Dm'd it as a solo campaign with NPCs. worked great and well thought out. Note that for the follow up, the valley of the guilded tower, keep an egg timer on hand out of sight. When you want to add pressure, place the egg timer on the table (sand running or not) to let the players know there's a time restriction and it adds panic in their eyes. :)
Hello, I just came back to this video to thank you. 2 years ago I played this adventure as a one-shot with some of my friends, and it turned out to be my first big campaign. I linked the conqueror worms, the worm fiends and their madness to an ancient obyrith, Ugudenk, demon lord of worms and hungry parasites. Some deranged entropist somehow came to know the secrets to open portal to the Abyss when they reached Ugudenk's realm, and now they are spreading his influence throughout the Underdark, infestating the region waiting for the arrival of the Squirming King. This adventure really served me as incredible inspiration. Once again, thank you for your work and keep it up! ^^
This is epic! So glad to hear this adventure was the launching point for your first big campaign. I love how you spun out the conqueror worm connection into a whole plot reaching into the Underdark and the Abyss! :D
@@mrblopsfiner The adventure went over great! My players loved the atmosphere and the overall vibe of the story. The combat was my biggest downfall, but I'm planning on having some of the characters and the worms return in a fun callback!
@@MallardQuacks Did your players survive? I’m about to run this for a small group as a sort of pre-adventure first level one shot, with some additional meat shield NPCs, and my only concern is that horror adventures tend to be a bit more lethal.
Just picked up Bundle of Horror and getting prepped to run this! Love the way your content is written and delivered - very professional, streamlined and unique!!
I run this last night with my group, we all had a great fun! It is unbelievably fantastic adventure. Well put together and the video also helped me prepare for it :-) Thank you so much! I wish you published more of these :-)
Thank you so much! :) That's wonderful to hear, so glad you all had an awesome run through it. I'm always working on more adventures, stay tuned cuz they're in the pipeline! :)
@@TheArcaneLibrary I cannot wait, the way you put it together is so easy and helpful to run - the best I have seen so far. It was my first ever adventure that I followed, usually I just homebrew things based on an adventure but this one I pretty much run as is :-) Well impressed and truly I am waiting for more :-)
Just came across your stuff this afternoon after playing around with epictable VTT software and I needed something simple and quick with all the maps and such. I absolutely love your stuff. So very well done and presented. I'll be running this online during the pandemic for my group but also for many people in my gaming community just to get them to socialize without the need to be in the same physical space. Then moving on to your other stuff. So great!
Thank you so much, I'm really happy to hear these work with your online gaming! I couldn't agree more that online gaming is a huge asset as we move through the coronavirus crisis... it's the #1 way I've been able to keep in touch with my friends. Now more than ever I want to make sure VTT play is as supported as it can be so we can all roll dice with our groups. Thanks for supporting my work, Renato! :)
About to run this as a first time DM with three first time players! Very excited and nervous, but I adore the way this adventure is written. If they enjoy it, we might do the sequel and maybe even turn it into an ongoing campaign!
Thanks so much! That livestream was something else -- the Castle Mac crew is simply phenomenal. I'm really looking forward to running this for folks on Halloween, too! :D
I first ran this adventure 2 years ago as my first game as a dm. We have a player going to miss this session so we plan on doing this adventure instead of our normal campaign and I’m very excited to run it again but with more experience this time around!
The conqueror worms were cool, but my 6 level zero PC slaughter the worms. I should have raised their AC from 13. My players killed Lebrim and Wend on sight thinking they were responsible for the madness. They never checked the guest house. I added a dead body with footprints to and from the front doors (strangled by crazed Wend). I actually had the full Poe poem printed out and I read it all in pieces as their Echo Fever escalated - beating heart and whispering. Within the poetry book was a spell book as loot for our wizard. The echo fever was induced by Lebrim's experimentation with magic which either summoned the worms directly and lost control. Anyway, for my level zeros, I added loot (armor in the entry hall, some weapons still stowed on the horses outside, magic scrolls in Lebrim's library, etc). Overall, we enjoyed it, but even with 3 worms and rising fiends, they handled it. Next, we play out the aftermath with Henrik Rennet (who lives in Gygax's Hommlet). I bought the other one-shots so I'm excited to give those a go too.
This is super interesting to hear how it went with level-0 characters, that's something I haven't heard of too often! Cool that you made some changes to it to work with that, though. :) I'm surprised the worms didn't eat anyone for lunch!
@@TheArcaneLibrary I modified the worms to instead of swallowing whole, the failed dex save was versus being grappled/restrained where next turn they suck on the characters for some HP transfer. They downed a few PCs but I allowed the dex save since they were already rolling death saves. Playing again, I only lower the damage and raise the AC. Luckily, they haven't seen the last of these things and adult versions (similar to a Remhoraz) are baked into the story now as a sort of cosmic horror. Plus the Giant Larva miniatures from Reaper were PERFECT for this.
@@MarshmallowMadnesss Sounds like they were definitely a harrowing fight!! And I'm delighted to hear they'll be making a reappearance as fully-grown monstrosities... that's epic! :D
So I'm about to DM Masque of the Worms as my first ever DM'ing campaign! I'm super excited and super nervous. But I really appreciate your walkthrough. This is going to help me loads as I lead my group through the Manor! I'll let you know how it goes!
That's fantastic, I'm so excited for you! :D It's going to be a ton of fun, you will knock it out of the park. I can't wait to hear how it all turns out! :)
Elias Luna Definitely! It’s up for sale on The Arcane Library’s site, and I’m going to keep the 100% off code going for at least a week in case anyone wants to watch the re-play of the stream 🤓👍
I'm glad you enjoyed DMing this one! :) Pym is full of amazing inspiration. I just noticed that Rime of the Frostmaiden used Tekeli-li as a villain, which is absolutely delightful and fitting. I'm guessing influence from that story will make its way, consciously or not, into some of my upcoming work, too! :)
I just found this while looking for a oneshot for Halloween. First off I bought the adventure, I love it, but am I too late for the Poe reference challenge?
Quick question! The tunnel in the floor of Area 6: It reads that it drops 10 feet and then hits a severe collapse....I'm not really understanding this. What is the purpose of the tunnel (from an encounter design pov)? and is the idea that it drops 10 feet and is basically a dead end? Anyone can feel free to answer! Thanks.
I plan on running this for 6 level zero characters. This adventure will get them to level 1 once they return and report to Rennet in a starting town. I might reduce the ferocity of the conquerer worms a bit or stop the worm fiends from rising up or make them curable/turnable.
That sounds awesome! Yes, good call on reducing the strength of the worms a bit. They can be tough even for 1st level characters. I hope you have a lot of fun with it! :)
Really enjoyed this yesterday, but: Is my group the only ones who were thinking +6 Bite worms Oneshotting nearly every Lvl 1 char is way too strong? Esp. with 12 Mobs attached? I had 3 PCs and so left the dead dead, but they were dead in the blink of an eye 😅 Also we found the map quite small for a manor. Nevertheless we had a great rvening with this 😊
Has anyone ever had any feedback about running levels ones through this... any talk of TPKs... running this next Saturday and don’t want to annihilate the party 😁
I've heard of one or two people saying the final fight with the conqueror worms is tough, but out of hundreds of runs, I think I've only heard of a TPK one or two times. Statistically, that seems about what one would expect!
I bought this as a bundle. I'm about to run this as a one shot for Halloween. I Am a first time gm and am running it at third level (players request). Any thoughts on how to scale it? Also , any advice on good jump scares?! :) Thanks a bunch!
Yay, that is so awesome that this will be your first time GM! :D It's definitely a good time of year to start running horror, too. For taking this up to third level, I might just add about 3 creatures to the group battles and 1 worm at the end (or maybe hold that worm in reserve and have it "show up" if the fight is too easy). Thankfully, 3rd level isn't drastically more powerful than 1st, they PCs just have a few extra hit points and spells. :) And a jump scare might be good in the library when the rats come out of the clock! Or having the undead on the floor leap up suddenly, mwahahahaha...
I'd love to plug this into our campaign, but my PCs will be joining at level 5. Is there anything in the module, or are there any tips that you have for scaling up the level?
Hi Timothy! It's definitely possible to scale to level 5 with a few considerations. I'd bump the stats across the board by giving each monster an additional +2 on its attack and damage rolls and increasing all damage dice by one step (so 2d4 +1 damage becomes 2d6 + 3 damage). I'd also double the HP on each monster. Finally, if you increase the DCs by 2 points across the board, it should account for the characters' higher rolls. Overall, that's a bit of a rough scale-up, but there's a big jump in power from levels 4 to 5, and the adventure only has two combats, so it's probably safe to lean toward danger and high damage output rather than being conservative. You can also have some enemies "waiting in the wings" to appear if the fights aren't hard enough. I hope that helps!
I just purchased Bundle of Horrors! I'm so stoked to DM this adventure. Do you think I could run it with only 3 players? Obviously I could take out a couple enemies, but it there anything specific that you think would be unbalanced?
Hey there! :) Thanks so much! And I think you could definitely get away with running them for 3 adventurers. I'd remove at least 2-3 enemies that are in "mobs" in that case, but I think that would be the main thing. They're written with 5 assumed PCs on average, so you'd want to reduce the number of total actions all enemies can take by about 1-3 on average pre round, which could mean pulling back the boss type monsters' abilities a bit, too. I hope that helps! Good luck running the adventures! :D
We played it last weekend and it went great. I was playing with two people that had never played an RPG before and they're hooked now! We're going to do Valley of the Gilded Tower this weekend. Thanks!
"Her mother is dead here so...that's no fun..."
Absolute vibe. I'm loving these short adventures and your walkthroughs. Can't wait to run this!
Dm'd it as a solo campaign with NPCs. worked great and well thought out. Note that for the follow up, the valley of the guilded tower, keep an egg timer on hand out of sight. When you want to add pressure, place the egg timer on the table (sand running or not) to let the players know there's a time restriction and it adds panic in their eyes. :)
I love that idea! I'm a huge fan of time pressure! :D
@@TheArcaneLibrary These were really well written, thanks :)
Hello, I just came back to this video to thank you. 2 years ago I played this adventure as a one-shot with some of my friends, and it turned out to be my first big campaign. I linked the conqueror worms, the worm fiends and their madness to an ancient obyrith, Ugudenk, demon lord of worms and hungry parasites. Some deranged entropist somehow came to know the secrets to open portal to the Abyss when they reached Ugudenk's realm, and now they are spreading his influence throughout the Underdark, infestating the region waiting for the arrival of the Squirming King. This adventure really served me as incredible inspiration. Once again, thank you for your work and keep it up! ^^
This is epic! So glad to hear this adventure was the launching point for your first big campaign. I love how you spun out the conqueror worm connection into a whole plot reaching into the Underdark and the Abyss! :D
Just picked up the Bundle of Horrors! This is brilliant! Thank you, time to terrify my weekly group!
Marcus Flores mwahahahaha! Excellent, I hope you have a ton of fun! :D
Running this as my first group session as a DM this week, super excited for how my players will handle the worms!
How did it go?
@@mrblopsfiner The adventure went over great! My players loved the atmosphere and the overall vibe of the story. The combat was my biggest downfall, but I'm planning on having some of the characters and the worms return in a fun callback!
@@MallardQuacks Did your players survive? I’m about to run this for a small group as a sort of pre-adventure first level one shot, with some additional meat shield NPCs, and my only concern is that horror adventures tend to be a bit more lethal.
Just picked up Bundle of Horror and getting prepped to run this! Love the way your content is written and delivered - very professional, streamlined and unique!!
Thank you, that's very kind of you! :) I'm happy to know you like the adventures and presentation style. I hope you have a lot of fun with them!
I run this last night with my group, we all had a great fun! It is unbelievably fantastic adventure. Well put together and the video also helped me prepare for it :-) Thank you so much! I wish you published more of these :-)
Thank you so much! :) That's wonderful to hear, so glad you all had an awesome run through it. I'm always working on more adventures, stay tuned cuz they're in the pipeline! :)
@@TheArcaneLibrary I cannot wait, the way you put it together is so easy and helpful to run - the best I have seen so far. It was my first ever adventure that I followed, usually I just homebrew things based on an adventure but this one I pretty much run as is :-) Well impressed and truly I am waiting for more :-)
It was a lot of fun to watch, I can't wait to run it!
Thanks so much!! I hope you have fun running it! :D
Running this later this week. Thank you for this
I hope you had fun with it! :)
Just came across your stuff this afternoon after playing around with epictable VTT software and I needed something simple and quick with all the maps and such. I absolutely love your stuff. So very well done and presented. I'll be running this online during the pandemic for my group but also for many people in my gaming community just to get them to socialize without the need to be in the same physical space. Then moving on to your other stuff. So great!
Thank you so much, I'm really happy to hear these work with your online gaming! I couldn't agree more that online gaming is a huge asset as we move through the coronavirus crisis... it's the #1 way I've been able to keep in touch with my friends. Now more than ever I want to make sure VTT play is as supported as it can be so we can all roll dice with our groups. Thanks for supporting my work, Renato! :)
About to run this as a first time DM with three first time players! Very excited and nervous, but I adore the way this adventure is written. If they enjoy it, we might do the sequel and maybe even turn it into an ongoing campaign!
Awesome! :D I hope you all have a very spooky and Poe-inspired time!
Really enjoyed the livestream! Already downloaded. I’ll be running this a one-off Halloween session for my gaming group.
Thanks so much! That livestream was something else -- the Castle Mac crew is simply phenomenal. I'm really looking forward to running this for folks on Halloween, too! :D
Lookin for a spooky Halloween one shot to run and this looks like it’ll fit the bill. Thank you for the rundown!
Thanks for scoping it out! I hope it makes for an excellent Halloween one-shot, perfect day to run it! :D
I love your content. Getting ready to run Cult of the Basilisk. Look forward to more!
Thanks so much! Have fun running that adventure! :D
I first ran this adventure 2 years ago as my first game as a dm. We have a player going to miss this session so we plan on doing this adventure instead of our normal campaign and I’m very excited to run it again but with more experience this time around!
That is fantastic that it was your first time as a DM! :D I hope the second run-through is just as exciting!
The conqueror worms were cool, but my 6 level zero PC slaughter the worms. I should have raised their AC from 13.
My players killed Lebrim and Wend on sight thinking they were responsible for the madness.
They never checked the guest house.
I added a dead body with footprints to and from the front doors (strangled by crazed Wend).
I actually had the full Poe poem printed out and I read it all in pieces as their Echo Fever escalated - beating heart and whispering. Within the poetry book was a spell book as loot for our wizard.
The echo fever was induced by Lebrim's experimentation with magic which either summoned the worms directly and lost control.
Anyway, for my level zeros, I added loot (armor in the entry hall, some weapons still stowed on the horses outside, magic scrolls in Lebrim's library, etc). Overall, we enjoyed it, but even with 3 worms and rising fiends, they handled it. Next, we play out the aftermath with Henrik Rennet (who lives in Gygax's Hommlet). I bought the other one-shots so I'm excited to give those a go too.
This is super interesting to hear how it went with level-0 characters, that's something I haven't heard of too often! Cool that you made some changes to it to work with that, though. :) I'm surprised the worms didn't eat anyone for lunch!
@@TheArcaneLibrary I modified the worms to instead of swallowing whole, the failed dex save was versus being grappled/restrained where next turn they suck on the characters for some HP transfer. They downed a few PCs but I allowed the dex save since they were already rolling death saves. Playing again, I only lower the damage and raise the AC. Luckily, they haven't seen the last of these things and adult versions (similar to a Remhoraz) are baked into the story now as a sort of cosmic horror. Plus the Giant Larva miniatures from Reaper were PERFECT for this.
@@MarshmallowMadnesss Sounds like they were definitely a harrowing fight!! And I'm delighted to hear they'll be making a reappearance as fully-grown monstrosities... that's epic! :D
So I'm about to DM Masque of the Worms as my first ever DM'ing campaign! I'm super excited and super nervous. But I really appreciate your walkthrough. This is going to help me loads as I lead my group through the Manor! I'll let you know how it goes!
That's fantastic, I'm so excited for you! :D It's going to be a ton of fun, you will knock it out of the park. I can't wait to hear how it all turns out! :)
How did it go? I'm super curious!
So excited to hear you have another adventure. Will this be made available to people who aren't able to catch the live stream?
Elias Luna Definitely! It’s up for sale on The Arcane Library’s site, and I’m going to keep the 100% off code going for at least a week in case anyone wants to watch the re-play of the stream 🤓👍
I loved DMing this adventure. Would you try making a mini campaign based on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym? It would be amazing.
I'm glad you enjoyed DMing this one! :) Pym is full of amazing inspiration. I just noticed that Rime of the Frostmaiden used Tekeli-li as a villain, which is absolutely delightful and fitting. I'm guessing influence from that story will make its way, consciously or not, into some of my upcoming work, too! :)
I just found this while looking for a oneshot for Halloween. First off I bought the adventure, I love it, but am I too late for the Poe reference challenge?
You're never too late for the Poe challenge! Have at it! :D Email me your finds to kelsey@thearcanelibrary.com
Quick question! The tunnel in the floor of Area 6: It reads that it drops 10 feet and then hits a severe collapse....I'm not really understanding this. What is the purpose of the tunnel (from an encounter design pov)? and is the idea that it drops 10 feet and is basically a dead end? Anyone can feel free to answer! Thanks.
I plan on running this for 6 level zero characters. This adventure will get them to level 1 once they return and report to Rennet in a starting town. I might reduce the ferocity of the conquerer worms a bit or stop the worm fiends from rising up or make them curable/turnable.
That sounds awesome! Yes, good call on reducing the strength of the worms a bit. They can be tough even for 1st level characters. I hope you have a lot of fun with it! :)
Really enjoyed this yesterday, but:
Is my group the only ones who were thinking +6 Bite worms Oneshotting nearly every Lvl 1 char is way too strong? Esp. with 12 Mobs attached? I had 3 PCs and so left the dead dead, but they were dead in the blink of an eye 😅
Also we found the map quite small for a manor.
Nevertheless we had a great rvening with this 😊
I'm going to run this and see if my players figure out this is a poe reference.
Did they?
Has anyone ever had any feedback about running levels ones through this... any talk of TPKs... running this next Saturday and don’t want to annihilate the party 😁
I've heard of one or two people saying the final fight with the conqueror worms is tough, but out of hundreds of runs, I think I've only heard of a TPK one or two times. Statistically, that seems about what one would expect!
I bought this as a bundle. I'm about to run this as a one shot for Halloween. I Am a first time gm and am running it at third level (players request). Any thoughts on how to scale it? Also , any advice on good jump scares?! :) Thanks a bunch!
Yay, that is so awesome that this will be your first time GM! :D It's definitely a good time of year to start running horror, too. For taking this up to third level, I might just add about 3 creatures to the group battles and 1 worm at the end (or maybe hold that worm in reserve and have it "show up" if the fight is too easy). Thankfully, 3rd level isn't drastically more powerful than 1st, they PCs just have a few extra hit points and spells. :) And a jump scare might be good in the library when the rats come out of the clock! Or having the undead on the floor leap up suddenly, mwahahahaha...
@@TheArcaneLibrary Thank you so much for the response and ideas!!! I cannot wait to share how it went!
I'd love to plug this into our campaign, but my PCs will be joining at level 5. Is there anything in the module, or are there any tips that you have for scaling up the level?
Hi Timothy! It's definitely possible to scale to level 5 with a few considerations. I'd bump the stats across the board by giving each monster an additional +2 on its attack and damage rolls and increasing all damage dice by one step (so 2d4 +1 damage becomes 2d6 + 3 damage). I'd also double the HP on each monster. Finally, if you increase the DCs by 2 points across the board, it should account for the characters' higher rolls. Overall, that's a bit of a rough scale-up, but there's a big jump in power from levels 4 to 5, and the adventure only has two combats, so it's probably safe to lean toward danger and high damage output rather than being conservative. You can also have some enemies "waiting in the wings" to appear if the fights aren't hard enough. I hope that helps!
Poe vibes Woot Woot!
I just purchased Bundle of Horrors! I'm so stoked to DM this adventure. Do you think I could run it with only 3 players? Obviously I could take out a couple enemies, but it there anything specific that you think would be unbalanced?
Hey there! :) Thanks so much! And I think you could definitely get away with running them for 3 adventurers. I'd remove at least 2-3 enemies that are in "mobs" in that case, but I think that would be the main thing. They're written with 5 assumed PCs on average, so you'd want to reduce the number of total actions all enemies can take by about 1-3 on average pre round, which could mean pulling back the boss type monsters' abilities a bit, too. I hope that helps! Good luck running the adventures! :D
We played it last weekend and it went great. I was playing with two people that had never played an RPG before and they're hooked now! We're going to do Valley of the Gilded Tower this weekend. Thanks!
I gotta ask… why masque not masquerade?
It's a bit of a sideways reference to the Poe story "The Masque of the Red Death!" :)
You're prolific.
Jeff MacLeod Thank you! 😊
Is that challenge still available?
Absolutely! 15 Poe references for a free download sounds like a good challenge to me. :D
@@TheArcaneLibrary I'm hoping I found 15 concrete ones. But where do I send them to?
@@RyuichiroNagi Email me at kelsey@thearcanelibrary.com ! :)
@@TheArcaneLibrary Sent
Did she say poe or pro???????
Who is poe?
What is a what??????????