Short adventures and persistent random encounters to shake up the streets of your city! Tiny Weird Adventures: Urban Edition is a collection of short Tier 1 adventures to be used in conjunction with the Fifth Edition of the most popular fantasy RPG of recent times, easily adaptable to your medieval fantasy game of choice. You will get 6 urban-themed adventures to enhance your game with stories of exploration and intrigue around a big city. Each adventure describes short-lived events that can range from a short random encounter to a one-shot adventure. Each adventure has its own Weird Rumors and Unfolded Paths that will help you expand your campaign in new directions. Content 6 Tiny Weird Adventures! The Creepy Handshake: In the midst of a major crime wave, adventurers are hired to find a lost "pet". His identity, however, is somewhat peculiar... The Trickster Sword: In the big city, not all that glitters is gold: play this adventure to meet a magical weapon from another world. Vengeful Trash: What happens when a faith man loses patience? The gods aid him, of course! Help maintain order in the city or face the weirdest kind of creature ever seen! Sick City: Living behind the great walls of a big city may seem safe, but what if the real danger comes from within? There is no time for quarantine: cure the curse that falls on the population or go insane forever! A Love Supreme: After an unresolved event, two souls separate. Is every form of love valid? Play to find out! The Mug Mystery: In a newly opened tavern, a picture of a bald dwarf holding a mug is getting everyone’s hair up. Appendix with tables to generate NPCs instantly! A multitude of names of various types: human (male, female and neutral), elven, dwarf, dragonborn, orc, and surname for Halflings. Additional rules to give your NPCs more color, granting them Desires and Personalities. Quick custom NPCs creation according to its stat block: generate specific Personalities and dDesires for your guards, thieves, and town clerics. 5 new monsters and antagonists! Use the bizarre and smelly Garbage Golem and scare your players with the fury of rot. Add an extra dose of horror to your game with Unraxda, the demon of subterfuge and violence, able to possess and control his victims Meet little Crawly, the best undead rogue in town. Populate your encounters with the Fragile Zombie and give your players the opportunity to make their way across the battlefield by slicing through these weakling monsters! Lopo the Necromancer is the low Tier version of an end-of-campaign boss: perfect for starring in a battle full of evil minions.
While traveling through a jungle expanse, the party meet a trader named Smera with a strange tale. Turned away from a nearby outpost, the trader is now heading back to civilization. Curiosity leads the party to the outpost, which has been destroyed. A strange disease has taken the outpost’s inhabitants, who built the place in support of a scholarly excavation of a nearby temple ruin. Following the path carved through the jungle by the excavation team, the PCs find the temple and its secrets. In this moss-covered and dark adventure, the party explores an old temple, faces its verdant guardians, and finds the source of the strange disease.
Displace Beast Maze is an adventure that has one long encounter that is a combination of a puzzle (maze) and combat encounter (Displacer beast). The Displacer beast tentacle's ability to attack through the maze walls, knowledge of the layout, and hit-and-run tactics make the labyrinth both a useful and possibly deadly lair for the creature. Pgs. 27-29
What elder evils lurk in the depths of the freezing mountain ruins? Find out in The Stoneheart Ruin! The adventure features: An adventure set in a desolate, wintry mountain landscape. 16 pages full of intrigue and mystery, containing full color maps, plus 2 unique monster stat blocks. Provides a great introduction to Mind Flayer lore and mythos for Tier 1 players. Can easily be set in the Spine of the World for use in Rime of the Frostmaiden. Let your characters test their mettle as they climb and face the ancient dangers lurking in the cracks of The Stoneheart Ruin! “I have no explanation for any of these finds. We heard disturbing noises coming from further within the mountain; thunderous and growling.” Excerpt from a pamphlet, signed: “Koralia Meadring, Anthropologist Extraordinaire” Koralia needs you to investigate her most recent discovery: a ruined cavern deep in the mountains. Her small team of academics did a cursory walk-through and think they've found a big breakthrough! However, they left in a hurry after being frightened by the horrors they heard coming from deeper in the mountain. They escaped and found one of their team was missing - a goliath named Marek. You must climb the mountains and locate the ruin, make certain that it is safe for study by Koralia’s team, and if possible, find and rescue Marek, whose fate is uncertain. Made during the November 2020 RPG Writer's Workshop.
A small valley in the Basalt Mountains is home to a small farming community and a priory for the deity Enyndeth. Here young acolytes study to be full-fledged clerics of their faith. The priory was built into the side of one of the mountains when the community specialized in mining. This town should be able to provide road weary adventurers a reprieve from problems….or will it?
Looks can lie as well as words. Magical minotaurs? Mutant giants? Vampires? One or more of these is preying upon the caravans, and you're going to stop them. A band of ogre magi took over an abandoned dwarven stronghold and have started ambushing merchant caravans. Their leader, Krugii, wants to gain enough power to eventually control a kingdom. In his quest for power, he has bonded a young bronze dragon and has accelerated its growth. The ogre mages all have different personalities and different forms that they prefer to polymorph into. The PCs are hired to take a caravan through Deception Pass and protect it against the random monsters that have been marauding lately (actually ogre mages in disguise). After protecting the caravan, the players track the attacks back to the stronghold of the ogre magi and clear it out. Pgs. 40-62
In the deep desert lies the dead city of Yumar, the source of countless bizarre rumors. Was it destroyed by a demonic metal sphere? Did it sink into a pit of acid? Were its people transformed into cursed beasts? Is it ruled by vicious thieves or mad nuns? In fact, the only thing stranger than what happened to Yumar a century ago is what will happen a few days from now... ADVENTURE TYPE: Medium Sandbox City / Ruin DESIGN NOTES: This adventure is intended for characters levels 5 to 8. It includes a ruined city, shrine, wizard tower, menagerie, several factions, and the surrounding wilderness. Each area contains various encounters and unique items. There are many opportunities for combat, but it is possible for players to explore most areas and complete many interactions without any combat at all, depending on their choices. INCLUDES: Story hooks, dialogue prompts, random encounters, factions, illustrations, stat blocks, original creatures and treasures, and overview maps. KEYWORDS: city, ruin, celestial, angel, dwarf, dwarves, miner, thief, thieves, cleric, nun, shrine, adamant, adamantine, lycanthropy, mind control, nightmare, mutation, mutant, wizard tower, menagerie, body horror
Explore political intrigue, gene splicing, and a thrilling battle for survival in the Timescape's World Below in DOOM of the DRAGON GRAFTER, a 9th to 10th-level adventure for Draw Steel! You and everyone you know has a story of the dragon who ruined your life. You've lost so much and wondered why it had to be this way. Recently you learned that all these dragons that wreaked havoc on Orden were intentionally created to do so, all as an experiment run by a voiceless talker known as Lord Pulposa. You don't know why he did this, or how you're going to break into his lab. What you do know that you're going down into the World Below after him to make sure his schemes will never hurt anyone again. You are the Doom of the Dragon Grafter. Features: - Over 25 pages of an adventure written by the author of The Workshop Watches and The Fall of Blackbottom (that's me!) - 23 Victories worth of encounters - Lord Pulposa, a level 9 Solo Monster designed by Scott Bullock, guaranteed to terrorize your friends and enemies - Battle Maps & Positioning Maps for most combat encounters - Some Draconian fiction thrown in there for good measure - Shared under a CC-BY Sharealike so you can do whatever you want with it - A Goblin named Spanky
The town of Whitehaven is beset with undead. The townsfolk are quick to blame the Witch of Whitehaven, who lives nearby with her partner in the Surbrin Hills. Yet a more insidious evil lurks in the midst of town, cloaked in a holy man’s robes. And far underground, an ancient evil artifact stirs. The town is in need of heroes. Will you answer the call?
In the frozen depths of winter, murderous winds mercilessly batter the crumbling Priory of Cymer. Within, trapped by their duty and the heaped snowdrifts that render travel near impossible, the few remaining faithful huddle together and tend the sacred places of their forbears. With the weather worsening, nerves fray and tempers snap as the wind howls its mournful dirge for the forgotten dead of a fallen time. But the worst is yet to come. One of those trapped within holds a murderous grudge that only blood can expunge and as the storm reaches its savage height terrible revenge is wrought amid the frigid halls and faded glories of a bygone age. A 1st level adventure that is so much more than a trip to stop goblins killing cows. Great NPCs and a great location gives this the feel of The Name Of The Rose.
Something is amiss in the remote mountain town of Zuria. The head priest has not filed a report in months, and traders following the winding road into the high-altitude valley do not find their way back home. The Church of Palnor, benefactor and watchers of the Tomb of Kings, are greatly concerned. Can the PC discover what has happened in this isolated mountain town before events turn disastrous?
The slave markets of Katapesh may be an unsavory sort of business, but the trade metropolis’s enigmatic law enforcers have few qualms with the legal act of selling and buying flesh. Other factions, including the abolitionist Eagle Knights of Andoran, have their own opinions on the matter, however, and frequently send undercover agents into dangerous territory to break up slave rings. When one such Eagle Knight goes missing while investigating an underground slave operation beneath the dilapidated Twilight Gate district, it’s up to the PCs to delve an abandoned (but hardly uninhabited) qanat beneath Katapesh and discover her dire fate. Yet not everything is as it seems in the dank slave caverns under Twilight Gate, and clues hint that the slavers may have even more loathsome connections than initially suspected.
After a successful mission for Earl Phenwick you return to receive your accolades. Upon your arrival it is discovered that the earl's child is missing. His daughter was last seen around a mirror of unknown power and an advisor believes that she may have made her way into a different world via the magical portal. Time to put on your hero hats!
Inspired by the 12 Labors of Hercules in Greek mythology, this adaptation incorporates the classic quests, monsters, and motifs of ancient myth while injecting our interpretation of the personality and flavour of the world's greatest roleplaying game. As a result, though those familiar with the original myth may recognize key similarities in this adventure, it has been designed with the goal of re-formatting and reframing these heroic tasks in a new light, suitable for an entire mini-campaign fit for a whole group of brave and heroic adventurers. Use the Village of Kalogeros to incorporate each labor into a long running quest, or take bits and pieces and re-flavor them as necessary to fit your game. The choice is yours. Either way, we hope you enjoy.
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
A man built a temple to a woman who died. It became a shrine for those who lost a spouse too soon. Later. Much later. A young couple came. Their tribes warred so they could only marry in death. It was poison. Which angered HER. They walk the temple ever since, cursed by a shrine spirit. She has a hatred of suicide only dead widows can know.
After a restful time in Queen’s Point you begin to hear rumors of some “lost city” being discovered. After speaking with some of the locals and visiting the library you become intrigued. Apparently Harvick was abandoned during the plague years and its riches were never recovered. Along with the regular valuables one would find in an abandoned city, it is rumored that an ancient artifact or two may also be present. Sounds like it’s time to strap on the adventuring gear and take a look around.
The Temple of Xhodes is half wilderness adventure, half dungeon crawl for 4-6 characters of 2nd level. People have been disappearing from Eastbrook and surrounding lands. Can the adventurers figure out why – and who’s behind it? Can they stop the cultists before they take over?
Green Death... That's what old hands call the Great Dismal Swamp. For centuries, this tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes has defended Blackmoor's southwestern frontier. Large armies and smaller parties have disappeared altogether inside its vast, dripping, claustrophobic corridors. Among those who have dropped from sigh in this arboral hell is young Rissa Aleford, one of Blackmoor's most important leaders. Carried off to the sinister City of the Fron, she is now being held by the eccentric Monks of the Swamp. By making the baroness captive, the deranged monks have serioulsy weakened Blackmoor at a time when enemies already threaten it from all sides. Yet, even as the Froggies gloat, the king of Blackmoor dispatches a small band of bold adventures to the rescue. Deep into the Great Dismal Swamp they must go - far from sunlight and sanity - there to seek and save the swamp, there to find the Temple of the Frog. TSR 9175
Condemned to death! You are a criminal in the Cauldron, a maximum security prison in the city of Capital. Only the worst criminals are kept here, and you are the worst of the worst. You’re due to be hanged tomorrow, but you were taken out of your cell today, fitted with a collar that looks an awful lot like a war dog collar, and taken to meet a mysterious figure. He offers you a deal. Undertake a top secret mission in exchange for your freedom. Your record, even your identity deleted if that’s what you want. The only catch? IT’S SUICIDE. Misbehave? And you’ll find out what those collars do. The Condemned is a Draw Steel adventure for 3rd-level heroes. Actually, no, for 3rd-level protagonists! Designed for three to six players, plus the director. This fast-paced, high-stakes adventure assumes the players have moderate experience with the Draw Steel system and the game’s core rulebooks. Protagonists can expect to earn up to 12 victories across the course of the adventure. Because The Condemned involves a team of original heroes, and does not take place within the continuity of your normal home campaign, players are encouraged to create new (villains) protagonists just for this adventure. We also include a healthy variety of original pre-generated characters with unique and interesting backstories. Put them in front of your players and watch them get excited! They may want to keep playing them once the adventure is through. Assuming they survive!