Off the coast of the Newmack Sea and to the east of Gortelburg sits the walled town of Cordicstown. Within the fortified tows in the infamous Arcanum College where young mages of wealth or talent come to learn the craft from the masters. For young adventuring mages this place offers the opportunity to improve upon their spell books and even apprentice with the masters of the mystic arts!
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
After undead start appearing near the local town of Angstadt, the Burgomaster and Father become worried. What could be causing these foul creatures to rise? After conducting research, the clergy discover that the throne room of a celestial avatar is located only a few days away from the town. Perhaps this holy site could hold a relic capable of turning the undead?
It begins in the marketplace or main square of a town when the calm, peaceful day is interrupted by a hulking golem trouncing through town, smashing objects, and attacking townsfolk. The party witnessing this should intervene and stop the rampaging golem with combat or by luring it into a nearby warehouse to trap it so it can be damaged and, eventually, destroyed by the town guards. When the party examines the golem’s remains, they find bones encased in the metal armor and the name 'Quartztoil' written in gnomish script. The town guard explain that this is the eighth construct they have encountered in the area in the past six months. The party can then go on to investigate the name 'Quartztoil', leading them to learn of an old, gnomish, aspiring artificer, Penaral Quartztoil, who had a lab and workshop in a tower in the nearby mountains, but who has not been heard from for close to a century. Published by Nord Games
For centuries, Aelmor Monastery near the port town of Sestone was a safe haven for scholars, monks, and pilgrims seeking enlightenment, its renowned library home to an enormous collection of ancient manuscripts, tomes, and peculiar writings. After suffering a devastating attack at the hands of a possessed monastery elder, Aelmor fell into ruin, its troubled past forgotten. When villagers start disappearing and turn up horribly mutated days later, fear takes a grip of Sestone. What sinister forces are at work? And to what end? The Claws of Madness is a standalone adventure carefully designed for a group of 1st-level heroes, including new monsters, magic items, and a thrilling story arc. Edited by Michele Carter (co-editor of the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook), this dungeon crawl combines the best elements of classic adventures with fresh new exciting avenues. The story in this book also provides the perfect base for an epic, long-running campaign suitable for higher-level characters, in which the heroes unravel the dark mystery of the mythical Hand of Narkul . . . Published by LoreSmyth SmiteWorks.
A trek across the Shadow Marches leads weary travellers to Blackroot, a quiet village of ramshackle huts nestled among the darkwood trees. Here, orcs and humans live in peace. However, all is not well. Something evil has crawled up from below, threatening to devour the village and its denizens. Only a party of brave heroes stands in its way. In Khyber’s Harvest, the PCs battle an ancient evil threatening a remote village in the Shadow Marches. The dark power of the planes has grown strong in this place. Depraved cultists and twisted aberrant creatures are dragging innocents down into ancient caverns to undergo a horrific transformation. To save these helpless villagers, the PCs must overcome the terrors of Khyber—a quest that brings them to the attention of the dreadful Belashyrra, the Lord of Eyes.
A search for the ghostly dragon of the Deadwaters. The sage's deal is simple: The more you learn about the dragon, the richer you get. In this adventure, the bard Rondelle offers players rewards for learning all they can about a mysterious dragon that has been sighted in the area. Pgs. 22-38
About a year ago, an adventuring party found themselves encumbered with more treasure than they knew what to do with. After brief deliberation, the group buried their hoard in a remote grotto inhabited by water birds. It was only a matter of time until one of the resident scavengers exhumed a most unfortunate item. Armed with a headband of intellect and a stash of other equipment for the taking, Belladonna the Bin Chicken began to study the abandoned spellbooks. The ambitious fowl quickly advanced as a mage, and set her sights on conquest of the surrounding areas.
Our heroes are approached by Tristan Harpell, an entitled young mage and heir to a suite of rooms in Ivy Mansion, the ancestral home of the Harpell wizard dynasty. His inheritance is “infested” with the wacky experiments of his dead great-uncle, Siegfried Harpell, and Tristan needs the party to clean things up. The party will have many wild and bizarre encounters while digging through Siegfried Harpell’s derelict magical concoctions - and along the way they might even discover the astonishing truth behind Siegfried's disappearance! Into Ivy Mansion is a Dungeons and Dragons one-shot adventure for a 3rd-4th level party. It features exploration, role-playing and thrilling combat encounters...
Bringing Diablo II to the tabletop. The legendary Diablo and Diablo II computer games come to life with the release of the tabletop Diablo II: To Hell & Back roleplaying adventure. All a player needs is the Dungeons & Dragons(r) Player's Handbook (0786915501-8/00) to accompany the Diablo II game. Every level and all 4 acts of the computer game are represented in the tabletop mega-adventure, which will also include 64 pages of monsters, information for levels 1-30, and over 60 maps!
A supernaturally powerful storm, mudslides, and agitated dinosaurs are the least of the worries in the tropical village of Mora. The village's spiritual leader, the Zombie Master, has gone missing, and now undead rise from sodden graves and the village matriarch lies dead, murdered by her own son. What dire menace awaits in the flooded catacombs below? Set on the infamous Isle of Dread.
The Therayle farm, which has been in the family for generations, was the best producing in the region. It now faces ruin. Hugh Therayle, the current owner, is at wit's end trying to reestablish even a modicum of control over the disrupted land. But, when Hugh saw the ancient doorway jutting up from the middle of the field where his corn used to be, he knew that this wasn't the type of problem a plow could solve. More than two centuries ago, a red wizard by the name of Houn made a discovery that shook the foundations of magic on Toril. Yet, due to a considerable amount of effort on his part, it never saw the light of day. The exact nature of this discovery is unknown but it involves the location of the skeletal fragments of an ancient being. The weave, which governs all magic on Toril, reacts strangely to the fragments. More information existed before Houn destroyed his research and fled Thay. His current whereabouts are unknown but many of his peers have attempted to track him down and steal his research for themselves.
Chapter 2: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh In this version of the adventure, the characters find navigational charts and logs aboard the Sea Ghost that implicate its crew as slavers. Ned Shakeshaft is a Scarlet Brotherhood agent. He makes an attempt to foil the characters, but his true intent is to surrender and implicate Gellan Primewater as a key villain. The distraction afforded by the lizardfolk and the looming sahuagin threat gives the Scarlet Brotherhood the opportunity to bring more agents into town. posing as mercenaries brought in by Anders to protect the town. If Gellan can be removed from the council, Solmor might ask one of the characters to take his place.
Nightmare of Blood! The village of Karvolia has paid its annual tribute of blood to the Red Goddess—but this year, none of the donors returned. Now the priestess commands the village elders to send another dozen young men and women to the edifice of stone that looms on the cliffs overlooking the village: the dreaded Blood Vaults. The terrified elders are willing to pay adventurers handsomely to find a way to make this second tribute pass them by. Unfortunately, the latest set of donors has already entered the Blood Vaults, and are being prepared for the donation process…
The nefarious master wrestler Dib, the goblin, is "terrorizing" the streets of the town (or city). Since his defeat in his roadside fortress, the would-be chieftain has plotted his revenge. Gathering to him a new batch of dim minions, Dib has transformed a stolen merchant wagon into a machine of war. The wagon is powered by several goblins inside who, while devoted to Dib, lack the strength to pedal the thing quickly or consistently. Dib's plan to wreak a path of havoc through the streets has resulted in something a bit more disappointing. In this light-hearted and quirky adventure for four first- or second-level PCs, the party must confront the war wagon, gain entry to it, and defeat its defenders—the lives of several potted plants and a few market stalls depend on it!
The annual Winterflower Festival & Dance is just around the corner! What originally started as a festival to honor the rare Winterflower has grown into an annual gathering for families, soldiers, and hunters to eat, drink, and dance the night away. The festival is named after the rarest flower in the world. It thrives in a cold mountainous region and has a reputation for growing on sheer mountain peaks and cliffs. It is the only flower known to grow through layers of snow in order to reach the sunlight. When carefully transplanted near the village the Winterflower is considered a blessing which protects the village from harm. It is customary for the men of the village to ask the women to the dance by presenting them with rare, difficult to obtain gifts. A woman will usually select from the men based on the rarity of the gift with which she was presented. This year, a beautiful maiden by the name of Gwendolyn has come of age and many men vie for her attention. Three such men are Nicoli Vrodle, Alem Dulgra, and Vladimir Pelchonal- all of which are willing to go to great lengths to attend the Winterflower Festival & Dance with the maiden Gwendolyn on their arm. Each of the three men hire the PCs to retrieve the rarest gifts in the land. The catch? The Winterflower Festival starts in just 5 days so the PCs must hurry!
In this adventure players are set first on a simple task, to solve the disappearance of the local witch before outside forces take an interest. But as the players get deeper, they will rapidly kind themselves on a quest for far more, as they range from an alchemist's lair on a crumbling tower down to a dark swamp full of mystery and danger, seeking a holy relic that might lead them to the outskirts of Hell itself. All in service of the sleepy Village Sujeira and the dusty souls within. 1452: Saving Sujeira’s Soul is an adventure set in northern Portugal on an alternate history Earth during the year 1452, in a world where history is much the same, but for the fact that the Rus are all hirsute dwarves, the hordes that poured out of central Asia were orcish (and half-orcs are mostly janissaries split among the Ottoman Empire’s demesnes), and elves are creatures of rumors and myth. Halflings live among the English and Portuguese in villages and farms, while goblins are pests best left for dead in the wilds between civilized countries. The Church arms its inquisitors with holy blessings, for witches are not mere milk-souring old women but vile devil-pacted souls, and wizards and sorcerers seek human and kine for sacrifices to fuel their darkling magics. There be dragons on the edges of the world, and ogres and sea serpents and giants, but the alchemists of this world know things beyond mortal ken and fight these horrors with science and canny concoctions. Published by Coldlight Press
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
The adventures in Dalentown continue in The Darkness Beneath Dalentown. Workers in the town’s sewers have stumbled upon the long abandoned halls of the dwarves that once settled beneath this region. What they’ve found is a haunted library. What they’ve woken is something far more sinister! The Darkness Beneath Dalentown features hordes of oozes, undead, and demons festering for years in an ancient dwarven mining stronghold. Now, they are slowly working their way to the surface, and the folk of Dalentown are in dire peril!
The Approaching Swarm is a short adventure for four 9th-level characters. The party can consist of any mix of classes, but it should include at least one character that is good in wilderness settings, such as a druid, ranger, or barbarian, and at least one cleric. This scenario should prove a reasonable challenge for characters from 8th to 10th level. The adventure takes place in a swampland that is near a small settlement. A band of rag-tag settlers have carved out a small settlement, called Crivdall, on the edges of a great swamp that is infamous for its terrible creatures. The area is rich with resources, and the settlers have done well hunting and foraging in the swamps. Unbeknownst to them, however, an insane druid has taken notice of their transgressions and wants them to leave. The druid, Aleretheral, is a half-orc with a curious affinity for insects and vermin. The swamp is home to numerous breeds of monstrous insects, some of which the druid has begun to breed to make them even larger and more aggressive. Through his abilities, Aleretheral has set enormous vermin onto the helpless settlers, preying on them as they venture into the swamp. With autumn rapidly coming to a close, the settlers are becoming desperate as more of their numbers are killed by hordes of marauding vermin.