Something fell. A sickly gloaming lit up the night like mock daylight, just for a moment, and then the hills trembled. Now, an alien entity lies brooding in a crater gouged out of the moor. Local folk are enraptured with the toothsome jelly exuded by this being, but are blind to the true nature of the events unfolding in their rustic little backwater.
Citadel by the Sea is an AD&D gaming module for 4-8 characters, each of 1st to 3rd level. The fewer the characters available, the higher their levels should be. Characters should be well equipped, with at least one magical weapon apiece, but do not need any particular game experience. It is recommended that at least one ranger character and one elf character be members of the adventuring party, and that no player character be a half-orc. The Dungeon Master should read the entire module carefully before running this adventure; the events are laid out in the approximate order in which characters would normally encounter them, and the text builds the adventure as one reads through it.
The local nobles of the region have sent word to your group requesting a meeting. Later that day you find the Black Raven roadside tavern and are met at the door. After being escorted to a back room which has seen its share of shady dealings you are propositioned with an offer to investigate and depose a set of local nobles who are brothers. Rumor has it that the Ironrod brothers, who have been overtaxing the citizens, have now employed humanoids as guards. This is forbidden and if true, the brothers need to be brought to justice immediately!
The adventure begins with the characters discovering the recently murdered Returned, Varyas, and confronting his killers. Varyas's gold mask bears a code on it, one that points toward the sage Khea who lives in the nearby polis. When the characters investigate, they learn from Khea that the writing is undecipherable except for the first line, which refers to the legendary Court of Orestes, a site sacred to the god Phenax. She also notes that a recent earthquake has uncovered a cave along the Khystonos River that could be the secret site's location. If so, then perhaps within lies the key to deciphering the mask, along with its own treasures. With the information provided by Khea, the adventurers set forth into the wilds, where they'll face multiple storied dangers before reaching the Court of Orestes. Once at the lost holy site, the characters discover ancient guardians, as well as an unliving entity with the potential to reveal Phenax's lost secret.
Thane Tinewiner’s daughter has been kidnapped just before her betrothal and her love slain! Who will avenge this mockery? Can the girl be brought back alive? Is your PC brave enough to face this challenge alone? Surely a handsome reward will be at stake but more so the fame of saving a damsel in distress and the honor to go with it. Few clues are available and most of the Thane’s military are on the hunt for the woman so you’ll need a little bit of luck if you are to grab the honors and save the day.
The people of the Linsholm fear orcs are about to raid their small farming village. For the past several days, they have been seeing orcs in the hills and forests around the village. They don’t realize that something much worse than this small band of orcs is out there. For now, it’s hunting the orcs. But if the townsfolk aren’t careful, they could be next. Protect the village of Linsholm, but perhaps not from what they fear. Discover that not all orcs are evil. Reunite the fractured orc clan, and broker peace between them and the villagers. Uncover what is hunting the orcs, and the secret to their power. A 6-8 hour adventure optimized for a party of 4th level characters.
The king summons the heroes to investigate the death of a knight, and the final fate of the king's long-missing son. The knight and his entire order was killed by a Dragon! Yay we get to fight a dragon in the first issue of Dungeon Magazine! Much travel over many different terrain types featuring avalanches, volcanoes spewing lava, and many random encounters (not detailed here) before the heroes reach their real goal: A lake with a ruined wizard's tower and dragon's cave. Opens with a particularly byzantine Background section for the DM involving a prince you never meet, pirates you never meet, knights you never meet, and deep gnomes you never meet. See Out of the Ashes in Dungeon #17 for sequel to this adventure. Pgs. 42-60
The search for a missing paladin takes the PCs deep into the heart of a frontier torn apart by cult wars—and face to face with an ancient evil. The paladin Jaryd set out to find and destroy the Hand of Naarash. He was never heard from again. Now the PCs must retrace Jaryn’s steps across the harsh wilderness and determine what has become of the noble warrior. Pgs. 29-59
Greatwall is in peril - not from military forces of Iuz, but from lack of goods and supplies. Caravans from Willip have ceased thanks to increased dangers on the Willip Critwall Grabford Trail. As the key fort positioned to contain the Iuzian flood, Greatwall is a strategic necessity. Its failure would mean a major incursion along the border. Your characters are hired to escort a caravan from Greatwall to Willip; if its merchants are afraid to come to the fort, the fort will go to them. This should be simple, cut and dried guard job. Right? Of course not. There are many surprises in store for your little caravan, and your characters will need to keep their wits about them day and night in order to make it to the other end. Secret plans are afoot, conspiracies are brewing, and nothing is as it seems while on the Border Watch. This module uses information presented in the From the Ashes boxed set and the Iuz the Evil accessories. However, ownership of these two products is not necessary to play this module. TSR 9406
Called by the Elder Elemental Eye to serve, four corrupt prophets have risen from the depths of anonymity to claim mighty weapons with direct links to the power of the elemental princes. Each of these prophets has assembled a cadre of cultists and creatures to serve them in the construction of four elemental temples of lethal design. It is up to adventurers from heroic factions such as the Emerald Enclave and the Order of the Gauntlet to discover where the true power of each prophet lay, and dismantle it before it comes boiling up to obliterate the Realms.
Disturbing shadows have grown long over the northern reaches of The Land of Song. The fierce people who once fished the chilly fjords and hunted in the evergreen peaks now huddle in their villages. An evil is abroad in the land. The heroes are charged by Jarl Yngvar with traveling to the Valley of the Sleeping Jarls, an old tomb in the hills where dead kings are laid to rest, to discover the source of the malevolence bearing down upon the land and with eradicating it. Who can say what evil lurks amid the towering peaks and shadowed fjords? For decades this malevolent being plotted his vengeance upon Hjalmar’s heirs, for the jarl had gone the way of all mortals. Taking for himself the name Mogens (“powerful”), this evil spirit, now a self-styled dark lord, gathered wicked cronies and servants to itself and came to the Valley of the Sleeping Jarls. There, he has spent nearly two decades corrupting and desecrating the sacred resting place, reshaping the hollowed tombs into a blasphemous temple to his infernal lord.
A black dragon’s treasure hoard has been located in the Twilight Marsh, and within it are secrets that hold interest to the factions. With the dragon marauding over the countryside, the horde is left unguarded. Now is the time to plunder its lair!
While searching for a series of missing people in the Galago Hills, the party comes across a cave decorated with disturbingly life-like statues. What lurks in the cave isn’t anything as simple as a monstrous basilisk, however. After all, what evil could possibly be as dark and dangerous as that which lurks in the heart of mortal men?
This adventure takes the heroes to the Nightmare Lands in search of an item that can destroy night terror, Mandalain. This item, called the rose of midnight, is the night terror's one true weakness and the means for ending the curse hanging over the Clinic for the Mentally Distressed. Adventure IV: The Rose of Midnight From Book Three: Nightmare Lands: https://www.adventurelookup.com/adventures/the-nightmare-lands TSR 1124
When a Pathfinder Society Priest of Nethys disappears in northern Geb while studying the Mana Wastes, the Society sends you to uncover her whereabouts and find her journals. Arriving in the town of Bitter End, you find it deserted but for a few mysterious creatures never before seen on Golarion. Those creatures quickly lead to more and soon you're embroiled in a mystery that could effect the very fabric of reality. Will you solve the mystery of Bitter End or find yourself lost forever in the Mana Wastes?
When the players get teleported to the plane of the Beastlands, they meet with an intelligent petitioner in the form of a Dog named Reith. Eventually Reith will lead the players to a human; an eagle winged boy by the name of Addler. Addler already knows a way out of the Beastlands, but doesn’t want the players to know because the key is his body and if the petitioners knew he could leave, they wouldn’t like him anymore. Not being the best at planning, he’ll be coerced into giving the players a map to the petitioner that helped him find the portal (A snake named Siy). After passing through some small adventures in the beastlands, the players will meet with Siy and learn about Addlers portal. From here, the players will travel back to Addler and confront him.
Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house...Hey folks here is our holiday special (free) scenario. It appears that a local gift giver has had his magical sleigh taken by some drunken Elves in his employ. Their associates have requested you retrieve the item before the owner discovers it is missing! This adventure setting was designed for 5th Edition AND AD&D for the Filbar Campaign, for a quartet of 2nd level character. This one page-ish offering was designed for our friends at Murder Hobo Inc (@mhoboinc).
A few weeks ago, a neogi flying ship met with misfortune in a furious thunderstorm as it was setting out on a long journey. Heavily damaged, it crashed on an isolated rocky beach. Several neogi and their slaves were killed or injured in the crash, but five of the small monsters survived, along with four umber hulks and a handful of other useful slaves. Under the leadership of the sorcerer Neex Hist, the neogi are working to repair their ship so they can continue their interrupted voyage. In the meantime, they have set up camp in a large sea save close by the site of the shipwreck. While the repairs continue, the neogi and their minions are scouring the area for anything of interest - there's no point in leaving potentially valuable merchandise in the vicinity of the crash site, after all. Pgs. 101-106 Suitable for lvls 6-8 in 5e, using 5e stats.
From time out of mind, the standing stones known as the Circle of Cahervaniel have stood lonely vigil on a grassy hilltop. Sheepherders once moved their flocks over the hill and through the circle, sometimes resting in the cool shadows cast by the ancient stones. Everything changed when a stone finger fell, revealing a fissure in the earth. Now, dark shadows caress the circle after the sun sets. Creatures out of nightmare dance upon the hillside at night. Many swear that a unicorn of deepest ebony now hunts all upon two legs who draw near, while stunted creatures scurry in the shadows, abducting sheep from their sheds and drawing them down below ground for food. After the disappearance of a sheperd, fear grows stronger in neighboring villages. Who will brave the black hollow of the ancient Circle of Cahervaniel? Heroes of stern mettle must descend into the cavity and explore the ancient spaces existing there. Product History "The Shattered Circle" (1999), by Bruce R. Cordell, is a generic adventure for AD&D 2e. It was published in January 1999. Origins: Another Generic. After Wizards of the Coast began publishing D&D, their first year and a half of generic adventures were all classic revivals: returns to RPGA tournaments, to classic adventures, and to Dungeon scenarios. Even "A Paladin in Hell" (1998) was a return in its own way, to the demons and devils that TSR had become afraid of. Wizards was staking out new ground by reclaiming the past. "The Shattered Circle" (1999) was the first generic Wizards adventure that was simply a generic adventure, with no deeper origins and no hidden motives. Artifacts of Note. the foundingstone and the harp Euphonious are both one-off named magic items. However, it's sword Icerazor that's the most interesting. It's said to have grown from a shard of Frostrazor — a sword that would only appear ten months later in Return to White Plume Mountain (1999). There, it's listed as one of Keraptis' four implements of power, alongside Wave, Blackrazor, and Whelm — meaning that Icerazor (and this adventure) are just one step removed from White Plume Mountain itself. Monsters of Note: Chitine. It's somewhat curious, given the Greyhawk and Neverness connections, to note that the chitine debuted in MC11: "Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix" (1991). The spider-humanoids have generally been a Realms creature, featuring in bestiaries and histories for that setting. However, they also received a more generic "Ecology of the Chitine" in Dragon #223 (November 1995), which introduced the choldrith, or chitine priestess. This is their major adventure appearance. When asked about pronouncing their name Cordell says that he "can't be 100% sure of the original designer's pronunciation", but he prefers "KI-TEEN". About the Creators. By 1999, Cordell was one of D&D's most prolific writers. He'd previously authored many slightly related adventures, such as The Gates of Firestorm Peak(1996) and the sahuagin (1997) and illithid (1998) Monstrous Arcana adventure trilogies. This conversion guide allows DMs to run the original module with 5th Edition rules. To use this conversion guide you will need a copy of The Shattered Circle, originally available in hard-copy and now for sale in Digital format at the DMs Guild. This adventure is a generic adventure, not specifically based in any existing setting. Suggestions are given in the conversion guide to place the adventure in the Forgotten Realms.
The Cult of the Dragon, along with its dragon allies and the Red Wizards of Thay, seek to bring Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells to Faerûn. To this end, they are sweeping from town to town, laying waste to all those who oppose them and gathering a hoard of riches for their dread queen. Continued in The Rise of Tiamat.