This guide describes how to run a one-session festival for your players. It combines a black market, costumes, and various activities suitable for different PC skills. The setting is a beach at night near a coastal town or city, but it can be easily adapted for other locations. It is suitable for players with little experience, and characters of any level. It makes a good first session for new players since they can try various skills without risk.
"Enter a garden of earthly delights. The sun has stopped setting over the king's favorite garden. It seemed like a harmless curiosity at first but the animals have turned violent and strange alien beings have appeared. The duke has placed a bounty for enterprising sell-swords to end the curse of endless daylight. Hideous Daylight is an adventure module for Old-School Essentials, Cairn, and compatible with other pen-and-paper RPGs with old-school sensibilities. Player characters will navigate a 20 point hex crawl to end the strange curse affecting the land. An adventure for low-level characters. 33 pages of non-linear, character driven adventure in the OSR tradition. Two keyed dungeons and a 20 point hex-crawl. A bucolic fantasy setting easily insertable into fantasy RPG campaigns. Dangerous new monsters, weird magic items, and an unpredictable random encounters table. Features two gazebos."
The power of prophecy is given to few. Wise are they who guard this gift well, for those who thirst after such knowledge are not always men of principle. Bastion of destiny, the Tower of the Heavens stands silhouetted against the star-studded night sky. From within his darkened observatory, perched like an eyrie on the highest turret, a figure in white charts the course of a shooting-star as it disappears behind the snow-capped peaks of the Tegefed mountains. The old man smiles grimly to himself; the event foretold has come to pass! Power, glory, riches - it takes years to acquire them. The uncanny accuracy of their predictions has brought all these and more to the sages of the Tower of the Heavens. But what is hard to win is often easier to lose, and the future of the tower now hangs in the balance. For it is written that the day of reckoning draws nearer when a star falls.... TSR 9120
All of the Treasure, None of the Traps is an adventure that includes a single gauntlet of traps that contains twelve traps; meaning that it has either one or twelve encounters. The adventure consists of a long, twisting corridor with all of the traps set off, but these traps are reset by the PCs when they reach the center of the area. Pgs. 32-34
Those friendly dwarves were the first to go, the poor things. And now the beast has been killing and eating the people of Brandonsford. No-one wants to leave the town's walls. With the humans out of the forest, fairies have taken over, and now the goblin king Hogboon seeks to claim the entire forest as his new kingdom.
The Haunted Hamlet and other hexes details four unique modular locations for your game. Made for old school essentials, but can easily be used with other old-school systems or even 5E. The four locations detailed in the zine focus on gameable content and being easy to use at the table. The locations are not connected to one another and can be sprinkled onto your campaign map however you like, or run as one shots. The PDF is graphic and art heavy and utilizes random tables and other tools to make it easier for GMs to run in a pinch. Details: 40 pages Single column text 8.5 x 5.5 aspect Black & White Bookmarks Four hex locations Random tables A rival NPC party A sky merchant A one page town Two hirelings
Minotaurs are fond of mazes, but rarely build them. Hex is an architect, engineer, and overlord all in one. A self-declared "Minotaur Lord", he is the only one of his kind known to exist. His lair is all he has, a gargantuan, ever-expanding labyrinth in which he keeps the spoils of his many conquests in youth. Now an ancient veteran, he works tirelessly to keep his hoard safe and to entice new adventurers to test themselves against his gauntlet of lethal traps. Tyrants and Hellions is a Dungeon Master's aide, containing fifteen villains complete with schemes, lairs, backstories, and everything else you need to drop them into your own 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Within its 400 pages you'll also find the methods, both mechanical and thematic, used to create villains that spark the imaginations of your players. Hex is one of these villains, and his adventure takes up 33 pages (pg 110-143). Published by 2CGaming
A ruined monument to folly and ego, the Shadowed Keep stands atop an isolated bluff deep in a mist-wreathed forest. Sacked by marauding goblins decades ago the place was thought abandoned, but shadows now creep among the forest's great boles and footprints have appeared on the single, overgrown track leading to the keep. Travellers have begun to disappear with alarming regularity from the nearby road and the local folk fear some slumbering evil has claimed the ruin as its own. Dare you brave the terrors of the Shadowed Keep to crush that which lurks within or will darkness shroud the surrounding lands? Designed to be easily inserted into a GM's home campaign, Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands is an excellent starting locale to test the mettle of neophyte adventurers. Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands is designed for the medium advancement track. 1st-level PCs completing all the challenges of the place can expect to reach 3rd-level by the time they have exhausted all the keep has to offer.
"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.
Was it destiny or something worse that destroyed the Order of the Opal Fist? A dungeon crawl designed for four 3rd level characters. The original article has a sidebar for scaling the adventure up or down. Pgs. 106-124
Floating Eternally among the endless silver void of the Astral Sea are vast, once-living islands, cast-off flesh of primordials and deities who lost their lives sons past in a great war. Today these colossal outposts bear mute testimony to the date of even the mightiest among us. Pgs. 120-127
With a Side of GOBLINS! is a 5e supplement that includes 10 narratively compelling encounters with full stats blocks and tactics for combat to make it easier for the DM to run these encounters. The encounters have varied difficulty with Challenge Ratings ranging from 1 all the way up to 12. There are also 7 new goblins (including the Goblin Wereworg, Goblin Shaman of the Worg, the Goblin Assassin, the Goblin Fearmonger, and more). All with full description and stats. Commercial license: you can use these encounters as part of commercial products. You can use the new encounters, goblins, their descriptions, stat blocks, and tactics in any adventures you create as long as you credit me as a contributor and as long as you don't resell them as is.
In an enchanted forest glade you come across two goddesses locked in a fierce debate. The muse of art and the muse of history want you to help them settle their quarrell once and for all, and they're not taking no for an answer. This is a single forest encounter.
An atmospheric one-shot adventure set in a dark forest for one-on-one or parties of level 5 or 6. There are two new sidekick classes, NPCs, and leveling tables included with handouts for your player! In this adventure, the characters gather information in the small village of Redvale on the outskirts of the Blackwoods Forest. They go into the forest in search of Adelle, a druid whose other eleven Circle members have disappeared within the last year. Inside the forest, they discover several undead beings, including a wood woad, who guides them to Adelle. She and her Circle learned a year before of a sorceress’s plan to extend her power beyond the forest, a death sentence for the village of Redvale and the lands beyond. Adelle is the last one left. Adelle is suspicious of the party at first, but she might help them get to the center of the forest to investigate the dark sorceress and try to put a stop to her destructive plans. This adventure sets a mysterious woodland ambiance that lends itself to an immersive one-shot experience! This Adventure Includes: -Full one-shot adventure for levels 5 or 6 -Two sidekick characters (or DMPCs) with handouts for your player -Two new sidekick classes and unique leveling tables: the archer and the Circle of the Phoenix druid -Mechanics for running a sidekick -Beautiful art -Well-rounded NPCs -Two custom NPC stat blocks -A new custom creature and -Two custom magical items
Legend tells of a long-dead empire of sphinxes, ruled over for millennia by a great queen named Ankharet. She fell into darkness and her empire was shattered, as her subjects rebelled and cast her down. Unable to kill her, it is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Their empire in ashes, the sphinxes scattered to roam the world in bitter freedom, save a single great androsphinx. On the edge of the mysterious Barren Hills, between the mountains and the Great Desert, there is a gigantic statue of a crowned gynosphinx, ancient beyond reckoning. At its feet, a great androsphinx known as Khubsheth the Prophet has dispensed counsel and prophecy to all who come to him for longer than mortal records can tell. The heroes have come to visit Khubsheth, whether for counsel, prophecy or out of curiosity, but as soon as he lays eyes on them, he attacks! Upon his defeat, he tells them that they are the heroes foretold by the legend of Ankharet. Ankharet ruled over a long-dead empire of sphinxes, but she fell into darkness. Her subjects rebelled and cast her down, but were unable to kill her. It is said that they bound her with great magic and buried her in a tomb, to wait for the foretold heroes who would be able to slay her and end her evil forever. Kubsheth the Prophet tells the heroes that they must enter the tomb of the long-dead sphinx queen, kill her, and destroy her cursed crown, an artifact of tremendously evil power. As his blood seeps into the sands, a doorway opens at the base of the statue, leading down into darkness…
One page adventure, one page map. A necromancer desiring to increase her undead army has unleashed a zombie horde on a remote village. Patch, one-eyed dog of Duff the blacksmith, survived the village massacre which turned most of the inhabitants into zombies. The dog lost his eyepatch in the confusion. If a Speak with Animals or similar spell is used or if a character can read animal emotions well, Patch may tell the location of some of the zombies and the massacre's survivors. Adventure hooks included. Published by Wicked Cool Games
The town of Somber Hill is a quiet settlement in the foothills of a mountain range. A few days travel from the nearest city, the people of Somber Hill are a humble and self-reliant bunch. Unbeknownst to its people, the small town hides a sinister secret, some of the residents of Somber Hill belong to a cult that worships a long dead entity. Known only as The Dark One by their followers, this ancient being once called Old Somber Hill home. Their dark master is entombed in the catacombs beneath the town, and the cult hopes to resurrect their master with a blood sacrifice. The Crypt of Somber Hill is a Setting Neutral adventure and thus can be easily included in any existing story-line with minor alterations and adjustments or outright slotted into any existing campaign setting.
It’s been a long few days of travel and the adventurers are tired of eating rations and sleeping on the ground. The road opens to a small town with an inviting tavern. The smells of grilling meat and ale fill their nostrils and the sounds of laughter and music float out the tavern’s door. Unlucky for the adventurers, they’ve stumbled upon Dragon’s Breath Tavern. What starts out as a pleasant evening of food, drink, and entertainment soon evolves into an adventure that takes the party into and under Dragon’s Breath Tavern. The adventure includes roleplay, exploration, combat, and a dice game called Demon Dice. Although written in a non-specific location, this adventure could be run as a one-shot during the WoTC official campaign – Curse of Strahd. The adventure includes an isometric map and a top-down map of Dragon’s Breath Tavern. Available as PDF or for Fantasy Grounds.
In PS1 - Barrow of the Culder, your newfound companions were offered a paying job as adventurers. With your victory complete it is now time to get paid. The only problem is that your benefactors are not in Merrydale, they are in Upton. With a payday in sight you head out on the Highway to Upton. As an ancient sage once said “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey” In this case the journey is going to be the adventure!
The whispered worries grow more fanciful and terrifying by the day... where has the loremistress gone?... what's wrong with the master smith?... who-or what-stalks the marketplace?... The questions need answers, and heroes are needed to do the asking! But the only thing worse than what hunts the mist-shrouded streets is what lies beneath them... Adventure in Dun Eamon: Demons roam the streets of the city of Dun Eamon, criminals rule the night and an important local power figure has gone missing. Can your heroes unravel the clues that lead through every social element of the city, into the hearts of its inhabitants and far below its streets in search of answers? Or are some mysteries better left unsolved? Uncover An Artifact: The Grey Citadel is a mini-campaign of urban detective work and dungeon exploration designed for four or more characters of 5th level. Set in a rain-soaked, rough-and-tumble frontier city, The Grey Citadel offers numerous colorful NPCs, a richly unique location, new monsters and magic items plus enough plot twists to provide hours of role-playing and door-kicking adventure where your wits must be as sharp as your swords!" This adventures mixes dungeon crawl with city investigation, keyed encounters and timed encounters.