I really like the simple approach you take to laying out your modules. It manages to convey a lot of necessary information without being overwhelming and still giving the DM several options as far as filling in gaps or adding extra dressing. Well done- I may well incorporate this into my own larger campaign sometime soon. Hope we get to see more of your work in the future!
Thank you so much! That's the exact design goal I was going for. It grew out of me being unable to digest short adventures fast enough (and the main reason people use a one-shot is because they didn't prepare something due to time constraint). So I made an adventure format that I'd like to use myself and that's conducive to quick, at-the-table referencing. :)
Picked this up as part of the horrors package. Linked it in with masque of worms line by placing Jennie in the church as a new acolyte. Undead will be dragging her down there too, give the characters an added interest in descending.
Hello. I ran it yesterday and it was a blast :-) Only 3 players showed up (out of 5) so i had Tibalt give them a few potions and cast aid on them. It was really fun with sinkholes, corrupt the living table and the lair action given by the skull plus bits of lore to make it creepy. Thanks 🙏 I look forward to run another Arcane Library scenario 😎
I love your adventures so much! I've already DMed Masque of the Worms and Gilded Tower, and I'm excited to start prepping for Azarumme this week. D&D can be so overwhelming to new players, and I feel like these adventures still run perfect even when I throw new players in without bogging them down with all the rules. Thank you!
I tripped over this on Drive-Thru, looking for a cool oneshot to run as a break for my DM. After watching your guide video, I am even more excited. This looks like a really fun one to run.
This is purely fantastic! I'm so impressed with the slim line format coupled with the rich story telling. I can't wait to run it this weekend! This is my first purchase through The Arcane Library, and it has made my prep particulary easy. Thanks for such a wonderful product and keep up the great work.
Excellent work Kelsey. Your imagination is a treasure trove, of undiscovered gems. Would love to see you sink your teeth into a good SCi Fi novel or short stories even. Hint hint wink wink. Good work. Oh by the way I am an OSR'er, so will probably adapt these to a white box version, hope you don't mind.
Thank you so much! :) Fiction is definitely a love of mine, Sci Fi, Fantasy, and otherwise! And I'm very happy to hear you want to adapt this to OSR, that would be amazing. :D
I was wondering how you handle character death in these one-shots when it does occur? Do you have everyone have a backup character and have them somehow appear near the party (or retcon them in, they were there all along, just very quiet :D)? Do you design some NPCs keeping in mind some player might take them over if their PC dies?
Question for you Kelsey! We were playing and the ghouls dragged us into the sinkholes, but we couldn’t figure out what kind of damage that would do, or how the players are supposed to get out? Any advice?
Hi Jordan! :) The sinkholes are 30 feet deep (that info is sort of squirreled away in a sidebar in "Twisting Catacombs," so possible to miss), and so they'd deal 3d6 bludgeoning damage from the fall. The DM could certainly modify that depending on Dexterity saves/falling on the ghoul and cushioning the blow! Also up to the DM, but the sinkhole walls are broken stone, so not too hard to climb with Strength (Athletics). At my table, I'd put that at at DC 12. I hope that helps!
I just picked this up to run a Halloween one shot this month! question though, how easy would it be to scale the crypt for level 10 pcs? or what would you recommend to match level 10?
Ooooo, interesting! So I might just double the number of swarmy enemies in that case (but not solo enemies like the boss enemy -- no spoilers, haha!). Thankfully, that's exactly x2 the number of characters the adventure was designed for, so doubling makes sense!
OH WAIT you said level 10 PCs, not 10 PCs! Heck, sorry! Okay, hmmmm... Okay, I would actually replace the ghouls/ghasts with vampire spawn, replace skeletons with shadows, and probably make the big boss an actual vampire! I'd otherwise leave the NPCs the same (unless you want to beef up Tibalt a bit to be a tiny bit more helpful). This is all napkin math and not super highly tested, so I'd roll out the vampires a bit cautiously (maybe in waves) and make sure the characters have either a cleric or some good healing on board!
Hey! I’ve been running some players through the series of four one shots you put out recently, we’ve gotten through Masque of the Worms and the Gilded Tower already, we’re doing this one this week. The thing is, the first two allowed for 5 to 6 players, and this one is supposed to be for 4 to 5. How would you personally recommend making the adventure appropriately challenging to accommodate an additional PC? We’ve been having a great time with these. Thanks!
Good question! I wrote the first two adventures specifically for a live-play team that had six people, which is where that range came from in those cases. Normally I write for 4-5, but that's just a "best guess" range for the average size of a group, hehe. Typically, if you add 1-2 more "lightweight" enemies for each additional player above the range, that will keep you in a safe spot. The stronger or boss-type monsters generally don't need to be changed with just one extra player, but if you add 1/5 or 1/4 more HP to that monster, it will give it a bit more lasting power. In almost all cases I can think of, that rough guideline will cover you no matter which adventure. I hope that helps!
The Arcane Library Thanks so much for the quick response! We had to close up early because a player had work, so they only have the final battle remaining on this adventure. So that could be helpful for when we reconvene for that. The one player in our group who had never played before this series was the one who figured out how to reenergize the emeralds to open the hidden door to the altar, and everyone was telling her how amazing she did and she was almost on the brink of tears she was so happy about it. All that to say, your adventure here gave her a really special moment in her early D&D experiences. Thanks for that!
@@Skapologist Omg this is so wonderful! 😭 What a cool experience for her, I'm really glad to hear that figuring out the hidden door puzzle was so validating and rewarding for her. It was a very tricky one, brava to her for solving it!
I really like the simple approach you take to laying out your modules. It manages to convey a lot of necessary information without being overwhelming and still giving the DM several options as far as filling in gaps or adding extra dressing. Well done- I may well incorporate this into my own larger campaign sometime soon. Hope we get to see more of your work in the future!
Thank you so much! That's the exact design goal I was going for. It grew out of me being unable to digest short adventures fast enough (and the main reason people use a one-shot is because they didn't prepare something due to time constraint). So I made an adventure format that I'd like to use myself and that's conducive to quick, at-the-table referencing. :)
Picked this up as part of the horrors package. Linked it in with masque of worms line by placing Jennie in the church as a new acolyte. Undead will be dragging her down there too, give the characters an added interest in descending.
That is absolutely brilliant! Such a good way to link the adventures together and get the players super involved.
@@TheArcaneLibrary thanks :)
Hello. I ran it yesterday and it was a blast :-) Only 3 players showed up (out of 5) so i had Tibalt give them a few potions and cast aid on them.
It was really fun with sinkholes, corrupt the living table and the lair action given by the skull plus bits of lore to make it creepy.
Thanks 🙏
I look forward to run another Arcane Library scenario 😎
I love your adventures so much! I've already DMed Masque of the Worms and Gilded Tower, and I'm excited to start prepping for Azarumme this week. D&D can be so overwhelming to new players, and I feel like these adventures still run perfect even when I throw new players in without bogging them down with all the rules. Thank you!
Yay, that's great to hear! :) I hope you've been having fun with these!
I tripped over this on Drive-Thru, looking for a cool oneshot to run as a break for my DM. After watching your guide video, I am even more excited. This looks like a really fun one to run.
Awesome, thanks for scoping it out!! :D I hope it makes for a fun session if you get a chance to run it for your group!
@@TheArcaneLibrary Session one is this Sunday. (We are a very casual group and will have a first time with us so we will probably need 2 sessions.)
Some of the best guided adventures out there. I will keep purchasing simply of because of how you make it easy for masters to run it!
This is purely fantastic! I'm so impressed with the slim line format coupled with the rich story telling. I can't wait to run it this weekend! This is my first purchase through The Arcane Library, and it has made my prep particulary easy. Thanks for such a wonderful product and keep up the great work.
Thank you so much! 😊 Very happy to know you like this one!
Excellent work Kelsey. Your imagination is a treasure trove, of undiscovered gems. Would love to see you sink your teeth into a good SCi Fi novel or short stories even. Hint hint wink wink. Good work. Oh by the way I am an OSR'er, so will probably adapt these to a white box version, hope you don't mind.
Thank you so much! :) Fiction is definitely a love of mine, Sci Fi, Fantasy, and otherwise! And I'm very happy to hear you want to adapt this to OSR, that would be amazing. :D
Awesome!! I'm definitely looking forward to running my players through this one.
Lovely adventure, well done.
We are down a pc for main campaign. I’m gonna run this tonight instead!
I hope you all have fun with it! :D
I was wondering how you handle character death in these one-shots when it does occur? Do you have everyone have a backup character and have them somehow appear near the party (or retcon them in, they were there all along, just very quiet :D)? Do you design some NPCs keeping in mind some player might take them over if their PC dies?
Paper?!? 😀😋 Great adventure, btw. 👍
LOL I knoooow, I've since fully embraced using an iPad for the walkthroughs!
Question for you Kelsey! We were playing and the ghouls dragged us into the sinkholes, but we couldn’t figure out what kind of damage that would do, or how the players are supposed to get out? Any advice?
Hi Jordan! :) The sinkholes are 30 feet deep (that info is sort of squirreled away in a sidebar in "Twisting Catacombs," so possible to miss), and so they'd deal 3d6 bludgeoning damage from the fall. The DM could certainly modify that depending on Dexterity saves/falling on the ghoul and cushioning the blow! Also up to the DM, but the sinkhole walls are broken stone, so not too hard to climb with Strength (Athletics). At my table, I'd put that at at DC 12. I hope that helps!
I just picked this up to run a Halloween one shot this month! question though, how easy would it be to scale the crypt for level 10 pcs? or what would you recommend to match level 10?
Ooooo, interesting! So I might just double the number of swarmy enemies in that case (but not solo enemies like the boss enemy -- no spoilers, haha!). Thankfully, that's exactly x2 the number of characters the adventure was designed for, so doubling makes sense!
OH WAIT you said level 10 PCs, not 10 PCs! Heck, sorry! Okay, hmmmm... Okay, I would actually replace the ghouls/ghasts with vampire spawn, replace skeletons with shadows, and probably make the big boss an actual vampire! I'd otherwise leave the NPCs the same (unless you want to beef up Tibalt a bit to be a tiny bit more helpful). This is all napkin math and not super highly tested, so I'd roll out the vampires a bit cautiously (maybe in waves) and make sure the characters have either a cleric or some good healing on board!
Hey! I’ve been running some players through the series of four one shots you put out recently, we’ve gotten through Masque of the Worms and the Gilded Tower already, we’re doing this one this week. The thing is, the first two allowed for 5 to 6 players, and this one is supposed to be for 4 to 5. How would you personally recommend making the adventure appropriately challenging to accommodate an additional PC? We’ve been having a great time with these. Thanks!
Good question! I wrote the first two adventures specifically for a live-play team that had six people, which is where that range came from in those cases. Normally I write for 4-5, but that's just a "best guess" range for the average size of a group, hehe. Typically, if you add 1-2 more "lightweight" enemies for each additional player above the range, that will keep you in a safe spot. The stronger or boss-type monsters generally don't need to be changed with just one extra player, but if you add 1/5 or 1/4 more HP to that monster, it will give it a bit more lasting power. In almost all cases I can think of, that rough guideline will cover you no matter which adventure. I hope that helps!
The Arcane Library Thanks so much for the quick response! We had to close up early because a player had work, so they only have the final battle remaining on this adventure. So that could be helpful for when we reconvene for that. The one player in our group who had never played before this series was the one who figured out how to reenergize the emeralds to open the hidden door to the altar, and everyone was telling her how amazing she did and she was almost on the brink of tears she was so happy about it. All that to say, your adventure here gave her a really special moment in her early D&D experiences. Thanks for that!
@@Skapologist Omg this is so wonderful! 😭 What a cool experience for her, I'm really glad to hear that figuring out the hidden door puzzle was so validating and rewarding for her. It was a very tricky one, brava to her for solving it!
Fun question, what class do you think would be best suited for this.
Liam Fyle I think a paladin or cleric might have some inborn advantages!