The Caverns of El

Oh hark, thine enemy has charged off yon! The marching scales of doom seek to plunder and maim! Thine arms will fail if thine enemy succeeds! Foul villains, those who seek the reins of death! 

That's your friend, Rividen, giving another one of his prophecies. It's never a good thing to let a doomsayer go on doomsaying; guess you better go see what he's talking about.

What is this?

This is a system agnostic dungeon crawl that pits the PCs against the Raptors of Penszat, an evil faction of lizardfolk, goblins, and giants bent on dominating the local region.

The PCs learn that the Raptors seek a powerful artifact hidden within the Caverns of El, the subterranean lair of an exiled mountain witch, and that the artifact was coveted by a crazy world-ending cult. They must explore the caverns, find a hidden temple, plunder it for the artifact, and escape before the Raptors of Penszat catch them.

System agnostic means you should be able to use any of your favorite tabletop roleplaying games with the scenario as it is presented. You might have to do a little conversion, but everything should be usable regardless of if you're playing Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowdark, or whatever. The system you use will determine the relative strength of PCs. I recommend using PCs anywhere within the low-level to mid-level range.

When in doubt with monster selection, just pick something that has the desired effect. For example, you need a lizardfolk zealot? Use something Knightly and make them evil. Need a harpy? Take something that debuffs multiple PCs at once and use that. Or flip to a random low-level monster in your bestiary and call it a day. Are your players really gonna care anyway?

Running Dungeon Crawls

The methods you use to run this adventure will probably change from system to system. The most important thing you should pay attention to is PACING. When things are dragging out, bring the action forward and speed things up. When the game becomes way too heavy, roll the dials back and give folks a chance to catch up.

• If your game has lengthy, tactical combat: avoid rolling Random Encounters. Stick to Random Events when you need some extra spice. Make the predetermined encounters memorable, and feel free to chase the players with them if it makes sense. Make educated guesses about the environment to create battle maps during combat.
• If your game is about darkness and risk: pay attention to light sources. Draw a vague map to keep track of rough locations (zoom out for the point crawl, zoom in when it makes sense). Don't be afraid of Random Encounters and aggressive monsters, but also listen to your players attempts to stay safe and parlay.
• If your game is about stress, hope, or heroics: motivate the PCs with the knowledge that they are doing this to defend their community. If they succeed, they will have saved the day gloriously. If they fail, it wasn't without a brave attempt. Build momentum by including the PCs in the story. Describe monsters and the Night of Red Rising like no one has ever seen it before.
• If your game is about looting treasure: ideally the amount of XP that the PCs gain by recovering treasure from the dungeon is enough to level up once. Maybe that's too arbitrary for you, and in that case maybe you'll have your own tools for deciding treasure price. Then again, if they bring back the Staff of Undying Fervor . . . that could fetch a pretty penny. Consider rewarding additional Random Treasure when the players creatively solve a problem.

100% human made!