We’ve been running these fights since before my granddaddy helped drive them gnolls out. We have a proud history of taking care of the animals, too—we get ’em as pups from the dwarves up in Granitehold. Sure it’s bloody, but you’re not in the sot lands of kings and queens anymore, are you. Say, did you hear that?
The party arrange for passage on a fast ship called the Silver Slipper. The good Captain Sara agrees to take them aboard for a reasonable fee. The voyage, however, is marred by strange events, and the crew begin whispering about a dark statue taken aboard as cargo. The statue is to be delivered to a port beyond the PCs' destination. When a fog rolls in one night, the ship is attacked by evil agents of a dark god come to claim the statue. In this nautical nightmare, the PCs must travel aboard the ship, interact with the crew, and save themselves from a boarding party of eldritch evil.
Beware the night-things, strangers!
This adventure is suitable for four 6th to 7th level PC's and may be completed in a single session. Oithois the exceptional ice mephit and his foul underlings have uncovered a powerful relic at the entry to ancient ruins. The monstrous mephits seek to crack a hole between the material plane and their icy home world. Oithois plots to lead an army of elemental lackeys and conquer the civilized outposts of the north. This ice mephit has studied the machine and is confident he can open a gateway to the elemental plane of ice. PCs are approached by a frostbitten traveler, who pleads with them to assault the terrace. The adventurers must mount an attack against the mephits, contend with an unintentionally summoned young white dragon, and defeat Oithois upon the icebound terrace.
"Imperial Ghoul Outpost" is an iron ghoul lair suitable for four or five 10th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. When a clan of duergar prospectors unearthed caverns not on the their maps, they were particularly excited about a strange new iron orc they found there. not long after mining began, undead horrors emerged to attack the dwarves. Only one duergar escaped, his mind shattered by the experience. The Ghoul Imperium continues to explore the area, and it has its own plans for the newly discovered one.
"Lost Halls of Everforge" is a flame dragon wyrmling lair suitable for four or five 3rd level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session.
Meet the Trollkin… And Drive Them Into the Sea! The trollkin and their shaman have come to a village by the sea, stormed its walls, and taken all the villagers as slaves and property. They have eaten their way through the saltfish, devoured the herd of sheep, and might be planning to eat the PCs next. Then, one escaped villager begs strangers on the road for help… And gives them the chance to shine as true heroes striking down raiders of pure evil. The Raven’s Call is an adventure for 3rd level characters that brings mythic power and a true rescue story for 5th Edition, and introduces locales and NPCs that players will never forget. It offers new monsters and new magic in the unique style of Wolfgang Baur, one of the leading RPG adventure designers.
The city is plagued by an affliction being called "stone sickness" or "the gorgon’s touch" that disorients people and turns them to stone. Those with, or suspected to have, the affliction are being banished from the city. Some demand a cure, but most are just scared for their loved ones. A ravenfolk woman named Spinel Larkdon, mother to a child with the gorgon’s touch, begs the PCs for assistance. An artifact known as the Shroud of Tiberesh, capable of curing any sickness, is locked away within The Umbers' vault of spoils below the city. Passionate, she is determined to save her son and all those afflicted. Fortunately for the player characters, completing the Umber’s Gauntlet alive means they are not only entitled entrance into the cult, but also a single item from its vault of spoils. The PC's only hope of procuring the Shroud is by traversing this initiation Gauntlet – a series of traps, monsters, and puzzles devoted to the demon-god Nakresh - and claiming the Shroud as their prize.
The party arrives at an abandoned outpost in a frozen landscape. The outpost appears to have suffered some strange attack. A halfmad scholar from a distant city hides in the outpost; he is drawn to the region by his visions of a breach in the ice nearby—a breach he believes leads to the realms beyond the stars. Heading east, the party finds that the breach is no simple chasm in the ice, and its scaled guardian does not appreciate its work being interrupted. In this frozen and otherworldly adventure the party must overcome rimy insects, a void dragon wyrmling, and the pull of the breach itself.
Rennie and Linde are in search of their father, Petring, who they saw disappear into the crypts beneath town. The crypt is thick with supernatural shadow. Torches can be lit from a brazier of green faerie fire in the entrance that cuts through magical darkness. The torches burn rapidly, and the PCs must travel quickly to preserve their light until they reach the funeral pyre in the heart of the crypt. There they can learn the way to the Carrion Shrine of Qorgeth.
What happens when adventurers become the owners of a brothel? When a roguish associate asks them to attend an oligarch’s party in his place? What lurks in the Cartways besides kobolds? And what will you say when another thief tells you the only way to find a treasure is to become hunted by the Praetors? Dark dealings, my boys, and a knife in the guts might be the price. Whose guts? Might be yours if you cross the wrong one of the Nine. How much evil should be done for the greater good? How many sinful men should die to save a pure soul?
Let nothing end the Feast by the River. Let the celebration of our enemy’s vanquishing ring out night and day for eternity. Let the bones of our enemies and our prey mingle below our feet. This is your time, our time, the best time. —Queen Gellao on the eve of her victory over the followers of Dur; decreed at the River’s Bend feast hall
A serpentine lamia lair suitable for four or five 4th-level characters. A matriarch lamia leads a large consortium of merchants from a distance and through intermediaries. However, she has recently descended into the common madness of her kind and set up a 'celebration' at an abandoned mine for her consortium and their guards. Will you survive the party?
"Monument of the Thunderer" is a desert half-dragon lair intended to challenge a party of four 7th-level characters. Near the city state of Makuria, on a small island in the middle of the Green Nuria River, an immense stone sculpture of a dragon watches over the mighty Red Cliffs and the waterfall that pours off them. The monument was built by ancient worshipers of the Mharoti conqueror known as Zulatil the Thunderer, but now serves as a base of operations for a band of sinister thugs who call themselves the Red Cliff Raiders.
"Bloodwood of the Cruor Circle" is an alseid and blood hag lair suitable for four or five 10th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. The Cruor Circle, a coven of dark druids led by a blood hag, has taken over control of the local alseid herd with the power of the blood. Within the forest, those who do not make proper sacrifices are stalked by the alseids and taken to the Bloodwood. Within the Bloodwood, captives become blood sacrifices, empowering the creation of sap demons, blood ponds, and other twisted products of the dark druids.
"Ruins of the Umbral Tower" is a shadow fey hunter lair suitable for four or five 8th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. The ruined Umbral Tower rests deep in the forest, in a marshy region avoided by all but songbirds. Long abandoned by its original occupant, the tower features a malfunctioning gate that connects this place and the Plane of Shadow. The site serves as a base for a group of shadow fey hunters and their entourage of hounds and guardians. The hunters used the gate to travel from their home plane, and they now attempt to bag as many trophies and as much loot as possible before returning home when the gate reactivates.
"The Riverfront Rat Gang" is a ratfolk lair, also featuring wharflings and a doppelrat, designed for five 1st level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session. The old dockyards once served as the primary center of commerce in town. Years ago, political pressure from an influential merchant who wanted the docks to be loser to her business forced shipping concerns to move their docks upriver. The new facility accommodates larger ships, and the old docks fell into disuse. Talk of converting the property into a set of riverside shops died when a rat infestation proved to be an unsolvable problem. Thus, the old dockyards have been decaying for years. This situation suited a former thieves' guild member, a ratfolk rogue, named Matimer Creel. A botched robbery (for which Matimer blamed his accomplice) turned the guild against Matimer, who fled from certain death at the hands of the guild master. He hid out in the old dockyards, confident that not even guild members bothered to go there. From there he began to exact revenge against the guild by ruining its plans or stealing directly from it. He also befriended the rat population, thanks to a golden rat's tooth he acquired, and the vermin help with his schemes. A trio of rat-like wharflings and a doppelrat, washed up on the riverbank near the docks, have joined Matimer's retinue.
The trouble began several weeks ago when a duergar excavation team went to work in a long-abandoned temple. Drawn to the temple by stories of riches and artifacts, the duergar hired several giants as laborers before cracking the temple’s sealed doors. The largest of the giants, a loathsome Thursir mutant named Huppo, used his acidic vomit to expedite tunneling into the temple’s collapsed hall of worship. Then, Huppo found the horn—an unusual instrument made from a single piece of stone, with a mouthpiece so intricate only a master carver could have made it. The horn became the giant’s obsession. Seeing only the horn’s potential sale value, the dwarves demanded Huppo turn it over to them, but Huppo refused. To force compliance, the dwarves stopped feeding the gluttonous brute, but Huppo had already found his own source of food; in deep areas of the temple, worms were chewing out of the rocks, and Huppo ate them by the fistful. He also played the horn. Then, after several days of blowing the horn and devouring the strange worms, Huppo released a belch so noxious the dwarves had no choice but to lock him in a sealed chamber and carefully consider their next move. The horn’s call, however, had caught the attention of passing nomadic orcs. They set up camp outside the temple entrance in the hope of finding the horn and its player. That’s the current situation at the temple: the giant refuses to stop blowing the horn and belching out deadly clouds of stomach gas; the dwarves are frightened and edgy while their leader is obsessed with malevolent whispers; orcs are threatening to overrun the place; and the population of worms grows steadily as something awakens deep in the stone beneath the sanctuary of belches.
She lay down her sword and wept; her tears are the water. She lay down her body and slept; her bones are the fountain. Atop the mountain, at the war’s end, a place for gods to wonder.
Sky Stairs of Beldestan is a vampire warlock lair suitable for four characters of 14th level. It can be a lead-in to Citadel of the Void Dragon, or it can be played independently. For as long as any dragon can remember, the stairs of Beldestan have been a site of pilgrimage, a direct route from dusty earth up to the heavens, where enormous creatures soar and carry sacrifices up to the gods. Its base is well known for the efficacy of the invocations offered there, but very few other than the most faithful dare venture up the stairs themselves: enormous eagles, howling winds, and various inimical undead make the stairs a place that few find congenial for long.