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.
One reason why they call it "the dead of winter." A year ago, a white dragon came out of the mountains north of Polarton, attacking trappers, driving off game, and marauding as it pleased. The dragon is seriously affecting the financial stability of the town. Therefore, the town council has placed a bounty on the dragon. This is a short arctic adventure. Pgs. 15-19
An initial level adventure, this scenario has allowed for each PC to have an encounter as they get to the community of Lakedale (offered earlier) to prepare for their career. After successfully getting to the town the new PCs quickly discover a job opportunity pertaining to an overdue shipment from a Gnome Alchemist. Gelbo Green, alchemist, has an agreement with one of the merchants in town and is late on a delivery. Lettice Beauson runs the Purloined Purse and is looking for a group of adventurers to check on him. Time to start your careers!
Do you dare delve into the depths of an ancient demon's prison? Designed to be a fun 5E challenge-dungeon. Delve into a cave where an ancient evil was once sealed away... but be wary, as over the ages, the seals upon the Demon have begun to weaken... This is the one-shot featured in my larger adventure, Tower of the Chronomancer, but more polished and slightly expanded to allow it to stand on its own. (Originally it was the Tower's "6th floor.") I'm making this Pay What You Want, hoping people will enjoy this content -- and maybe seek the larger adventures I've already written. The Cave. Mostly hidden behind a nondescript hill in a crowded wood, forgotten by almost everyone not of the nearest town, and even they have forgotten why the cave was originally created. What it contains -- what it seals in. Marked only by a broken, rotten sign, now it's viewed as a prank spot. Sometimes it's a hideout for unsuspecting bandits. Generally, it's a place no one goes on purpose due to the lingering "wrongness" that any who enter seem to feel. Any that pass through the perfectly-rectangular entrance will find that it's much more than meets the eye. Especially if they are able to find their way down to the Trials! The Story. Long ago, a shapeshifting demon called "Umbraeus, the Defiler" sought dominion over the world. It clawed its way out of the Hells and took control of the region through a mixture of trickery (empowering people it could use) and destruction (raining fire, destroying crops and rivals, etc.). Umbraeus reigned for many years... until it was betrayed by a rival, which allowed a group of adventurers and mages to defeat and trap it in a magical green gemstone. The gem was then buried deep underground, protected by a set of Trials that allowed only those pure of heart and capable of handling its influence to visit it. But a long time has passed. The seals that held Umbraeus at bay have begun to weaken. And the demon has found a way to crack the gemstone. Its malevolent influence has begun to seep out into the world above. If nothing is done, it may manage to fully escape! Includes: A 5e one-shot adventure for 5th-6th level adventurers (4-6 hours long) Combat, roleplaying, puzzles, discovery, randomness, and loot! A chalenging demon encounter with variable difficulty levels 6 original enemy statblocks, including an evil shadow-boss 2 original magic items. Keywords You Can Expect: High fantasy, cave dungeon, combat, evil demon, shadow dragon, puzzles, discovery, randomness, gelatinous cubes, constructs, moral quandries, and lots of loot.
Sometimes it is the simplest of tasks which end up taking much more of time and energy than they should. When the party is asked by the local sage to collect some rare flora, it feels like relatively easy money; a journey into the woods they’ve traveled before, a conversation with someone they’ve met before and then on to gather the crop. The characters can hear the Thirsty Serpent tavern calling them after a brisk afternoon’s work. But the PCs’ plans go awry when it turns out nothing is quite that straightforward. Deals have to be struck, foes defeated, anger and scorn dealt with and then the whole process gone through again. When there is duplicity at every turn and double-crossing is done with relish, the PCs have to keep their wits and weapons equally sharp. Dealing with someone who is prepared to cross the line between humiliation and harm at a moment’s notice is a tough challenge; this quickly becomes about much more than mere mushrooms!
Three dungeons in one! The party is given a "dimension shifting device" and sets out to explore a 15-area cave, simultaneously occupied by the DEMON CORSAIRS, the remnants of an ASTEROID MINING OPERATION, and the MONASTERY OF TRANQUILITY & TRANSCENDENCE! The three dungeons are presented in three columns, so when the characters shift from one dimension into another, it's easy to find the corresponding area description. For use with old-school or OSR RPG systems. Recommended for character levels 3-4. Published by Eldritch Fields.
The Hag's Hexes is a 66 page guide designed by Dungeon Masters Guild luminaries like JVC Parry and Janek Sielicki alongside rising stars and old stalwarts like Matt Butler, Matthew Gravelyn, and Tim Bannock. It was created with one thing in mind: to make hags more than the sum of their (often meager) Challenge ratings, giving them the mechanics, roleplay potential, and weird magic that can inspire campaigns, lay low kings and warlords, and potentially ensnare unwary Player Characters into campaign-changing curses or long-term bargains that force them into terrible moral quandaries! Split into five chapters, the authors have provided everything a DM needs to terrify their players for years to come. The Bestiary features over a dozen monsters; some are new hags, some are their minions or even their mobile lairs, and one of them -- the Shaitan AKA Desert Hag -- was featured in Monsters of the Guild! Bargains & Curses is a chapter filled with ideas that can kick-start campaigns, threaten valued NPCs, or put Player Characters' very existence and morality at stake. Chapter 3 includes two dozen items of wonderment, weirdness, and dread, ranging from fairy tale-inspired items of whimsy to terribly cursed items of horror. Chapter 4 is titled "Filthy, Vile & Downright Dirty" and provides dozens of roleplaying tips to make hags come alive, new mechanics inspired by and expanding on Volo's Guide to Monsters (coven spell lists, aunties, grandmothers, alternative coven members), and ends with useful combat tactics for each of the hags from the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide, as well as tactics for covens. Finally, Chapter 5 presents five encounter groups (with sub-encounters) to give you quick story seeds and monster lists that you can put together in minutes to create a single encounter or to inspire a full campaign, and ends with three full-length adventures -- each with 3-5 encounters -- that showcase many of the new monsters, rules, magic items, and so on that appeared in earlier chapters. Each of these adventures comes with an encounter map meant to act as inspiration for hag lairs, and they include useful mechanical ideas for terrain effects and descriptive keywords listed directly on the map for added inspiration and easy customization! Designed by Tim Bannock. Written by Matt Butler, JVC Parry, Janek Sielicki, and Tim Bannock. Edited by Matthew Gravelyn and Tim Bannock. Cover Art by Elena Naylor. Cartography by Tim Bannock using Inkwell Ideas' Dungeonographer (Dungeonographer is copyright Inkwell Ideas). Layout & Graphic Elements by Elena Naylor with Tim Bannock. Interior Art by Arcana Games, Bruno Balixa, David Lewis Johnson, Dean Spencer, Earl Geier, Filip Gutowski, Jacob E. Blackmon, Joyce Maureira, Petr Kratochvil, Jayaraj Paul, Brian Brinlee, and Wizards of the Coast.
You wake up in a pitch-dark cavern... The stench of bodies fills your nostrils. The crack of bone and the sound of teeth rending flesh are the only sound you hear. Something is feeding nearby...something you can't see. We Eat in the Dark is a deadly adventure for 3rd or 4th level characters. Navigate the caves of the Darkshard Abattoir, where light sources are muted and creatures hid invisibly in the dark. Fight for your life against troglodytes empowered by a mysterious artifact and other cavern hazards. Includes an appendix for limited starting gear for a more lethal challenge. A perfect murder-happy one-shot for your players to question your friendship.
A young black dragon and two hatchling dragons live in an excavated sandstone burrow in the swamp west of Knacker Knob. Connected to the dragon lair is a complex of sandstone tunnels and chambers inhabited by lizard men. Some sandstone tunnels and chambers are partially flooded, and others are filled with nasty things such as slimes, oozes and gelatinous cubes. The lizard men revere the dragons as magical spirit guardians. In small groups the lizard men are easily defeated, but if allowed to prepare a common defense, the lizard men tribe with its spellcasters may present serious threat to the player characters (PCs). Wild Dragon Den is the first dragon's lair to conquer. Part of TSR 1073 The Dragon's Den
Caverns of the Dorgel Mountains is/was the finale in Filbar series. It features Lexicon Meridius the Ancient Red Dragon and scourge of the Dwarf Lords (F4 & F5). This large adventure represents how I look at the difficulty of taking on the deadliest dragon of the Prime Material plane. Will your party return to the Halls of the Dwarf Lords to help aid them one more time?
The Goblins of Kaelnor Forest – Adventure This first level adventure takes the adventurers into the Kaelnor Forest. While the eastern side of the forest has long been the home of the forest elves, the western side is infested with goblins, boggarts, spiders, and more. The adventure takes players through the forest, investigating a rumor of raiding creatures. They begin in South Hollow, a farming community south of Ferryport proper, and will travel deep within the dark, enchanted woods. Are there supernatural creatures in the woods taking the farmers’ stores? Will they survive the strange fey forest? The adventure comes with 5 pre-made Uteria player characters, so players can jump right into the adventure.
A bubbling stream cascades into a hole in the earth, leading to a series of underground watercourses and scintillating grottoes. Adventurers who delve within may discover odd mosses and fungi, a ruined temple complex, and the lair of a crystal-eating dream dragon.
The Red Plumes have increased patrols in the region surrounding Hillsfar, and a string of disappearances has followed in their wake. Naturally, this has roused the suspicion of the factions. Join your factions and find out the truth behind the missing farmers. A four-hour adventure for 1st-4th level characters.
When local farmer Jonas Cappa goes missing while hunting mushrooms and then reappears, hours later, naked and without any of his belongings, his wife goes to the party to investigate. Jonas claims to have fallen into a hole in the ground, but none can be found. What really happened to him and can it be stopped before things get worse? (Spoiler: they are probably going to get worse). A one-shot adventure for characters of levels 1-4 designed to be dropped into any campaign, inspired by the X-Files (but firmly D&D).
Berryridge is beset by bandits, the woods nearby have always caused issues, but these recent bandits are something else. Something or someone with actual intelligence is leading them now. Worse, even the bandits seem to dislike their new leadership, not deserting out of fear alone. The lord's men are weeks away and the town is unsure how much longer they can keep the bandits out of their homes. It's up to you to find out exactly what happened and stop the bandits before they can start taking something other than valuables... Draw Steel! In this unofficial 1st-level adventure for the TTRPG Draw Steel, you meet with the small town of Berryridge. Currently under siege by banditry. However, these bandits are getting desperate, find out who or what is driving them to take more and more risks. This product contains: - A short and sweet adventure for a 1st-level party. - A flexible storyline that can fit into any campaign - 2 custom monsters - 3 maps specially designed for this Draw Steel adventure, with a separate map showing suggested enemy placements. - Custom characters and negotiations.
Sharlo Tan was a sorceress. She was a scholar. She was a spy. And she left behind a legendary trove of treasure, guarded by riddles, secrets, and the passage of time. But it isn’t an ancient rumor that has the people of Rivesby on edge. The hobgoblins of the Lamellar Banner have encamped less than a day’s march away, and no one knows what has brought them out of their stronghold. In this richly detailed adventure, players can choose whether to play peacemaker or treasure hunter, explorer or exterminator. But they won’t be the only ones playing games, as they encounter creatures and NPCs who have their own conflicts and motivations. The Secret of Sharlo Tan is a mid-length adventure for levels 2-4 that easily plugs into any 5e campaign. It’s particularly suited to those who love witty books, solveable riddles, and nuanced interactions, but it readily accommodates smash-mouthed impatience as well. Depending on playstyle, it can fill 2-4 play sessions of 3-4 hours. The adventure includes: * 40-page fully illustrated PDF with player handouts * 3 stat blocks * 4 dungeon maps in DM and unmarked versions * 11 all-new magic items
You and your close friends have decided to become adventurers and seek out your destiny. As you head to a Pacifica, a port city, you cross the mining territories and hear a cry for help. It turns out a nearby mining colony has been overrun by humanoids. Looks like your legendary exploits start today!
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.
The king has hired adventurers to investigate the sudden rash of giant attacks and strange phenomena around the town of Bywater. Meanwhile the townsfolk believe an evil witch is directing the attacks and only the magic sword of the town's founder can defeat her.
Nightmares that kill, a mysterious thief that only steals knick-knacks, tales of a huge beast terrorising fisherfolk, an inn with disappearing guests, discoveries of hidden magic portals and rumours of an assassin at large: None of these things are enough to stop the ever-flowing tide of traders and travellers crossing the Bridge of Fallen Men, but its protectors - Cormyr's Purple Dragons - are short on time, and courage... ...will adventurers answer the call?