It is said that when the largest and most ancient of purple worms know that the time of their death is near, they make their way through rock, earth, and water to the legendary Purple Worm Graveyard. Canny adventurers can return from this quest with a fortune in purple ivory. Foolish ones will die. The Purple Worm Graveyard is a short dungeon crawl adventure that’s best for levels 1-4. The adventure has 15 entries and is designed to provide a variety of challenges for a new adventuring party or one-shot game. The adventure is designed to provide interesting monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures.
Lured by a scroll where the long dead sorcerer Urgaan boasts about treasures hidden in his tower, the PCs arrive at the outpost near the Awaroth Woods. A 1 page adventure for OSR style games.
Old-School Essentials Adventure A hole in an old oak tree leads characters down to a maze of twisting, root-riddled passageways, the chambers of an ancient wizard-complex, and the banks of an underground river where once a reptile cult built their temples. A classic expedition into the Mythic Underworld for characters of 1st to 2nd level. 60 keyed areas, rumour table, loot summary, dungeon background info, suggestions for expanding the dungeon. Keyed in a quick-reference, bullet point format. Unlabelled map included for VTT use. The Hole in the Oak can be linked with The Incandescent Grottoes to form a large, 3 level dungeon with over 115 keyed encounter areas!
The Submerged Spire of Sarpedon the Shaper lies to the west of the Isle of the Dismemberer. On the northwestern shore of this island, crumbling steps spill from the shore directly into the sea. There, a seaweed choked stone path can be glimpsed winding down into the depths. At low tide, a quarter mile along the path, a lone onion dome may be seen poking through the waves. In the twilight of the sorcerer lords, The Submerged Spire was the jewel of the Shattered Isles. Within his submarine redoubt, Sarpedon penetrated ever deeper into the organic mysteries. Now, its for- lorn dome the roost of seagulls, its secrets slumber beneath the waves.
Stonehell Dungeon: Into the Heart of Hell is the long-awaited sequel to Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls. This book contains the final levels of the megadungeon, revealing its most terrifying secrets. It contains almost 600 dungeon rooms for the players to explore, more than 70 unique monsters to challenge them, and 13 new magical items to mystify them. Stonehell Dungeon is a classic-style megadungeon intended for use with the Labyrinth Lord™ role-playing game, but adaptable to early versions of the original fantasy role-playing game and its retro-clones. It gives the game master the necessary information to run the dungeon, while offering enormous opportunities to customize the site. Published by Three-Headed Monster Games.
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
Establishing themselves in the cyst left by their dead god, a zealot band of Shrooms, a race known for bizarre projects and subtle objectives, have been working for decades on the strangest task in their strange history. They are growing themselves a new god.
In "The Brazen Bull," whilst traversing one of the seedier neighbourhoods of Khromarium, your party are solicited by a greasy-haired Pict. He offers to sell you a sheaf of magical lotus that allows one to see the future or to brew potions that empower the imbiber with sorcery. He beckons you to follow Jeffrhim into a dilapidated building ...
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.
...There are older things in these forests too; the knights did not just battle the pagan kings of man but also the forest dwellers; the wodewose. Spend too long in any tavern or listen to a village alewife and you’ll hear stories of knights and wodewose duking it out in little patches of now cleared pastures. One of these little villages is the village of Levnec, a sad little town ruled by a self appointed lord banished from his seaside villa far to the south. His name is Lord Kristoph and he has been looking to hire some transient sell swords to solve his problem. Some of the townsfolk are (repeatedly) going missing and others are refusing to work, even after examples were beaten and hobbled by his men. Seeing as the townsfolk are blaming the local Gnomes, he would simply like these drifters to saunter in the wood, murder some Gnomes and bring them back to show the townsfolk there is nothing to fear (except him) and to get back to work.
Adventure in a desolate magic-stained wasteland where fabulous crystal spires and fortresses plummet from the skies to tempt the desperate and the bold with magical gems and golden treasures. Find your fortune or find your death as you plunder the fallen sky tomb of an Empyrean despot. SCHEME with the unnatural denizens of the Crystal Tomb! UNRAVEL the secrets of the Dead King and his realm of misrule! LOOT strange magics and Opulent Treasures from beyond the sky's vault! A complete adventure for Level 1 characters and an introduction to both the dungeon crawl style play and the Crystal Frontier setting. Written with the new referee and players unfamiliar with older style games in mind, Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier is built to start a campaign, use as a one-shot, or to drop in as an adventure locale in almost any fantasy world. The adventure has been designed for and tested with OSE, but is easy to use with any of the wayward offspring of the early editions of the first fantasy roleplaying game. Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier emphasizes problem solving, faction intrigue, and exploration in the tradition of classic dungeon crawl adventures, but with a phantasmagoric fantasy Western aesthetic. NOW AVAILABLE FOR ERRANT AND OLD SCHOOL ESSENTIALS!
In the flooded temple is hidden a great treasure, and the adventures are in race to get there first, but the ancient temple is the home of Death's Messenger and several cults each with their own agenda. Will the adventurers survive or be dragged off to the lands of the dead? The Flooded Temple is a low-level OSR adventure based on the greatest RPG ever written as system agnostic and easily adapted to your favorite version. The adventure was originally written for the Danish Living Campaign The Hinterlands, and it is for the first time presented in English. The adventure introduces the players to a different tradition of adventures, and it one with a focus on exploration and encountering the unknown. The adventure contains several new items to entertain your players, and several challenges for them to overcome as they encounter the residents of the abandoned temple. The Flooded Temple also have a prequel, Tomb of the Dragon's Heart, and a sequel, Grave of the Heartless. Published by Greis Games.
A Gritty OSR Fantasy Setting by Travis Legge The mortal lands are divided. A dozen kingdoms lie scattered across the world, separated by dangerous wilds filled with bandits and monsters. The bravest mortals act as adventurers, guiding travelers between the kingdoms, killing monsters to thin their numbers, and plundering ruins in search of the lost treasures of the golden age. This is the world of Odysseys & Overlords! The party are traveling west through the Untamed Gauntlet, on their way to somewhere else and using a stream to guide their steps. They step out from under the eaves of the forest to spy looming before them a cliff, a tall wall of stone which stretches away to either side as far as they can see. A waterfall cascades onto sharp rocks into a pool from which pours the stream they were following. The sheer cliff is easily 100 feet high, and too wet and slick to climb safely, though it can be tried. Atop the cliff is a bare stone hill which looks like it was at one time worked by intelligent hands; a look-out post of sorts has been carved into its southernmost peak. The map says it’s called “Wyvernseeker Rock,” but it doesn’t say why. The hill appears deserted. A long age ago, beyond mortal memory, a forgotten people built a watching post and refuge atop and within Wyvernseeker Rock. A hundred years ago, an adventurer named Olaf Wyvernseeker claimed the Rock for his own and set out with companions to clear the lands thereabouts. They were never heard from again. The upper chambers of the Rock are a convenient lair for a Giant Rhadogessa and its spider servants. Still, it’s got to be safer than climbing the cliff. Right? Published by Aegis Studios
Your party approaches a barrow at the base of the mountain. A raging storm brews overhead, and as you approach, a bolt of lightning strikes down on the peak of the mound, lighting up the world all around you. A thunderclap momentarily deafens you, and as your eyes adjust to the resuming grey of the dark day, you see a flicker of firelight emerging from the two gaping holes built into the side of the hill. You’ve found the pirates camping within the Barrow of the Raging Storm. As I delivered it to my players, the premise of this Midnight Sun adventure is that some pirates have been attacking ships returning from raids. They have been stealing the loot and the corpses of any slain Nords. Among their victims, a ship from Valthis returns to tell them that the pirates sailed upriver (to hex 506), where I placed the Barrow in my Shadowdark RPG campaign. The adventurers started from there and explored the dungeon thoroughly. The adventure was created using the tools described in the Shadowdark RPG core rules. I created it in about 6 hours between 2024-03-08 and 2024-03-09 and ran it for my group on the 9th. It took about 2.25 hours to play to completion. The party consisted of two level 1 characters and one level 2 character. I had so much fun making and running this that I will continue creating more Midnight Sun Adventures, so stay tuned!
Infinite broken night. Milky alien moons. Wavering demons of gold. Held in this jail of immortal threats are three perfect sisters... Maze of the Blue Medusa is a dungeon. Maze of the Blue Medusa is art. Maze of the Blue Medusa works with your favorite fantasy tabletop RPGs. And Maze of the Blue Medusa is the madly innovative game book from the award-winning Zak Sabbath of A Red & Pleasant Land and Patrick Stuart of Deep Carbon Observatory. Lethal gardens, soul-rending art galleries, infernal machines—Maze of the Blue Medusa reads like the poetic nightmare of civilizations rotted to time, and plays like a puzzle-box built from risk and weird spectacle. Art by Zak Sabbath; text by Patrick Stuart and Zak Sabbath. Publisher is Satyr Press.
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
Short free/pwyw adventure for Shadowdark RPG or similar roleplaying games. Months ago the snow elf princess Ysren was pressured by her mother to begin accepting suitors. To thwart them, she vowed her suitors that anyone who brought her a piece of the moon would have her hand in marriage. The sorcerer-prince Sandor of Excelsis took up the challenge & began building an ambitious spiraling tower atop the highest nearby peak. Once it was high enough, he would begin a ritual that would open a portal from the top of the tower to the moon. One cold day all communication with the tower seized & the “Spiral Prince” has not been heard from ever since. King Galian has sent men in search of his lost prince, but none have succeeded in besting the frigid mountains. He offers a hefty bounty for the return of his son. Will you brave the rime-covered cliffs of Mt. Excelsis to save the prince... or perhaps scour his tower for arcane knowledge & regal wealth?
A curse is upon the land. In the old barrow long forgotten a forgotten general awaits trying to confront death, and until heroes can guide his way, the land suffers. Grave of the Heartless takes the adventurers to an unusual dungeon bordering the realm of the dead, and here a heart beats. Dare our heroes step into the darkness, where one step too far can lead them to face Death. Grave of the Heartless is a low-level OSR adventure suited for Labyrinth Lord and other oldschool retro clones. The adventure was originally written for the Danish Living Campaign The Hinterlands, and it is for the first time presented in English. The adventure introduces the players to a different tradition of adventures, and it one with a focus on exploration and encountering the unknown. The adventure includes new magical items and new monsters to challenge your players. Grave of the Heartless can be played as a sequel to Tomb of the Dragon's Heart and The Flooded Temple.
“Down below, beneath Cassidum’s stinking alleys and crumbling palaces, lie twisting passages and musty chambers with the secrets of the old days, and the subterranean dens of lowlife scum. But now, sordid disappearances haunt the Piazza dei Rospi, while the Literators’ Guild and Barbers’ Guild wage a bloody turf war for the surrounding streets. The key to these mysteries is a richly carved marble well decorated with the carvings of four ugly bullfrogs, whose depths hide things worse still. Some who descend shall win riches and battle-glory, while others will only find horrid death… down in The Well of Frogs!” A 32-page city and dungeon adventure for 1st to 2nd level characters by Istvan Boldog-Bernad, The Well of Frogs describes a neighbourhood of the crumbling city of Cassidum, its teeming alleyways the haunts of thieves and lowlives. But below the surface lie worse things still, left over from the days of the old empire or repurposed by dangerous eccentrics. Visiting the underground could not be easier: the Well of Frogs, in the middle of the infamous Piazza Dei Rospi, lies in plain sight, and nobody will prevent the brave and very foolish from descending into its maw. This is a module which has killed a respectable amount of player characters in playtest, more at its debut at North Texas RPG Con, and is ready to kill again. It can be used as a one-off, or as a nexus point for an extended campaign. The adventure features illustrations by Dorottya Fulop (who also did the cover), Ferenc Fabian, Vincentas Saladis, Graphite Prime, as well as the Dead Victorians and the Robot Overlords.
The Hyqueous Vaults is a site-based dungeon with water and necromancy themes, some tricky/puzzling situations, and plenty of opportunity for combat. A challenging and lucrative module for 6-8 characters, averaging 3rd level. A centuries-old map leads to a mysterious cliffside complex, rumored to be flooded, and supposedly holding a dead necromancer’s fortune. Sages believe the arm-length metal implement accompanying the map must be some sort of key. The complex stands ripe for exploration by a party sufficiently strong and sneaky to wrest any treasures from the depths within. Written in celebration of OSRIC’s 10th Birthday.