When Wisp Shadowfoot, gentleman thief, makes off with the party’s valuables they are thrown into the shadowy world of criminal intrigue. The master burglar, it seems, needs a favor from people as skilled at smashing as he is at sneaking. If our plucky adventurers ever want to see their loot again they’ll need to help him wipe out a band of murderous house-breakers that aren’t just spooking potential targets, but are behaving in a most ungentlemanly fashion while doing so. One way or another, there’s going to blood spilled in the shadows tonight!
"Ambush at Boxcar Rocks" is a two hour adventure for character level 1-3 (3-6 players) but is easily adapted to challenge higher level PCs by adjusting the spawn rate and the spawn limit. It features one hand-drawn, color map. It can be run as a brutal oneshot gauntlet or a quick side quest to pad the players purses. Deep within the labyrinth of massive, glacier deposited rocks there is a natural cave once used for interring the dead. Now the bones of the pit within stir because of a foolish neophyte. A listless, blood thirsty horde tramples toward daylight and nothing will remain in their wake...
Catastrophe strikes the frontier village of Swallowfeld! With a grinding groan, the town’s mill slews into the Kilian River and breaks through the ceiling of an ancient subterranean dungeon. This accident frees a long-imprisoned evil to prey upon the shocked townsfolk. When several Swallowfeld residents—some innocent and some not so innocent—are spirited away into the rapidly flooding dungeon, it falls to a brave group of heroes to venture underground and rescue the missing before dark, rising waters seal their fate.
The Road to Broadhurst written by Carlos Cisco is available for free. Internally, we called this “the Conventure.” It’s designed for experienced Directors who already know the rules, and want to run Draw Steel for new players at their local convention or game store. It doesn’t explain how to play, that’s what the director is for! Because RPG events at a convention can last anywhere from 45 minutes to 4 hours, The Road to Broadhurst has advice on how to skip sections you don’t have time for without affecting the flow of play. Road to Broadhurst is a short, modular adventure for Draw Steel. It’s written for three to six 1st-level heroes and a Director. This free adventure comes with pregenerated heroes and is meant to give experienced directors an easy way to introduce new players to the game, especially in environments such as game stores and conventions where time is limited. The Director should be familiar with the Draw Steel core rules found in Draw Steel: Heroes and Draw Steel: Monsters. This adventure can be run online on a virtual tabletop or in person at conventions, game stores, libraries, community centers, homes, and anywhere else roleplaying games are played. It can also serve as a lead-in to The Delain Tomb adventure for Draw Steel. The combat encounters in this adventure are optimized for a group of five heroes. Adjustments are included for groups as large as six or as small as three.
A pair of leprous mountain dwarves plead for the rescue of their compatriots from a deadly ettin-wight
Ever feel like you just want to snatch all the blankets and pillows you can find and hide in your own warm little nest? Goblin Heist is a chaotic Tier 1 adventure where 1-6 players take control of goblin characters on a mission to steal as many cozy things as they can from the sleepy winter village of Little Humbleton. But be wary... the town has hired an adventurer to stop you! Can you and your goblin gang survive the cold, sneak into houses, steal the cozies, and escape before daybreak all without being caught? Goblin Heist is highly replayable, and features: - A choice of four adventurers protecting the town, each adding their own difficulty and flavour to the game - Variable weather conditions - Pursuit mechanics - Randomly generated challenges - Cozies - Stuffing sweets in your face
Surrounded by miles of hostile swampland, Feypool isn’t a place too many adventurers seek out. But a group of travelers discover that this small duchy is under siege by a strange threat: Marietta Truelight. Otherworldly beautiful and abnormally charming, all but a handful of Feypoolers have fallen under her spell, becoming a fanatical hive mind willing to do anything for her. But Marietta is planning something sinister, the answer buried within Feypool’s superstitions and bleak history. The Feypool Beauty features a number of horror elements including body horror, suspense, intrigue, and some classic tropes similar to body snatchers. What secrets will you uncover? What atrocities of devotion will you witness? And will you be able to resist the influence of the Feypool Beauty?
"The Riverfront Rat Gang" is a ratfolk lair, also featuring wharflings and a doppelrat, designed for five 1st level characters. This adventure can be completed in one session. The old dockyards once served as the primary center of commerce in town. Years ago, political pressure from an influential merchant who wanted the docks to be loser to her business forced shipping concerns to move their docks upriver. The new facility accommodates larger ships, and the old docks fell into disuse. Talk of converting the property into a set of riverside shops died when a rat infestation proved to be an unsolvable problem. Thus, the old dockyards have been decaying for years. This situation suited a former thieves' guild member, a ratfolk rogue, named Matimer Creel. A botched robbery (for which Matimer blamed his accomplice) turned the guild against Matimer, who fled from certain death at the hands of the guild master. He hid out in the old dockyards, confident that not even guild members bothered to go there. From there he began to exact revenge against the guild by ruining its plans or stealing directly from it. He also befriended the rat population, thanks to a golden rat's tooth he acquired, and the vermin help with his schemes. A trio of rat-like wharflings and a doppelrat, washed up on the riverbank near the docks, have joined Matimer's retinue.
Great riches and sudden death, free for the taking. The owners of the vault dared all looters to test their wits against it. Hundreds of years later, the vault is still unopened. Now, it's your turn to try to get in. A heavily trapped vault containing a whole lot of treasure. Little combat. Pgs. 41-46
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.
A Beholder Love Story A dwarven mineshaft has become the new home of the heartbroken beholder Sindryl. Discover who could be wicked enough to separate Sindryl from his love Prix'am, put a stop to their plot, and restore Prix'am's missing heart. A 3-6 hour Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition adventure for Tier 2 characters. This adventure includes: 2 New Monsters (including 1 New Beholder!), 3 New Magic Items, New NPCs, a Minecart Skill Challenge, Romantic Random Encounters for the Underdark!
The nephew of a once famous adventurer decides to make a name for himself and bites off more than he can chew. Short on options, and worried for his nephew’s life, he needs your help. Travel to the ruins of Dhonin's Lookout atop Standiac Hill to find and rescue the young adventurer. Uncover a plot that could lead to the destruction of the village of Millvein, and even more dire future consequences. Includes: A 3-4 hour adventure for 1st level characters Map of the village of Millvein 2 DM maps Stat blocks for all monsters the players might encounter. The adventure continues in Into the Underdark - Part 2 The Spider's Den
The sleepy village of Raven's Lake has a secret: A terrible god lives in the depths of the settlement's namesake. The citizens of Raven's Lake know that something lives in the lake. People who go out on the lake after dark go missing far too often and frequently turn up weeks later with no memory of where they've been. The local church of St. Cuthbert has been abandoned no fewer than seven times in the last two years, each time its lone cleric packing hastily and fleeing town without a word. Adventurers who come to Raven's Lake have a habit of vanishing forever. The truth is that something does indeed live in Raven's Lake but it is far from a deity. It's an exiled aboleth by the name of Zlorthishen. Pgs. 33-36
The game is afoot in the royal palace. A thief prowls the dwarven palace, but even more goes on than meets the eye. Set in in a dwarven kingdom, a peace treaty with an aggressive rival kingdom is to be signed with ceremonial gifts exchanged to mark the occasion. However the treaty is put in jeopardy when the ceremonial sword that was gifted to the kingdom is stolen before the signing. The adventure begins when the characters receive a vision that directs them to help the kingdom. They must investigate the mystery of the missing sword, navigating a diverse cast of palace dwarves in order to preserve peace in the kingdom. A tale of intrigue, can the heroes find the sword before it is too late? Pgs. 16-32
This week’s encounter is April Showers and Foul Flowers, a combat encounter that could also become a puzzle for the druids and rangers in your party. While the characters travel through a beautiful meadow, smelling the scents of flowers and earth after a rain, the flowers at their feet spring to life and attack, threatening to entangle and devour them! These foul flowers were animated by the foul magic of a dark sorceress who infused the rain itself with her evil. The characters could fight back against the sorceress and her army of animated plants, or they could try to undo her spell and save the flowers—and the nymph that guards them.
Adventures in Hawk's Rest is a love letter to low-level D&D: Studio Ghibli meets the Shire meets Lost Mine of Phandelver. An open-world hexcrawl for characters of 1st to 2nd level, Hawk's Rest is intended as a prologue to a longer campaign, with seven keyed adventure sites and fantastic maps by Dungeon Baker (How to Defend Your Lair, The Lazy DM's Companion). Hawk's Rest is written for new and veteran players alike but avoids the usual pitfalls associated with 1st-level adventures: not only are encounters balanced to avoid character death, but most combats can be avoided entirely with clever roleplaying.
After hunting for the Pirates of Ebor along the coastline, you witness a strange event. A great colossus is seen as you travel along the coastline and you are informed that it is the “Artifact at Gegios”. As you put into port, you make inquiries and decide to investigate further, after all, an artifact is usually useful! Is your party strong enough to uncover the truth of this legend?
An evil cult gathers for one night of dark acts, and on this night a group of brave adventurers enter their hide out. It is a mission of stealth and subterfuge for the dark forces are powerful, and quick thinking is needed to succeed for one night amongst the necromancers. The adventure introduces several new monsters and magic items. Originally from the Danish convention Fastaval as part of the living campaign, Hinterlandet. Now presented here for the first time in English. It is an adventure with emphasis on exploration and meeting the unknown.
The dungeon is essentially a large puzzle built around the premise of time travel. Many PC interactions are a direct result of the party dealing with the actions of their past or future selves. This adventure is designed for a fifth level party, to be played in a single session. It features a large full color map, artwork, NPC roleplaying tips, and two new magic items. Julinda the gnome mage has always been a bit off. She is a chronomancer who has become obsessed with achieving the reliable and reproducible technology of time travel, in the interest of returning to select parts of history and influencing their outcome to her pleasing; perhaps to avert a war, or to head off the enslavement of her people, or prevent the death of a loved one. Those who know her were aware of her ambitions, and now worry that they are coming to fruition, as she hasn't been seen in several months. And so, they have implored the PCs to seek her out...
A Giant Ransom is a short adventure for four 11th-level characters. There are opportunities for diplomacy, stealth, and combat, based on the choices the PCs make, so any mix of classes is appropriate. The adventure can be set in any campaign world, in a frontier region near glacier-covered mountains. In the first episode, the PCs were employed by Duke Ambrinigan to exchange a ransom of 10,000 gp in gems for a golden lion that was taken by frost giants in a recent raid. While waiting for the giants to arrive at the designated meeting place, the PCs watched as the white dragon Whildenstrank attacked the giants and then flew off with the statue. Charged with returning the golden lion statue at all costs, the PCs move to investigate the site of the battle.