The brilliant (if somewhat eccentric) detective Viktor Saint-Demain has put more criminal masterminds behind bars than any three other inqusitives. But when the master sleuth fails to get the recogintion he deserves, he sets out to prove to Sharn that they can’t live without him. Pgs. 16-34

"The Devil Box" is a D&D adventure suitable for four 2nd-level PCs, although it can be modified for parties of 1st or 4th-5th levels as noted int the "Scaling the Adventure" sidebar. Characters completing the adventure are likely to advance to 3rd level. Much of the action takes place in a small town during a festival; this town can easily be dropped into an existing campaign. Since "The Devil Box" expects the PCs to deal with kobolds as temporary allies, it throws in some ethical dilemmas for good-aligned characters. Paladins and good-aligned clerics my have difficulties with such an alliance, but kobolds are definitely the lesser of the two evils involved in this adventure. If the party spurns the assistance of potential kobold allies, you may wish to modify the adventure to make it a bit easier on the player characters, as encounters have been written with the assumption that the heroes have a little help. Uploader's note: A hilariously creepy adventure involving a circus (freakshow), with in style illustrations! (Grid maps included, but not separate maps.)

If the PCs are to avert the Age of Worms, they must invade the heartland of Kyuss' power, the Wormcrawl Fissure, and destroy one of the world's most powerful dracoliches before the Wormgod awakens. "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure" is the eleventh installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path, a complete campaign consisting of 12 adventures, several "Backdrop" articles to help Dungeon masters run the series, and a handful of poster maps of key locations. For additional aid in running this campaign, check out Dragon's monthly "Worm Food" articles, a series that provides additional materials to help players survive this campaign. Issue #343 of Dragon presents statistics for some extraplanar entities the PCs may wish to call upon to aid them in the Wormcrawl Fissure. Pgs. 54-89

Temple of the Gleaming Sands is a short adventure for four 5th-level characters that features monsters, spells, and items from the newly released Sandstorm book. You can use this scenario to introduce the new material on deserts and arid wastelands into your campaign, or you can just use it as a site-based adventure in a desert area. The scenario is set in a remote area of the desert that very few humanoid travelers visit. The temple from which the adventure takes its name has lain forgotten for centuries and is now inhabited only by monsters who use it as a base. The area around the temple should be inhospitable enough to discourage humanoid settlement.

Freeport is a fantasy “free city” you can place in a fantastic setting. Its basic premise is a pirate city gone legit… at least on the surface. In truth, the pirate tradition is alive and well in Freeport, but camouflaged by a veneer of respectability. These days the city’s pirates are privateers, legalized pirates Freeport loans out to the highest bidder. You’ll learn more in the short history of the city that follows. This should help give you a taste of the flavor of Freeport before the adventure begins and the given background is all you need to run this adventure. It is an ideal starting place for a new campaign as the player characters find themselves stranded in Freeport after a deal goes sour. A seemingly simple job plunges them into the strange underside of the city, where they uncover secrets worth dying for. Death in Freeport is the first from the Freeport trilogy, together with Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport. Synopsis: Death in Freeport drops the player characters into the midst of political and magical intrigue, as the hidden Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign manipulates events to bring its dread god to the world. Freeport is still a bustling center of trade, but evil currents run beneath the surface. There are secrets here, and questions unanswered. The characters will undoubtedly learn there is more here than they expect in a simple seaport. The question is, will that knowledge kill them? As the adventure begins, the player characters (PCs) have just come to Freeport on a merchant ship. While on the docks, the PCs are attacked by a press gang, who mistake them for easy marks. The press gang is handily beaten off; since they are unused to real resistance. A bookish young man named Brother Egil then approaches the PCs. He says that he’s been looking for a group that can take of itself, and that he has a job for them if they are interested: finding a missing librarian. The missing man, Lucius, disappeared two days previously, and Egil is eager to find him. Egil gives the PCs some background on Lucius and his strange behavior. The PCs are then free to investigate: They are likely to visit Lucius’s home, the temple to the God of Knowledge, and an orc pirate ship. This should form a picture of Lucius as a man searching for his own past—who found something he wasn’t counting on. Following a trail of clues, the PCs learn about the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. With a little luck, the PCs can trail the cultists back to their hideout, penetrate the lair, and discover secret tunnels underneath it. Deep underground they find degenerate serpent people, and eventually Lucius himself. The librarian has been tortured badly and will die without aid. The PCs also have to deal with the leader of the cult, a man they may recognize from the temple. When the cult priest is slain, they are in for an even bigger surprise. He was not human at all, but a serpent man in disguise. What this means for Freeport only the gods can say.

A Maze of Tragedy and Mystery. While investigating a mysteriously abandoned mansion, the adventurers stumble into a tangled web of kidnapping, theft and murder. From a mansion with a deadly secret to the blood-stained waves of the high seas and an ancient, cursed citadel, the adventurers face a succession of deadlier and deadlier foes, with the rescue of innocents and the recovery of fabulous treasure as their ultimate rewards. A Family Affair includes a fully-developed town setting, numerous unique NPCs and a wide range of challenging opponents.

The Wells of Darkness is the seventy-third layer of the Infinite Planes of the Abyss, a prison used by demon lords and a graveyard for creatures the multiverse would rather forget. Imprisoned in one of these wells is Shami-Amourae, the Lady of Delights. This minor demon lord and former consort of Demogorgon is one of the few beings who knows the true secrets of Demogorgon's twin personalities and his plot to reconcile them, thereby growing immeasurably in power. "Wells of Darkness" is the tenth chapter in the Savage Tides Adventure Path, a complete campaign consisting of 12 adventures appearing in Dungeon magazine. For additional aid in running this campaign, check out Dragon magazine's "Savage Tidings" articles, a series that helps players and DMs prepare for and expand on the campaign. Issue #357 of Dragon magazine features rules for three new binder vestiges connected to the imprisoned demons within the Wells of Darkness. The Prince of Demons hides a secret, one that could well be the key to stopping the savage tide. Yet the only one who knows this secret is imprisoned on one of the most notorious realms in the Abyss. Will the price for rescuing her be too high? Pgs. 52-84

This adventure can be used as stand-alone or continuing the arc started by Death in Freeport. Terror in Freeport leads the PCs deeper into the intrigue they began to glimpse in Death in Freeport. The investigation takes them from the corridors of power to the bowels of the underworld, with terrifying insights into who really controls the city. They discover that the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign has its claws in the town's power elite, but thanks to some clever camouflage by Sea Lord Drac. they may not find out just whom the serpents control until it's too late. As the adventure begins, the PCs are contacted once more by a very nervous Brother Egil. He tells them that while staying with Lucius one evening, he awoke to find a burglar in the roomstealing a scroll. Egil is certain that the Brotherhood have penetrated further into Freeport than anyone imagines. He wants the PCs to investigate Milos's other ties to the city and find out what's being done about the temple of the Unspeakable One. The PCs search the cultist's lodgings and discover it has been carefully gone over, and several possibly incriminating books are missing. But the burglars overlooked one thing: a Tome with a diagram of the Lighthouse of Drac sketched onto the back page, marked with the letter V. Upon leaving Milos's lodgings, the PCs come upon a gang of orcs beating up a hapless messenger. They lend a hand, only to discover they've been tricked - the messenger makes off with Milos's book! A chase through the back streets leads them to the boarded-up building the y discovered in Death What they find isn't encouraging. There is a guard posted out front, courtesy of "V"- -Verlaine. head of the Captains' Council. Meanwhile, down below, the cultists continue to have the run of the caverns-— in fact, they have been shipping their unholy relics to Verlaine's own home!

A terrible thunderstorm batters a seaside port, yet thunder and lightning are nothing compared to what is about to be unleashed by the diabolic crew of the Rabid Dawn. Casters with access to control water, control weather, or control winds will prove especially valuable, as will characters with strong Swim skills. The adventure is best suited to a predominantly good or neutral aligned party of PC's. Strike on the Rabid Dawn takes place in the port city of Hardby (Dungeon #109). As most of the action takes place within a lighthouse and on a ship at sea, however, any suitable port from your campaign makes an appropriate substitution for Hardby. Pgs. 12-32

Though small, Seawell is a prosperous trading town with a good location on the coast. Next to it is a long peninsula that features mostly swamplike terrain. The inhabitants of this peninsula include tribes of lizardfolk, plus several kinds of reptiles and amphibians. Most of these creatures don't bother the town, and Seawell's militia is experienced at repulsing raids by the more aggressive lizardfolk. A large reef extends the entire length of the peninsula on the side away from Seawell. This great wall of coral is a favorite site for fishermen, but it has always presented a serious hazard to ships approaching from that direction. Thus, about 45 years ago, the people of Seawell built a lighthouse on a small promontory near the reef, about 200 yards from the shoreline. Operated by a family that lived inside it, this lighthouse ensured that ships could easily steer clear of the reef. A few weeks ago, ships stopped arriving from that direction. Three ships are now overdue, and the people of Seawell have begun to suspect foul play. Thus far, however, they have not been able to investigate because of increased raiding by the lizardfolk. Something has stirred them up, and the town militia has been too busy repulsing raids to mount an expedition to the reef. Wreck Ashore is a short D&D adventure for four 1st level player characters (PCs). The scenario takes place on and around a swampy peninsula that juts out from a longer stretch of coastline. Along one side of this peninsula stretches a dangerous reef. Just offshore on the reef side stands a lighthouse built to warn ships of the danger. At the base of the peninsula on the side away from the reef is a small port town called Seawell.

Beneath the jungle-covered ruins of an ancient human temple lies a small outpost of grell that have taken to hunting the nearby area by night. Sangkon Bhet is a fairly typical example of a small grell outpost; the monsters occupy convenient ruins or caverns for a time as they search out new places to move a colony that has over hunted its previous locale.

In this adventure the heroes invade Susurrus, the palace of the githyanki lich-queen and attempt to end Vlaakith's reign forever. The adventure begins when Zetch'r'r, a githyanki warlord petitions the heroes to confront and destroy Vlaakith. However, the lich-queen's spies know of Zetch'r'r's treachery and are preparing to deal with him and the PCs.

A pair of leprous mountain dwarves plead for the rescue of their compatriots from a deadly ettin-wight

The town of Falcon's Hollow needs a miracle. The plague has come to the town of Falcon's Hollow, and not even the town's priest can abate its wretched course. With the coughs of the sick and the wails of the dying echoing through town, the local herbalist uncovers a cure, but she needs some brave heroes to retrieve the ingredients. Finding the cure means risking the dangerous Darkmoon Vale, infiltrating a witch's haunted hut, and delving the ruins of an abandoned dwarven monastery.

Decades ago, an Osiriani Pathfinder named Bossell locked his transformed lover in the vaults beneath the Sothis Pathfinder Lodge. He then vowed that no one would ever discover his secret shame. The old and senile Bossell now relies on his assistant Fendel for everything, and the hapless assistant has disapeared into the vaults after reading his master's journal. You've been sent beneath the Lodge to destroy whatever it is that Bossell's lover has become—will you survive his secret or find yourself transformed as well?

A bad of settlers awaits certain death upon the vicious blades of massing gnoll hordes. Can the PCs distract the ravenous army of savage humanoids long enough for reinforcements to arrive? A D&D adventure for 3rd-level characters.

Now that the ruined pyramid tombs of the ancient emperor-gods of Osirion are finally open to exploration, the race is on to plumb their depths and rescue their priceless treasures. Entombed with the Pharaohs is a desert adventure written by Michael Kortes that pits players against rival adventurers bent on getting to the treasure first as well as the vicious monsters and lethal traps set to stop them from their plunder. Ancient secrets and wealth beyond imagination await you in the pharaohs' tombs—will you be the first to find them?

In this adventure, the coastal village of Fair Haven needs the characters’ help. For decades, Fair Haven has relied upon its lighthouse to guide merchant vessels into port. But on a recent stormy night, the lighthouse suddenly failed. The trading ship Nymph’s Kiss was dashed on the rocks, and smugglers have already raided the wreck. Somebody has to restore the lighthouse, but the locals are afraid to go near because it shows all the signs of being haunted. Yet there might be more to the story, since there’s something living in the sea caves below…

Demonheart is a D20 adventure campaign for 4-5 characters. As it is a long and fairly involved story, characters should be level 6-8 when they begin and will earn enough experience to rise to levels 10-12. Demonheart includes many opportunities for both combat and roleplaying. At least one fighter-type is required, and given the wild, frontier nature of the campaign, a ranger’s skills would be especially useful. Stealth and intrigue also favor rogue characters, while a cleric, particularly from a martial order who can fight well would find plenty of opportunity to use his or her powers against the undead and evil outsiders. Demonheart also takes place in a wilderness setting where ancient magic abounds, and the special nature skills of a druid will help the party to make friends with some of the land’s fey or wild elvish inhabitants. Sorcerers and wizards will likewise find use for their talents, but those who understand divine or druidic magic may be more important than arcanists. As this adventure involves the struggle against evil, both ancient and resurgent, the party’s overall alignment should be good, though individuals of other alignments may be tempted to use the ancient magic of the forest for their own ends, or even join with the forces of evil!

A long-simmering merchant conflict has turned into a war of assassination, and the PCs are called in to prevent an attempt to murder the daughter of one of the merchants. They lead her yuan-ti would-be killer on an overland chase through a canyon called Ehlonna’s Scar, which contains surprises of its own.