Unknown to even the mightiest of the great sorcerer-kings, a fire is stirring deep beneath the barren soil of Athas. Sheltered by the titanic bulk of the Black Spine Mountains, a terrible force has ripped open the very fabric of time and space. Now a shimmering portal stands open and a long-forgotten enemy assembles its sinister forces to invade the kingdoms under the dark sun. The only thing that stands in the way of this terrible fate is a band of heroes. Assembled from the four corners of this tortured world and bound together by the tangled cords of fate, they must face an enemy the likes of which they have never seen before. The odds are against them, but they dare not fail. The fate of the world is in their hands. Black Spine is an adventure for 4 to 6 characters of 10th through 13th level. The previous flip-book modules (Black Flames, Merchant House of Amketch, and Marauders of Nibenay) precede this adventure, but they are not necessary to enjoy Black Spine.
Introductory adventure for Dark Sun, included in the original box set. PCs start on a slave caravan but are freed when it is attacked. With limited equipment and water, they must cross the desert to an oasis then save a druid. As with many Dark Sun adventures, uses a flip book providing 24 maps and illustrations for players. Combines combat encounters with survival encounters, where the treasure may just be food or enough water for another day.
On a trade road to the city-state of Tyr, a caravan is assaulted by a deadly obsidian shardstorm, forcing the survivors to band together and navigate the wastes to safety. But the force of nature that destroyed the caravan is under the malevolent control of the being known as the Wastewalker, who will stop at nothing to see the end of those that escaped his initial wrath. Can the heroes reach the Ringing Mountains before it’s too late? "DARK SUN: Fury of the Wastewalker" is designed for five characters of 1st level and is the summer 2010 season of the D&D Encounters official play program.
In this adventure, the PCs find themselves in Urik, perhaps as a result of the war between Tyr and Urik that took place in Road to Urik. There, they become involved in a ritual meant to help a nascent Avangion (a very powerful wizard/psion of a generally benign type) reach the next stage of its development, but the ritual is interrupted by Urik's templars. The Avangion-to-be is left in a cocoon, and the PCs are tasked with bringing it to a new location in the wilderness where the ritual can be completed. They need to get the cocoon to the ritual location before it's too late, while evading pursuit as well as dealing with any wilderness dangers on the way, plus the evil machinations of a raiding tribe seeking the wizard for their own dark purposes. The adventure is fairly rail-roaded with a series of set encounters between points A and B. Like other Dark Sun adventures, it comes with a set of handouts. Unlike the previous adventures in the series, Arcane Shadows is not tied to the Prism Pentad novel series, nor is it really tied to the previous adventures. You can easily play it as a stand-alone without affecting the earlier ones.
A Dungeons & Dragons® adventure set in the world of Athas or your own campaign world. Now that Tyr is free of Kalak the Sorcerer-King, opportunity abounds in the city and the surrounding wastes. But some see Kalak's fall as the beginning of Tyr's end, and the unpatrolled deserts nearby are rife with danger. Outlaws openly defy the city's Revolutionary Council and threaten outlying holdings. If Tyr is to thrive, heroes must arise to tame the lawlessness and evil that threatens the free city. This stand-alone D&D® adventure is designed to take characters from 2nd to 5th level. Although nominally set in the Dark Sun® campaign setting, Dungeon Masters can easily incorporate it into their "homebrew" D&D campaigns.
The palace of the Forest Queen holds vast treasure, and the dank dungeons of Gulg are only a staging area to a deadly ceremony. Here, the young nobles of the city chase prisoners through the forest to earn their places as lords of their city, the Red Moon Hunt. Play this as a stand-alone adventure or as the sequel to Freedom, Road to Urik, and Arcane Shadows.
Something awakens beneath the ruins of ancient Giustenal, the City by the Silt Sea. Many have tried to discover the secrets of this forsaken place, to plunder its legendary treasures. Few have returned from its shadowy embrace. Did they run afoul of savage raiders in the desert wastes? Did they lose their way in a sudden sandstorm only to sink hopelessly into the blowing, shifting silt? Perhaps they heard the psionic voice of the Caller in Darkness and succumbed to its mesmerizing summons? Or did they meet the true master of the ruins, a being as old as the Dragon and just as terrifying?... The burning world has reached a critical stage. For Athas, it could mean the start of a time of renewal, or it could herald the end of the world! It all begins in the ruins of Giustenal, in a place from another age, in the corpse of a shattered, long-dead city. Something stirs in the City by the Silt Sea. Something evil....
In Road to Urik, the city-State of Tyr has thrown off the yoke of the sorcerer-king Kalak and declared all slaves free, but the neighboring city-state of Urik is amassing its own armies to conquer Tyr. In the first part of the adventure, the PCs must negotiate with various factions of the city in order to win their support for the war effort. In the second part the PCs leading a scouting force ahead of the main army, and the choices and successes in the first part will affect the troops they lead here. Finally, they will need to fight and lure away the Urik army's own scouting force, letting the army of Tyr ambush them. The second and third part make heavy use of the Battlesystem rules, which were pushed pretty heavily in the early Dark Sun books. Like many Dark Sun adventures, the module makes heavy use of handouts that come in a flip-book along with the main adventure. This adventure is a sequel to Freedom. It stands on its own, but the plot of the adventure is based on the events of Freedom and the novel the Verdant Passage, so you can't really run them in reverse order. Much like Freedom took place concurrently with The Verdant Passage, Road to Urik takes place just before the events of The Crimson Legion, the second novel in the Prism Pentad.
A simple trip from Urik to Raam: What could be easier? But unexpected encounters and freakish sandstorms conspire to make this journey more dangerous than imagined. Lost and dying of thirst, your characters unwittingly involve themselves in a strange mission-the motivation behind which lies hidden. On the adventurers' trail are enraged dragons, desert fiends, and a curse that threatens to drive them mad-or make them one of the walking dead. Their only hope is to enter the ancient ruins of Yaramuke, site of a great battle between sorcerer-kings of ages past. Yaramuke?City of Black Waters. The very name curdles blood. Designed for four to six characters of 3rd to 6th level, Black Flames is set in and around the remains of Yaramuke and the cities of Urik and Raam. Let your Dark Sun game characters experience new adventure among the ancient ruins of Yaramuke!
Dragon's Crown, the first epic adventure for the DARK SUN™ world, takes players to the four corners of Athas, a world without...psionics? Someone, or something, in Athas has seized control of psionics. The magical powers of the sorcerer-kings, the avangion Korgunard, and the Dragon are ebbing rapidly. A tide of evil is blanketing the land and it must be stopped! But first, players must learn the secrets of the Order. This "super module" can be played as one big adventure or as separate scenarios. [text from TSR Master Catalog 1993]
Players rely on their wits as much as their weapons in Marauders of Nibenay, a flip-book adventure module that centers on two cities engaged in a never-ending war. Caught in the middle, the characters make enemies on both sides. Their survival depends on the favours they've accumulated with a wily old templar and on the willingness of local wizards to take them in. [text from TSR Master Catalog, 1993]
The adventure that introduces the Dark Sun setting as well as part of its metaplot. The adventure starts with the PCs being enslaved and forced to work on Tyr's ziggurat, where they make various connections that can affect things both in this adventure and the next in the series (Road to Urik). The finale takes place simultaneously with the finale of the Verdant Passage novel, and has something of a disaster movie feel - major events are happening, and the PCs are trying to survive in their shadow and (hopefully) save some people as well. Like many other Dark Sun modules, this adventure comes with a flip-book full of handouts as well as a few pre-generated starting-level characters.
The Merchant House of Amketch puts players at the reins of an emerging trading company, confronted by dozens of adversaries and obstacles. The House of Amketch is a budding merchant family, building its reputation and assets in the free city of Tyr. But many forces stand between it and vast wealth, from opposing houses to King Tithian himself. Join company with those who serve the House of Amketch in this flip-book adventure module. [text from TSR Master Catalog, 1993]
Terrible cataclysmic occurrences herald the end of one Athasian age and the beginning of another. As the Great Earthquake rattled the Tablelands huge storm of lightning and torrential rain appeared over the distant edge of the Sea of Silt, a powerful defiler named Malignor watched for a sign from his master, Tithian, King of Tyr...