Centuries ago, the four deities worshipped by mortals – Kishar, Kotaresh, Lyth, and Asar-Segt – threatened to drown the world in a flood of saltwater to punish the living for their impiety. The oracles and witches of the realm struck a desperate bargain with the gods, however, and convinced them to spare the world. In exchange, the mortal kingdoms were bound to demonstrate their faith once every generation by sending their most courageous and adroit warriors to the Crucible, a ziggurat in the lowest valley of the land. Every quarter-century, on the first full moon of summer, an eclipse darkens the night and the sealed ziggurat opens. Many traps, tricks, and guardians lie within the Crucible to test those who enter. Few who heed the challenge of the gods survive – most find only quick death. If the races of the world are deserving of the gods’ affection, their champions will overcome the trials of the Crucible and light the Divine Brazier hidden in its uppermost chamber. If they are not, the flickering candle of civilization will be snuffed. Little of value will have been lost. Published by Defy Danger and Save Versus Death

Every fifty years, a pair of storm titans met to pray in an isolated and well guarded cloud temple. This time, they have obtained a copy of the fabled Ritual of the Primordial Gate and are exploring its secrets in hopes of bringing a lost primordial to the world. Divine messengers are sent to the PCs to enlist their aid in disrupting the storm titans’ efforts.

Long rumored to be haunted by eerie specters, Kincep Mansion has stood for years, mostly untouched by nearby townsfolk. Now something is preying on the local villagers—something that comes from the house. Pgs. 46-69

Wicked forces conspire to usurp the power of the Raven Queen, god of death, by unraveling the foundations of reality. To prevent this cosmic coup, mighty heroes must survive an epic journey into the Shadowfell's timeless core, where all things find their end. The beginning of the end of the original 4th edition adventure path (although ties are very light to the heroic and elite tier adventures). The PCs must first prove themselves worthy to act as the Raven Queen's agents. They will then be sent to Death's Reach, a graveyard and dumping ground from the Dawn's War. There, they must fight through the Black Star Host- powerful elemental beings, to prevent Orcus was resurrecting a primordial, Timesus the Black Star. One notable encounter is a random encounter with the Worm of Ages. This huge worm has the ability to swallow and rules for moving creatures from its maw to its throat, gullet, and into the stomach.

A group of snaketongue cultists has occupied an abandoned, partially sunken temple near a swamp. They grow impatient waiting for their yuan-ti master to join them, unaware that he has been slain by a rival faction of yuan-ti. Frustrated, the cult strikes against nearby villages in the hope of drawing the favor of Zehir. Investigating rumors of a serpent cult harassing a nearby town, the PCs have explored the swamp and discovered the overgrown temple. Its once-ornate stone door now hangs off its hinges, providing a narrow space for one character at a time to squeeze through. Pgs. 42-47

The goddess Erathis has never seemed the sort to demand the sacrifice of mortals in exchange for safe trade routes, but that’s exactly what her high priest has demanded. When a local ruler asks the characters to investigate the high priest, a chain of events is set in motion that could shake the city of Wyllea, and the church of Erathis, to its core. This adventure makes extensive use of roleplaying encounters and skill challenges, with fewer tactical combat encounters. There is a substantial focus on politics and intrigue. The Tariff of Relkingham is written for 3rd level PCs, but contains advice for lowering or raising the starting level from 2-4. It also contains a system for calculating an advantage or disadvantage in the final fight based on the players' actions during the adventure. Pgs. 83-103

The characters arrive in Fallcrest just as a blizzard starts from the gloomy black clouds. the villagers gather to discuss how to survive the untimely and unusual blizzard. Suddenly between the roar of the wind and thunder, a ship descends filled with undead with one message: Return the ice scepter!. Afterwards, the characters must decide, find and return this relic to the Winter King, or bluff and plan to dethrone him. As they reach the tops of the mountains, possibly injured, the whole of the Winter King's inner domain stands before them. If they fail, winter will claim the Nentir Vale forever. Group of 4-6 players.

In the ruins of Kiris Dahn, a human town, lies a 'Slaying Stone'. The stone is said to have the power to kill any foe, though the stone is consumed in the process. The party will venture into the ruins which are the home to an assortment of goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds. However, a mercenary band of orcs have been hired (by a benefactor who is not met in the module) to search the ruins for the Stone, and the party must find it first. The party must use caution and stealth to move through the town without alerting the denizens or the mercenaries while searching strategic points around the abandoned town to find the Stone. Eventually, the party should find the stone under the protection of an indifferent Brass Dragon.

Barovia has long suffered under the rule of Count Strahd von Zarovich, but the evil that plagues this land extends well beyond the walls of Castle Ravenloft. See what keeps the good citizens of Barovia awake at night.

"And they bade their slaves, 'Build unto us tombs to rival the palaces of the gods, for there shall we live or lives and sleep our deaths in splendor.' And the people of Maru-Qet wore their fingers down, broke their backs, burst their hearts to obey. Indeed they raised up great tombs to rival the palaces of the gods. And their masters were well pleased, for it was as gods they saw themselves." The brown dragon Urum-Shar lurks in a strange tomb, plotting schemes only a wyrm of incredible power could understand. Expanding on content from Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons, this adventure takes the heroes into Urum-Shar’s dark and trap-filled lair, where they will eventually face the powerful dragon herself. The dungeon heavily employs the use of traps, with fewer monsters. The upper tomb consists of a great puzzle of twelve rooms, and the lower tomb contains the dreaded Urum-Shar, an ancient brown dragon and heir to the lost draconic empire of Maru-Qet. The dungeon has special protections against scrying and other divinations, as well as teleportation. Pgs. 55-90

As the story goes, worshipers of Bahamut and worshipers of Gruumsh spent years warring. As the dead piled up, a Bahamut faithful crafted a weapon of devastating power. Most of the inventor’s peers balked at its use, but some felt it was justified. Those few who used the weapon were twisted into mad, dark beings by its corrupting power. The rest of Bahamut’s flock locked them and the weapon away in a dungeon prison. The dungeon and its terrible secret were long forgotten—until a group of rakshasas happened across the ancient tale. Now they seek the weapon for their own designs. Pgs. 132-137

From time immemorial, the rulers of the mortal world have been counseled and tempted by capricious primordial spirits who rule over the elements. The greatest and most sinister of these was a half-kraken medusa known as the Maelstrom Queen, who sought to supplant the mortal races with her own line of immortal tentacled monstrosities. On the verge of her ultimate triumph, when the leviathans at her command rose from the depths, a legendary assassin murdered the Maelstrom Queen in her half-submerged palace with her own weapon. But the primordial mistress refused to let something as trifling as death put an end to her designs. Every 13 years, she regenerates enough mystic power to rise again, and the world’s greatest heroes are sent to murder the Maelstrom Queen once more.

Ages ago, the tower stood as a bastion against banditry and marauders. But civilization has long since retreated from this area, and a band of goblin thieves has taken up residence in the ruined tower. Local woodsfolk beg the PCs to rid the place of the bandits before they are victimized again by the goblins of the Broken Tower. Pgs. 18-23

“Den of the Destroyer” is the sequel to “The Lost Mines of Karak,” continuing the unfolding story of the Scales of War adventure path. In this adventure, the PCs are called back to Brindol by a surprising summons. There they learn that a platinum sword they had collected back in "Rescue at Rivenroar" is no mundane item - the blade is sentient! The blade charges the PCs to undertake a dangerous mission to an abandoned githzerai fortress in order to perform a ritual to awaken the blade's true form. Along the way, they must deal with bounty hunters hired by an old enemy (from "Shadow Rifts of Umbraforge"), and confront a vile gang of gnolls terrorizing Elsir Vale. Pgs. 14-54

Your PCs are reaching the upper end of the heroic tier. New worlds are opening up to them—they might have already ventured to the Feywild, for example, and made contacts with inhabitants of that magical plane. Now they are ready to take their first steps into the darkness. The Shadowfell awaits... Vandariel, a shadar-kai witch who calls herself the Voice of Pain, is a fanatic devotee of the Raven Queen. She has founded and become the self-proclaimed high priest of a bizarre cult, the Lords of Pain, whose purpose is to bring more fey into the shadow pact with that goddess of death. Although the original shadar-kai entered this pact voluntarily, and the race breeds true, Vandariel is consumed by what she sees as a divine mission to reveal the mystery to all fey—whether they wish it or not. Those who do not come voluntarily to the truth are brought against their will. Dark stalkers move like the night, seeking out and abducting suitable subjects. This Side Trek can serve as an introduction to the dangers of the shadow realm. It works well for PCs who are approaching the paragon tier, since it presents a reasonable challenge for characters of 10th level. It is suitable as a climactic encounter for lowerlevel adventurers, as well. It consists of only two encounters.

A cold winter wind blows from the Scourge Mountains, but its origins are not of this world. And with it come horrifying stories of a fey who walks the land. Cold, beautiful, and deadly, she turns every mortal she touches into a statue of ice, and she seems determined to blanket the entire north in a blanket of frost. It is the Winter of the Witch…and if the archfey Koliada is not stopped, it could be the world’s last. “Winter of the Witch” starts with the PCs receiving an urgent but somewhat cryptic message from the skeletal knight, Sir Keegan. They find the skeletal knight a helpless victim of an aggressive interrogation by an undead minion of Orcus and his demonic thugs, who are attempting to extract the location of something called the Sun’s Sliver from the stubborn knight. The PCs fight their way into deep ruins, defeat the demon lord’s toadies, and retrieve the Sun’s Sliver. Once the PCs have recovered the Sun's Sliver, they must confront the Winter Witch in Winter's Heart, the witch's icy sanctum in the Feywild. Only there can they confront the cold-hearted archfey and save a section of the world from a wintery doom.

In times ancient, an infamous paladin-artificer named Khaldun unearthed a cursed tome bound in the flesh of the first medusa. Driven to madness by its secrets, he used the necromantic magic contained within to call forth an army of dread warriors from the Netherworld. Though his assault was devastating, he was ultimately unsuccessful, and the mightiest crusaders of the realm banished Khaldun to the Netherworld, where he would rot for eternity at the bottom of the River Dis. Unfortunately, rather than perishing in that bleak plane, Khaldun escaped his silt grave and thrived, amassing a legion of undead followers and erecting a Tomb in which he could perfect his mechanical craft without interruption. It was not long before he shed his body and became a demilich. After several centuries of scheming, the undead warriors under the command of the ‘Iron Lich’ have burst free of the Netherworld, laying waste to not only the mortal kingdoms that exiled him, but also the exalted domains of the gods themselves. The crusaders’ quest is simple – stead the Tomb and destroy the Iron Lich. Published by Defy Danger and Save Versus Death

Rising from the surface of a massive lake, an ancient ziggurat travels through time for purposes unknown. It’s up to the characters to enter this strange relic and discover what dark threat the structure poses. The Ziggurat Beyond Time contains advice for customizing the adventure for your own campaign. It also contains an artifact, the Deluvian Hourglass, that has time-related properties and wishes to witness the end of the world. Pgs. 23-55

You will take up the mantle of heroism in a grim world where simple survival cannot be taken for granted. These heroes will shape the world of Athas while they grow in power and prestige - or die trying. Your character has been asked to aid a secretive faction of the Veiled Alliance in the Free City of Tyr against an unknown assailant. Ashes of Athas is a 4e D&D campaign set in the world of the Dark Sun campaign setting.

Beyond the mortal world, somewhere outside the bounds of the Astral Sea, the Far Realm yawns immeasurable. Beyond the reality of gods and mortals, this plane is a realm of contradictions, a mad place of fevered creation checked only by pointless extinction. The Outside is a sea of diseased possibilities, where the stuff of madness seethes in a soup of the incomprehensible and the unnamable—shuddering, squirming, and sentient. The Stormcrows, responding to the psychic cry from the stone, dispatched a force to retrieve it. The attackers descend on Wellspring, slaughtering and destroying in the search for their treasure. PCs can come to the town’s defense and repel the horde. A priestess of Ioun then turns to the heroes to find the item the monsters were seeking. From the recovering town, the heroes cross the wilderness to the Kaorti Temple. The trail ends at a ruined tower overlooking a deep ravine. Inside the tower, the heroes must overcome the terrible creatures in their search. In the end, they find the relic has been stolen.