The Legend of the Black Monastery Two centuries have passed since the terrible events associated with the hideous cult known as the Black Brotherhood. Only scholars and story-tellers remember now how the kingdom was nearly laid to waste and the Black Monastery rose to grandeur and fell into haunted ruins. The Brothers first appeared as an order of benevolent priests and humble monks in black robes who followed a creed of kindness to the poor and service to the kingdom. Their rules called for humility and self denial. Other religious orders had no quarrel with their theology or their behavior. Their ranks grew as many commoners and nobles were drawn to the order by its good reputation. The first headquarters for the order was a campsite, located in a forest near the edge of the realm. The Brothers said that their poverty and dedication to service allowed them no resources for more grand accommodations. Members of the Black Brotherhood built chapels in caves or constructed small temples on common land near villages. They said that these rustic shrines allowed them to be near the people they served. Services held by the Brothers at these locations attracted large numbers of common people, who supported the Black Brotherhood with alms. Within 50 years of their first appearance, the Black Brotherhood had a number of larger temples and abbeys around the kingdom. Wealthy patrons endowed them with lands and buildings in order to buy favor and further the work of the Brothers. The lands they gained were slowly expanded as the order’s influence grew. Many merchants willed part of their fortunes to the Black Brotherhood, allowing the order to expand their work even further. The Brothers became bankers, loaning money and becoming partners in trade throughout the kingdom. Within 200 years of their founding, the order was wealthy and influential, with chapters throughout the kingdom and spreading into nearby realms. With their order well-established, the Black Brotherhood received royal permission to build a grand monastery in the hill country north of the kingdom’s center. Their abbot, a cousin of the king, asked for the royal grant of a specific hilltop called the Hill of Mornay. This hill was already crowned by ancient ruins that the monks proposed to clear away. Because it was land not wanted for agriculture, the king was happy to grant the request. He even donated money to build the monastery and encouraged others to contribute. With funds from around the realm, the Brothers completed their new monastery within a decade. It was a grand, sprawling edifice built of black stone and called the Black Monastery. From the very beginning, there were some who said that the Black Brotherhood was not what it seemed. There were always hints of corruption and moral lapses among the Brothers, but no more than any other religious order. There were some who told stories of greed, gluttony and depravity among the monks, but these tales did not weaken the order’s reputation during their early years. All of that changed with the construction of the Black Monastery. Within two decades of the Black Monastery’s completion, locals began to speak of troubling events there. Sometimes, Brothers made strange demands. They began to cheat farmers of their crops. They loaned money at ruinous rates, taking the property of anyone who could not pay. They pressured or even threatened wealthy patrons, extorting money in larger and larger amounts. Everywhere, the Black Brotherhood grew stronger, prouder and more aggressive. And there was more… People began to disappear. The farmers who worked the monastery lands reported that some people who went out at night, or who went off by themselves, did not return. It started with individuals…people without influential families…but soon the terror and loss spread to even to noble households. Some said that the people who disappeared had been taken into the Black Monastery, and the place slowly gained an evil reputation. Tenant farmers began moving away from the region, seeking safety at the loss of their fields. Slowly, even the king began to sense that the night was full of new terrors. Across the kingdom, reports began to come in telling of hauntings and the depredations of monsters. Flocks of dead birds fell from clear skies, onto villages and city streets. Fish died by thousands in their streams. Citizens reported stillborn babies and monstrous births. Crops failed. Fields were full of stunted plants. Crimes of all types grew common as incidents of madness spread everywhere. Word spread that the center of these dark portents was the Black Monastery, where many said the brothers practiced necromancy and human sacrifice. It was feared that the Black Brotherhood no longer worshipped gods of light and had turned to the service of the Dark God. These terrors came to a head when the Black Brotherhood dared to threaten the king himself. Realizing his peril, the king moved to dispossess and disband the Black Brother hood. He ordered their shrines, abbeys and lands seized. He had Brothers arrested for real and imagined crimes. He also ordered investigations into the Black Monastery and the order’s highest ranking members. The Black Brotherhood did not go quietly. Conflict between the order and the crown broke into violence when the Brothers incited their followers to riot across the kingdom. There were disturbances everywhere, including several attempts to assassinate the king by blades and by dark sorcery. It became clear to everyone that the Black Brotherhood was far more than just another religious order. Once knives were drawn, the conflict grew into open war between the crown and the Brothers. The Black Brotherhood had exceeded their grasp. Their followers were crushed in the streets by mounted knights. Brothers were rounded up and arrested. Many of them were executed. Armed supporters of the Black Brotherhood, backed by arcane and divine magic, were defeated and slaughtered. The Brothers were driven back to their final hilltop fortress – the Black Monastery. They were besieged by the king’s army, trapped and waiting for the king’s forces to break in and end the war. The final assault on the Black Monastery ended in victory and disaster. The king’s army took the hilltop, driving the last of the black-robed monks into the monastery itself. The soldiers were met by more than just men. There were monsters and fiends defending the monastery. There was a terrible slaughter on both sides. In many places the dead rose up to fight again. The battle continued from afternoon into night, lit by flames and magical energy. The Black Monastery was never actually taken. The king’s forces drove the last of their foul enemies back inside the monastery gates. Battering rams and war machines were hauled up the hill to crush their way inside. But before the king’s men could take the final stronghold, the Black Brotherhood immolated themselves in magical fire. Green flames roared up from the monastery, engulfing many of the king’s men as well. As survivors watched, the Black Monastery burned away, stones, gates, towers and all. There was a lurid green flare that lit the countryside. There was a scream of torment from a thousand human voices. There was a roar of falling masonry and splitting wood. Smoke and dust obscured the hilltop. The Black Monastery collapsed in upon itself and disappeared. Only ashes drifted down where the great structure had stood. All that was left of the Black Monastery was its foundations and debris-choked dungeons cut into the stones beneath. The war was over. The Black Brotherhood was destroyed. But the Black Monastery was not gone forever. Over nearly two centuries since its destruction, the Black Monastery has returned from time to time to haunt the Hill of Mornay. Impossible as it seems, there have been at least five incidents in which witnesses have reported finding the Hill of Mornay once again crowned with black walls and slate-roofed towers. In every case, the manifestation of this revenant of the Black Monastery has been accompanied by widespread reports of madness, crime and social unrest in the kingdom. Sometimes, the monastery has appeared only for a night. The last two times, the monastery reappeared atop the hill for as long as three months…each appearance longer than the first. There are tales of adventurers daring to enter the Black Monastery. Some went to look for treasure. Others went to battle whatever evil still lived inside. There are stories of lucky and brave explorers who have survived the horrors, returning with riches from the fabled hordes of the Black Brotherhood. It is enough to drive men mad with greed – enough to lure more each time to dare to enter the Black Monastery.

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.

This is the second of the "High Forest Factbook" adventures series. The caravans have stopped arriving from the North. Lady Morgwais has asked you to investigate and help reopen the trade routes. What begins as a quick job turns into a race to save a queen. This module includes a detailed description of the Elven village of Reitheillaethor including it's NPCs. It can be run either as a continuation of the adventure started in "Menace of Merric", as an extended stand alone adventure or the three individual tombs included in it can be run as short one-off adventures.

Important: The adventure is 1e but it has monster conversion notes for D&D 4th edition The town of Highport, once a human community overlooking Wooly Bay from its perch on the northern coast of the Pomarj, fell prey to hordes of humanoids swarming out of the jungle-covered hills surrounding the settlement. Though the orcs, goblins, kobolds, ogres, and gnolls razed much of the place in their ferocious rampages, the smoldering ruins they left behind soon became a new kind of community, a place of trade between the humanoid “locals” and the unsavory human traders who have no compunction about doing business with them. Slaves are a commodity in ready supply in Highport’s market, since many pirates raid up and down the coast of the bay, putting fishing villages to the torch and filling their holds with captured refugees. Slavery has become a thriving business in the town, and rumors abound of a cartel of Slave Lords who run things from behind the scenes, filling their coffers in secret from the buying and selling of human chattel. The trade has become so prolific that the good folk to the north have grown tired of these depredations and decided to fight back. Forces of righteousness and honor have recently descended upon Highport, some openly and others in secret, in various attempts to destroy the machinations of the Slave Lords and abolish the abominable enterprise that has taken far too many loved ones from home and hearth. One such doughty servant of goodness is Mikaro Valasteen, a cleric of Trithereon. Mikaro slipped unnoticed past the crumbling walls of Highport with a single mission: to rescue and transport as many slaves to their freedom as possible. Mikaro and a handful of faithful assistants located a number of escaped slaves—as well as rescued a few more not sufficiently restrained and guarded—and shepherded them through the gates and beyond the reach of their humanoid tormentors, returning them to their lands and homes. This covert freedom brigade enjoyed remarkable success early on, since the servants of the Slave Lords were often lax in their vigilance and sloppy in their efforts to prevent loss of the “merchandise.” After one too many shipments never made its destination, the humanoids stepped up their security and the normal channels of escape from Highport closed to Mikaro and his team. He cannot risk exposure by smuggling the freed slaves through the gates as merchandise any longer, since shipments of goods are now regularly stopped and checked. No longer able to free the slaves in that manner, Mikaro began hiding his charges in an abandoned villa in a particularly rundown part of the town. Although they are safe for the moment, their numbers have grown unmanageable, and the priest fears it is only a matter of time before someone slips up and brings slavers to their doorstep. Ever more desperate to find a new means of escape from Highport, Mikaro has started work on a plan that is both daring and dangerous. He intends to use a series of old sewers coupled with natural caverns running beneath the town as an escape route to the sea beyond the walls. But he needs someone to clear out the creatures and pitfalls he knows lie within. Pgs. 2-27

The Siege of Castle Rend is an adventure for the fifth edition of the world’s first roleplaying game, suitable for five 5th-level characters. It takes place over four parts, and each part can be completed in one or two sessions of play, depending on your group’s playstyle and how long you like to play in a single sitting. If all goes according to plan over the course of this adventure, the player characters will expose an usurping lord, fight orcs, acquire a stronghold, defend it from an invading army, win the admiration of a town filled with potential vassals, and make political connections within the Barony of Bedegar. Of course, no adventure goes according to plan. The PCs will invariably throw these well-laid schemes into chaos, and they’ll have to improvise. But if we know how things would have gone if the PCs never showed up (or are cowards), it makes it easier for us GMs to improvise when things go off the rails. Published by MCDM

A great evil force descended on the town of Phlan years ago. The townspeople were all either killed or driven away, and Phlan became (literally) a ghost town. Fifty years later, the survivors are ready to reclaim their town. But they need a band of strong and brave adventurers to lead the fight-they need you. Ruins of Adventure is a set of connected short adventures written by James Ward, David "Zeb" Cook, Steve Winter and Mike Breault-four names familiar to all AD&D game fans. It uses the same setting, locations and characters as the classic computer game Pool of Radiance by Strategic Simulations, Inc. In fact, many of the scenarios here in Ruins of Adventure will provide important clues to the successful completion of Pool of Radiance. TSR 9238

Who ever heard of a civilized gnoll? Stories of a secluded valley full of peaceful gnolls have been swirling for years, the occasional nonviolent encounters dismissed as tall tales or unique oddities. Now you are about to discover these gnolls for yourself. The rumors are true...but the full truth is a secret more terrible than anyone knew. A sect of the tribe maintain the magical peace by a terrible ritual sacrifice--not of blood, but of memory. The gnolls who undergo it become Forgotten, losing their identity and becoming a stranger to the clan who once knew and loved them. What is the truth behind the valley's protection? Will the gnolls be allowed to continue living in peace? Or will their only hope become Forgotten?

The battle against the slavers continues! You end your fellow adventurers have defeated the slavers of Highport, but you have learned of the existence of another slaver stronghold, and you have decided to continue the attack. But beware! Only the most fearless of adventurers could challenge the slavers on their own ground, and live to tell of It! Second part of Scourge of the Slavelords (A1-4) TSR 9040

The Shrine of the Axes has been restored and Raggnar Redtooth, who previously conspired with dragon cultists, is trying to restore his reputation in Parnast by sponsoring a feast. There is just one thing he needs, meat for his feast. Game is supposed to be plentiful in the Weathercote Wood, but the townsfolk are all busy with their own work, and the minions of Bad Fruul are still out there causing trouble. What can go wrong on a simple hunt?

A vast, sprawling mega-dungeon beneath the ruins of a nearby castle. Reports have surfaced of stockpiles of wealth within the passages. Regions previously devoid of monsters are reported to teem with renewed activity. Magical and mundane traps have brought foolhardy explorers to their doom. Changes within the passages and chambers have rendered old maps and knowledge dangerously unreliable if not outright useless. To the bold and daring, only one message needs to be heard: the castle and its dungeons are once more ripe for exploration, and new legends are ready to be made. Note: This adventure requires three books for it to be complete (sold as a package): Adventure Book, Map Book, and Illustration Book. Published by BRW Games

While the lives of most Pathfinder Society field agents is brutal and short, some rise to prominence, drawing the attention of the Decemvirate. These lucky agents are invited to a little known siege castle outside Absalom where they are asked to test their mettle. Those who succeed get their choice of prestigious missions, whereas those who fail are rarely heard from again. The players are run through an arena-style dungeon, faced with monsters, traps, and puzzles.

The Bleeding Hollow was written as a tribute to the golden era of adventures. Danger lurks around every turn, and a great over-arching storyline ties everything together. There is much to discover and learn, and solving the woes of the adventure is entirely up to the players. They will choose how to deal with the myriad challenges put forth, and will probably run down a red herring or two. They might choose a very dangerous path unknowingly and pay the consequences fortheir actions. That is intended. Let the story lead your party, and your players lead the game. You won’t regret it. Published by Total Party Kill Games

5e Arena is a pit-fighting game based on the rules of the RPG that's synonymous with fantasy adventure. Choose the rank of competition, then battle against three foes back-to-back to win fame, gold, and perhaps more. This game is designed to be compatible with your at-home or online campaign. You can play between sessions or (with your GM's permission) while other players are shopping, crafting, or role-playing. The game is designed for characters from level 1 to level 3, but higher-level characters could still find a challenge by playing multiple ranks without a rest. Each rank takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. Features Keeps track of enemy rolls and abilities Provides gridded maps for each encounter Easy tracking of enemy HP Unique backstory for every opponent Opponent strategies intelligently change with context Mobile-friendly Online Play Only!

The Lantanese have lost their magical ship, but they aren't willing to fight for it. That's where your heroes come in. She's expecting you. A party of adventures has gone missing, and the inhabitants of a local town have been acting strangely it is up to the party to figure out what is going on and stop whatever force are at work on the towns people Pgs. 8-23 & 47

Azaketh, a sly and industrious devil, prepares his revenge against his bitter enemy Zirkex. Naturally, the mortals affected by his schemes are mere pawns to further his goals. It is up to the heroes to stop Azaketh in his tracks before he takes control of a powerful weapon – Logrimm’s Tower Golem. The Tower Golem is an adventure designed for 3-7 2nd to 4th level characters and is optimized for five characters with an average party level (APL) of 3. It's the second and final chapter of the saga about Logrimm’s Tower Golem. The first chapter The Soulmonger isn't necessary to play The Tower Golem but it sets up the villian Azaketh and introduces NPCs that can help the characters conquer the Tower. The focus of The Tower Golem is set on roleplaying and interesting fights. In theory, the Tower is an infinite web of rooms and portals that the characters may never escape. However, eventually, the characters reach the end for one final encounter. You can change, interweave, or exchange the different parts as you see fit. There are several proposals and fully fleshed out levels in this document, but you may add your own adventures to the list!

Who Do You Trust? In the cool streets and blazing bazaars, the word is out: a great treasure has gone missing in the Everlasting City of the Cat, and some very ambitious people have set their sights on it. Many paws and claws are out, and everyone is sniffing around for something rich and strange. It’s an odd time for a catfolk thief and a gnoll merchant to make very tempting offers to strangers in town. Or, perhaps it’s not odd at all. Get caught up in the hunt with Cat and Mouse by Richard Pett and Greg Marks! A perfect introduction to the Southlands campaign setting, and it fits neatly into any desert city where cats are sacred and rats are cautious and sly.

A short adventure for low level play, suitable for beginner players and DM. The farmlands are being raided by monstrous creatures and and the town of Windhill needs help! will the heroes find the source of these creatures and defeat whoever is creating them? This adventure covers a lot of the basic elements of DnD play and is designed to offer a taster of the system that is easy to run and quick to prepare. It includes stat blocks so that you don't need any other book (except the basic rules) to run it. Do you have a few friends you want to introduce to DnD? is it your first time on the other side of the screen? this adventure may be for you.

Powerful Magics are Loose in Karameikos! You and your companions are starting on your first adventure and you've been swept into the intrigues surrounding the infamous Black Eagle Barony. To prevent the evil Baron von Hendricks from gaining more power, you and your cmpanions must retrieve the magical Eye of Traldar from the wizard's tower at Fort Doom. Can you escapes the clutches of the armed garrison? Will the Baron gain the powerful artifact and use it for evil? You and your friends make the choices and affect the entire Grand Duchy of Karameikos. This module is particularly recommended for novice Dungon Masters and players who want to try their hand at overland adventuring. Recommended for four to six characters, levels 1-2 Handouts and pregenerated characters provided Suitable for use with the Dungeons & Dragons Game box and conventional D&D Game rules Features simple rules on outdoors travelling for exclusive players of the D&D Game box Adventure in the monster-filled caverns and dungeons beneath Fort Doom. TSR 9271

Years ago, brave heroes put the denizens of the Temple of Elemental Evil to the sword. Now, dark forces whisper again in the shadows of the once-deserted temple - forces far more insidious and dangerous than any sane person could dream. Evil has risen again to threaten the village of Hommlet. A continuation of the original AD&D Temple of Elemental Evil, made for a party of 4th-level adventurers, taking them up to 14th level.

As the floating cities of Netheril hover peacefully in the air, the winds of intrigue boil all around them. The phaerimm continue to plot the downfall of the Netherese even as Karsus prepares for the casting of his greatest spell. Undead walk the land, driving orcs and humans before them. And somewhere below the greatest nation of Faerûn, the Tarrasque awakens from a long slumber. How the Mighty Are Fallen, is an adventure designed for use with the Netheril: Empire of magic boxed campaign setting (which is required to play this adventure). Within these pages, the final heroes of Netheril can : Gather the spell components, that Karsus requires for casting his "most wondrous" spell, the only 12th level spell ever known. He just needs a few body parts from two creatures - A gold dragon and the Tarrasque. Reuinte lost lovers after they have been separated by death. Nopheu's wife was killed in a magical explosions, and now he's finally saved enough money for her to be resurrected. Certainly a dead body couldn't pose a threat to a band of stalwart heroes?! Follow the winds of fate to wherever Tyche delivers them. Numerous side adventures allow players to take their characters to a variety of different locations. Some heroes might want to follow the trail of the missing nether scrolls, while others might want to join the resistance and fight Karsus and the other archwizards. But only the bravest hearts can take the first step... TSR 9540