. However, given the fairly low power level of the inhabitants of the mines at Duvik’s Pass, it should be noted that parties consisting of 20 or more total levels are unlikely to find satisfactory challenge within The Burning Plague.
An Introductory Adventure for Storm King's Thunder. As evening approaches, you spot a wooden signpost next to a trail that heads north into the hills. Nailed to the post are three arrow-shaped signs. The two marked “Waterdeep” and “Daggerford” follow the High Road but point in opposite directions. The third, marked “Nightstone,” beckons you to follow the trail. If memory serves, Nightstone is roughly ten miles up the trail. This is Chapter 1 of the greater story available for free on the Dungeon Master's Guild.