Remember the golden days of role-playing, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Well, those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics feature bloody combat, intriguing dungeons, and no NPCs who aren’t meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know must be there somewhere. In Idylls of the Rat King, goblin bandits are once again attacking the silver caravans, killing innocent miners and stealing cargo. The goblins have taken up residence in an abandoned mine northwest of Silverton. Someone must get rid of them. But this is no ordinary abandoned mine. It was deliberately barricaded generations ago when the Gannu family, founders of Silverton, discovered an unspeakable evil on its lowest levels. And these are no ordinary goblins, for the curse of the Gannu family courses through their veins…
The mad wizard Emirikol is terrifying the city! Striking without reason and sending his winged apes to slaughter the populace, the famous archmage has gone too far. Now a coffer of jewels is offered to those who would dare defeat him. The ever-changing walls of his Shifting Tower are guarded by a host of diabolical traps, fiendish guardians, and unimaginable terror. Will your adventurers come out victorious…or lose their very souls in the attempt?
Towering obelisks stab the sky. Monstrous knights with blazing lances prowl the night. Huts burn, and entire villages are taken as slaves to be fed darksome pits. The cries of terror and panic give the horrors a name: the Beakmen have come. But you are no mere peasant or serf, cowering the in the dark. You and your companions are reavers, with bloodied blades and spells wrenched from the dreams of demons. You stride through chaos while others flee, turning your steps towards the great stone obelisk, the source of the beakmen and their alien magics. Whether for the cause of justice or merely to acquire these strange blazing weapons for you own, tonight there shall be an accounting: a blazing brand thrust into The Shadow of the Beakmen.
The Characters come across an ancient wizard's tower. The nearby keep has been reduced to rubble over the ages, but the tower is in perfect condition. It is surrounded by an impenetrable force field that cannot be breached - not even by the ghost of the long-dead wizard, who has been trapped within for centuries. Surely there must be great treasure within this magical abode. But how to get to it?
Awash in a sea of phlogiston, three wizards battle for mastery of reality! But with each new day all gains are lost and the game begins anew. It is up to the adventurers to upset this ancient balance, winning free of the shrinking demi-plane before all is reduced to the roiling stuff of raw Chaos! Will you strike a bargain, swearing fealty to one of the fell masters? Or will you attempt to master your own fate, pitting your luck and skill against arcane foes? Whatever you decide, you must act quickly, for gray worms press in from all sides and time grows short! An exploration-based adventure for 2nd level PCs, Fate's Fell Hand challenges new and old players alike. Only the most cunning of PCs can hope to thwart the machinations of three dire wizards and escape Fate's Fell Hand!
An Adventure for 0-Level Characters Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don’t waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren’t meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere. For the past few years, an ogre that lairs in a cave near the wilderness town of Dundraville has demanded tributes of ale and supplies. The villagers were happy to comply, lest the brute attack them or destroy their property. But recently, the ogre changed his demands. Now he wants gold, building supplies — and captives! When the ogre walked into town only to have his request denied, he flew into a rage. The brute dragged two townsfolk off to his cave, to be eaten for sure! The villagers have no heroes to protect them — so someone must rise to the challenge! Six determined townsfolk have taken justice into their own hands. Can these village commoners defeat the ogre in his own lair before their fellows are eaten?
Heroes and blackguards of every stripe will find peril on the Purple Planet, but none more than 0-level PCs. Cast across the cosmos, surrounded by hordes of baying man-beasts, and marched into mass gladiatorial combat, the PCs' death waits with bated breath. Their sole hope for escape lies – not in pitched combat against endless hordes – but by braving the unknown and pressing into the darkness beneath the Purple Planet.
In ages long past and best forgotten, the world was ruled by worms. Deep within dreaming jungles, and high atop monolithic temples, fell priests sacrificed the blood of man and his kith to the mammoth war-worms. One wizard would return the world to the rule of the worm. From deep within the blood-soaked earth, calling upon the spirits of the slain and blood of the dying, rising from the moldering bones of fallen warriors, the war-worms have returned. Their foul Mother – last of her kin – births more crawling horrors with every passing hour. The age of the worm is once more upon us. The call is sounded: Who will rise to purge the darkness?
The adventurers have been summoned to a mysterious black tower made of glass. They are given a simple mission: protect the mage’s estate while he is distracted weaving a mighty spell. Surviving the five days of his spellcasting requires quick wits and sharp blades, for the estate has mischievous guests and strange visitors. In the end, the mage demands one final task: stand by his side as he binds a great horror from beyond!
Unlike other Dungeon Crawl Classics, this volume does not present a completed adventure. Instead, it presents a set of DM tools that will make your job easier. This book of dungeon geomorphs gives you everything you need to map out exciting underground adventures. The geomorphs are modular map segments designed to be combined in a variety of ways. There are 124 map segments, encompassing mazes, dungeons, underdeep caverns, monstrous lairs, castles, ruins, halls, and many other intriguing places to explore. Together they combine to make thousands of possible maps!
Lady Elisabeth Pendour beseeches the heroes for their help. They must recover a key that was on her husband’s body when he perished trying to clear an ancient tower. The tower was once a coastal fortress, but now it lies in ruins, occupied by black-feathered rook harpies who worship a foul carrion crow demon. Lord Pendour sought to free his subjects from fear by clearing the rampaging rooks from their nests. But he failed, and unless the heroes can recover his body, the crow god will come for his wife, too…
Since time immemorial, you and your people have toiled in the shadow of the cyclopean ruins. Of mysterious origins and the source of many a superstition, they have always been considered a secret best left unknown by folk of your hamlet. But now something stirs beneath the crumbling blocks. Beastmen howl in the night and your fellow villagers are snatched from their beds. With no heroes to defend you, who will rise to stand against the encircling darkness? The secret of Chaos are yours to unearth but at what cost to sanity or soul? An introductory adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, Sailors on the Starless Sea pits a mob of 0-level adventurers against legacy of the Chaos Lords and their corrupted hordes. Delving beneath the crumbling ruins, the characters discover ancient crypts, a starless sea, and an ancient ziggurat, where death and treasure await in equal measure!
Once every decade, the tides of the Empyrean Ocean recede far enough to reveal the highest eaves of a mysterious undersea tower. Long ago this was an eldritch fastness of Sezrekan the Elder, the most wicked wizard ever to plague the Known World, but now the tower is known simply as the final resting place of the fabled Black Pearl – an artifact rumored to bring doom upon all who dare to posses it. Tonight the moon nearly fills the sky, and the tides have already begun to recede. Adventurers have eight short hours to explore the tower before the dark waters return. The fabled Black Pearl will be theirs for the taking…if they can survive the Pearl’s curse.
This new version of the classic adventure is completely updated to 3.5 edition. In The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho, a defenseless village asks the characters to slay an out-of-control ogre. Sounds easy enough. But the ogre, who used to be nothing more than a nuisance, has become crazed and psychotic. When the characters arrive at its cave, they find a subterranean portal has connected the cave to a much larger underground complex. Something in that complex has transformed the ogre and many other local creatures into fiendish marauders. In fact, it’s the lost vault of Tsathzar Rho, an ancient wizard and prophet of the Outer Gods, who are gathering their foul minions for battle.
Over the top low level dungeon takes you through the sewers to stop a blood worshiping madman his Kobold minions.
The legendary city of Freeport is a seedy port town where former pirates settle down to become "businessmen" while street gangs fight over the slave trade. In the deepest warrens of this already dangerous place, mad cultists worship unspeakable gods - and sometimes these sinister deeds bubble to the surface. There's a dark shadow over Freeport today, as yet another innocent child has gone missing. The trail leads to the old Cresh Manor, boarded up but not forgotten. The city needs heroes to find these missing children. But are the heroes brave enough to conquer the dark shadows of Freeport?
At long last, the first adventure ever published for DCC RPG is now available! This is the updated second printing that was first released at Gary Con 2014. It features a fresh edit and several new pieces of art! High above the windswept moors and darksome woods, the village of Hirot is under siege. Each night, as the sun sinks beneath the western mountains and the candles burn low, a devil-beast stalks the village streets, unleashing its savage fury on the living. From warlord to pauper, crone to child, no one is safe. Defeating the immortal hound will require more than mere blades or even spells. To slay the beast, the characters must delve into the mysteries of the land and its Savage Kings. Only then, armed with relics forged from a bloody past, can the most cunning and courageous of adventurers challenge the hound of Hirot!
Ten thousand flawless killers surround the city. Utterly silent in battle and in death, they seem unconquerable. They mean to choke the life out of the age-old city and leave it an empty ruin. The city calls upon its heroes to defeat this unnatural menace. The heroes gather to ponder the question: how do you defeat an impregnable foe? And then a wizard from a far-off world whisks the heroes away to fight battle of a very different sort, leaving them with a strange neon pink glow around their eyes… Note: This adventure can be used setting neutral or as a means to enter the "Purple Planet" DCC setting.
Legend tells of a long-dead empire of sphinxes, ruled over for millennia by a great queen named Ankharet. She fell into darkness and her empire was shattered, as her subjects rebelled and cast her down. Unable to kill her, it is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Their empire in ashes, the sphinxes scattered to roam the world in bitter freedom, save a single great androsphinx. On the edge of the mysterious Barren Hills, between the mountains and the Great Desert, there is a gigantic statue of a crowned gynosphinx, ancient beyond reckoning. At its feet, a great androsphinx known as Khubsheth the Prophet has dispensed counsel and prophecy to all who come to him for longer than mortal records can tell. The heroes have come to visit Khubsheth, whether for counsel, prophecy or out of curiosity, but as soon as he lays eyes on them, he attacks! Upon his defeat, he tells them that they are the heroes foretold by the legend of Ankharet. Ankharet ruled over a long-dead empire of sphinxes, but she fell into darkness. Her subjects rebelled and cast her down, but were unable to kill her. It is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Kubsheth the Prophet tells the heroes that they must enter the tomb of the long-dead sphinx queen, kill her, and destroy her cursed crown, an artifact of tremendously evil power. As his blood seeps into the sands, a doorway opens at the base of the statue, leading down into darkness…
Centuries past, Lady Ilse ascended to scion of House Liis by trading the archdevil Mammon what he wanted most: her immortal soul – and a diabolical betrothal. The triumph proved hollow, for every year on the eve of her fell covenant, she was beset by visions of Mammon and her foul promise. Seeking to save herself, she was buried alive, swaddled in the holy symbols of a dozen divergent faiths. This desperate ploy held Mammon at bay for centuries…but a devil can afford to wait a very long time. After hundreds of years, the last of the holy wards has fallen. The devil has come to collect his due. Tonight a storm crashes against the ancient manor house and forgotten spirits rise from the muck and mire. The fallen belfry tolls once more, announcing the hellish fete. As the adventurers arrive to explore the Black Manse, Mammon calls for his winsome bride. He will leave with a soul at the end of the night. The only question is: Whose?