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 air is moist. The moisture mixes with your sweat — the heat is relentless. The drone of insects gives you headaches, and the fever from the infected wounds has left you delirious. Your raft is damaged, and there are spirits in the trees. You’ve only been here for three days. Fever Swamp is a hex-crawl sandbox adventure compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess and most other Dungeons & Dragons clones.
“Do not try to escape. You are in my control. Look at me. I am the sum of all evils. Look carefully. My power infests all times, all galaxies, all dimensions...many seek me out...But see how I destroy their lives..." (from the film, Heavy Metal, 1981) For half a century, life in the mining outpost of Piktown has been peaceful and prosperous until a strange green glow in the nearby mountain range rekindled a frightening legend from the past. Does this recent luminous phenomenon signal the return of the dreaded Cult of the Green Orb? The Overlord has hired you and your fellow adventurers to stop the troubling green glow! This module is a classic-style dungeon crawl meant for a single night’s play, with plenty going on behind the scenes to keep players (and referees) interested. For use with Swords & Wizardry** or the Original Edition of the First Fantasy Roleplaying Game
Alton Lightheart, a lhalfling thief, went looking for a magic sword at the Storm-Sun Cliff. He & his two comrades were ambushed by a dusk (collective term) of malign shadows. He was knocked out and nearly killed. Before the shadows could consume Alton, a giant owl pair chased them away. Later, he awoke badly injured, not knowing his allies’ fate (they became shadows). Shaken, Alton saw he no longer cast a shadow! Disturbed, he fled to the village of Croy. Alton’s freed shadow, Kra, and its dusk now stalk him, longing to devour him in the dim light. This chapter starts in Croy. As the PCs arrive, an exhausted Alton sits in the Dragon’s Claw Tavern, back to the wall, skittishly watching. He ask PCs for help to face these terrifying monsters before his essence fades away. Published by Wicked Cool Games
INTRODUCTION Some say the world is dying. Others say the desert is growing. In either case, merchants and princes always desire new ways to cross the Great Sand Sea. Today, someone has found a way to fly over it. Who will tempt fate and join the maiden voyage of the Desert Angel? No one knows what dangers or treasure have lain hidden in the heart of the desert for all these eons. If you survive, you will be the first. ONE-SHOT This adventure is intended as a one-shot, but it can easily be inserted into a campaign. Any time your players wish to travel to a distant city, you can simply say there is a large desert in their way, but luckily there is a new flying ship they can travel on. Good luck with that! DESIGN NOTES This adventure is intended for low-level characters (1-3). It is primarily geared for social encounters and combat. It runs 2 to 5 hours. Players ride a flying ship across the desert. Monsters attack. Passengers plot treachery. Mysterious locations appear. You can keep the tone serious or play up this ridiculous sequence of disasters for laughs.
“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.
The dwarves of these mountains are a good and trustworthy folk, friends to both men and elves dwelling in the region. But their ancient homeland hides many secrets that they might otherwise wish forgotten. Recent rumors have surfaced that a long lost dwarven hall has been discovered. There are whispers that the place was once the center of an evil dwarven cult, though the dwarven authorities will say nothing of it. A recently acquired treasure map points to an ancient dwarven tunnel complex. Could this be the place? Are these the dangerous halls that were once the home for a dwarven cult worshipping an entity they called the Earth Dragon? Advanced Adventures #43 The Warrens of Zagash is an OSRIC(tm) module designed for adventurers of 6th to 8th level.
A 20-page adventure for OSE Save the wizard! A sunken cathedral on a quiet mountain lake hides a long forgotten temple to Mathanoga, God of Knowledge and wizardry. Abandoned by Man for centuries , but protected by the legend of man-eating fishmen lurking in it. Or until a few weeks ago the young wizad Elric embarked on its expedition. With help from the accademy of Greykeep he found the temple and began to explore it, hoping to uncover its ancient magical secrets. Now the wizard is missing and the accademy has put a bounty on its head: its weight in silver to whoever will find him and bring him home alive and well. Find magical secrets! Deep inside the temple are stashed many magical items, all sacred to the fishmen dwelling there, all worth dying for. Save Elric and the treasures will be yours! The Sunken Temple is an expert level Old School Essentials adventure for a party of 1-4 players. Perfect for a one shot or a random encounter in an hex crawl.
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.
(EQ1) The Cursed Ring is a generic fantasy short adventure for low-level players, themed around puzzle hunting, traps, and monster combat. It is designed to be solved in approximately 5-6 hours, depending on the size of the party and skill of the players. This adventure takes place in a cursed fortress, where they must find a powerful mythical ring capable of granting great power, in exchange for enormous sacrifices. Players must recover the ring and get out of this dangerous place alive.
"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
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.
“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.
A little cave-borne adventure about harvesting valuable cysts from a sleeping creature, trying not to be killed by the horribly mutated infectious things that already tried that, and helping a wizard who recently lost all his friends and just wants to get his spellbook back. For use with your fantasy RPG of choice. How would I use this thing? -As a terrible one-shot without consequences! -Drop "Find the wizard Felix Longworm cowering by stones and a mournful tree" into your mountainous random encounter table of choice, and pull this out when the fates decide. -If the cave is ignored something else will eventually be birthed out of it, so you get free campaign fodder if your players shake their heads and say "nope". Apart from the adventure it also contains a glorious suit of cursed armour, horrific explosives, four new spells, an adorable cut-out map for your players to put together as they explore, and some pretty neat light tracking mechanics, so there's that.
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.
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.
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.
The ancient world of Harth withers beneath its dying sun…but it’s not dead yet. High in the night sky, a vampire’s tower is torn apart by a rampaging angel. People and monsters are trapped. Magical treasure lies scattered everywhere. It’s all yours for the taking, if you can find a way out before the angel finds you. This adventure is a one-shot dungeon-delve into a wizard’s tower. In space. With vampires. This is an alien-survival-horror-movie of an adventure (or at least, you can choose to play it that way). ADVENTURE TYPE: One-Shot / Low Level / Level 3 / Dungeon Delve / Tower / Vampires / Survival-Horror DESIGN NOTES This adventure is intended for low-level characters (around level 3). It is focused mostly on exploration, with several social encounters and opportunities for deadly combat. It runs 3 to 5 hours. There are 17 unique magical items, 17 unique monsters, and 17 unique rooms. I swear I did not plan that, it just worked out this way.
‘Wyrd’ things are afoot. This town might seem like your ordinary, post-apocalyptic-now-turned-fantasy locale, but it is not! Fell Cults have begun to take over and it is up to the brave adventurers to stop one in particular: the Cult of the Shield Ghul. But the ‘Wyrdness’ doesn’t end there. Though this adventure can be used to facilitate your typical wander-around-and-kill-everyone-to-take-their-stuff-type scenario, it also includes a sinister (and frankly genius) plot, feuding factions, plenty of hyphens, not to mention bizarre NPC’s and situations to either interact with or stab to death.
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