In Claine Forest near Padduck Village there has appeared a pit. No-one knows where it came from, it just did. It is not so deep that you cannot see the bottom, but people fear it and avoid it. No-one who has climbed into it has come back, having been dragged beneath the surface by unseen hands. A necromancer has come to the forest, seeking the pit. She does not quite know what she expects from it, but what she hopes for is protection from death. Player-characters may wish to get involved, and thus this constitutes an adventure for old-school systems, for 5-6 PCs of 2nd level 2 or slightly fewer of 3rd. The PCs won’t necessarily all die, and the players will almost certainly survive. Reviews elsewhere: "It pours out flavour in nearly every word, creating delicious situations for the party to interact with. ... We got a village, two rival groups of adventurers, a weird-ass forest, and somewhere in the forest a pit, your final destination. From this, joy is made. Each one of those elements has their component parts well done and, because of this the whole is a wonder." — Bryce Lynch of tenfootpole
The adventure takes players from a town devastated by an unexpected flood, through a drowned land where nature is turned upside down and desperate families cling to the roofs of their ruined homes, hiding from the monstrous products of a disordered world, through the strange tomb of an ancient race, to a profundal zone, hidden for millennia and now exposed, and finally to the Observatory itself, an eerie abandoned treasure palace, where they will encounter a pale and unexpected terror which will seek to claim their lives. The adventure is suitable for a lucky mid-range party, a stupid high-level party or an exceedingly clever low level party. It is difficult, with a meaningful possibility of character death. Should you find them, and defeat their guardians, the treasures of an ancient culture will be yours. At the final point of the Observatory is a glimpse of another world. Published by False Machine Publishing
A 1st-level dungeon crawl heavy on exploration, factions, and sorcerous wonder for Shadowdark RPG! Go below the dripping ruins of Bittermold Keep to hunt for legendary treasures and face off against three competing factions that want to claim the Hideous Halls: the degenerate Bittermold family, the wild halfling Howlers, and the disgruntled mutant catfish. The characters might even encounter the abominable god-ooze, Mugdulblub! Winner of "The Best" rating from tenfootpole.org! View the adventure walkthrough video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVJ-t7qMjPo This adventure is part of Cursed Scroll Zine 1: Diablerie! Inside the zine, you'll find cursed knights channeling demonic power, mist-addled forests where witches and warlocks stalk the trees, and crumbling castles housing ancient, eldritch creatures. Shadowdark RPG is what classic, old-school fantasy gaming would look like after being redesigned with 50 years of innovation. It's the world's greatest roleplaying game in a whole new light! Learn more and download the free rules here: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/pages/shadowdark
The Toxic Wood is a deadly wilderness adventure for Old School Essentials This hexcrawl adventure focuses on game-able content and being easy to use at the table. It is graphic and art heavy and utilizes a lot of random tables to make it easier for GMs to run with minimal prep. "You have been hired by a secretive council of wizards, who refuse to meet in person with you, to rescue the survivors of Mugwort - a town which was thought to have been destroyed and lies deep within The Toxic Wood. The Wood is corrosive and the air is not safe to breath there, so the wizards have given you a magical orb which will create a safe dome of air around you. The orb must be fed with fuel containing life force to continue operating properly. They have also gifted each of you a less effective necklace which will create a temporary small bubble of clean air around your head as an emergency measure. The Wood became noxious a couple of years ago after a dragon known as Ion moved in. You will have to navigate to Mugwort without Ion noticing if you are to conduct a successful evacuation." The toxic wood is home to many strange entities; spiteful mutated horrors, ancient insectoid witch sisters, bloodthirsty redcaps, a mushroom witch and a corrosive dragon cult. Noxious gases produced by alien plants slowly coil through the air creating an endless red haze. Anything that is not part of the woods lethal eco-system is rapidly corroded, with all evidence of its existence erased within days. Details: 32 pages Single column text 8.5 x 5.5 aspect Black & White Bookmarks Hyperlinks Random tables Hooks and rumors for your players Rules for surviving in the toxic wood using the orb and other means 16 keyed hex locations Backgrounds for characters to aid roleplay New monsters Key NPCs A timeline of events for the DM to structure their sessions around Flora of the wood Random treasure tables Prompts and resolutions for what happens if players take different actions Cursed Items and Powerful Artifacts: Scattered throughout the wood, offering potent abilities but often with dangerous drawbacks.
"The magic in his flying island sputters and fades. Brave adventurers will enter the wizard’s floating workshop, solve the puzzles and unravel its mysteries before catastrophic failure sends the island crashing down to earth." The sequel to Hideous Daylight (but can be run independently). This adventure focuses heavily on puzzle-solving and exploration 19 keyed locations Written for the Old-School Essentials (OSE) rule system
"An ancient temple to the forgotten god of swords lies hidden behind a waterfall. Great piles of swords choke its halls and spill out into nearby streams and waterways. What strangeness still treads and what swords will you draw in the Temple of 1000 Swords? -A tarot-inspired fantasy RPG dungeon delve for 3rd level characters -Created for Old-School Essentials (B/X), compatible with RPGs with old-school sensibilities -A 19 room, keyed dungeon, easily insertable into a fantasy RPG campaign, sandbox, or “west marches” style table -d100 weird, magic, and cursed swords to discover. Roll to search the piles! -Anything is a sword--create weird sword creations through the temple's cursed magic -New monsters, factions, spirits, and curses -Includes a high-resolution unlabeled map for VTT use" "Temple of 1000 Swords" is set in a mystical temple filled with countless swords and intriguing magic. It offers a dense, exploration-heavy dungeon experience with unique mechanics and a rich backdrop of ongoing conflicts. Players can choose to ally with the Drukks (humanoid carnivorous ducks) or Merfolk (jocks) and manipulate both for their ends, or try to avoid conflict altogether. Gladio, the god of swords, issues quests that can alter the course of the adventure, demanding moral and strategic decisions from the players.
A small local area with ten locations and a big wizard dungeon with 19 rooms. The module is based around some rules lite system exclusive to the module, but for obvious reasons can be run in the system of your choice with little modification. (Some best guess approximations have been made for the creatures for search optimization.) Official description: "This adventure is a work of PARODY based on “Caverns of Draconis,” featured in Season 2, Episode 14 of NBC's TV series, “Community.” THIS IS NOT A TSR PRODUCT. This product was made in accordance with Wizards of the Coast's OGL Version 1.0a. The following game and adventure have been designed to reimagine what the fictional module featured in the episode might look like. This rules-lite RPG is meant to serve as an introduction for newcomers and fans of the show alike. The game can be played with 2-9 players and has everything you need to get started except for dice. "
Part megadungeon, part underground expedition, Operation Unfathomable serves as both a one-shot adventure and a campaign framework. PCs are (optionally) drafted at swordpoint to recover the Nul Rod, a priceless artifact that was recently lost in a local prince's foolhardy attempt to destroy the Chaos Gods of the Underworld. The PCs have been drafted as an expendable set of pawns to venture into the vast and bewildering Underworld and retrieve the Nul Rod. With the Underworld's innumerable beasties being on high alert after the prince's expedition, the PCs must sneak through the incredibly dangerous Underworld. Fighting is not as important as stealth, fast-talking, and running away rapidly. This is the expansion from Sholtis's original Operation Unfathomable, released in Knockspell #5 (2011).
With the rising of the Blood Moon, the accursed abode of the Blood King returns to this world. The lord of all vampires comes to claim the blood that is owed to him. His halls contain treasures and secrets that would make any ambitious adventurer abandon reason and caution to seek them out. Will you risk your soul for gold and glory in the Halls of the Blood King?
Lord Galveston's lands are plagued by murders. For the past several months people have been disappearing. Some bodies have turned up, their corpses found along the banks of the river. Strange tracks of a cat-like creature have been found around the villages, and rumors abound that a charon fiend, a dreaded beast of chaos, has come from the nearby wood and settled in the area. The latest victim is the Deacon of the Four Saints Church in Capendu. His body, found in the river, sent the alarmed villagers in search of aid. The adventure unfolds in the lands of the aged Lord Galveston and plunges everyone into a twisted tale of wild beasts and the restless dead.
From Exalted Funeral: The snows are alive. A soft, cold spirit courses through them. Her lace threads the world; watching, drinking, listening, stroking, soothing, killing. Her touch is soft and icy. She is Winterwhite, the daughter of the Waterdrinker and the Northwind, and she is a terrible god. An avatar of ice and hunger, of visions and death. Dooms and devastations to visit upon a cosy roleplaying setting. Longwinter is the RPG sandbox of a realm that has broken its vows to Winterwhite and will now pay the cold price. This book contains secret knowledge and mechanics for the referee. The setting is profoundly close to that of Witchburner (by the same author and artist). This sandbox includes: ~110 pages of content. some colour illustrations. 3 variations of the Brezim map to represent changes as Winterwhite's curse bites harder. faction trackers for the 5 key factions and over 40 events to represent different groups growing or waning in strength depending on player actions. detailed weather and event tables to simulate a living setting. detailed encounter tables for night and day, which grow harsher as Winterwhite's curse grows stronger. several more tables to generate corpses, caches, vaults, and memories of summer. optional playing card-based escape mechanic with 54 different locations, challenges and characters encountered in each location. alternatively, the escape section serves as a resource to mine for winter locations, challenges, and characters. Be aware: This is a book of factions and winter encounters for the full-fledged mini-setting detailed in the Longwinter: Visitor's Book. The content is mostly system-neutral. It references some 5E or d20-style conventions, but should work with most low-power systems easily. Many of the encounters, and particularly the escape, will not work with characters resistant to cold, capable of flight, or otherwise able to avoid the environmental challenges. Finally, thank you for considering running Longwinter for your players. It is a bit of a tribute to the mountains and myths I've walked and heard over many years, and I hope you will find fuel for many adventures and good memories herein. It has also been a challenging project to prepare. Many people helped make it as good as it is. The fault for all errors and typos is my own. —Luka, December 2020
An investigative city crawl adventure for Shadowdark RPG (or any OSR-style system), designed for experienced players levels 1-2 Set in the decaying city of Brannam, players unravel a web of fear, blood, and buried secrets. A local alchemist has begun killing in secret, rekindling old fears of an old terror. The city's decline threatens to spiral into collapse, and far below, something older and hungrier waits to wake. This adventure includes: 3 separate dungeons (The flooded Sewers, the forgotten Catacombs, and the cursed Ruins of Edric von Braech's keep) Open ended design and layered mysteries with multiple outcomes and failure states A fully explorable city with random encounters, evolving factions and escalating panic. Custom rules for spell mishaps, nightly murder checks and decay events as Brannam unravels Modular content designed to drop into your campaign
"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
The adventure text was written by a neural network (Talk to Transformer) and compiled by a human editor. It is surprisingly usable. The adventure is centered upon the dangerous and thoroughly weird Tomb of the Daughter, the burial place and temple of an ancient Goddess. Explore several rooms connected by teleport systems, fight strange creatures, and perhaps thwart a demon summoning.
“Rats in the Walls”: A dockside tavern in Khromarium is plagued by rats of a most unusual breed. These abominable rodents have ruined the tavern keeper’s business and his life. The man is desperate, and he offers a substantial reward for the elimination of his horrific problem.
Once a powerful proponent of Law, the Archmage Tazimack the Red was eventually driven mad by a fear of mortality. As he slipped into insanity his retirement home began to reflect the chaotic bent of his mind. Long after Tazimack’s unnaturally animated body has disintegrated, his manor house remains as a shadow cast by a twisted intellect. Can the characters bring order to this chaos?
Dwarrowdeep is a new megadungeon from Three Castles Award Winner (2018) and Barrowmaze author Dr. Greg Gillespie. Gundgathol lies in ruin. Over 250 years ago, an evil host rose from the underdark and pushed the dwarves out of their ancestral mountains. Since that time, orcs and worse have defiled their sacred halls. In recent days, the high dwarven clerics cast their runestones and read the portents: the time has come to retake Gundgathol. Are you brave (or fooloish) enough to enter Dwarrowdeep? Dwarrowdeep will keep your players on their toes and your campaign going strong for years. Dwarrowdeep is brought to you by the Old School Renaissance (so don’t forget your 10’ pole). This project was created through a group of awesome backers from Kickstarter. Without them, this project wouldn't have happened. Thank you for your support! Check my drivethrurpg profile for all sorts of additional Barrowmaze material. This megadungeon adventure includes an all-star cast of Ex-TSR artists including Darlene, Larry Elmore, Tim Truman, Jeff Dee, and Diesel. It features 150 unique zipitomes (art that tells a story of iconic adventurers along the bottom of the page) illustrated by Peter Pagano. Dwarrowdeep is the single largest dwarven themed adventure in the history of role-playing games.
The Bark Witch of Carcass Country is a procedural pointcrawl for FRONTIER SCUM. It consists of tables encompassing: Adventure hooks to lure scum to the swamp Antagonist motivation to add depth and guide the story Locations that provide (un)safe spaces for PCs Exploration via an overloaded, exploding encounter table that escalates the plot Mundane and strange creatures with full stat blocks Signs of the Bark Witch to sow dread and chaos The module can be run purely randomly, as a pick-and-choose toolkit, or anywhere in between. Depending on the rolls and approach, it works as a one-shot or a multi-session adventure. The Bark Witch of Carcass Country is an independent production by Walton Wood and is not affiliated with Den of Druids. It is published under the FRONTIER SCUM Third-Party License. FRONTIER SCUM is copyright Den of Druids
A desperate ghost, a plea for help, and a forgotten crypt filled with peril and plunder. This is a tale of past conflicts, where blood magic has left a foul and dire aftermath, and time is of the essence. Maps and illustrations help guide you through rugged wilderness to re-discover a tomb lost to all but its denizens - creatures enslaved by an unholy item or awakened by its looming threat. Published by Roan Studio
The City of Bergholt lies upon the southern shores of the Interzae. Her crumbling walls and ancient cobbled streets are little more than a backwater, controlled by powerful merchants and thieves. In these darkened streets and twisted alleys people claw their way to the top through violence and guile. In Bergholt, the fear lingers in every shadow. In By Shadow of Night you’ll find a complete detailed description of Bergholt, a rich cast of NPCs who all have their own plots and plans, over 20 encounter areas, including a small dungeon and a large fold-out map of the city. All this setting material comes to life in the dark and deadly adventure, also included within, that is By Shadow of Night. By Shadow of Night picks up after the Death in the Treklant series, available from Troll Lord Games, though it can be a stand-alone adventure if desired.