Recommendations for Drop-in Adventures

Hello All.
I am developing a dark fairytale/sword & sorcery campaign setting for OSE and am looking for some adventures that fit the general motif and which I can drop-in, modify, and use at the table.
So far I have identified the following:

  • The Black Wyrm of Brandonford
  • The Evils of Illmire
  • Ragged Hollow Nightmare

Does anyone have any other recommendations that would be good fits?

Thanks!

Brief overview: Brimstone & Wytchbane: the Campaign Takes Form – Wyrding Media

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Some of the usual recommendations:

Blackapple Brugh

The House Under the Moondial

Elder Oak

Maybe check out Peril in Oldenwood as well.

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Lazy Litch has several dark woodland/swamp hexes which sound like what you’re looking for.

There’s also probably individual Dolmenwood hexes that would fit, should you have any of the books/PDFs for them. At least Winter’s Daughter.

Other adventures I happen to know: Barrow of the Elf King, Dolmenring, Hounds of Hendenburgh, Hole in the Oak.

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I think many of the Trilemma Adventures adventure locations could be dropped in pretty easily. Some I really enjoy are:

  • Do It For The Beast
  • The Coming of Sorg
  • The Call of the Light
  • The Full-Dark Stone
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I love this topic. Fortunately (or unfortunately) between fairytale and sword and sorcery you cast a pretty large net over the NSR. You may need hone in on what exactly you are looking for to get recommendations that work better for you.

Here is a list of fairytale / dark woods fantasy adventures featured on Between Two Cairns in Chronological order that you could listen to see if they feel right for you:

  • Tangled
  • The Sepulchre of Seven
  • The Toxic Wood
  • The House of the Hollow
  • The Blackapple Brugh
  • Elder Oak
  • The Gnomes of Levnec
  • Falkrest Abbey
  • The Frost Spire
  • Palace of the Silver Princess
  • Beyond the Crystal Cave
  • Gone Fishin’
  • Sleeping Palace of the Feathered Swine
  • Willow
  • Waking of WIllowby Hall
  • Bonepicker’s Tower
  • Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh

Other Fairy tale Adventures (that I don’t currently see in other comments)

  • Hideous Daylight by Brad Kerr
  • Where the Wheat Grows Tall by Camilla Greer and Evelyn Moreau
  • Saving Saxham by Joseph R Lewis
  • Tannic by Amanda P
  • Gardens of Ynn by Emmy Allen
  • Doom of the Savage King’s by Harley Stroh (conversion from DCC necessary)

I know you started with Ragged Hollow Nightmare but I would keep checking out other works by Joseph R. Lewis as he writes both fairy tail and sword and sorcery genres incredibly well (though not always at the same time). I’d also look at other adventures by Zzarchov Kowolski as I think he nails the dark fairy tale vibe. Other than raiding adventures from Dolmenwood, I know that products from “Rosethrone Publishing” by WR Beatty are also popular choices.

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Many thanks to all for the great suggestions…very helpful.

Of course, everything written for Dolmenwood is specifically dark fairytale style.

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I reviewed ‘The Darkling Seas of Islesmere’ recently. It’s for Best Left Buried but conversion wouldn’t be too hard, I’d run it with Mork Borg, Mythic Bastionland, or Cairn myself. It’s a 6 mile hex full of stuff that you could easily drop on a coastline.

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For folks who want to find Gone Fishin’ I am hosting it (with permission) on my Proton.

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https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/459907/A-Disputation-at-Worm-Rock-The-Black-Sword-Hack-Ed

quick self serving plug:

I took bog standard format sword and sorcery tropes to create the framework for this one: a cult forms around a weird god, PCs are invited into the lair as a sacrifice, and meet the god at the bottom of the dungeon.

Then I mixed in a lot of fairy tale tropes. Dungeon starts at a “feast”. There are lots of ghosts in the dungeon, including a cowardly one that is more of an NPC. There is an evil talking oyster that rides around in a little cart that tries to join the party to kill them. And there are songs… (my favorite coming from some singing worms that ride by the PCs in a tiny boat).

Final confrontation with the god is where the “Disputation” takes place. You talk to the god, and argue about actual medieval philosophy.

It might be the vibe you are looking for?

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Based on the history noted in the brief overview, Witches of Frostwyck could work well with the setting (though in it the witchlords were defeated more recently…)

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Where the Wheat Grows Tall

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures has some starter adventure seeds that are fun, though will require fleshing out.

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I’ve been running a low-prep Shadowdark game that’s just a series of point crawls with a few published adventures seeded into each area. I prefer adventures I can get away with just reading the opening section of, and then only reading through as the party explores it if they happen to go there. So far the ones I’ve found particularly decent and minimal prep are:

  • any of the Necrotic Gnome modules. I just finished Isle of the Plangent Mage and Winter’s Daughter is still one of my all-time favourite easy one-shots
  • One Thousand Dead Babies, Gellarde Barrow and The Temple of Lies from Neoclassical Geek Revival
  • Lair of the Brain Eaters from LotFP
  • The Pirate Borg stuff from Limithron is good, but might not totally fit your theme
  • Trial of the Slime Lord and Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub, both for Shadowdark
  • The Tomb of Aum-Pharath from Carcass Crawler
  • Might not fit your tone but Wizard Trash, Goblin Treasure was a great drop-in
  • Escape from the Astral Spellhold, for when the party tries to rob a wizard (I just shared a sorta-review of this)

I actually ran Nightmare over Ragged Hollow and while the town, the whole point crawl and all the little parts of the adventure surrounding the big main dungeon are fantastic I thought the main event was incredibly disappointing. It’s a very linear dungeon, much of it is basically a hallway with optional encounter rooms on either side. If I were to run it again I would re-map the whole temple, or even just replace everything above the basement with another dungeon module that roughly fits.

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Wyvern’s Roost is a lot of fun, and is actually really containable to a single session in a way that many other adventures aren’t.

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Rackham Vale has a lot of really good, fairy-tale like pieces to easily hack and impant into your setting

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With some minor modification, Demon Driven to the Maw could fit! Otherwise, maybe flip through some of the old AD&D adventures? The B, N, X, and Ravenloft series might be useful.

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Demon driven to the maw is perfectly easy to drop into a campaign. Just stick the manor in a town and invite the PCs to the party. The only minor sticking point is that it’s a lil heavy on world building — since damnit. Where is the spoiler tag. Well anyways. For reasons.

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