At last, my adventure trilogy is complete. The first two adventures, The Stolen Staff and Tallinn’s Tower, were released here on the blog over the past few months. The third adventure, as I mentioned here, is now available.
Descent Into Darkness is an adventure for 4-6 heroic tier characters. The adventure is presented at level 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. I personally recommend it at level 6, 8, or 10, but it can work at lower-level (though the PCs might be surprised and scared by the final boss).
Synopsis
The powerful wizardess Tallinn seeks adventurers to be teleported into the Underdark bearing a powerful magical artifact, the Staff of Suha. The mission: Find three other artifacts that have been stolen by unknown creatures, likely in an effort to recreate a teleportation device once used by a long-dead drow sorcerer to bring his foul armies to the overworld in conquest. The other three artifacts (Orb of Oradia, Chalice of Chale and Shield of Shalimar) must be recovered or destroyed, and the forces behind their theft must be stopped.
The adventurers discover that the powerful beholder Ergoptis has enslaved drow, diggers (new insectoid monsters), halfling thieves and mindless duergar as soldiers and hunters of artifacts. The party must fight their way through treacherous traps and puzzles to ultimately face Ergoptis and its underlings in a room dominated by a ziggurat, with a magma river crossed by bridges and floating platforms. Can they recover the final artifact and escape or destroy Ergoptis before the one-hour time limit on their teleportation ritual runs out? Or will the beholder simply add the adventurers to its army of enslaved warriors and continue its plans for domination?
Descent Into Darkness includes four new artifacts, an all-new monster (the digger), a find-the-path puzzle with custom runes and an exciting final encounter with an evil beholder.
Files
Download the full heroic tier adventure PDF (level 2/4/6/8/10)
Download the MapTool campaign file (compatible with version 1.3.b86 of MapTool)
Maps (scaled to 50 pixels per square)
Mine map - Gridded
Mine map - no grid
Thieves cavern map - gridded
Thieves cavern map - no grid
Mushroom cavern map - gridded
Mushroom cavern map - no grid
Magma cavern map - gridded
Magma cavern map - no grid
Afterword
If you decide to run this adventure or have the opportunity to play in it, I’d love to hear about it! And if you have any feedback based on your own read-throughs, I’m always trying to improve the adventures themselves. Feel free to chime in via the comments, email, or Twitter.
-Michael, the OnlineDM
OnlineDM1 on Twitter
Online Dungeon Master 