Settling down as the sky turns black with rest, you gather by the heated campfire and swap stories to pass the night. You hear tales of wonder and worry, descriptions of distant lands, plants, and beasts. Exchanged this night are stories of thieving travellers, worried giants, and godly squabbles. Ever wanted small stories to make travel more interesting than random encounters? Ever just wanted to run shorter games? Maybe you’re just low on prep time for your next session. In this volume of campfire tales you’ll find eight half-a-session length adventures that help with all these classic DM worries. Also included is an in-depth appendix of fauna, flora, locations, and more to help boost your game.
The player characters have been invited to compete in the infamous Laureate Trials. The Laureates are a well-known adventuring guild. Once a year, they allow a select group of known adventurers to take part in the Laureate Trials. The prize is becoming an official member of the Laureates, with all the perks and responsibilities that awards. Rumour has it that new initiates will be awarded a coveted Laureate Pin, with special powers of communication. This adventure is a starting module, designed for new players and Game Masters. It should take 1 - 2 hours with a standard group of 4 players. Everything you need to know is contained inside or in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules. It is ideal for helping a beginning group of heroes get started and giving them a motivation for further adventures. Inside, there are Trials to test Agility, Wits and Combat, plus a special encounter at the end which will determine the fate of a forgotten individual.
The party has been contracted by House Tor to provide 'extra security' during a ball. Unbeknownst to the players or House Tor, a spy from another house of an attending noble is going to try to sabotage the night in an attempt to ruin the evening. Can the party stop the spy? Will the nobles finally snap?
The Dysmal Swamp is a coastal wetland that stretches over 100 square miles. Devoid of any urbanization, the ecosystem enjoyed its dank sanctuary. A community of bullywugs called the swamp home for generations, hunting and maintaining the balance of the land. The land also appealed to the Belange Company, a wicked fey-run enterprise making cheap magic items, who needed a secluded location far from both thieves and oversight. When the Belange Company established their magical workshop in the swamp, the bullywugs attempted to drive them off. However, the Belange Company’s supply of magical items provided enough firepower to protect their endeavor, and many bullywugs fell in the initial conflicts. The Belange Company began crafting scores of magical items to be sold across the region, using a cheap alchemical process that produced a nasty liquid byproduct glowing with chaotic magical energies. Rather than devise a new process, the Director decided to discharge the waste into the swamp. As production increased, so did the pollution, and the sludge began to warp the wetland. The region’s typically reclusive bungisngis population became aggressive. It is only a matter of time before these mutated swamp giants lay waste to bullywugs.
Imprisoned in the first layer of Hell a group of unfortunate adventurers must find their way out amidst the chaos of the Blood War. Will they escape before the Lord of the Keep finds them? Well, only time will tell...
The Director of the precognitive mages puts out a call to the Guilds for assistance in investigating a new threat which would disrupt an upcoming annual celebration along the Transguild Promenade in Precinct Four and cause the deaths of many Ravnican citizens. The Adventurers must find the evidence pointing to the perpetrators and stop the oncoming riot during the celebration in 24hrs. This is a One shot adventure for a group of four, at 3rd level. It could possibly be the first of many other adventures you might run in Ravnica!
A wasting sickness creeps through city streets, powerful spells and cures only pausing the disease. Talona’s name is called out in anger as the possible culprit and in prayer for the disease to be cured. Only she knows the truth: An ancient deity’s corpse, sequestered millenia ago by Talona, floats in the astral sea and is the source of this affliction. Will adventurers be able to stop this sickness at its source? And what will they do with the knowledge they discover?
We’re a rumor, recognizable only as déjà vu, and dismissed just as quickly. We don’t exist. We were never even born. Anonymity is our name. Silence, our native tongue. We are no longer part of the system. We are above the system. Over it. Beyond it. We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Elves in Pink. The EiP headquarters has been compromised. Can your intrepid band of adventurers determine what happened and take back the facility before it's too late? A 6-10 hour adventure for 11th-14th level characters
The Shades of Bodach Ridge Whitepeak has a dark history of black magic originating with the evil witch Skruul the Reaper. The dark rituals she conducted seemed sure to plague the region, until a plucky group of adventurers thwarted her plans sending her into a state of perpetual fractured undeath. Now souls scatter from her old haunt on Bodach Ridge. What could have set these souls free?
Many centuries ago, the dwarven kingdom of Sarphil stretched out across the Galena Mountains east of the Moonsea. They dug for the precious metals hidden beneath the rocky terrain, and they established numerous cities and settlements to aid in their excavation and manufacturing efforts. This was during the early days of Myth Drannor, the elven kingdom in the forest of Cormanthor, and the dwarves and elves initially clashed as each sought resources and expanded their territories. Myth Drannor and Sarphil eventually settled their differences, and many dwarves moved into the elven city to offer their services and expand their knowledge. In the Galena Mountains, Sarphil continued to flourish. Unfortunately, these days of prosperity did not last long. The last great king of Sarphil was lost in the dwarven city of Mount Throndor, beneath the mountain peak of the same name, and Sarphil withered under bitter clan disputes since no single family could claim legitimate lineage over the fragmented kingdom. What happened under Mount Throndor has been a mystery for thousands of years. Many attempts have been made to reclaim the lost riches and legacy of the last Sarphilan king, but powerful wards have prevented intrusion under the mountain, wards erected by the dwarves of Sarphil. Were the wards built to keep outsiders from intruding – or to keep something inside from escaping? An enterprising dwarven leader wants to find out, but she is going to need some help from a band of heroes. Horrors of Mount Throndor is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure of exploration, darkness, and terror featuring a lost dwarven city overrun by forces from the Far Realm and the journey to cleanse it once and for all. The adventure is designed for a group of 11th-level characters, and successful completion of the adventure should put the characters at 16th level. Here There Be Monsters Mount Throndor has become infested with madness from the Far Realm. During their journey to penetrate the ward and through the city itself, the characters are going to face gibbering horrors, unpredictable slaadi, fanatic stone giant cultists, degenerate star spawn horrors, mutant derro, undead dwarves, and countless golems. The ancient breweries of Mount Throndor have produced alementals who slither in the darkness, and a great dwarven war juggernaut named Big Hans stomps through the city. Legendary Villains and Epic Moments Though it has been sealed, Mount Throndor is not empty. The characters have opportunities to meet, interact with, and (likely at least) combat against powerful foes within the legendary dwarf city. A dwarf lich, a Far Realm spider goddess, an iron-encased demilich, and a melted flesh derro warlock monstrosity all await, along with a mind-bending force - Great Cthulhu! The characters have a chance to face an avatar of Great Cthulhu in the dwarven depths in the final confrontation of the adventure to free Mount Throndor and rid Faerun of a Far Realm invasion! An Adventure of Exploration Mount Throndor is a big, sprawling complex, a dwarven city with two major strongholds, a bridge system spanning a massive underground lake, and a deep mining complex. The scale is difficult to grasp and convey. Previous examples of adventures featuring these elements have included maps - usually lots of them, great spawling maps connected at ends to make huge subterranean dungeons. It is the classic image of a D&D dungeon crawl, and the map is a key component to its visualization. However, in this adventure, the maps are handled differently. There are certain areas, ususally outside the dwarven city itself, that include maps that are suitable for use at the game table, either in theater of the mind style or grid-and-miniatures. Mount Throndor itself is presented with an abstract map, and exploring it utilizes the exploration procedure outlined in Appendix A. Characters traverse the huge subterranean system using this abstract system, and during their travels they are going to run into random encounters and sites with more interesting and complex encounters.
When a harsh winter turns uneasy neighbors into bitter rivals, or worse, Granny Grimsicle sees an opportunity to spread her unique brand of horror in Hrokstead. Short on food themselves and exhausted from their adventures, our heroes arrive in the frontier settlement to find that something is very wrong. Can they get to the bottom of the threat, and make it out alive? This title stands as a one-shot, but also plants seeds for the ongoing Hags of Hoarfrost anthology. It works great as a supplement to Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, or placed into your own homebrew setting, or run as a standalone adventure. This module includes a detailed battle map and a monster token for use on Virtual Tabletops, and player handouts presented as standalone images for easy distribution to your online players.
A 3-4 hour adventure for 1st tier characters, which can be run as a 1-shot or as the beginning of a new campaign set in the Feywild. For tens of millennia, battles have raged across the Feywild, as the powerful and prideful archfey fought to divide the realms among themselves. Eventually the boundaries settled into four major territories: Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. These domains, and the smaller pockets of unclaimed territory between, came to be known as the Land of the Four Courts. The bitter rivalries between Winter and Summer and between Autumn and Spring never truly subsided, but for the past fifteen hundred years, an era of relative peace has persevered. Even so, peace is a fragile thing, and in the everchanging landscape of the Feywild it is all too easily broken.
Sometimes protecting the cargo is easy but getting the pay not so much. The Bottle has been waiting on the docks for two days, no one has come down and no one dares to go up to see what happened and that is your ship, that is the ship that is going to take you and your cargo across the sea.
Where have the staff gone? Why do the doors not lead where they should? What dark experiments were performed here? And what has become of the asylum’s enigmatic owner? During a routine train ride, the characters are halted by a powerful force within Enfri Asylum. Haunted by murderous doctors, revolutionary patients, and creatures beyond description, the characters must venture into the old hospital and put an end to the madness to reach their destination. The Monsters of Enfri Asylum is a 8 to 12 hour horror adventure for 1st to 5th-level characters.
An unusual pirate outpost on a small island is causing big trouble for the residents of coastal towns in more ways than one. A Minotaur clan have recruited outlaws and formed an alliance with Sahuagin in order to establish a pirate outpost on a formerly abandoned island and have begun raiding up and down the coast...
Beware the Druid's Curse... — Once a popular hunting lodge nestled in the Neverwinter Wood catering to avid hunters, Owlbear Lodge has been a forgotten location that Lord Neverember wants to reclaim. Its owners can’t be located, and a recent expedition team sent to the lodge hasn’t returned. Lord Neverember asks the adventurers to find the lodge, locate the missing expedition members, and clear out the establishment of any unwanted riff raff or creatures so new proprietors can reopen it, increasing tourism to the Neverwinter Region. What no one knows is that the original proprietors broke a contract made with a druid who guards the forest. This broken contract led to the demise of one of the owners, and many of the guests. Now, the overgrown an unkempt lodge is infested with strange creatures. What’s worse is that the adventurers themselves may succumb to the druid’s curse as they investigate the lodge. Product Details — ♦ 2- to 4-hour adventure for three to five characters ♦ Scalable for 1st-6th level ♦ High-quality map of the Owlbear Lodge ♦ New undead owlbear and porcupine statblocks ♦ Set in Forgotten Realms, but easily adapted to other settings
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.
"As you approach, the miners themselves appear from their hidey-holes around the ruined camp. They are haggard and hollow-eyed, barely able to lift the picks and shovels they've clearly been using as weapons. They are unwashed, muddy and stinking - they look little different to the undead that they have been fighting. Shrouded in damp blankets and shivering, they stare at you silently, even disbelievingly. There is only one left among them who appears to have a little iron left in his spine. He tightens his grip on his pick and steps forward. 'Are you here to help?'" Some doors should never be opened... A group of miners uncover a dark secret and find themselves fighting for their lives as the dead walk again. Can the party rescue the survivors and stop an ancient evil before it spreads across the land? Doorway to Darkness is a 3-5 hour adventure for characters of 2nd-3rd level. It features roleplaying, traps and horrifying combat encounters...
The adventurers come across the campsite of a traveling carnival. The carnival-master is a beautiful and seductive tiefling named Synn. She asks the travelers to stay for dinner and watch the show. The entertainment is amazing and wonderful… up until the point that the act turns real. Suddenly, the party finds themselves immersed in a nightmare. Even if the protagonists survive, the unfortunate souls could be forever trapped in the cursed realm of Ravenloft. A 4-6 hour adventure for a party of 4-6 players of 3rd level.
The Dread of Dynwel is an adventure set in the Forgotten Realms and optimized for 4-5 players. The characters start as a down on their luck but somewhat experienced crew of adventurers with a wanted poster which pays a much-needed gold reward. Soon, events in the Sunset Vale are revealed as more dangerous than they seem, sweeping the characters along with them. From the heights of the Sunset Mountains, the alleyways of Scornubel, and depths of the Reaching Wood: The Dread of Dynwel covers levels 2 through 8 and features material which can be played as a full campaign or dropped into an ongoing one.