Scholars Square is a relatively quiet corner of Phlan, but a series of odd thefts have the headmasters of verious schools in the area concerned. The headmasters' pleas for help have gone unanswered by the Black Fist, and the Lord Sage of Phlan decided to reach out to you and your kind to bring those responsible to justice.
A new megadungeon from Three Castles Award Winner (2018) and Barrowmaze author Dr. Greg Gillespie! HighFell: The Drifting Dungeon is a 246-page classic megadungeon for use with any old school fantasy role-playing games/clone. The pages of HighFell are crammed full with new material, maps, and art, including a colour cover by Ex-TSR artist Erol Otus (that matches Barrowmaze Complete and The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia as sister-books). HighFell: The Drifting Dungeon will keep your players on their toes and your campaign going strong for years. HighFell is brought to you by the Old School Renaissance (so don’t forget your 10’ pole).
This week’s Filbar offering is a mid-level adventure with the party headed out towards the frontier. As they move towards high adventure, adventure finds them first! Keldor Keep is the last bastion of civilization on the frontier but has recently come under attack. With its defenders scattered it falls to the party to save the fortress and protect the border! A hit at Who’s Yer Con 2016, this adventure is more than enough challenge for a group of 4-6 level characters!
A mysterious adventurer stumbles into an inn in the night, looking for an escort to the nearest temple. Before the night is over, he inexplicably disappears, leaving a trail of corruption leading into the nearby woods as packs of twisted forest creatures emerge to plague travellers. Pgs. 83-89
Penchant for Adventure – 5 takes a single PC and DM back to a popular ‘haunt’. With the normal group taking a little time off your PC hears of a gambling tourney in Penchant which coincides with the annual Reaping Festival. Give your player a chance to “howl at the moon” in this quick but dangerous adventure! Remember, Penchant is not for the faint of heart…but have no fear, the adventure is free so no risk in that regard.
The Thieves Guild Ebonclad has welcomed its newest team to the fold, assigned to the Keeper Reese Kincaid for instruction. The recruits are green, but capable. Their Keeper has devised a job for them to assess their talents. If his new team is successful, he gets some insight as to how his new Scraps operate, in addition to scratching something off his to-do list. If they die trying, well, then Reese has one fewer thing to worry about. The party must track down the slum thief Dale E’ssio, and reclaim valuables marked for the guild. Should anything unfortunate happen to Dale, there must be no evidence tracing things back to Ebonclad. The mission will require the party to enter Kintalla’s sewers to ultimately confront Dale E’ssio in a ruined slum house. Characters may have to explore the city while trying to get a lead on him.
With your last adventure complete you head to town to sell off loot, replenish supplies and to find a bard to tell your tale to so that your fame can increase. As the group goes their separate ways you are wandering through the muddy streets when a shriek is heard. You see a man stab a merchant and attempt to escape. With no time to gather your associates you call for your mount (or borrow one) and give pursuit! This scenario is a true solo meaning you don’t need a DM to officiate. It is suggested that a 4th level be used for “meatier” characters or 5th for those of less daunting stats.
Kingdom of the Blind is a short adventure for four 8th-level characters. The adventure is set in a minor duchy that is fairly removed from the ruler of the land. As a result, trouble can brew in the land and the king would not know immediately. The PCs have just learned that Dephyl is alive and well and ordering blocks of granite. Meanwhile, Zhanna and Dephyl are on the third floor. If the PCs encountered the animated staircases on the first floor, the shriekers on the second floor, or triggered the trap outside Dephyl's study, the couple knows someone unwelcome is downstairs and moving up. They begin to prepare for their arrival.
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.
Lots of stronghold assaults and shipboard travel/encounters in this one. This adventure's deep political basis might be seen as an introduction for the domain-focused adventures of Companion-level play. This adventure is for use with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic, Expert, and Companion Rules, and includes the intrigue of engaging with nobility's lands and agendas. Intro: All is not well in the kingdom of Vestland. Not only is the king dead and the holy Sonora Crown missing, but the heir to the kingdom was lost at birth and no on knows where to find him. As if this wasn't bad enough, the forces of the Ethengar Khanate, never on the best of terms with Vestland, are now massing on the borders, hoping to take advantage of Vestland's plight. To complete the rosy picture, traitors from within also threaten to speed the downfall of the High Kingdom. Sounds like a job for you. You must find the long-lost heir to the kingdom and recover the Sonora Crown, the mystical device without which a king cannot be crowned. Standing in your way are traitors and spies from within and invaders from without the kingdom of Vestland. Time is running out! Can you save Vestland from disaster? TSR 9218
Two feuding kobold tribes have been left alone in their dragon queen's lair. Without supervision, surrounded by the wealth of nations and piles of magical artifacts. How long before things devolve into utter chaos? Set inside an enormous dragon's lair, the adventure allows players to take control of the best and brightest among the kobold tribe known as the Redscales. Their entire lives they have been the Dragon Queen's minions and her lair's caretakers. But the Dragon Queen has been gone for some time now and an ancient feud with another kobold tribe (the Bluescales) is about to be a rekindled. And the trap- and treasure-filled lair is to become their battleground. The gameplay is a mix of roleplaying, involving some tough moral choices (well, tough for kobolds), solving puzzles and wacky combat with kobolds wielding powerful ancient artifacts. There is an abundance of magic items, specially chosen for their potential to lead to hilarious situations.
After news of your heroic deeds have circulated, a letter made its way to your hands. "Heroes, I need your help. For years I have been working on a plan to rescue my companions from Ajax's torment. I need your assistance with retrieving the missing piece. Meet me at the High 'n Dry in the village of Moerasby. - Torma" - Combat: Medium to High Depending on if the optional combats are done. - Exploration: Low - Medium There will be a travel montage test. - Interpersonal: Low You will interact with some NPCs and RP, one potential negotiation. - Intrigue: Low No faction dealings or hidden power plays are happening here. In this Side Quest Adventure, the players can start in an inn to meet each other and the Questgiver, then travel through the swamp to an abandoned teleportation structure and reactivate it. It takes them to a derelict space base built into an asteroid floating through the timescape.
A 4-hour adventure for 9th-10th level characters A sleepy lakeside village wreathed in fog, rumors of a lake monster, local disappearances, a band of assassins terrorizing the city, and a travelling circus sideshow that seems to be at the center of it all. “Come one, come all to the greatest show in the world! Step right up, ladies and lords, to see the wonders of the natural and unnatural world! Trained monstrosities from across the globe have been gathered for your amusement and examination! Strongmen, jugglers, acrobats, and sword swallowers join exotic acts and foods from the four corners of the known world and beyond! You, my friend, have the privilege of witnessing the spectacle, the amazement, the wonder of the circus of the stars! Step right up and buy your tickets now before they're all gone! Limited seating is available and no one will be seated once the show has begun!”
You wake up in a dark room with a group of friends. You don't know how you got here and your thoughts seem distant, echoing in your mind. The note you find reminds you your mission: retrieve the flower of oshadis and escape this temple alive. Culitsts and traps stand between you and freedom.
Freeport is a fantasy “free city” you can place in a fantastic setting. Its basic premise is a pirate city gone legit… at least on the surface. In truth, the pirate tradition is alive and well in Freeport, but camouflaged by a veneer of respectability. These days the city’s pirates are privateers, legalized pirates Freeport loans out to the highest bidder. You’ll learn more in the short history of the city that follows. This should help give you a taste of the flavor of Freeport before the adventure begins and the given background is all you need to run this adventure. It is an ideal starting place for a new campaign as the player characters find themselves stranded in Freeport after a deal goes sour. A seemingly simple job plunges them into the strange underside of the city, where they uncover secrets worth dying for. Death in Freeport is the first from the Freeport trilogy, together with Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport. Synopsis: Death in Freeport drops the player characters into the midst of political and magical intrigue, as the hidden Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign manipulates events to bring its dread god to the world. Freeport is still a bustling center of trade, but evil currents run beneath the surface. There are secrets here, and questions unanswered. The characters will undoubtedly learn there is more here than they expect in a simple seaport. The question is, will that knowledge kill them? As the adventure begins, the player characters (PCs) have just come to Freeport on a merchant ship. While on the docks, the PCs are attacked by a press gang, who mistake them for easy marks. The press gang is handily beaten off; since they are unused to real resistance. A bookish young man named Brother Egil then approaches the PCs. He says that he’s been looking for a group that can take of itself, and that he has a job for them if they are interested: finding a missing librarian. The missing man, Lucius, disappeared two days previously, and Egil is eager to find him. Egil gives the PCs some background on Lucius and his strange behavior. The PCs are then free to investigate: They are likely to visit Lucius’s home, the temple to the God of Knowledge, and an orc pirate ship. This should form a picture of Lucius as a man searching for his own past—who found something he wasn’t counting on. Following a trail of clues, the PCs learn about the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. With a little luck, the PCs can trail the cultists back to their hideout, penetrate the lair, and discover secret tunnels underneath it. Deep underground they find degenerate serpent people, and eventually Lucius himself. The librarian has been tortured badly and will die without aid. The PCs also have to deal with the leader of the cult, a man they may recognize from the temple. When the cult priest is slain, they are in for an even bigger surprise. He was not human at all, but a serpent man in disguise. What this means for Freeport only the gods can say.
Dragotha's phylactery lies hidden somewhere in the ruined city of Kongen-Thulnir, a ruin now inhabited by tribes of giants and besieged by an army of dragons desperate to claim the phylactery for their undead master. "Kings of the Rift" is the tenth installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path, a complete campaign consisting of 12 adventures, several "Backdrop" articles to help Dungeon masters run the series, and a handful of poster maps of key locations. For additional aid in running this campaign, check out Dragon's monthly "Worm Food" articles, a series that provides additional materials to help players survive this campaign. Issue #342 of Dragon presents several magical items that the PCs can construct using Item Creation feats that fit into the mythos of the Age of Worms Campaign. Pgs. 52-86
A cave-in at the dwarven mine exposed a passage into the eerie, alien world that lies deep below the surface. Monsters poured out of the darkness and killed many before the surviving miners made it back into the light. Now they seek brave adventurers to face the dangers down in the dark depths. As a one shot or the first adventure of a new campaign, The Eyeless in the Dark carries new and experienced players away from the light of the ordinary surface world and down into the fantastical dark depths where here there be monsters. Chock full of adventure, as well as design notes for Dungeon Masters that will help novice and veteran DMs provide their players with an exciting and memorable game night, and leave them eager for the next session. Use this adventure in combination with the Integrated Hill Encounters and/or the Forest and Grasslands to create an open world sandbox of adventures that can fill many sessions of a campaign.
Over a millennium ago, a clan of dark elves broke away from their evil kin and fled from the city of Menzoberranzan. Though many lives were lost in the initial exodus, the large numbers of the renegade band ensured that they were more successful than any could have hoped. And yet, the drow that finally arrived into the surface world found themselves shunned at every turn by those unable to see past their appearances. Just as their hope was beginning to wane, a song rang out through the night, beckoning the way to the sea and to a silver ship waiting amidst the dark waves. Many years have passed, and little knowledge remains of the strange island that the dark elves came to call their home, but the wicked Lolth forgets nothing. Evil magic converges upon El’tara and begins to steal away the light of hope. Whether through fate, mere coincidence or perhaps divine intervention, a band of adventurers find themselves standing at the shores of this land in the time of its greatest need. This adventure should run for approximately four to five hours and may be played either as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign. It contains guidelines for running the adventure at any level from 1st to 8th and for a variety of group sizes.
Darkness looms near Winterhaven! Kobold brigands have grown ever bolder in their attacks, marauding the once peaceful town, and a known explorer has been missing ever since their departure to the excavation site of a dragon burial site. When the party investigates, they will discover that the kobold's leader, Irontooth, bears a tattoo of a ram-headed demon. This is a troubling portent, for the townsfolk will report that this can only mean the dread god Orcus, master of death, has an active cult in that ruined keep! It is up to the party to enter the Keep on the Shadowfell and put a stop to the cult's fell machinations before it threatens all the realm. There they will fight the evil priest Kalarel, Scion of Orcus and seal off the vile portal to the dark realms he is master of. Should the heroes seize victory, glory and treasure are sure to be theirs. But first they must endure the challenges of that dreaded KEEP ON THE SHADOWFELL!
Hunt a terrifying predator in this adventure for 2nd-level characters set in the world’s greatest roleplaying game! A frightened tabaxi bursts into your tavern with his blood-soaked daughter, begging for aid. A ferocious beast known as the stalker injured her in a harrowing attack. What’s more, the injured girl was not alone when the stalker attacked, and she fears the beast has taken her beloved to be its dinner. The old tabaxi begs the party to enter the forest and eliminate the stalker. This second-level adventure is perfect for new DMs and players alike. Enter the dark Airedale forest, hunt the stalker, and save Edge of the World, or bring back his body. Included in this adventure: A quest to rid a forest of a terrifying predator. Ambushes, exploration, and intense last stands. Cold and dark forests dripping in cobwebs. 4 random encounters to help you extend the adventure as needed. Approx. 4 hours of fun. A gripping adventure for 2nd-level players. Visit the dark forest of Airedale!