In response to a new but as-of-yet-unnamed threat, the factions have called upon adventurers to venture into the jungle in search of a location for a new base of operations. As such, you have been charged with scouting several locations to assess their viability. Surely something so trivial as a scouting mission couldn’t go wrong?
“The Lost Mines of Karak” is the sequel to “The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge” and the fourth part of the Scales of War adventure path. After the player characters' success in "Siege of Bordrin's Watch" and "The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge", they have garnered something of a reputation in the city of Overlook. They are introduced to a wealthy patron that believes there is a connection between a shadar-kai arms dealer (from the previous two adventures) and a long lost dwarven mine. The patron wishes the PCs to find and secure the mine in order to use its wealth and resources to defend the city. The party then must travel through a wasteland and desert to find this mine. Once they have, they must fight through the hordes of monstrous creatures that inhabit it and defeat the Queen of the Drylands - a powerful naga. Pgs. 56-93
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.
The Blackstaff has discovered an oddity in the Weave that surrounds Waterdeep. The enigma may have been there all along or it might be new and the Blackstaff intends to figure it out using an ancient artifact from the reign of Emperor Shoon III. Part One of the Folded Time Trilogy. A Two-Hour Adventure for Tier 1 Characters (Bonus objectives are provided to stretch to 4 hours). Optimized for APL 3.
In Heart of Nightfang Spire, the player characters are drawn to investigate Nightfang Spire, a lonely stone tower in a barren land. The vampire lord Gulthias, servant of the great dragon Ashardalon, has returned to the tower which was once the main cult temple of Ashardalon. The vampire prepares for the dragon's return by awakening the other cultists who had preserved themselves as undead creatures. Gulthias is a vampire and a level 13 wizard.
Who knows why adventurers are drawn together? The lust for gold, a common foe, or the whimsy of fate? Pull up a stool, stoke the hearth, and let YOUR story begin! A Four-Hour Adventure for Tier 1 Characters. Optimized for APL 1.
Digging in the Dark People are vanishing from the village of Brookhollow. Can you solve the mystery in time to save your friends? Pgs. 12-29
Every fifty years, a pair of storm titans met to pray in an isolated and well guarded cloud temple. This time, they have obtained a copy of the fabled Ritual of the Primordial Gate and are exploring its secrets in hopes of bringing a lost primordial to the world. Divine messengers are sent to the PCs to enlist their aid in disrupting the storm titans’ efforts.
The Underdark holds many secrets. A series of earthquakes and eruptions have rocked a normally placid land. Strange creatures sighted in the dark of night raise fears across the already disturbed countryside. As tales of a lost race that once warred with the drow begin to surface, only the boldest adventurers dare to descend into the shadowy darkness.
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. The adventurers have located the secret lair of Aleretheral, an insane half-orc druid with mastery over vermin. He has been breeding and training monstrous vermin to defend his territory. With the adventurers invading his home, he will do anything he can to protect it.
Sinister Forces Terrorize a Town The town of Brindinford is in the midst of its annual street fair. Joy and merriment abound - until calamity disrupts the celebration. Are rival gangs responsible? Is the government sliding into tyranny? Or is a nightmarish plot about to come to fruition? "The Speaker in Dreams" is a stand-alone adventure for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game. Player characters are in for a wild ride in this river town. Leave the dungeon behind: the terrors lurking in Brindinford are more challenging by far! In The Speaker in Dreams, the town of Brindinford is besieged by evil forces under the command of Ghaerleth Axom. A street fair is interrupted by an attack, which serves as a distraction for the villain's forces to attack the keep of the local baron. This provides an entry point for the player characters into the main quest to discover the secret alliances trying to take over the town. The Speaker in Dreams is an event-based, rather than site-based, adventure.
Beyond the mortal world, somewhere outside the bounds of the Astral Sea, the Far Realm yawns immeasurable. Beyond the reality of gods and mortals, this plane is a realm of contradictions, a mad place of fevered creation checked only by pointless extinction. The Outside is a sea of diseased possibilities, where the stuff of madness seethes in a soup of the incomprehensible and the unnamable—shuddering, squirming, and sentient. The Stormcrows, responding to the psychic cry from the stone, dispatched a force to retrieve it. The attackers descend on Wellspring, slaughtering and destroying in the search for their treasure. PCs can come to the town’s defense and repel the horde. A priestess of Ioun then turns to the heroes to find the item the monsters were seeking. From the recovering town, the heroes cross the wilderness to the Kaorti Temple. The trail ends at a ruined tower overlooking a deep ravine. Inside the tower, the heroes must overcome the terrible creatures in their search. In the end, they find the relic has been stolen.
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. The characters were lead into a trap -- a lair of giant spiders. With one or more of their members injured and poisoned, and the trail of their quarry now cold, the characters most likely return to Crivdall.
Laveth, Lolth's half drow daughter, is plotting to seize power from her chaotic evil mother.
“The Temple Between” is an adventure for 9th level characters, and it is challenging enough to take them to 11th level by the time all is said and done. Although intended as the final chapter of the heroic tier portion of the Scales of War Adventure Path, it can be run as a standalone adventure, or as an adventure in a campaign of your own making, with a small degree of modification. It contains elements of urban investigation, dungeon delving, and even wartime conflict, making it a suitable adventure to players of many tastes and preferences. The western end of Elsir Vale has been greatly troubled in recent days. The threat of the orc hordes from beyond the Stonehome Mountains, though turned back at Bordrin’s Watch, still lingers in the people’s minds. Peculiar and hostile creatures of shadow lurk in the caverns and caves below. Political squabbling grows among the city’s powerful dwarf clans. All this makes the city particularly vulnerable to an enemy nobody saw coming - that nobody even imagined. This enemy has goals and objectives far beyond the ultimately unimportant Elsir Vale, but the first step is the utter subjugation of Overlook. An enemy who, at least in part, is already here. In this adventure the player characters start by investigating the strange behavior of the city's clergy. They swiftly discover hints of a conspiracy worming its way through the city hierarchy - some members are possessed while others have been replaced by dopplegangers. After trailing this conspiracy to its source they discover a portal that leads to an ancient temple in the mountains. Using the portal, the PCs go to the abandoned ancient temple where they must confront both a cadre of fey and a band of mercenaries, from whom they learn there is a plot for a full-scale invasion of the region! The PCs must them rush back to Overlook and cement their place as heroes as they face off against the invading forces. Pgs. 4-71
Ages ago, the tower stood as a bastion against banditry and marauders. But civilization has long since retreated from this area, and a band of goblin thieves has taken up residence in the ruined tower. Local woodsfolk beg the PCs to rid the place of the bandits before they are victimized again by the goblins of the Broken Tower. Pgs. 18-23
Faced with an unusual alliance of giants raiding the countryside, the party must venture into the steading of hill giant chief Nosnra and uncover maps to the locations of the other giant strongholds. “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief ” can be run as a stand-alone adventure, or you can play it as the first part of a four-part series that continues with “Warrens of the Stone Giant Thane” (Dungeon 198), “Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl” (Dungeon 199), and “Hall of the Fire Giant King” (Dungeon 200). The adventure is part of the Against the Giants series originally by Gary Gygax, hence the writing credit.
The wizard Abracadamus hid the Forever Stone in the darkest depths of a failing mine, coerced monsters into serving as guardians, and rigged the dungeon with traps galore. Then he died, as all good wizards do. Many heroes have fallen prey to the Forever Stone’s lure of immortality. To date, only one stalwart band has plunged into the Mines of Madness and lived to tell the tale. You think you’re better than them? You think you got what it takes to grab life by the stones and conquer the dungeon that won the 2012 Gygaxian Award* for Bonecrushing Awesomeness? We seriously doubt it, but go ahead . . . prove us wrong! Mines of Madness is a Very Special D&D® Next Adventure written for PAX East 2013 and designed for four 3rd-level characters.
Don't Get Burned! Follow a half-forgotten legend to treasures untold and a fiery doom. Pgs. 30-41
The ancient ruined city of Tamoacha is familiar to a select few scholars and fortune seekers, who know of it but not always exactly where it is. Even more secluded, lying somewhere within or beneath the ruins, is a hidden shrine said to be dedicated to Zotzilaha, the vampire god of the underworld. Adventurers who catch wind of the place are likely to find its lure irresistible. Remake of the AD&D module by the same name.