"I was taken by the evil dogs while camping near Agav's bog. They dragged me into their lair, and it wasn't until I escaped that I knew the truth of the place: a great and bony wing buried in the side of a hill. They chained me in the dark with a candle made from foul wax and forced me to dig at the marrow. Their bonds were poorly made, and I fled several days later while they slept. What purpose did they have in mining that marrow? I cannot say..." The Marrow Mines are dug in and around the fossilized wing of an unnamed leviathan. A small pack of kobolds lives and works in the mines, which are heavily trapped. The kobolds defend the area fiercely and patrol the region around the mine. At night, a handful of urds make aerial surveys of the territory. The urds live in the deep reaches of the wing's tips.
Suitable for four PCs. Adventure can be finished in one session. Several months back, Dip Halfling-Chewer and his cronies were ejected from a nearby goblin clan for indiscriminate wrestling. Their antics, although hilariously entertaining to themselves, were destructive and dangerous to the rest of the clan. The goblins spent several nights in the wilderness before discovering an abandoned wagon by the side of a trade road. There, the homeless cadre transformed the wagon into distinctly goblinoid fortress. They have had some success in assaulting and looting travelers on the road.
Throughout the land, legends of the Dusk Queen persist. They speak of a sometimes kind, other times cruel, yet always mysterious fey queen who ruled from her Dusk Tower—a tall spire of smooth, dark stone in the heart of a great, shadowy forest. Perhaps the most gripping legends, however, whisper of the Dusk Queen’s sudden and mysterious disappearance. Also available in 5e format.
An evil oracular being has taken up residence in a lonely valley. The only access to the valley is through a thick, dead wood whose shadows draw out foul memories from those who travel there. The oracle, Lurinax, has recently divined the season in which the world will end. This knowledge is greatly prized by many, so the evil fortune teller hides in his lair, protected by maddening winds and the souls of those he slew to obtain his knowledge. In this grim and dark adventure for tenth- and eleventh-level PCs, the party must travel the trail of shadows, face the manifestations of Lurinax’s victims, and finally the evil oracle himself.
"The Clockwork Tower" is an azza gremlin lair suitable for five 3rd level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session.
The earth churns in a city graveyard, revealing not the undead but an ancient war machine. A great iron transport bores its way up from depths below, disrupting funeral rites and sending the citizens into a panic. With an opportunity to investigate and reap the rewards of bravery, the party closes on the graveyard. There they discover that the pilots of the strange vehicle are soulless automatons who have spent an eternity burrowing toward the battlefront of a long-forgotten war. In this action-packed and gritty adventure, the party must battle automatons, breach the iron transport, and put down its mad and malfunctioning commander.
Who Do You Trust? In the cool streets and blazing bazaars, the word is out: a great treasure has gone missing in the Everlasting City of the Cat, and some very ambitious people have set their sights on it. Many paws and claws are out, and everyone is sniffing around for something rich and strange. It’s an odd time for a catfolk thief and a gnoll merchant to make very tempting offers to strangers in town. Or, perhaps it’s not odd at all. Get caught up in the hunt with Cat and Mouse by Richard Pett and Greg Marks! A perfect introduction to the Southlands campaign setting, and it fits neatly into any desert city where cats are sacred and rats are cautious and sly.
A snow hag lair suitable for four or five 7th-level characters. Mother Rime lives north of a small fishing village in the far cold north. For years she's hidden her true nature from the townsfolk, appearing as an old benevolent wild-woman to the town. When one of Mother Rime's 'children' break from her cold-hearted ways, adventurer's are sought to seek to correct the evil in the north.
The Vault of Pallon the Pious is an adventure for four 2nd level PCs. A famous pirate captain came to worship a lawful god in his final years. After a lifetime of plundering, pillaging, scuttling, and murdering along the coastline, the fear-inspiring Pallon the Merciless rebranded himself as Pallon the Pious. But, a history of violence is a hard thing to reconcile, and the salty old dog slowly succumbed to madness. His most precious possession was a set of scales that reflected perfectly his own inner conflict. The Scales of Misjudgement are buried deep in the treasure room of his crazed rock-island vault.
Sky Stairs of Beldestan is a vampire warlock lair suitable for four characters of 14th level. It can be a lead-in to Citadel of the Void Dragon, or it can be played independently. For as long as any dragon can remember, the stairs of Beldestan have been a site of pilgrimage, a direct route from dusty earth up to the heavens, where enormous creatures soar and carry sacrifices up to the gods. Its base is well known for the efficacy of the invocations offered there, but very few other than the most faithful dare venture up the stairs themselves: enormous eagles, howling winds, and various inimical undead make the stairs a place that few find congenial for long.
"Imperial Ghoul Outpost" is an iron ghoul lair suitable for four or five 10th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. When a clan of duergar prospectors unearthed caverns not on the their maps, they were particularly excited about a strange new iron orc they found there. not long after mining began, undead horrors emerged to attack the dwarves. Only one duergar escaped, his mind shattered by the experience. The Ghoul Imperium continues to explore the area, and it has its own plans for the newly discovered one.
This is an adventure for four 6th to 7th level PC's that may be completed in a single session. The Untamed are a street gang in a busy city. A recent change in leadership has transformed the members from pickpockets and second-story thieves into kidnappers for an inter-dimensional aberration named Xlrieh'oc. Their hideout is now a strange and wicked factory, capable of extracting the firm essence from a person; the process leaves the victim partly ethereal and their form no longer casts a shadow. Although most victims die during the procedure, those who survive are conscripted into the gang. The extracted essence is crated and shipped to the aberration's home plane through a breach between worlds in the hideout's backroom.
History states that Zobeck was reborn in blood 80 years ago, thanks in part to the creation of gearforged by a revolutionary coalition of workers and mages. Unfortunately, history has recorded only part of the truth, and the Praetors will do anything to make sure the rest remains buried.
Let nothing end the Feast by the River. Let the celebration of our enemy’s vanquishing ring out night and day for eternity. Let the bones of our enemies and our prey mingle below our feet. This is your time, our time, the best time. —Queen Gellao on the eve of her victory over the followers of Dur; decreed at the River’s Bend feast hall
A bargain struck between a dwarf chieftain and a great divine power forms the heart of this adventure. The chieftain, unwilling to step down from her position as ruler, seeks a way to hide from the god. When the party rescues some of her kin, they are offered riches for recovering a long lost magical shroud with the power to obscure mortals from the eyes of the gods. But recovering the shroud draws the attention of the god’s agents, and the party must choose a side. In this storied and fate-filled adventure for eleventh-level and up PCs, the party must battle their way through a ruined dwarven armory before deciding the fate of the chieftain.
"The Dark Forest" is an elder shadow drake lair suitable for four 8th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session. A hidden grove within a dark forest has been home to a tribe of alseids for generations. The tribe's most recent leader and spiritual heart was an alseid shaman called Riatha the Raven. Within the grove lies an ancient ring of standing stones atop a burial mount. Here, Riatha conducted sacred nature rites to honor and bless the forest and the tribe. During one of these ceremonies, the ground rumbled and a column of dense black energy shot straight up from the burial mound and into the night sky. Thick darkness enveloped the area, and the suddenly blinded alseids heard terrible roars. An instant later, the darkness dissipated to reveal a mysterious pool ringed with skulls among the standing stones. Two large, dragon-like creatures with black scales and burning red eyes glared at the confused alseids. One the ground lay the body of Riatha, deathly still. Terror and chaos followed as the creatures brought swift and sudden death, killing most of the alseid tribe members with razor-sharp teeth and deadly, black breath. The alseids that survived the inital, bloody attack fled into the forest. They counterattacked a few hours later, desperate to reclaim their grove and recover the body of their beloved leader, but the attempt was a fiasco and they were quickly driven off. Now, the few remaining alseids hide in the forest, frightened and unsure of what to do next.
"Monument of the Thunderer" is a desert half-dragon lair intended to challenge a party of four 7th-level characters. Near the city state of Makuria, on a small island in the middle of the Green Nuria River, an immense stone sculpture of a dragon watches over the mighty Red Cliffs and the waterfall that pours off them. The monument was built by ancient worshipers of the Mharoti conqueror known as Zulatil the Thunderer, but now serves as a base of operations for a band of sinister thugs who call themselves the Red Cliff Raiders.
"The Hive" is a spawn of Arbeyach lair, also featuring giant termites and termite swarms, for five 6th-level characters. This adventure can be finished in one session. Several mounds in the Forsaken Hills are the dens of voracious termites that have added flesh to their diet to supplement dwindling wood supplies. At night, swarms of termites hunt and devour prey. They swarm over victims in wooden carts and wagons, and bring the dismantled wood back to their mounds. Three spawn of Arbeyach, searching for a location to summon Ia'Affrat, Arbeyach's herald, discovered a mound filled with particularity nasty termites and used their vermin empathy to gain acceptance. They dug out a cavern beneath the mound, and now use the termites to protect themselves and gather food while they complete a difficult ritual involving dozens of sacrifices. The final sacrifice is prepared and the spawn are finishing their ritual when the party arrives.
A doctor who helps with rare and socially debilitating diseases who welcomes all to her doorstep suddenly becomes reclusive...and her patients are no longer able to be found. Adventurer's are hired by a powerful merchant who had committed her son to this doctor, and they need to find him and bring him home.
We saw it—don’t turn your heads. Up near Hilltop Crossroad and the temple. It walked south; the trees fell in its path. Even the moon hid. Gods help Father Dren . . .