Bodies are turning up in a city (or large town). The organs of the victims appear to have been turned to solid crystal; in a gruesome twist, the hearts of the victims have been carefully removed. The mayor and the guard captain have hit an impasse in their investigation. Agreeing to assist in finding the murderer, the party find themselves under attack by infernal assassins as they follow the clues to a gemcutter's workshop. In this rich and devilish adventure, the party must find and face a murderer and a charming devil.
The Free City of Zobeck has thrived since overthrowing the tyrannical Stross family. But an ancient bargain gives the Queen of Night and Magic a claim to the city—and now the shadow fey have seized Zobeck as their own. The city’s only hope lies with a band of heroes who can outfight and outwit the shadow fey in the heart of their own realm: the maze of treachery and deceit that is the Courts of the Shadow Fey. This 148-page 5th Edition adventure contains 100 NPCs, a map with more than 60 locations of the Courts, and more than 40 combat and roleplaying encounters. Courts of the Shadow Fey takes you from the mortal world to the heart of Shadow, where you’ll: Fight your way through the dangers of the Shadow Realm to reach the shadow fey’s courts Engage in dangerous courtly intrigue, trying to increase your status to win an audience with the Queen herself Duel for honor, and perhaps win the hand of a lover among the fey nobility Can you free Zobeck from the grasp of the shadow fey? Or will your fate become a tale told in hushed tones as a warning against angering the Queen?
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?
"The Clockwork Tower" is an azza gremlin lair suitable for five 3rd level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session.
Lo! The corpse of poor, departed Scholar Zubayr, washed up on the shores of the River of Sand, lies in the charnel house…destined to become dinner for a cult of cannibals. Though distasteful in the extreme, this isn’t your concern—except that Princess Karima Gamila, the most beautiful gnoll in Per-Bastet, has begged you to rescue her friend’s body and help discover his fate. Still unmoved to action? Know then, adventurer, that the Scholar was hot on the trail of lost treasure! If you can claim his body from the cult and decipher the clues he left behind, long-buried riches and powerful magic might be yours. But nothing is simple in this city of dark wonders: others converge on the charnel house in pursuit of wealth, vengeance, or both. Can you out-fight and outwit vile cultists, undead catfolk, a cunning werecrocodile gnoll, and the deadly secrets that lie buried beneath the River of Sand? Set in the city of Per-Bastet in the Southlands Campaign Setting, it is meant for play either as the thrilling sequel to Cat and Mouse, or as a standalone treasure hunt! Also available in Pathfinder format.
Hada the Black, a necromancer who was apprehended during an investigation of five missing orphans perished last night in the custody of city officials. The inquisitor who questioned Hada is certain that the children are still alive. After the characters hear of a contract offered by the city guard, they discuss the situation with the inquisitor. The tired and disheveled man smooths his crimson robes as he speaks.
"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 Warlock's Crypt" is a fext and noctiny lair suitable for four 9th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. An ancient warlock king known as the King in Silver, whose patron was Death itself, knew he was growing old and would soon die. The aging king pledged the souls of his two sons, the Black Prince and the Red Prince, to Death in exchange for his own eternal life. As the final worlds of the pledge pass his lips, the old king collapsed to the ground, dead. Elsewhere in the castle, the two young princes died suddenly in their sleep. All three were interred in the royal crypt within a nearby burial mound. ultimately, the king got what he asked for - he and his suns were returned to life as fext in the service of Death itself. When the fext awoke and climbed out of their coffins, they were confused because it seemed they were trapped within the small royal crypt. Then, the King in Silver discovered a secret door leading to a hidden stone stair that descended into a complex of ancient tunnels and chambers. At the far end of the complex, the fext discovered a second set of ancient stone stairs leading up through a shaft to a hidden exit on the surface. The three fext now lurk within the lower chambers, doing their patron's dark bidding. When commanded, they creep forth from the crypt to spread death during the dark of night.
The nefarious master wrestler Dib, the goblin, is "terrorizing" the streets of the town (or city). Since his defeat in his roadside fortress, the would-be chieftain has plotted his revenge. Gathering to him a new batch of dim minions, Dib has transformed a stolen merchant wagon into a machine of war. The wagon is powered by several goblins inside who, while devoted to Dib, lack the strength to pedal the thing quickly or consistently. Dib's plan to wreak a path of havoc through the streets has resulted in something a bit more disappointing. In this light-hearted and quirky adventure for four first- or second-level PCs, the party must confront the war wagon, gain entry to it, and defeat its defenders—the lives of several potted plants and a few market stalls depend on it!
"The Alchemists' Guildhall" is a rusalka lair suitable for four or five 6th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session.
The loss of Skyreach Castle in Hoard of the Dragon Queen was a major setback to the Cult of the Dragon, but still only a setback. The cult is determined to retake the castle and claim Tiamat’s lost treasure buried in its frozen walls and cloudstuff vaults, but they aren’t the only ones. Blagothkus the cloud giant is still the master of Skyreach, and he has gone to the hall of his cousin Brunvild, ice lord of Uldoveld, for the resources to repair and reoccupy the castle. At the same time, the party is dispatched by the Council of Waterdeep to reclaim some of the stolen treasures lost when the castle fell.
While traveling through a jungle expanse, the party meet a trader named Smera with a strange tale. Turned away from a nearby outpost, the trader is now heading back to civilization. Curiosity leads the party to the outpost, which has been destroyed. A strange disease has taken the outpost’s inhabitants, who built the place in support of a scholarly excavation of a nearby temple ruin. Following the path carved through the jungle by the excavation team, the PCs find the temple and its secrets. In this moss-covered and dark adventure, the party explores an old temple, faces its verdant guardians, and finds the source of the strange disease.
"I was taken by the evil dogs while camping near Agav's bog. They dragged me into their lair, and it wasn't until I escaped that I knew the truth of the place: a great and bony wing buried in the side of a hill. They chained me in the dark with a candle made from foul wax and forced me to dig at the marrow. Their bonds were poorly made, and I fled several days later while they slept. What purpose did they have in mining that marrow? I cannot say..." The Marrow Mines are dug in and around the fossilized wing of an unnamed leviathan. A small pack of kobolds lives and works in the mines, which are heavily trapped. The kobolds defend the area fiercely and patrol the region around the mine. At night, a handful of urds make aerial surveys of the territory. The urds live in the deep reaches of the wing's tips.
A shadow goblin lair suitable for four or five 4th-level characters. A growing band of goblins led by a powerful shadow goblin named Hurkl are demanding a toll to travelers on the Dancing Shadow Path. When the heroes are chasing a fugitive through the area and come across the toll...what will they do?
"All-Seeing Eye" is a oculo swarm and night scorpion lair for five 5th-level characters.
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.
The players and the DM compete in a race against time to see if all humanity can be saved, or if the fiendish servants of the Hells can corrupt the world for their own nefarious purposes. Special time-keeping and resurrection mechanics are included to keep the pace exciting and the plot moving. Prepare to delve into the long-forgotten Tomb of Mercy!
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.
A bargain struck between a dwarf chieftain and a great divine power forms the heart of this adventure. The chieftain, unwilling to step down from her position as ruler, seeks a way to hide from the god. When the party rescues some of her kin, they are offered riches for recovering a long lost magical shroud with the power to obscure mortals from the eyes of the gods. But recovering the shroud draws the attention of the god’s agents, and the party must choose a side. In this storied and fate-filled adventure for eleventh-level and up PCs, the party must battle their way through a ruined dwarven armory before deciding the fate of the chieftain.
"The Dark Forest" is an elder shadow drake lair suitable for four 8th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session. A hidden grove within a dark forest has been home to a tribe of alseids for generations. The tribe's most recent leader and spiritual heart was an alseid shaman called Riatha the Raven. Within the grove lies an ancient ring of standing stones atop a burial mount. Here, Riatha conducted sacred nature rites to honor and bless the forest and the tribe. During one of these ceremonies, the ground rumbled and a column of dense black energy shot straight up from the burial mound and into the night sky. Thick darkness enveloped the area, and the suddenly blinded alseids heard terrible roars. An instant later, the darkness dissipated to reveal a mysterious pool ringed with skulls among the standing stones. Two large, dragon-like creatures with black scales and burning red eyes glared at the confused alseids. One the ground lay the body of Riatha, deathly still. Terror and chaos followed as the creatures brought swift and sudden death, killing most of the alseid tribe members with razor-sharp teeth and deadly, black breath. The alseids that survived the inital, bloody attack fled into the forest. They counterattacked a few hours later, desperate to reclaim their grove and recover the body of their beloved leader, but the attempt was a fiasco and they were quickly driven off. Now, the few remaining alseids hide in the forest, frightened and unsure of what to do next.