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!
During a brief stop-over at a wilderness stronghold, a simple trip to a local provisioner reveals foul play! The shop has been broken in, and the shopkeeper is missing. But the place has not been burglarized. The heroes are thrust into an investigation. Clues discovered by the heroes’ hint at larger corruption that festers among the border lands surounding the stronghold. What sinister forces lurk beneath the keep?
It has been years since the last virgin was sacrificed: and now the pit beast awakens once more! Every generation it stumbles forth on undulating tentacles from its resting place deep below the great ravine, its towering blubbery mass ravaging the land before returning to slumber for decades. But this time is different. The Great Beast strikes with intelligence: bands of faceless gray-robed men emerge from the tenebrous depths, herding the beast’s roaming tentacles before them. The enigmatic people of the pit live despite the passage of ages! The earth shakes each night as they herd the primordial tentacles ever further, while the villagers ask: is any man brave enough to put the sword to this menace?
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…
Giants stalk the shifting sands as the lost city of Stylos awakens from its deathless slumber. The Fourth Age of Man is at hand! All that stands between the gigantic hordes of Stylos and their conquest of the world is your band of adventurers. Sinister traps, implacable foes, and the crushing tread of the dread Colossus all lurk within these pages, eager to test the courage and cunning of even the most accomplished adventurers.
Eons-old secrets slumber beneath the forbidden Ghost Ice. Since the time of the Elders, the local tribes have shunned the crawling glacier, knowing it as taboo land that slays all who tread its frigid expanse. Now, the Ghost Ice has shattered, revealing hints at deeper mysteries entombed within its icy grasp. Strange machines and wonderful horrors stir beneath the ice… Frozen in Time is a level 1 adventure for any DCC RPG campaign. It also includes new material for judges who want to send their adventurers in a Stone Age setting!
Punjar: wide-eyed madmen stalk the streets pronouncing the end of days, mail-clad priests crush the skulls of heathens underfoot, and timorous virgins are offered up in sacrifice within sooty temples. But even the greatest of shining temples and the strangest of mystery cults don’t dare to challenge the terrifying finality of Death. Until now. In Blades Against Death, the adventurers cross between the realms of the living and the dead, and wager their souls in a desperate bid to steal a soul from Death’s hoary grasp. To win over the God of Dooms, you must be the most daring, stalwart and cunning and – when all else fails – willing to test your blades against Death! A mid-level adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, Blades against Death offers characters a once in a lifetime escapade. Those that return from the Realms of the Dead will have earned the true title of adventurer, while those that fail will spend eternity in Death’s service.
The Lady in Blue, a mysterious figure of cosmic power, enlists a band of simple peasants for a strange task. They are to follow an invisible bridge until they arrive at a hole in the sky – and then jump through. Death awaits all but the bravest, strongest, and luckiest, but the Lady offers a reward beyond all the riches of the world: the chance to change the very stars these peasants were born under, and thus change their destiny.
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.
When the heroes come into town, word arrives that a nearby cloister of the god of valor is under siege by an army of undead. The adventurers travel to help defend the bastion of paladins, only to discover that these undead are actually ancient enemies of the paladins’ order. They have discovered a way to exact vengeance for slights committed centuries ago, but to finish their plan they must breach the cloister’s catacombs! Can the heroes battle them to the catacombs and defeat their horrific blackguard champion?
Thirteen generations ago, the ambitious first Duke of Magnussen made a fell pact with an unknown power, who asked for but one thing in return: the thirteenth daughter born to a Magnussen duke. Now, generations hence, the daughter of Duke Magnussen XIII is stolen away by a hooded executioner riding a leathery beast. As it wings back across the city walls to drop behind the Duke’s mountain-top keep, all who watch know it alights in the Magnussen family crypts, where the devilish secrets of thirteen generations have been buried and forgotten – until now… This adventure module also includes The Balance Blade, a short level 2 adventure in which a wizard’s patron makes a simple request: travel to another plane to retrieve a legendary blade of neutrality. But once the journey is in motion, the wizard finds that not all is as it seems!
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?
An ancient cave, defended by ancient death traps and weird arcane seals conceals the antediluvian vault of an archlich whose reign predates recorded history. Undisturbed for untold eons, the vault now stirs thanks to the machinations of cultists who have meddled with secrets best left undisturbed... This module sends the heroes to an ancient cave occupied by cultists dedicated to the Mists of Madness. Defended by ancient death traps and weird arcane seals, the caves conceal an antediluvian vault, the resting place of an archlich whose reign predates recorded history in the Known Realms. Undisturbed for untold eons, now the machinations of the cultists and their eladrin master threaten to awaken the archlich, to dire ends that none can predict.
Discovering a once-hidden passage in the Purple Planet’s Ancestor Peaks, the PCs enter the tomb of the Immortal Kahl. The party must survive deadly chambers fraught with alien life and technologies while unraveling the tomb’s mysteries. Ultimately, the party faces a choice unlike any encountered before, and a reward which will change them forever.
The Purple Planet: Where tribes of man-beasts wage an endless war beneath a dying sun. Where mighty death orms rule the wastes, befouled winds whistle through ancient crypts, and forests of fungi flourish in the weirdling light. Where ancient technologies offer life ... or a quick death. Bereft of patron, friend or god, your survival depends on quick wits and a strong blade. Will you and your companions stand as conquerers atop this alien land? Or will you fall beneath the blast of an ink-black death rays, just another corpse left to litter the wastes of the Purple Planet?
Evil lurks beneath the ocean! For years it has slumbered, but now it rises once again, threatening to wash over the surface world like a monstrous wave. Only a handful of stalwarts stand between the nefarious schemes of the deep and a world drowned in sorrows, but first they must navigate a wizard’s sanctum, a magical prison, and the most unusual dungeon they’ve ever faced! Can they stem the tide in time or will they lose themselves forever to the Sea Change curse?
Deep within the heart of the slums, in the rat-ridden city of Punjar, the Beggar-King weaves his plots. Unearthing rites best left forgotten and offering up sacrifices to the loathsome Lords of Shade, the Beggar-King’s ambitions threaten to unleash a horde of shadow-horrors upon Punjar’s huddled masses. You and your fellow companions must bring the reign of the Beggar-King to an end. Your quest will take you from the rooftops of Punjar to its filthiest alleys, and beneath the streets of Punjar to the fetid heart of the city, where even the bravest of sellswords will tremble before the fell secrets of the Beggar-King of Punjar. An introductory adventure designed specifically for first level characters, Sellswords of Punjar is an urban Dungeon Crawl Classic unlike any other. It includes a full-color double-sided battle map to allow your characters to fully experience the perils of Punjar! This stand-alone adventure can also be used to launch a campaign in the epic fantasy world of Áereth.
The small town of Welwyn has been beset by a string of robberies. The heroes are led to the natural cave system located at the bottom of the town well, which they must explore to find the burglars. But once they’re in the cave system, things get much more difficult! The “burglars” turn out to be mere pawns in a much darker game. To get to the source of the crimes, the heroes must shrink themselves with potions of improved reduce person and explore a series of dangerous rat warrens where their prey is larger than they are!
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!
In Temple of the Dragon Cult, the characters are called in to pursue a dragon that the king’s army was able to wound but not kill. It seems straightforward enough: the army tracked the dragon to its lair, and all the characters have to do is go in and kill it. But this dragon has a devoted cult of dragonblood followers who worship its every breath. Its lair is their temple — and they’ll fight to the death to defend their dragon-god…