Game Master's Secret Stash One Shot: Follow the Lights

The second downloadable GM-SS Dungeons and Dragons One Shot Adventure

Whether it’s for a one-shot adventure, starting a longer story, or just another day in your players’ lives, we hope this adventure module will inspire all you DMs and GMs out there.

Overview

RPG: D&D 5e
Number of players: 3 to 4 players
recommended level: level 3 – 4
Duration: short (3-5 hours)
Difficulty: high
For your campaign: The adventure is very easy to integrate into your own campaign and is only based on rules from the D&D core books. However, the tone of the adventure is rather serious and therefore probably doesn’t work very well as part of a rather funny campaigns.
This Adventure Module contains:
- The story for a single adventure
- Builds for a new monster
- Builds for a NPCs
- A few puzzles and riddles for your adventures
- Maps and ideas for special combat encounters

The Story

While many know legends or stories about mythical artefacts granting immortality, the gnomish scholar and archaeologist Ardell Hoyt is certain he’s found one. For many years, he’s been studying dusty tomes and ancient inscriptions that could lead him to the thing he desires the most: a way to cheat death. He believes there exists a lighthouse on the border between this life and the next, its light guiding the dead to their final rest. However, should a living soul ever manage to bathe in its divine light, eternal life and wisdom would be granted to it. Finally, he believes to have found the path to the afterlife, located underground in the “Cave of Lights”. Together with your party of adventurers, he’s ready to see his life’s work fulfilled.

In this 3- to 4-hour one shot, a party of 3^rd to 4^th level characters will venture through the Cave of Lights and discover if Ardell Hoyt’s theories are correct. Will they survive the trip through the cave? Could immortality really be within their grasp? Is it safe, to “Follow the Lights”?

Notes for the GM / DM

This adventure is very modular and the game’s duration can therefore be controlled very well by the DM.
This adventure was created for more experienced DMs, as there are many encounters whose difficulty level must be adjusted on the fly. If the DM is not careful, a death or even a TPK can occur very early in this adventure.
The final encounter in this adventure and the final decision must be adjusted according to what campaign the DM is running. For example, the last decision is much more difficult but also more interesting if the module isn’t used as a self contained story.