The nightmare of Acererak's tomb once again hungers for life! Imagine a place of unspeakable evil. It was built upon hopelessness and filled with unending terror and pain. This loathsome place shattered the life of everyone who ventured near. But through tremendous sacrifice and heroism, over the course of many years, it was finally gutted and its foul creator destroyed. Now imagine that the horror is beginning all over again. The sinister wizard Acererak took great pains to safeguard his tomb. It took many years, and many more lives, before his evil was finally laid to rest. But though the demilich is gone, he is not forgotten. Others who would become as he was have traveled to the site of Acererak's tomb seeking the secrets of mastery over death. Slowly these pilgrims gathered, eventually building in the shadow of the tomb itself a community dedicated to the dark arts: Skull City. But even these twisted necromancers have no inkling of the true evil that swells and crackles beneath their feet. This boxed adventure contains:
Expanding Greyhawk. Return to the Tomb of Horrors advances Greyhawk's clock twenty years past the original investigation of Acererak's tomb. Not only does it place the Tomb much more firmly in Greyhawk (where it had been loosely connected before), but it also reveals the metropolis of Skull City, a foul dominion of necromancy that has been built atop the ancient Tomb. It also touches upon a few nearby locales: Kalstrand and the Glorioles mountains. Finally, Return to the Tomb of Horrors reveals much more about the archlich Acererak and his plots and plans.
S1 Tomb Of Horrors Free Pdf
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The "killer dungeon" module tells the story of the evil wizard Acererak who became a lich and later a demi-lich which has transcended the need for a physical body other than its skull. Characters must survive deadly tomb traps and undead creatures in every corner.
The module's plot revolves around the tomb of the demilich Acererak. The player characters must battle their way past a variety of monsters and traps, with the ultimate goal of destroying Acererak. Tomb of Horrors was considered the third greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by the staff of Dungeon in 2004.[3] The module has influenced later Dungeons & Dragons products, and was followed by three other (unrelated) modules in the S-series: S2 White Plume Mountain, S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
Tomb of Horrors is set in the World of Greyhawk, a D&D campaign setting.[4] In Tomb of Horrors, the player characters encounter many perilous tricks and traps while trying to get into the crypt of a wizard.[5] As the scenario begins, the players are told that the evil wizard Acererak is said to linger in his ancient tomb in undead form. Originally a powerful lich, he has (unbeknownst to the players) become a demi-lich, a more powerful form of undead that has transcended the need for any physical body apart from its skull. Player characters must survive the deadly traps in the tomb and fight their way into the demi-lich's elaborately concealed inner sanctum to destroy him.
The module is divided into thirty-three encounters, beginning with two false entrances to the tomb, and ending with "The Crypt of Acererak the Demi-Lich". Example encounters are the "Huge Pit Filled with 200 Spikes" (section 20), or encounter 22, "The Cavern of Gold and Silver Mists": "The mists are silvery and shot through with delicate streamers of golden color. Vision extends only 6'. There is a dim aura of good if detected for. Those who step into the mist must save versus poison or become idiots until they can breathe the clean air above ground under the warm sun.".[6] The module ends with the destruction of Acererak without any postscript.
All four modules of the S-series were included as part of the Dungeons of Dread hardcover collection, released on March 19, 2013.[19] Lawrence Schick wrote in the foreword: "The dungeon of the demi-lich Acererak was, for Gary, a kind of thought experiment: If an undead sorcerer really wanted to keep his tomb from being plundered by greedy adventurers, how would he do it? The answer, of course, was to defend the crypt with tricks and traps designed not to challenge the intruders but to kill them dead. And furthermore, to do it in ways so horrific that all but the most determined party would give up and leave well enough alone."[11]
Something Awful presented a humorous article about the ways that Tomb of Horrors is the bane of gamers everywhere since it is basically a series of traps that kills off most of the characters. "One of the best (worst) things about this module is that Acererak the demi-lich is a huge asshole. He's an asshole for filling his tomb with traps AND treasure, he's an asshole because he leaves little messages throughout his tomb bragging about how he's going to kill the players."[27]
Tomb of Horrors is a module released for the original Dungeons & Dragons. In it, a group of adventurers travel to the titular tomb to fight the demilich Acererak and recover any loot found along the way. The only problem? The tomb is filled with dozens of deathtraps. Ridiculously hard to figure out and frustrating, Tomb of Horrors is one of the most infamous adventures for any campaign, and is called a "meat grinder" by many gamers for good reason.
Many years after the original module debuted, an updated version for use with the D&D 3.5 ruleset was available as a free download from the Wizards of the Coast Web site. (A mirror, here, was subsequently pulled from access for download from the Wayback Machine/Internet Archive for no clear reason.) This version has elicited strong controversy due to heavy reduction in the lethality, partly due to the differences in edition rules, primarily due to general Adaptation Decay; rather than a perfect replication under the 3.5 ruleset of the original super-lethal module, the official update is actually a standard, mostly-balanced dungeon crawl, aimed for level 9 characters. Not only are there few of the classic traps from the original left in, the Acecerak encountered at the dungeon's end is actually a CR12 "fake demilich construct" - the 'Demilich' monster had not undergone the same Adaptation Decay as the adventure itself, and the new designers felt gamers would not appreciate a Failure Is the Only Option dungeon.
There are two versions in Fourth Edition. One is merely a conversion of the old tomb. The other a rather long campaign that is a sequel to Cordell's Return to the Tomb of Horrors, taking place over the course of four separate "tombs" (a Feywild graveyard, the city of Moil within the Shadowfell, a city built around the ruins of the original Tomb, and finally Nerull's tomb within the plane of Pluton) as Acererak works to ascend to godhood and beyond.
The goblins have a +6 to their Stealth modifier. This makes them capable of surprising most characters and getting a whole round of free attacks against the party. At first level, a single attack can knock a character unconscious. With surprise and the fragility of low-level characters, four goblins can easily defeat a party of first-time players.
The town of Vallaki initially appears to be something of a safe haven for the PCs in Curse of Strahd. It's free of the vampire lord's influence, but it contains one of the most infamous encounters in the module. On a quest to return the bones of a saint to a church, the party has to enter a coffin-maker's shop. Inside, they are ambushed by a group of six vampire spawn.
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And the tomb is filled with truly deadly and devious traps, many of which are instant kills for careless adventurers. There are also very few monsters to fight: this adds to the sense of helplessness of the characters, because their (likely) usual strategy of overpowering their enemy simply will not work.
These module illustrations, by Dave Sutherland and Dave Trampier, create an amazing atmosphere for the Tomb: it feels like an actual tomb, filled with the relics, art and twisted obsessions of its departed master. It is worth noting that Gygax was originally inspired to create the Tomb of Horrors by the urging of Alan Lucien, who had written part of an Egyptian-themed tomb that Gygax then expanded upon. Looking at the art of the Tomb of Horrors entryway, the Egyptian tomb influence is pretty obvious.
But even this was not enough Tomb for many players! In 1998, TSR published Return to the Tomb of Horrors, by Bruce Cordell, one of a series of nostalgia-based sequels to classic adventures. This mega-campaign, which first appeared in box form, elaborates on the origins of Acererak, and reveals that his tomb was always just the first part of a more elaborate plan to trap the most potent souls. In the adventure, the players will go from the Tomb to other dimensions to a showdown with Acererak himself/itself.
There are many great Dungeons and Dragons campaigns available to purchase, and many DMs create their own campaigns. But sometimes you need a campaign for a quick game session or to jumpstart your ideas. Below is an updated list of free D&D 5e modules/campaigns collected from various sources. If you have a free D&D campaign to add, please feel free to contact us. 2ff7e9595c
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