Fresh-faced and more than a little hung-over our newly graduated mage of the great Dunromin College of Magic and his friends step into the tea-room next to the Porter’s Lodge and ask for something for a headache. Within minutes they find themselves accosted by the smiling figure of Malcolm Darkstar, Bursar of the College and owner of the tea-rooms, keen to ask them a favour… This is an introductory level set of scenarios designed to take a starting-level party on their first exciting adventures; The Lost Son; The Return of the Cauldron of Millent and the Murder at the Red Barn
A level 1–3 dungeon adventure by Giuseppe Rotondo. The secret workshop of a long-dead jeweler-magician is now open, as his grandson wants the place finally cleared of all dangers. What treasures might remain within, and what might be watching over them? This adventure combines classic dungeon crawl elements with the intrigue of uncovering a magician’s legacy, making it a rich experience for both new and seasoned players. For Old-School Essentials (OSE) Included as one of four adventures in "Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1"
Ancient port city on the edge of a desert. The city is stratified by social class and some of the slaves have formed a cannibal cult to Kthulhu. City + hexcrawl + dungeon. The Anthropophagi of Xambaala™ takes players into an action-packed realm of adventure: the mythical world of Hyperborea, a sword-and-sorcery campaign setting inspired by the fantastic fiction of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. This adventure is inspired by Robert E. Howard’s “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula” and by various short tales of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. It is designed for use with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea ™(AS&SH™), a role-playing game descended from the original 1974 fantasy wargame and miniatures campaign rules as conceived by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. AS&SH is compatible with most traditional fantasy role-playing games (c. 1974 to 1999) and their modern simulacra, such as OSRIC™ and Swords & Wizardry™. This work is both a setting and an adventure. The setting describes the town of Xambaala, noting key people, locations, and local lore. The adventure proper provides players with a variety of environments and the several factions fighting over them for their own goals. With a bit of skill and luck, stalwart adventurers may emerge richer and maybe wiser. The situation that will develop in Xambaala will be determined by the players’ choices.
"Put those dark elves back in their box and get your gonzo on! Riches, glory, and super-science await the bold and the clever in the deep places under the ground. This module describes the dinosaur- and wizard-infested future of the Earth, the city of Denethix, and the first level of the megadungeon that beckons from below: the Anomalous Subsurface Environment." Set in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth's remains are explored through dungeons filled with ancient tech, magic, and bizarre ecosystems, inhabited by various factions with their own agendas. This setting blends sci-fi and fantasy with a touch of the absurd, offering a playground for imaginative gameplay and storytelling. The module includes a gatehouse and the first level of the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, each designed with multiple pathways. Unique twists on monsters and magic items. Written for Labyrinth Lord
This is not a Pay-what-you-want product, it's a DO-what-you-want product. An Overwhelming Sense of Loss - Or, The Occasion Of a Visit Into The Underworld By Way of The Grand Entrance To The Ancient Dwarven Fortress of Thrumi`Zud: SOMETHING brought down the mighty civilization. The sages say it was desperate invaders from below, escaping something even more horrible. Whatever it was, Thrumi`Zud was quickly overwhelmed and sealed, forgotten except in the stories of the old. The vast riches of the fabled Dwarves must surely be hidden within its depths. Perhaps you will be the one to rediscover them. Perhaps there are secrets better left unearthed. Horror lies within. You have been warned. ZH-01 is an adventure module for a party of five 1st through 3rd level adventurers and their henchmen. It has been exactingly designed to fit within almost any campaign milieu and to make running your players through it easy, providing just enough detail to spark your and your player’s imaginations into a wildfire of creative - collaborative - world-building. As long as you respect the OGL license and the Public Domain rules where they apply and the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license where it doesn't, do what you will with this module. The module is yours to play with, change, alter, remix, resell or whatever. Have fun with it, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
The ruined Thorp of Rhu once produced honey, apples, hard cider, and mead. Villagers now stay away as they believe Rhu is cursed. Years ago a witch, Katla, was cheated from a reward promised for chasing away an attacking giant. Furious, she waited for her chance at revenge. Over a year, Katla created many small sack dolls and gifted them to Rhu’s children. One night, each doll animated, killed the sleeping adults, and set the village on fire. Now Sorcha, the village elder, asks the PCs to go to Rhu to locate a lost dwarven friend, help a restless soul, and find out what really happened to Rhu long ago. These outsider sack doll spirits take great pleasure in tormenting and slaying weaker creatures. At Rhu, the PCs encounter murderous sack dolls, learn the villagers’ & dwarf’s fate, parlay with spirits, and clash with Bloody Tears, the witch’s minion & spirit familiar. Published by Wicked Cool Games
A unique skill-challenge focused adventure on a perilous cliff wall! A rift descending adventure where certain doom is mere inches away at any given moment.
Prison of the Hated Pretender is an introductory adventure for 4-6 characters levels 0-1. Originally published on the Dungeon of Signs blog, it is a short drop-in location-based adventure with a couple of interesting puzzles, a lack of "book" monsters, implacable foes with an obvious weakness, and a very weird roleplaying opportunity. The new 2020 edition republished by Hydra Collective adds suggested guidance for new Dungeonmasters who grew up with 5th edition and don't know how old-school works. Stats for both BECMI and 5th edition, and setting neutral (though there are some implied things about the history of the world).
A new, expanded, OSR-ised, prettified edition of Joseph R. Lewis’ Ragged Hollow Nightmare which was rated among The Best by Tenfootpole. Joseph Lewis hit a perfect balance between the classics of dungeonverse fantasy and the whimsy of the folk tales we love so much (as testified by our Folklore Bestiary. we released last year), adding a dash of dreamworld strangeness and a pinch of body horror to spice up his brew. We did our best to respect his recipe when adding our extra material (about 30 pages of it). We worked with Joe and Li-An (the perfect artist to give life to spooky Ragged Hollow and its strange surroundings) to make the best module we could: a solid introduction to old-school gaming for both players and gamemasters. And for the veterans among us, it also makes an excellent, full-fledged campaign starter. Nightmare over Ragged Hollow is a sandbox adventure centred around a quaint town at the edge of the kingdom. But however quiet life in Ragged Hollow is, the town lies between places where you shouldn’t be traveling alone. Places like Gloam Wood (“A witch or two lurk there!”), the Bleak Mountains (“I’m told there are bugbears…”) and their infamous Mount Mourn (“Home, they say, to cursed Dwarven ruins”), not to forget the Wailing Hills (“Bandits on every road!”). There’s even a haunted house by the river (“That mad inventor riddled it with traps!”). But only when an impenetrable dome of golden light materialises around the Temple of Halcyon (“Hey, my kids go to school there!”) do things really get out of hand. Some selfless heroes (or, failing that, a bunch of greedy ne’er-do-wells) should really get involved. One town with three adventure mini-sites Three small dungeons One 50-room dungeon Three hexes with 16 detailed locations Two groups of potential allies or rivals Sixteen pre-generated characters One deadly countdown! Written for the Old-School Essentials (OSE) rule system
The ancient world of Harth withers beneath its dying sun…but it’s not dead yet. Welcome to the strange and dangerous city of Carcassay, huddled below the skeleton of a titan rat, sprawling above the ruins of countless dead civilizations. This is where folk come to find wealth, power, revenge, secrets, oblivion… and everything in between. Carcassay is a sandbox city adventure. There are many locations to explore in, around, and under the city. Players can explore any place at any time, and may radically reshape the city’s politics, economy, religions, and physical existence. There are standard dungeons stacked under the city, and GMs are encouraged to keep adding more dungeons… all the way down. Tone. It leans more toward low fantasy or sword-and-sorcery. Most shops look like real shops. Most people look like real people. But strange and horrible things lurk everywhere as soon as you start to scratch the surface. This is my Lankhmar. Carcassay is a vast, bizarre city. It has over 100 locations where you can meet Chaos cultists, Lawful knights, retired adventurers, shopkeepers, brewers, musicians, artists, scientists, hermits, royalty, beggars, doctors, space vampires, eldritch horrors, machine priests, crab colonists, mushroom farmers, mummies, assassins, and diplomats from distant lands… and the moon. And every one of them has goods or services to sell, and a quest (or three) to offer. What sort of quests? Fetch a relic, assassinate a rival, find a relative, steal a soul, implant an agent, cure a disease, stop a riot, solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet, hunt a thief, locate a shrine… the list goes on. And for every Quest, there is a specific Reward: money, weapons, relics, Chaos mutations, exclusive memberships, information, Angelic miracles… the list goes on. This is a place where you can make a lot of money, but also where you can spend that money on interesting goods and services. Factions? We have a few. Seven Chaos cults, five knightly orders, two mercenary companies, four wealthy families, six (seven!) Corpse Lords, foreign diplomats, rival innkeepers, rival tavern owners, plus all the dungeon-delving gangs currently mucking about underground. When you grow weary of all the adventures at ground level, there are three classic dungeons buried under the city to explore. This book contains months (if not years) of campaigning. Enjoy the Chaos.
From Exalted Funeral: "Fair hero, the end, the end alone awaits all travelers and at the end...was the journey all in vain? All journeys end in vanity. In vanity." - Mused the Grand Observer at the end of time. Welcome to The Ultraviolet Grasslands, the roleplaying game of heroes on a strange trip through mythic steppes in search of lost time, broken space, and deep riffs. The Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City is a tabletop role-playing game book, half setting, half adventure, and half epic trip; inspired by psychedelic heavy metal, the Dying Earth genre, and classic Oregon Trail games. It leads a group of ‘heroes’ into the depths of a vast and mythic steppe filled with the detritus of time and space and fuzzy riffs. The UVG is the work of the designer, artist, and writer Luka Rejec and was made possible through the generous support of hundreds of discerning fans at the Stratometaship patreon. Luka's other work with Exalted Funeral Press includes writing, art, and design on: Witchburner, Longwinter: The Referee's Book, Longwinter: The Visitor's Guide, and the adventure for OSE, Holy Mountain Shaker.
When huge stones fall out of the night sky, A deadly curse settles over Gravencross. Help the village exorcise the Demon Stones. “The sun had set an hour ago, and the rain lashed down and the wind howled on the dark moor. A storm this late in the season was unusual, but this one seemed different. The clouds were more menacing, tinged with anger, the rain colder and more biting than usual. Skerrill had to find the lost calf and get him back to the farm before his father came back from the city on business. He’d been looking for two hours now, and he was right in the middle of the moor when the storm hit. He knew he should have turned back as soon as darkness fell, but then he was never the brightest boy in the valley. If only he had remembered to lock the farm gate. The calf was now likely dead anyway having stumbled among the boulders and rocks, panicking in the dark, and then fallen in a floodwater stream and drowned. Either way, he was in more trouble than he could imagine. Suddenly, a bright flash of white light and a roaring peal of thunder were preceded by an explosion as a huge object fell from the sky and impacted the ground of the moor no more than a stone’s throw from him. Dirt, mud, water, and debris erupted from the impact site, flying high into the air and then covering the moor for hundreds of feet all around. Skerrill was knocked to the ground instantly and covered in the fallout from the blast. His ears rang and his head spun, but he staggered to his feet in a daze. He stumbled to where the blast had happened only moments before, and in a depression in the ground lay a huge stone glowing orange as if hot. Skerrill passed out. Two more thunderous explosions crashed in the distance.”
Farms in the hamlet of Winterton are being raided at night. Who, or what, is doing the raiding is a mystery. Animals have disappeared and now a visiting merchant has gone missing. The only clue is a blood drenched hat sitting in the snow along a stretch of road. Blood in the Snow is intended as a small side-adventure set in Winter, in a tiny village in the Bay of Spirits. A desperate clan of goblins are raiding the settlement and the player characters have been asked, or hired, to help. Published by Roan Studio
A level 2–3 sewer adventure by Glynn Seal. PCs plumb fetid sewers and recently-revealed secret halls, in search of a lost worker. In these forsaken chambers, they may find answers and treasures, but may also come face-to-face with a bloated monstrosity and its depraved followers. For Old-School Essentials (OSE) Included as one of four adventures in "Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1"
This adventure is more of a classic dungeon crawl, themed around the accidentally terrifying dreamscape of an elven girl trapped in a nightmare of her own making. The dungeon shifts and exits move about as the party explores, making each run through the dungeon a unique experience and allowing for infinite replays of the same adventure.
(2017 ENNIE Awards Judges' Spotlight Winner!) THE MOST AWESOME ADVENTURE EVER Since the invention of the adventure module, there have only been five adventures that were rated the most awesome, the most epic. Broodmother Sky Fortress leaves them all behind. It’s got these creatures that are half shark. Half elephant. All badass. They fly around in this cloud fortress, wrecking everything in the campaign until the players step up to stop them. It’s all terribly exciting! And all brought to you by none other than the world-famous Arch-Mage of Old-School, Jeff Rients! As an added bonus, we’ve included a Greatest Hits of the ol’ Arch-Mage’s essays and game tools to build your campaign into the unstoppable juggernaut you’ve always wanted it to be. Your game won’t suck anymore! Broodmother SkyFortress: Buying any other adventure is just throwing your money away (includes "3.PF" edition stats by Jukka Särkijärvi because somebody somehow convinced me that would be a good idea back when this thing was being crowdfunded) Writing by Jeff Rients Art by Ian MacLean Graphic Design by Alex Mayo Cartography by Jez Gordon
The carcass of a gigantic sea monster is now a small dungeon... Gargantuel was a gigantic sea monster (a whale? a prehistoric serpent? the Kraken? Leviathan itself?). She used to roam the high seas, destroying ships and devouring everything. Some of the people she swallowed survived in her belly. One of them, the sailor Torsti Seppänen, actually managed to turn the place into a comfortable habitat. One day, Gargantuel passed away. Her body now lies out in the open, luring the carrion-eater, the curious, the foolish. Strange creatures and artifacts await in the mounds of decaying flesh, and the insane Torsti Seppänen will do everything to defend his “home” from intruders. Statted for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, usable with any OSR type game. Hosted by eldritchfields.blogspot.com
There is a Ruined City in the central northern Borderlands, often called Ghoultown by explorers of the area, but its original name is Ust Lesesi and it was once the second city of the Empire of Karan. Long since plundered, ruined and abandoned, the place has become home to a sinister mix of creatures, some are trading with each other, some are resting between skirmishes, all are schiming and all of them are trying to survive. This is a toy box for the GM - there are three settings in one - the Abandoned City, with stange creatures wandering the streets; the Monstrous community with several significant and detailed NPCs and their followers all trading, quarrelling and trying to get along with each other; and the city of the (un)dead - there's a whole army hidden in here, what are they being prepared for? The Ruined City is a 40-page game resource rather than a complete adventure, although it has almost everything you need for a simple hack or a more complex web of intrigue. Along with a sumptuous set of maps is a set of encounters, monster and NPC stat-blocks, and ideas for how to use the place in a campaign. If you need a ruined city in a hurry, this is the supplement for you! The Ruined City is designed for OSR but is also compatible with AD&D 1st and 2nd edition and pretty much any TTFRPG you fancy. The encounters are all pretty high level but most of the encounters will not be immediately hostile. There is scope in this setting for far more than simple hack and slash. These resources allow you to build a set of encounters as complex as you like. You can simply try and hack your way through, but there are some VERY nasty encounters in here. You could maybe set up your own base here, or just try and take over an existing group. Perhaps you want to start up a trade route, or maybe even start a Civil War! All of these possibilities, and many others, are catered for here. SM20 The Ruined City is released by Dunromin University Press. We are a very small publisher based in the UK and our aim is to produce VERY high quality products as the best value possible.
"Something is weird about this party in 16th century Scotland! A famous thief stole a magical jewel and hid inside a castle where a party is taking place. Enter the party, find the jewel, escape with your life. In the first half of the adventure, the player characters will explore a weird party in search of the thief Jougal. They’ll likely piece together that this party is not “normal” and that this castle is not safe. In the second half, the baobhan sith will reveal themselves, red caps will set the castle on fire, and the PCs will find themselves locked in a burning hellhole. The adventure will likely change from a fun party-crawl into a stressful fight for survival. This is the NIGHTMARE PHASE." This adventure blends elements of horror, survival, and mystery, requiring players to use both their combat skills and their wits to navigate through the treacherous and evolving scenarios within Firnhirst Castle. Written for Cairn RPG
It’s up to your brave heroes to fight off the invading kobolds and save… the cheese?? Well, a job’s a job, and things underground are seldom what they seem. Wheel of Evil is a 16-page adventure for old-school characters of levels 3 to 5, plus a full-color cover, classic maps, and handouts. Compatible with Labyrinth Lord™ and similar games, including the Advanced Edition Companion. "Wheel of Evil" is part of the Eastern Valnwall setting, based on the Known Lands in Labyrinth Lord™! This adventure blends traditional dungeon crawling with unique elements of horror and intrigue, set against the backdrop of a seemingly mundane task turned deadly by the influence of a hidden evil.