Giants and ghost trees and foul undead beasties... What happens when elves, giants, and a mysterious witch all decide only you can settle their troubles. Strange new tree species! A hobgoblin fort! Unexplained noises during the day and different noises at night! Investigate and explore the Bretonwood to get to the bottom of its problems. The adventure provides an overland open-world style map of the Bretonwood which the players are encouraged to explore. Many set and random encounters are provided. There are opportunities for combat in this area, but players should be ready to handle some problems out of combat to get the most satisfying experience. Pgs. 22-43
The abandoned Tower of Ulvarum Orvernus stands atop an asteroid nearly a quarter mile in diameter, located roughly 5 million miles from the planet’s surface. The asteroid maintains Earth-like gravity and a breathable atmosphere, with habitable temperatures. This is all sustained through the harnessed power of a bound Air Elemental and Earth Elemental. If either of these Elementals are freed, the asteroid’s environment will quickly become inhospitable. The PCs may find themselves drawn to the asteroid through a forgotten portal, seeking a way to return home. Alternatively, they might be lured there by rumors of a powerful item or hidden knowledge within the tower’s extensive libraries. A multi-level tower filled with traps and strange encounters including animated armor, alien plant life, giant spiders, and a doppelganger.
In the aftermath of AD&D Second Edition's "Return to the Tomb of Horrors," the demilich Acererak was thought destroyed. In truth, his spirit lingered and now after eons he schemes once more to achieve divinity. The characters must travel to three extraplanar dungeons, in addition to the remains of the original Tomb, in order to stop this from coming to pass.
The small town of Welwyn has been beset by a string of robberies. The heroes are led to the natural cave system located at the bottom of the town well, which they must explore to find the burglars. But once they’re in the cave system, things get much more difficult! The “burglars” turn out to be mere pawns in a much darker game. To get to the source of the crimes, the heroes must shrink themselves with potions of improved reduce person and explore a series of dangerous rat warrens where their prey is larger than they are!
It's a horrible time to have a curse! Each wielding a powerful item to a family legacy, your players are a group of young adventurers who barely survive an attack on their order of vampire-hunters by agents of Dracula. After escaping, they discover Dracula has placed a curse upon the land which makes restful sleep difficult outside of hallowed areas. Dracula, "alive" on another plane but dead on this one, must be resurrected so they can kill him, end the curse, and avenge their dead. To accomplish this goal, the player characters must journey through forest, marsh, hill, and underground paths to retrieve relics of Dracula's last life from keeps and fortresses overrun by monsters and the undead. If they can resurrect him, he will be weak and easy to kill... but the adventurers aren't the only ones who want Dracula on the Material Plane, and Dracula is not the only vampire in the world. Gameplay overview This adventure takes the players from 2nd through 9th or 10th level on a milestone basis as they choose where to travel in what order to retrieve what they need. Starting at a happy gathering at the Belmonte Order, which the characters are hereditary members of, the campaign kicks off with a bang as the group retrieves their chosen legacy items, salvages what other gear they can in a race against time and a growing number of foes, and then escapes to begin their quest. In addition to the six main "dungeons," there are two optional regional lairs, traveling vampires, and many foes along the way. Most of the towns in the area have managed to survive, providing points of light at which the party may stop, long rest safely, acquire supplies, and socialize. Travel is hazardous! 5e classes are balanced for resource management across a 5-8 encounter adventuring day. The campaign is designed to have a semi-variable flow of encounters as the party traels around the area. Encounters grow progressively more difficult as time passes and the party spends more time within a region. These are not random encounters rolled on a table, but encounters designed to be unique to each area's geography, combat terrain, and mix of foes. As the party spends more time in a region or revisits it, the encounter difficulty increases. Dracula's curse requires a Constitution saving throw to successfully long rest outside of Hallowed areas (towns). The difficulty scales up over time, forcing the party to balance speed and safety as they try to accomplish their goals without pushing beyond the limits of what they can handle. The game concept, general map layout, and some enemy distributions are loosely inspired by Castlevania II for the NES, one of the forerunners of the "Metroidvania" genre. Dracula's Curse is indeed a game in which the forests are dark and full of monsters, and every night is a horrible one to have a curse. Includes 15 Legacy items, from weapons like whips and swords to a shield, a belt, or a decanter of holy water 60+ enemy statblocks 8 unique dungeons with unique layouts & challenges 5 inhabited towns with multiple named NPCs 100+ travel encounters (expect to use 30-50%) The module is printer-friendly with no artwork and straightforward grid maps for location-based encounters which require one.
Auction fever can empty anyone's pouch of coins. An Arch-Mage is retiring and selling his possessions - and you're at the auction! Pgs. 19-23
Driven mad by the darkness of winter, the Prioress of the Red Abbey begins her work. After months of research and work in her lab, she found a way to summon beings of light to push back the darkness, if she could control their destructive natures. The characters find themselves investigating odd deaths, chasing weird weather phenomena and trying to help locals harmed by these creatures of light.
The king summons the heroes to investigate the death of a knight, and the final fate of the king's long-missing son. The knight and his entire order was killed by a Dragon! Yay we get to fight a dragon in the first issue of Dungeon Magazine! Much travel over many different terrain types featuring avalanches, volcanoes spewing lava, and many random encounters (not detailed here) before the heroes reach their real goal: A lake with a ruined wizard's tower and dragon's cave. Opens with a particularly byzantine Background section for the DM involving a prince you never meet, pirates you never meet, knights you never meet, and deep gnomes you never meet. See Out of the Ashes in Dungeon #17 for sequel to this adventure. Pgs. 42-60
"Bloodwood of the Cruor Circle" is an alseid and blood hag lair suitable for four or five 10th-level characters. This adventure can be completed in a single session. The Cruor Circle, a coven of dark druids led by a blood hag, has taken over control of the local alseid herd with the power of the blood. Within the forest, those who do not make proper sacrifices are stalked by the alseids and taken to the Bloodwood. Within the Bloodwood, captives become blood sacrifices, empowering the creation of sap demons, blood ponds, and other twisted products of the dark druids.
Inside the woods near Burke's Crossing lurks a very real danger. It began as a sense of unease, a feeling of being watched, but now people are disappearing. The lumberjacks who have stayed in the little village talk of ghosts and other superstitions. Or at least they did - until a mysterious statue appeared in a clearing near the logging camp. As if matters weren't strange enough, two mages have arrived and begun hiring armed guards to escort them into these very same woods. Is there a connection, or is it just coincidence? Either way, be prepared! You never know what's out there waiting... and watching. "Eye of Pain" is the first of three Monstrous Arcana adventures featuring the cunning and deadly beholder. If can be played as an individual adventure or as part of the series which continue in "Eye of Doom" and concludes in "Eye to Eye." For four to six characters of levels 4-8.
A generic tomb exploration. Usable for a quick one off or random exploration discovery. Sometimes a DM needs a fill-in adventure for when their PC’s go off script. This is a single location low role play adventure that can be inserted anywhere needed.
Kind words and a scrap of paper are enough to lead you off on an adventure into the hills. You and your party have opted to follow the clues leading to a fabled Talisman of Otek lost years ago in an old dungeon. Your benefactor has warned you that some cultists are actively seeking the item and hope that the “heroes in the making” will obtain the item before the nasty fanatics get ahold of it and use it for nefarious purposes!
A One-on-One Competition Module for Thieves Level 8 Your peaceful evening has been interrupted by an unusual request. As a thief, your skills are unmatched, but can you rise to the challenge of thieving for a powerful and frightening wizard? Do you have a choice? The Gem and the Staff is a special One-on-One competition module designed for one player and on Dungeon Master. The Module contains two separate scenarios, so you can switch roles with the other player after the first adventure. Scoring sheets and encounter summaries are provided for each adventure to make running competitions quick and simple. Character figures and a map book are also provided to help visualize the adventures. The player's maps are designed so you can see the rooms as they would appear. Complete DM's Maps are included. TSR 9050
The Triad Series continues with Lion’s Breath Prison. After success against the Order of the Goat troops your next challenge awaits. The spiritual arm of The Triad is known as the Lion’s Breath. With some unfinished business in the form of Marquis Forten, the PCs continue to seek out their quarry. Can they locate the elusive traitor and bring him to justice? This adventure continues to send the party across the fields of Neville!
"A curse has spread through Darkroot Forest! Plants are attacking people, and the very air seems poisonous once you travel deep within the woods. Your group has decided to investigate this area, and rumors have it that the abandoned town of Faeriewell is where this disease started spreading. Or maybe the people of a nearby settlement asked for your help? or perhaps a noble Lord that just inherited the land hired you to clear out his new forest? This part is really up to you." The Curse of Faeriewell is an adventure for a level 5 party that you can easily drop into a campaign or play as a standalone one-shot. It will last between 3 and 5 hours. It is setting agnostic, but best at home in a Fantasy world. This adventure can serve as an interlude from your main campaign, a sidequest or simply as a one shot.
The rich merchant Quintus Felerius has not slept in a week. He is paranoid of vengeful nightmare wraiths that seek to kill him in his sleep. Exhausted and delirious from his lack of sleep he hires experienced adventurers to stand guard in his bedroom while he sleeps. Little do they know that the curse upon Quintus is about to sweep them into the Nighmare Zone of the vengeful Ikari... Nightmare Zone of the Ikari is a Shadowdark RPG adventure designed for 7th level characters that takes them inside the mind of their troubled patron after he and his previous mercenaries were cursed by a vengeful Oneiromancer. Explore his troubled past and see if you can keep him from panicking and taking all of your minds with him. The adventure is designed as a oneshot, but can be incorporated into an ongoing campaign pretty easily since it takes place in another dimension.
In the kingdom of Keystone, at the mouth of the Manyforks River, stands the port city of Barnacus. It was founded two hundred years ago, and its strategic military and commercial location has made it the second most important city in the kingdom. The city is under the rulership of Haermond II, Duke of the province of Elcadan, a half-elf of high esteem who has been in charge for more than a century. His outstanding commercial politics have made the city very prosperous; almost every trade company in this part of the continent has a counting house in the port of Barnacus. Because of this prosperity, the city has suffered many pirate raids, and thieving activity is a fact of life for residents and visitors alike.
The door to the Abyss can be opened with good intentions. An act of mercy released a creature of unspeakable evil. Now, only you have a chance to stop it. A vrock has been trapped inside a stone circle outside the village of Sundown. This stone circle remained untouched for thousands of years, until an unwitting mage decided to depetrify one of the standing stones that he mistakenly thought was a helpless farmer. This released the vrock, who killed the mage and has been trying to regain enough power to plane shift back to its home. This module primarily is based on investigation and problem solving, with a final fight with the vrock at the end. Roleplaying should be emphasized. The town of Sundown is fleshed out with NPCs and stores for player exploration. Pgs. 4-16
The village of Sacrabad is a wretched place. Dark rumors abound concerning its steward, “His Lordship” Nim Sheog, who rules the place through terror and cruelty. Merchants who have passed through Sacrabad tell tale of how chaos thrives while the good folk wallow in misery. Nim’s guard are no more than a well-paid gang of thugs, hired to enforce his relentless and often bizarre laws and what’s worse, they seem to be in league with a nearby band of goblins, The Yellow Fang, who are often left to terrorize the villagers without reprisal. It is rumored that Nim keeps the rightful and lawful lord of Sacrabad locked away in the dungeons of the keep, the ominous Black Tower. An imposing structure that once afforded the village protection, the Black Tower has become a symbol of tyranny. But there is hope on the horizon. Hope in the form of a secret society who conspire to rescue the rightful lord and overthrow Nim and his guard. Can our heroes champion the cause? Tyranny of the Black Tower is a short (single session) adventure module. It is a classic “rescue operation” complete with a strong villain and espionage intrigue. It is an ideal one-shot adventure with room for expansion into an ongoing campaign. Bonus side-trek hooks and a bonus dungeon are included as a means to build up low-level parties. This module is setting-generic and can be dropped just about anywhere in the multiverse. Published by Verisimilitude Society Press
A prequel adventure for Xumoria Megadungeon. “The famed archaeologist Jonas “Greytooth” Walker discovered a strange pit upon an expedition to the Dead City. A spiral staircase descended into this pit, leading to a series of rooms carved from the rock. Each room lay behind a closed door and their mysteries have not been unveiled. The entrance is marked by a large portal made of black basalt. There is a belief that this underground complex may hide information about the mythical city of Xumoria, which is rumored to be located on the Isle of the Ancients. There are inscriptions at this site indicating the presence of an ancient wizard named Arne “Sacre” Nissen, a well-known Xumorian scholar and great explorer of Artrusia. Adventurers seeking the entrance got and haven’t returned yet. Exploratory expeditions are leaving Crimsonwater, heading for The Dead City. Dare you go down into The Pit?" About Our Adventure Voxelhouse and Elevated Pachyderm are proud to present The Pit, a prequel to our forthcoming Xumoria Megadungeon. The Pit will give you an introduction to our gameworld of Artrusia and the powerful sorcerer, Berdolock. Our goal is to get you acquainted with our game material, and bring a whole bunch of new stuff to your OSR table. This adventure is fully compatible with OSE, BX, BECMI, and with minor adaptations, DCC. In The Pit, your character will explore a small dungeon, in search of the map that will lead them to fabled Xumoria. This is an introductory adventure for players who want to explore our Megadungeon. Details of what you can expect in Xumoria are coming soon, but for now we hope that you’ll have fun with our module.