The leader of all the Shadow Guilds, the Ceta Consortium is gone, wiped out in a single night, without warning or witnesses. Their empire of control, secrecy, and soft-handed rule has vanished, leaving behind only rumors and blood. Now, the city of Lumina stands on the edge of something new... and something dangerous. Shadow Guilds is a system-agnostic tabletop campaign setting built for fantasy games that blur the line between ambition and morality. Set in a bustling metropolis of vice, corruption, and uneasy power, it invites players to step into the roles of underworld mafiosos, trying to make their mark—or just survive the fallout. Inside, you’ll find everything you need to run a campaign focused on gang politics, black-market enterprise, and the slow scramble toward power in a world that rewards the bold and punishes the careless. You’ll build a crew, carve out territory, and navigate a world where magic is outlawed, alliances are temporary, and opportunity lurks behind every closed door. This is not a story of chosen heroes or grand prophecies. It’s a story of clever rogues, ruthless enforcers, and ambitious criminals rising into the vacuum left by the old guard. The game leans into roleplay, style, and smart decision-making—but it doesn’t shy away from trouble when it finds you. Start small. Lie often. Watch your back. Shadow Guilds is a system-neutral campaign setting designed to drop into any fantasy world where criminal syndicates thrive in the shadows of power. Whether you're running a long-form campaign, a gritty one-shot, or threading a criminal conspiracy into your existing world, this guide provides the building blocks for a dangerous, decadent underworld full of secrets, turf wars, and moral gray areas. This setting assumes a single sprawling metropolis, where various criminal guilds operate openly or in secret. It leans into noir fantasy, urban intrigue, prohibition, and the uncomfortable alliances forged when justice fails.
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
The trouble began several weeks ago when a duergar excavation team went to work in a long-abandoned temple. Drawn to the temple by stories of riches and artifacts, the duergar hired several giants as laborers before cracking the temple’s sealed doors. The largest of the giants, a loathsome Thursir mutant named Huppo, used his acidic vomit to expedite tunneling into the temple’s collapsed hall of worship. Then, Huppo found the horn—an unusual instrument made from a single piece of stone, with a mouthpiece so intricate only a master carver could have made it. The horn became the giant’s obsession. Seeing only the horn’s potential sale value, the dwarves demanded Huppo turn it over to them, but Huppo refused. To force compliance, the dwarves stopped feeding the gluttonous brute, but Huppo had already found his own source of food; in deep areas of the temple, worms were chewing out of the rocks, and Huppo ate them by the fistful. He also played the horn. Then, after several days of blowing the horn and devouring the strange worms, Huppo released a belch so noxious the dwarves had no choice but to lock him in a sealed chamber and carefully consider their next move. The horn’s call, however, had caught the attention of passing nomadic orcs. They set up camp outside the temple entrance in the hope of finding the horn and its player. That’s the current situation at the temple: the giant refuses to stop blowing the horn and belching out deadly clouds of stomach gas; the dwarves are frightened and edgy while their leader is obsessed with malevolent whispers; orcs are threatening to overrun the place; and the population of worms grows steadily as something awakens deep in the stone beneath the sanctuary of belches.
Despite the adventurers’ best efforts, more creatures joined under Bad Fruul’s banner. No longer content to simply attack caravans or isolated homesteads, the hill giant warlord descends upon Parnast at the head of a great force of humanoids. SEER warns the adventurers (directly now) in time to rally the town and prepare defenses, but a heroic effort is required to break the siege.
The Fate of Faerûn Lies in Shadowy Darkness! Daggerdale is reeling from a sudden series of murderous drow raids. As a grave threat to the entire surface world develops in the war-torn dark elf city of Maerimydra, intrepid heroes must discover its source and destroy it, if they can.
All aboard! An investigation turned Groundhog Day horror mystery, this unique puzzle-like sandbox-on-rails adventure traps your players onboard Cyre 1313: The Mourning Rail. This lightning-rail train and its passengers are stuck in a time loop with no escape, cursed to ride forever in the endless mists of Ravenloft. The PCs wake up again & again, unable to leave the train's time loop until they figure out how to stop it. Each new day in the loop is a new chance to delve into the mystery and stop the forces responsible for the endless cycle. Why is Cyre 1313 stuck in time? How will the PC's escape? Who is the nefarious mastermind at the front of the train? How the players answer these questions is up to them! Product Overview: 37 pages for running a 6 to 9 hour adventure for three to five players of 3rd or 4th level. Time tracking and other systems to create the time loop. High resolution maps of each train car. A complex web of puzzle pieces for PCs to play with. Tips and tools to scale with player level, change difficulty, and add complexity. Suggestions on how to make it your own. Perfect to integrate into your Ravenloft, Eberron, or homebrew campaign! Product created free of AI generated content
The Legend of the Black Monastery Two centuries have passed since the terrible events associated with the hideous cult known as the Black Brotherhood. Only scholars and story-tellers remember now how the kingdom was nearly laid to waste and the Black Monastery rose to grandeur and fell into haunted ruins. The Brothers first appeared as an order of benevolent priests and humble monks in black robes who followed a creed of kindness to the poor and service to the kingdom. Their rules called for humility and self denial. Other religious orders had no quarrel with their theology or their behavior. Their ranks grew as many commoners and nobles were drawn to the order by its good reputation. The first headquarters for the order was a campsite, located in a forest near the edge of the realm. The Brothers said that their poverty and dedication to service allowed them no resources for more grand accommodations. Members of the Black Brotherhood built chapels in caves or constructed small temples on common land near villages. They said that these rustic shrines allowed them to be near the people they served. Services held by the Brothers at these locations attracted large numbers of common people, who supported the Black Brotherhood with alms. Within 50 years of their first appearance, the Black Brotherhood had a number of larger temples and abbeys around the kingdom. Wealthy patrons endowed them with lands and buildings in order to buy favor and further the work of the Brothers. The lands they gained were slowly expanded as the order’s influence grew. Many merchants willed part of their fortunes to the Black Brotherhood, allowing the order to expand their work even further. The Brothers became bankers, loaning money and becoming partners in trade throughout the kingdom. Within 200 years of their founding, the order was wealthy and influential, with chapters throughout the kingdom and spreading into nearby realms. With their order well-established, the Black Brotherhood received royal permission to build a grand monastery in the hill country north of the kingdom’s center. Their abbot, a cousin of the king, asked for the royal grant of a specific hilltop called the Hill of Mornay. This hill was already crowned by ancient ruins that the monks proposed to clear away. Because it was land not wanted for agriculture, the king was happy to grant the request. He even donated money to build the monastery and encouraged others to contribute. With funds from around the realm, the Brothers completed their new monastery within a decade. It was a grand, sprawling edifice built of black stone and called the Black Monastery. From the very beginning, there were some who said that the Black Brotherhood was not what it seemed. There were always hints of corruption and moral lapses among the Brothers, but no more than any other religious order. There were some who told stories of greed, gluttony and depravity among the monks, but these tales did not weaken the order’s reputation during their early years. All of that changed with the construction of the Black Monastery. Within two decades of the Black Monastery’s completion, locals began to speak of troubling events there. Sometimes, Brothers made strange demands. They began to cheat farmers of their crops. They loaned money at ruinous rates, taking the property of anyone who could not pay. They pressured or even threatened wealthy patrons, extorting money in larger and larger amounts. Everywhere, the Black Brotherhood grew stronger, prouder and more aggressive. And there was more… People began to disappear. The farmers who worked the monastery lands reported that some people who went out at night, or who went off by themselves, did not return. It started with individuals…people without influential families…but soon the terror and loss spread to even to noble households. Some said that the people who disappeared had been taken into the Black Monastery, and the place slowly gained an evil reputation. Tenant farmers began moving away from the region, seeking safety at the loss of their fields. Slowly, even the king began to sense that the night was full of new terrors. Across the kingdom, reports began to come in telling of hauntings and the depredations of monsters. Flocks of dead birds fell from clear skies, onto villages and city streets. Fish died by thousands in their streams. Citizens reported stillborn babies and monstrous births. Crops failed. Fields were full of stunted plants. Crimes of all types grew common as incidents of madness spread everywhere. Word spread that the center of these dark portents was the Black Monastery, where many said the brothers practiced necromancy and human sacrifice. It was feared that the Black Brotherhood no longer worshipped gods of light and had turned to the service of the Dark God. These terrors came to a head when the Black Brotherhood dared to threaten the king himself. Realizing his peril, the king moved to dispossess and disband the Black Brother hood. He ordered their shrines, abbeys and lands seized. He had Brothers arrested for real and imagined crimes. He also ordered investigations into the Black Monastery and the order’s highest ranking members. The Black Brotherhood did not go quietly. Conflict between the order and the crown broke into violence when the Brothers incited their followers to riot across the kingdom. There were disturbances everywhere, including several attempts to assassinate the king by blades and by dark sorcery. It became clear to everyone that the Black Brotherhood was far more than just another religious order. Once knives were drawn, the conflict grew into open war between the crown and the Brothers. The Black Brotherhood had exceeded their grasp. Their followers were crushed in the streets by mounted knights. Brothers were rounded up and arrested. Many of them were executed. Armed supporters of the Black Brotherhood, backed by arcane and divine magic, were defeated and slaughtered. The Brothers were driven back to their final hilltop fortress – the Black Monastery. They were besieged by the king’s army, trapped and waiting for the king’s forces to break in and end the war. The final assault on the Black Monastery ended in victory and disaster. The king’s army took the hilltop, driving the last of the black-robed monks into the monastery itself. The soldiers were met by more than just men. There were monsters and fiends defending the monastery. There was a terrible slaughter on both sides. In many places the dead rose up to fight again. The battle continued from afternoon into night, lit by flames and magical energy. The Black Monastery was never actually taken. The king’s forces drove the last of their foul enemies back inside the monastery gates. Battering rams and war machines were hauled up the hill to crush their way inside. But before the king’s men could take the final stronghold, the Black Brotherhood immolated themselves in magical fire. Green flames roared up from the monastery, engulfing many of the king’s men as well. As survivors watched, the Black Monastery burned away, stones, gates, towers and all. There was a lurid green flare that lit the countryside. There was a scream of torment from a thousand human voices. There was a roar of falling masonry and splitting wood. Smoke and dust obscured the hilltop. The Black Monastery collapsed in upon itself and disappeared. Only ashes drifted down where the great structure had stood. All that was left of the Black Monastery was its foundations and debris-choked dungeons cut into the stones beneath. The war was over. The Black Brotherhood was destroyed. But the Black Monastery was not gone forever. Over nearly two centuries since its destruction, the Black Monastery has returned from time to time to haunt the Hill of Mornay. Impossible as it seems, there have been at least five incidents in which witnesses have reported finding the Hill of Mornay once again crowned with black walls and slate-roofed towers. In every case, the manifestation of this revenant of the Black Monastery has been accompanied by widespread reports of madness, crime and social unrest in the kingdom. Sometimes, the monastery has appeared only for a night. The last two times, the monastery reappeared atop the hill for as long as three months…each appearance longer than the first. There are tales of adventurers daring to enter the Black Monastery. Some went to look for treasure. Others went to battle whatever evil still lived inside. There are stories of lucky and brave explorers who have survived the horrors, returning with riches from the fabled hordes of the Black Brotherhood. It is enough to drive men mad with greed – enough to lure more each time to dare to enter the Black Monastery.
The Chapel on the Cliffs is a 5th edition horror adventure optimized for a group of 4-5 characters of 3rd level. In this module, the characters will need to explore the ruined village of Kennmouth and its surroundings, find out why a small army of skeletons rises from their graves every night to drive out intruders, and search for a way to lift this unholy curse. The PDF comes with a companion PDF for scaling from levels 2-6. Produced by Goblin Stone
In times ancient, an infamous paladin-artificer named Khaldun unearthed a cursed tome bound in the flesh of the first medusa. Driven to madness by its secrets, he used the necromantic magic contained within to call forth an army of dread warriors from the Netherworld. Though his assault was devastating, he was ultimately unsuccessful, and the mightiest crusaders of the realm banished Khaldun to the Netherworld, where he would rot for eternity at the bottom of the River Dis. Unfortunately, rather than perishing in that bleak plane, Khaldun escaped his silt grave and thrived, amassing a legion of undead followers and erecting a Tomb in which he could perfect his mechanical craft without interruption. It was not long before he shed his body and became a demilich. After several centuries of scheming, the undead warriors under the command of the ‘Iron Lich’ have burst free of the Netherworld, laying waste to not only the mortal kingdoms that exiled him, but also the exalted domains of the gods themselves. The crusaders’ quest is simple – stead the Tomb and destroy the Iron Lich. Published by Defy Danger and Save Versus Death
Stories of misfortune are often exaggerated, especially when they have been retold many times. For that reason, most people aren't taking seriously the claim that a sea monster living along the coast is eating whole ships full of sailors and swallowing entire families. But there's no denying a few facts -- the town of Lochfell is losing its citizens to a sea monster (one that walks on water no less), someone is stealing that same town's dead, and ships are beginning to choose other ports for unloading their goods. Such a scenario could doom the residents of the small port town to either a monster's gullet or the poorhouse. No one seems to know whether the town's two ongoing problems are connected, but the sea monster never leaves behind a corpse to bury. Is it collecting bodies for some dark purpose? Or did some more powerful evil creature create the sea monster to do its dirty work? Someone in Lochfell knows the answer, and it's up to the PCs to find it out. Lochfell’s Secret is a short D&D adventure for four 15th level player characters (PCs). The story is set in and around the port town of Lochfell. You can place the action in any section of your campaign world where a coastal town on a bay might exist. If there is a small town that the PCs visited in a past adventure but haven’t returned to in quite a while, so much the better. As always, feel free to adapt the material presented here as you see fit to make it work with your campaign.
Desolate and abandoned, the evil alchemist's mansion stands alone on the cliff, looking out towards the sea. Mysterious lights and ghostly hauntings have kept away the people of Saltmarsh, despite rumors of a fabulous, forgotten treasure. What is its sinister secret. Made for 5-10 character of levels 1-3, contains maps, handouts and encounter descriptions. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is the first installment in a series of three modules designed and developed in the United Kingdom for beginning adventures with the AD&D rules. TSR 9062
An old elf has wandered into the city from the jungle--prattling on about his long-lost daughter to anyone whose ear he can bend. Though most in Port Nyanzaru dismiss him as mad, he speaks the truth. Can you find and save his daughter?
Years ago the valley was green, and animals ran free through golden fields of grain. The princess Argenta ruled over this peaceful land and the people were secure and happy. Then one day a warrior riding a red dragon appeared in the skies over the princess’ castle and almost overnight the tiny kingdom fell into ruin. Now only ruins and rumors remain, and what legends there are tell of a fabulous ruby still buried somewhere within the Palace of the Silver Princess TSR 9044
After news of your heroic deeds have circulated, a letter made its way to your hands. "Heroes, I need your help. For years I have been working on a plan to rescue my companions from Ajax's torment. I need your assistance with retrieving the missing piece. Meet me at the High 'n Dry in the village of Moerasby. - Torma" - Combat: Medium to High Depending on if the optional combats are done. - Exploration: Low - Medium There will be a travel montage test. - Interpersonal: Low You will interact with some NPCs and RP, one potential negotiation. - Intrigue: Low No faction dealings or hidden power plays are happening here. In this Side Quest Adventure, the players can start in an inn to meet each other and the Questgiver, then travel through the swamp to an abandoned teleportation structure and reactivate it. It takes them to a derelict space base built into an asteroid floating through the timescape.
Shrouded in whispered rumors, Crow’s Rest Island has been avoided as long as any can remember. Nothing but death, and the memories of those long gone, greet any who take to land upon the isle’s shores. It is to this island that the PCs will find themselves driven as a storm threatens to drive their ship below the waves. Awaiting the PCs are far more than ghost stories upon this island, for there lives a very real threat, hiding here among the legends that keep sailors at bay. A classic ghost story that casts the PCs not as adversaries to the specters, but rather as their benefactors, Crow’s Rest Island challenges the PCs with a tribe of foul kobolds, a haunted village, and the forgotten servant of a long departed ice devil. An excellent introduction to the Aventyr Campaign Setting, this adventure gives the PCs their first glimpse into Vikmordere culture. A0 may also be easily ported to any setting containing a northern wilderness near a large body of water.
Baldur's Gate Break-Ins collects three heist and infiltration adventures for characters of levels 3-5, for use as a continuation of Burial in Baldur's Gate or as standalone modules. This collection fleshes out several locations around Baldur's Gate, providing adventures in every quarter of the city: Crash the world's worst dinner party in Eomane House! Contend with a criminal operation, a murderous raid, and a Feywild crossing in Jopalin's! Break up a blood-drenched cultist lair in Hamhocks Slaughterhouse! This book includes adventure hooks for running each location separately or as part of a campaign, a guide to running heist and infiltration adventures, three possible group patrons for the party, maps and rosters for each location, more than a dozen creature and NPC stat blocks, and a map pack with player and DM maps by Dyson Logos.
Navigate court intrigue in the Shadow Fey realm to save the city of Zobeck. Earn status in the court through duels, quests, and negotiation to survive the machinations of factions and nobles to gain freedom for the city of Zobeck from the King and Queen of the Shadow Fey. Also available in 5e format.
The PCs are looking to gain entry to the Glantri School of Magic, after the initial admission tests they are drawn into a commotion where one of the other students is being attacked by an evil sorceress. He tries to flee but but is killed, and the PCs are framed for the murder. The authorities are called and bribed to just kill the PCs, they flee and are chased and taunted by the evil sorceress. Eventually, during one of her attacks, she opens a weak spot in the ground and the heroes are dropped into the warrens under the school. They must navigate the warrens, which are shrouded in magical darkness, defend against further attacks, and find escape where they can prove their innocence.
Far1 – Underbelly of Phoenix is an adventure based in the city of Phoenix in Fartook. The offering takes a group of would-be adventurers and has them start their adventuring career in the sewers below the city. Dangerous monsters and wanted men all inhabit the urban tunnels. Is your group ready to start their road to legend?
What the living forget, the dead remember forever. For some, duty and revenge are stronger than death. Pgs. 4-7