The Doom Desert in the Decanter of Delirium is an exotic OSR romp through a mysterious world of riddles, puzzles, inscrutable denizens. 5e compatible, this love letter to psychedelia is as vivid and beautiful as exciting and surreal. Get wrapped up in conversation with the dead drunks at the last saloon on earth, solve the sphinx riddle and discover the secrets of the Ziggurat, or break bread and wine with whispering harpies or the sun itself. This compelling narrative is written by Austin Holm and captures the exploration, social, and challenge pillars of a great game with the deft prose of a poet. With art by Maya Bee that captures the essence of the adventures many stunning scenes and characters. Your players will thank you for this one.
Only True Heroes Can Find Honor Among Thieves … They lurk in the Ralferst Forest, striking out at all who pass through, robbing traders, assaulting farmers, even killing with impunity. Working from a secret base deep in the forest, a band of thieves has struck fear into the heart of Brandon's Bridge, the little village at the crossing of the Azure River. But now a band of heroes has come, seeking glory and adventure - heroes that might just be up to the challenge of driving away the Thieves in the Forest. Thieves in the Forest is a beginner-friendly, introductory OGL adventure. It features: A wilderness adventure segment featuring the Ralferst Forest, a dense wood crisscrossed with paths and fraught with perils. The nature of the forest and paths makes it easy for less experienced players and GMs to deal with this non-dungeon environment. A double-sided, fold-out poster map (17" x 22") of the thieves' hideout - an ancient ruined temple - suitable for tabletop use with miniatures or counters, for easier handling of tactical combat. Maps created in Profantasy Software's Campaign Cartographer 2, and available for download on the Atlas Games website. GMs can customize and manipulate these maps themelves, if they own CC2, and integrate them into their own game worlds. Published by Atlas Games & Truant Spiele
You are hired by a mine operator to retrieve the mine's gnomish engineer who has barricaded himself in the mine's lower reaches. But there's more going on than just a crazy gnome and his robots sabotaging the mine. You'll need to explore the forest, build alliances, and brave a rollercoaster ride on a mine cart to get to the bottom of this adventure (pun intended). This is a gamebook-style solo adventure that you can play in your browser. You make a 2nd level character sheet, roll your own dice, keep up with your inventory, spells, and HP, and are on your honor to be honest. It's all text-based with some public domain illustrations, and you click on options as you make decisions and roll the dice.
Bale's Outfitting Outpost can easily be placed in any campaign setting, but it feels right at home in the Forgotten Realms, especially somewhere within The Savage Frontier. The included adventure could also be broken up into several random encounters to be used in your Storm King's Thunder campaign.
Something strange is afoot within the Quivering Forest. So much so that even the elves of Greenhall have left their homes to seek out help from their newfound neighbors. But, their tales of a strange beast are not earning them any favors; especially among the Vistani, whom the elves suspect are to blame for their ills. Return once more to the Quivering Forest and learn the terrifying truth! Part Two of Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts.
The valley of Haven was a peaceful land. Its crops were abundant, its citizens prosperous. Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Humans lived together in harmony. Hidden away in the heart of the Thunder Mountains, Haven was a safe place to live. The rivers were sweet and pure; the weather was pleasant and warm. Something terrible has come to pass in Haven - terrified refugees speak of a fabulous ruby uncovered in the mountains and a catastrophe that befell the palace. Whatever the cause, Haven now lies in chaos. Raiding bands of orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins terrorize the countryside. The disaster happened so suddenly that the citizens are confused and helpless. Without their leaders, who are trapped in the palace, they have no courage to fight back. The situation has become desperate. TSR 9044
Ever been on a long running campaign and in one of the sessions one or a few players couldn’t make it? This adventure was made to be used as sort of a filler episode to fix that. Made for a small party of 1st-4th lvl characters and to be played in a single session. Story summary - The Gold Knife Bandits, a gang formed by a former army squadron that deserted. They are remarkably loyal to each other and are known in the area for attacking army caravans and camps. However, after several months of unfortunate loots. They decided to house a cultist of Beshaba and do what he asks to take away the curse of misfortune the gang is obviously under. Unfortunately, that includes using some members of the party as a sacrifice. The party will find the bandits cavernous hideout, clear through it, face the cultist, the Bandit's old boss, or both! All in a day’s worth of adventuring.
Into the shadows. You must brave the perils of the Shadow World to keep a tighmaevril weapon from the wicked clutches of the Gorgon. PCs are recruited to help a noble and his halfling friend find a weapon with immense power, called bloodsilver. Includes a sidebar for adapting the adventure to another setting, an overland map, and a map of the ruins Pgs. 8-31 & 69
"While staying in the quant rual town of Keswig, the PCs are approached by a troubled young woman named Elexa Justheart. Elexa has just returned from the Galhanor Crusades--a war fought against giants and humanoids in the distant Galhanor Mountains. After serving six months as a cleric in a series of major battles, she recently arrived home to find her uncle's castle occupied by evil brigands." -- from the module. Includes overland maps and maps of the tower and castle.
Greatwall is in peril - not from military forces of Iuz, but from lack of goods and supplies. Caravans from Willip have ceased thanks to increased dangers on the Willip Critwall Grabford Trail. As the key fort positioned to contain the Iuzian flood, Greatwall is a strategic necessity. Its failure would mean a major incursion along the border. Your characters are hired to escort a caravan from Greatwall to Willip; if its merchants are afraid to come to the fort, the fort will go to them. This should be simple, cut and dried guard job. Right? Of course not. There are many surprises in store for your little caravan, and your characters will need to keep their wits about them day and night in order to make it to the other end. Secret plans are afoot, conspiracies are brewing, and nothing is as it seems while on the Border Watch. This module uses information presented in the From the Ashes boxed set and the Iuz the Evil accessories. However, ownership of these two products is not necessary to play this module. TSR 9406
Beginning in the prison of the Castellan of Whitecliff, this campaign arc takes the players from level one to four, presented as a sandbox area in a lonely and gritty peninsula full of villains and opportunities for the players to explore. Much like Stonehell, but for regional play. Published by Coldlight Press
'Fierce' was written for the annual release of Fierce, a tasty Berliner Weisse, at Off Color Brewery in Chicago, Illinois. It's a one-shot intended for both beginner players and DM's, with the space for personal flair to be added or to be run as-is.
Far from shore, in the cold depths of the ocean, lies a legendary whirlpool, five fathoms wide, hungry for sailors, their ships, and their goods. By its side sits a man-eating monster, many-headed and hungry for any who escape the maelstrom. But beneath these perils are the ruins of a palace, rumored to be filled with treasure beyond imagining and, maybe, a history of secrets lost to time beneath the waves. In the midst of a storm, the party’s ship is caught in a strong current. The whirlpool traps them inside of the ruins of an underwater palace, which was once home to a group of nymphs and now is the last vestige of the story of how the nymph Scylla was transformed into the infamous peril she is today. Pgs. 165-171
In this adventure players are set first on a simple task, to solve the disappearance of the local witch before outside forces take an interest. But as the players get deeper, they will rapidly kind themselves on a quest for far more, as they range from an alchemist's lair on a crumbling tower down to a dark swamp full of mystery and danger, seeking a holy relic that might lead them to the outskirts of Hell itself. All in service of the sleepy Village Sujeira and the dusty souls within. 1452: Saving Sujeira’s Soul is an adventure set in northern Portugal on an alternate history Earth during the year 1452, in a world where history is much the same, but for the fact that the Rus are all hirsute dwarves, the hordes that poured out of central Asia were orcish (and half-orcs are mostly janissaries split among the Ottoman Empire’s demesnes), and elves are creatures of rumors and myth. Halflings live among the English and Portuguese in villages and farms, while goblins are pests best left for dead in the wilds between civilized countries. The Church arms its inquisitors with holy blessings, for witches are not mere milk-souring old women but vile devil-pacted souls, and wizards and sorcerers seek human and kine for sacrifices to fuel their darkling magics. There be dragons on the edges of the world, and ogres and sea serpents and giants, but the alchemists of this world know things beyond mortal ken and fight these horrors with science and canny concoctions. Published by Coldlight Press
The mayor of the town of Four Trails hires you to find the missing magic user, Delea the White! Delea was tasked with improving the signal tower at Eddistone Point. After leaving with her party of dwarven mercenaries, the mayor received a message from Delea's familiar; a white crow with a note scrawled in charcoal; "Bandits in the tower! Help!" The tower is straightforward, five levels, each a single room. There's a bait-and-switch where the players think the half-orc bandit leader is the bad guy, but an innocuous-seeming vagabond is actually a powerful illusionist. No monsters to speak of, only class-based NPCs, no magic apart from a ring of protection (not listed in this record, being equivalent to magic armor.) Pgs. 19-27
The king summons the heroes to investigate the death of a knight, and the final fate of the king's long-missing son. The knight and his entire order was killed by a Dragon! Yay we get to fight a dragon in the first issue of Dungeon Magazine! Much travel over many different terrain types featuring avalanches, volcanoes spewing lava, and many random encounters (not detailed here) before the heroes reach their real goal: A lake with a ruined wizard's tower and dragon's cave. Opens with a particularly byzantine Background section for the DM involving a prince you never meet, pirates you never meet, knights you never meet, and deep gnomes you never meet. See Out of the Ashes in Dungeon #17 for sequel to this adventure. Pgs. 42-60
Gifts for Him is a short, challenging, open-ended, gothic-horror, 5E-compatible Christmas adventure for tier 1 characters to be run in about three sessions, but it can be easily adapted as a one-shot. It contains over 25 pages with original artwork, three original battle maps, three unique monsters, stat blocks for five NPCs, three magic items, and a partridge in a pear tree. ----- The village of Bargrave has a secret. Every year, on Christmas Eve, the villagers cower in their homes while a savage beast prowls the streets, wreaking bloody doom on whomever has not left it a suitable gift on their doorstep. But Elias Buhl has had enough. This year, the old farmer won’t be buying the beast a gift, hoping instead to bait it into attacking him at his homestead, where he will trap and kill it once and for all. But he can’t do it alone. Buhl has hired a band of adventures to help him fortify his home, set traps, and slay the creature. They have three days to prepare, gather allies and equipment, and plan their defense. Or… They can dig a little deeper and uncover what Bargrave has been hiding all these years. Will they slay the beast, as agreed? Might they capture it to use it for their own ends? Can it be redeemed? Or will they die — their blood melting the snow — just the latest victims of the creature’s reign of terror? --- Gifts for Him is a complete, playtested, illustrated adventure that is currently pay what you want.
The Search and Locate Treasure Consortium funded an ill-fated mission into the wastes of Thar. They are unsure if faction infighting or monsters got the best of their expedition team as they followed a map to locate a supposed lost tomb. What dangers and treasures await the party as they go seeking rumors of riches?
Who is the dying woman? Where is the lake that can save her? Even ladies in distress aren't all that they seem. Ideally, there should be at least a cleric, a magic-user, and a ranger in the party. Pgs. 11-18
A strangely delivered advertisement has led you to a sage named Demetrios. He needs a rare component to complete a desperately needed potion. The journey to retrieve it will take you through a large, unexplored swamp to a ruined keep, the former headquarters of a vile cult that once claimed the lives of many innocent youths. You cautiously accept the mission... To solve the mysteries of "Baltron's Beacon," the characters must excel in handling wilderness, building ruins, traps, puzzles, and new monsters. This adventure, originally designed for tournament use, is now available for your own campaign. TSR 9152