A Trio of Adventure Modules for Ptolus Campaigns
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In this video I discuss three adventures which focus on dungeon delving and will work in any Ptolus Campaign.
- Barrow of the Forgotten King (Level 2)
- The Sinister Spire (Level 5)
- Fortress of the Yuan-Ti (Level 7)
Three adventures you should checkout are Barrow of the Forgotten King, The Sinister Spire and Fortress of the Yuan-Ti.
These three modules don’t have a catchy name like Shackled City, Savage Tide, Tales of the Yawning Portal or anything like that. But, they are a trio of adventures which will take characters from 1st or 2nd level to 8th to 10th level depending on how you play and reward your players.
Now, these were originally published for D&D 3.5 and they don’t have a 5th Edition conversion as of today so if I’ve lost you there, I understand. BUT! Even just reading these three adventures will give you some great ideas.
Additionally, the pre-written modules sell for $9.99 on drive thru rpg, which seems really steep for something published almost 20 years ago. If you do some searching around the internet though, you can probably find them cheaper, or even free. Unfortunately, these have not been released for free like the Dungeon Magazines have, so I cannot transcribe them and make them available.
- DD1 Barrow of the Forgotten King (3.5) $9.99 on DriveThruRPG
- DD2 The Sinister Spire (3.5) $9.99 on DriveThruRPG
- DD3 Fortress of the Yuan-Ti (3.5) $9.99 on DriveThruRPG
Regardless, if you want some great adventures which focus on dungeon delving but also have some intrigue then check these out.
Since I focus on Ptolus on my channel, you know I’ve got to give you some advice on adapting these modules to fit a City by the Spire campaign. I also thought it was cool the second adventure in the series was called the Sinister Spire, but that one is underground unlike the big Ptolus spike.
Get Rid of the Above Ground Encounters
Now, the first and third adventures begin with above ground encounters that don’t really fit in Ptolus, but the rest of the encounters are all underground and can easily be said to be in the labyrinth beneath Ptolus and I’ll tell you how to easily modify these.
The very first module, Barrow of the Forgotten King starts the characters out in a small town called Kingsholm with a cemetary. This is very easily adapted to be the Necropolis in Ptolus. The King they mention could also be changed to a Ptolus Noble family if you wanted, but it can also just be a long forgotten king or some other person of import.
The second module, The Sinister Spire simply continues off the dungeons discovered in the first adventure so that’s super easy for your Ptolus game.
Finally, the third module, Fortress of the Yuan-Ti starts out in a field then descends below the earth. If you want to keep all of this inside Ptolus, then I would just cut that part out and make the Fortress accessible through the previous dungeons. You could also change it from a field to an underground cavern with a few tweaks.
Additionally, the “fortress” is called Castle Serastis and it’s got some really cool challenges for PCs. The castle has mysical portals, towers that don’t connect to the main fortress and some crazy fanatics. These will be cool introductions to more powerful magics as your players are in 2nd and 3rd tier play.
Homebrew Maps for Barrow of the Forgotten King
All three of these modules have good maps, but there are also some awesome user generated maps available.
Maps for Barrow of the Forgotten King
Note: If this link ever breaks or the images are gone, please Contact Me as I’ve saved all of them locally.
Weapon of Legacy : Merthuvial
Another awesome piece of D&D history is also utilized in these adventures. Weapons of Legacy. This was a book originally published for D&D 3.5 (sorry folks, I’ve lived in the old world forever) which details how to have magic items that grow in power with the person wielding them. I absolutely love this book and several of the characters in our main Ptolus Campaign “The Calling” have Weapons of Legacy. I’ll do a whole video about Weapons of Legacy because it’s just awesome. And honestly, you can have this just be a concept and adapt it to your 5E game by letting magic items (not just weapons) get more powerful as your PCs do. This is a great fix to the “I want to find a new sword that’s more powerful” trope.
I will be utilizing these three adventures to run my THIRD Ptolus game which is actually for my two oldest children so I might have some more advice and resources in the near future.
Let me know in the comments on the YouTube video if you’ve used this modules or if I peaked your interest.
If you’re into Ptolus, join our Ptolus focused Discord. Some awesome people on there.
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Checkout my other videos about adventure modules, especially the Shackled City and Savage Tide adventure paths by Paizo as they are both just epic serieses.
Ptolus Play By Post (PBP) Campaign & Dramatic Readings
If you’re interested in learning more about our Ptolus campaign you can either read all the play by posts writing,
or you can follow along as I read those posts in my series called Tales Under the Spire.
If you’re so inclined to support me through Patreon, then you’re amazing!
Until next time, stay out of the Shadow of the Spire.
