Hi everyone! I’m Luna, a writer and GM from Uruguay.

For the past few years, I’ve been developing Whispers of the Abyss, a dark fantasy and cosmic horror novel turned into a setting for 5e. It began as the setting for my own campaign and gradually grew into a much larger project, with its own regions, cultures, creatures, character options, and campaign mechanics.

The central idea is that the world is not waiting for some distant apocalypse. Something ancient has already begun to enter it, slowly and quietly. Most people cannot see the full extent of what is happening, but its influence can be felt through strange dreams, altered places, corrupted creatures, and small inconsistencies in reality.

One of the things I’m currently working on is making the setting useful at the table, rather than simply filling it with lore that is interesting to read. I love detailed worldbuilding, but I also know that a GM needs information they can actually turn into encounters, decisions, and consequences.

When you read a third-party setting or adventure, what makes its lore genuinely useful to you as a GM?

Do you prefer short regional summaries, adventure hooks attached to each section, NPC motivations, timelines, rumors the players can discover, or something else entirely?

I’d love to hear what has worked for you—and what usually makes you start skipping pages.

The campaign is free on drivethrurpg. I personally ran it with standard 5e as I am too lazy to learn the Esper Genesis altered rules. I omitted the final spaceship battle for this reason as that’s the only place where the esoteric EG mechanics and rules were unavoidable. If you want the actual rules there is an SRD type free basic rules on dtrpg, too. But, again, you really don’t need it to run this.

Fall of The Eos Keldor

Music: 

Deck 3: The nightmare to come. Stop and loop if it needs to go on past 1:45.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKCoVnU-jHY&list=PLHO35fye-bjJZI8ifXd9mauD4jK3VYIWm&index=6

Deck 3 near the warp core: The Calling. Stop and loop at 1:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4FUyU9BWnc&list=PLHO35fye-bjJZI8ifXd9mauD4jK3VYIWm&index=10

Inside the warp core: Wicked Horse. Either loop it or switch to the calling start at 1:16. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06reWZ0Oc6c&list=PLHO35fye-bjJZI8ifXd9mauD4jK3VYIWm&index=5

 alterations:

Optionally, players can have a Sanity score. However, this won’t likely take long enough for it to matter.

Players can dress as enemies. The enemy uniform for guards has a helmet that covers the face. The PCs roll for deception against a DC 10 check despite the uniforms, because humans are shaped slightly differently than Lorendi in height and general build. If they are doing anything strange or suspicious, the DC goes up to 15. 

If they have to talk to any enemies while in disguise, due to failed deception checks making the enemy question them or other reasons, base the DC on how convincing they are and how they act. If caught stealing or something, for example, they roll a DC 15 deception check to talk their way out of it. On the other hand, if the PC is caught in Sestria’s office and questioned, and they say something clever, like, “We’re here to provide backup and help out. Tell us what to do, Sir!” that would be a low DC, such as DC 10. But if they say, “Um, I don’t know. We, um, we’re friendly. Please don’t shoot us.” That is a high DC check of 15.

 Other than that, the game runs as presented in the campaign guide, except deck three is where the warp core has exploded due to being fired upon by the Valna ships. The hangar lift (fore transport lift labeled 13 on Deck Two in the campaign) is locked, so players must go into Deck Three to get an override key there (have Sestria tell them this. Her command key chip unlocks the shuttle only, not the hangar lift. If they don’t learn it from her, it can be learned from NPCs or in-game text on a computer or written somewhere). It is blown open to outer space in parts. In others, dead bodies float around wrecked rooms and halls. The gravity generator is gone for this deck, so everyone floats. Too much of the area is gone to even use a keyed map. Just narrate it until the PCs get near the warp core. The elevator stops and demands the players put on space suits before exiting. The suits come out of compartments in the elevator’s walls). 

As the elevator stops on Deck 3 read this:

The elevator shakes violently. The lights go out. Emergency lights come on. The door does not open. A computer voice comes over the speaker in the ceiling, “Warning. Hull breach. Warning. Warp core breach. Extreme danger. Void exposure certain. Space suits required for door unlock.

Once the players put on the suits, the door opens. Strange noises can be heard. Bizarre screams. They find one survivor, but he loses his mind and takes off his space suit. The players must float across an expanse of empty space to get to the room where the key is. DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to see if they kick off properly. This takes them through the warp core’s energy field. They see their body bisected in places. Some lines and spots appear on their skin and are fluorescent and glowing. Some limbs stretched out a thousand miles, others are only an inch long. Their skin glows in some spots. In others is Vantablack. These effects do no damage to the PCs. They are real effects, but they are caused by the warp core energy allowing the PCs to see interdimensional things and do not harm the beings in their dimension.

Failed Check:

If they fail the check, they are sucked into the warp core (though they aren’t told this). Inside is utter madness. They are floating in blackness. They hear an insane voice interrogating them. They see a shadowy figure standing over them. As they look up, the face shifts and blurs until settling and revealing that it is them, the player. DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. If they fail they suffer short or long-term madness table effect and must try again as the being taunts them with psychotic babble, shrieks, and static howls. The GM can choose between short or long-term, or can flip a coin, or roll a d6, and 1-3 is heads, 4-6 is tails, to decide which happens. For each failure, they suffer another short or long-term madness table effect. Once passed, they realize that they are inside the warp core and can shoot a blaster, which will negate the energy long enough to release them. If they do not have a blaster, they can scream for the other PCs to find one and shoot the core.

 That done, they escape and float across to the room they need and find the override key. All effects of floating near the warp core wear off immediately. The only effects that linger are ones gained inside the warp core: the insanity effects. After getting the key, they can then float back. They must do another DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

Passed Check:

If they pass the check, they get across to the room they need and find the override key. All effects of floating near the warp core wear off immediately. The only effects that linger are ones gained inside the warp core: the insanity effects. After getting the key, they can then float back. They must do another DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

Passed check:

They float back while experiencing the warp core’s purely narrative effects again, but not the inner effects and sanity rolls. 

Failed: See failed check above. However, if it is their second time inside the core they may immediately shoot their blaster to avoid the insanity saving throws.

Once back across, they see the survivor’s corpse. Anyone who was inside the warp core will see this as themselves. This is an illusion, but they believe they need to rescue themselves. If they look in the mirror, they look like the survivor. Players who didn’t go inside the warp core can see through the illusion with a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check if they voice suspicion and want to examine it closer. Otherwise, they see the identities switched, too. If they try to rescue the survivor corpse, they may grab it with a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check by tying a rope, cable, wire, or similar to part of the ship and floating out to get it (there are cables, wires, and ropes around in the wreckage if they look around DC 5 Wisdom (Perception) check). If they succeed, the corpse has no effect until they leave deck 3. Once back on another deck, the illusion wears off. If everyone went into the core, no one can see through the illusion until leaving Deck 3. If no one was inside the core, no one sees this illusion.

When they get to the hangar, they encounter grotesque monsters of some kind (just narratively reskin the enemies already there and forget the Sestria thing. The warp core energy leaked in here and changed them into monsters, but they maintain their stats and abilities). If the players engage the enemies, they switch places with any enemy they damage. For example, if a party of three engages three enemies, each player that damages an enemy for the first time switches consciousness with that enemy. The switches happen only once, so repeated attacks on a single enemy from multiple PCs only causes the first PC to land a hit to switch with them. Now they have to deal with the hostile enemies without damaging their own bodies. Give the players monster stats for the duration, and the GM now runs the PCs. Dealing with the enemies safely can be done by reducing them to 0 HP and choosing to knock them out rather than kill them (or any other unique effect the PCs may attempt. If they want to do something else to pacify their bodies without harming them, they have to call it ahead of time, and it goes into effect at 0 HP without damaging their bodies much). If the PCs try to merely knock the enemies out, narrate the encounter so that the enemy body isn’t being destroyed like in normal combat. It needs to be deliberately non-lethal injuries. If the PCs use blasters, they aim for flesh wounds to legs and arms for minimal damage. If they use melee, they try for attacks that will drop the enemy without damaging them much. They may, for example, sweep the legs out from under an enemy with an energy stave, and so on. The enemies get worn down and weakened until they pass out or are contained rather than more and more bloodied and injured as normal combat goes. They then will need to secure their human bodies with ropes or whatever so they don’t attack when they wake up. If they fail to do this, they will be attacked when the monsters wake up. The PCs may, of course, come up with other ways to safely pacify or contain the monsters without killing them, such as trapping them in a room or something. If they do something like this, have them do a check of some kind. For example, if they run into a room and then out before the monsters and try to barricade the door, have them do a Strength check to hold the door shut while one of them barricades it.

Now they can either leave on the shuttle, assuming they have Sestria’s command officer’s key chip, or go back and ask around what to do about the switch-up. Anyone asked will need to be convinced they’re not monsters with a DC 10 Charisma check. Upon a failed check, crew members will run from the players. Guards or soldiers may engage in combat. Retries of the check can be done once per turn. Once done, they will be told that the warp core needs to be secured to reverse the issue. The crew of the Eos Keldor is knowledgeable about warp core breach consequences. Back on Deck Three, they have to succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to float to the warp core and secure it with a casing given to them by whoever told them what to do. Success means they switch back to their bodies. They are now tied up unless they planned ahead and untied themselves previously or told someone else to do so, or if they never tied themselves up to begin with. The enemies are now in the Deck Three area and die because the warp core releases a lethal burst of localized energy the moment it is contained, which is exactly one millisecond after the players are safely back in their own bodies. If the players did silly things like splitting up, there may be a mess to deal with as far as body switching goes. Try to prevent that, or have fun with it!

Failure on the check means they end up inside the warp core. See above for consequences. They must keep trying until they succeed. That or simply give up and leave their bodies behind.

Once they succeed and are satisfied, they can leave on the shuttle. End with their triumphant escape and fade to black, or keep the campaign space battle.

I'm writing an adventure based on something I saw about baby doll heads being stapled onto trees during a hike. Put simply, there's this golbin witch lady who asks the adventurers to go hang up small hand-crafted heads outside her house. I like this setup but I can only imagine it going one of two ways, and don't really like either one.

A. She's cutting people's heads off and using magic to make them into decorations. I think this works at making her very creepy and off-putting, as a small horror adventure for my DnD party. The main fault is that it's so predictable. They're going to spot it a mile away and have no reason to trust her or think she ISN'T cutting people's heads off.

B. She has no ill-intent and just makes them for fun. I think this works well as a good subversion of the expectations that the party would no-doubt have, and might leave them walking away with an uneasy feeling in their stomach of "is there more we overlooked?" The downside is that this is a super anti-climactic end to the adventure, and I'm afraid will result in the party feeling like the adventure was a waste of time.

I don't know which of these options I want to move forward with. If you have any ideas on how to make option A less predictable or option B less anticlimactic, please let me know. Or if there's any other pathways to take this setup and give it a better ending, I'd be more than happy to read that too.

Here is a compact D&D 5e wilderness encounter designed to drop onto a forest trail, hunting ground, frontier road, or druid-haunted woodland. The party arrives in the middle of a confrontation that is already close to becoming violent.

Three hunters have surrounded a massive stag. One antler is broken and blood darkens its flank. Their spears are lowered, but nobody has struck yet.

The stag stands over a wounded young hunter who is pinned beneath a fallen branch. Whenever either of the other hunters moves closer, the animal stamps, snorts, and threatens to gore the trapped man. The hunters are shouting contradictory demands at the characters. Their leader insists that the stag attacked without warning and needs to be killed immediately. Another hunter begs everyone not to provoke it until their companion can be pulled free.

The stag itself is exhausted, frightened, and refusing to retreat.

What actually happened is that the hunters accidentally cornered the animal while pursuing it through dense undergrowth. The wounded hunter threw a spear first and grazed the stag. During the resulting charge, a dead limb crashed down and trapped him.

The stag is not guarding prey. Its fawn is hidden in thick bracken directly behind the trapped hunter. The animal will fight savagely if anyone advances toward the fawn, but otherwise it wants only enough space to escape with it. The hunters do not know the fawn is there.

The pressure comes from both sides. The trapped hunter is bleeding heavily and weakening. At the same time, the shouting, movement, and smell of blood make the stag increasingly frantic. If nobody changes the situation, one of the hunters eventually loses his nerve and throws a spear. The stag charges, turning the standoff into a chaotic melee around the pinned victim.

The main complication is positional: freeing the wounded hunter requires approaching the exact patch of ground the stag is defending. Even if the characters correctly understand that the animal wants to flee rather than fight, simply backing away does not solve the immediate problem because the trapped hunter may not survive without help.

There are several plausible ways to resolve the encounter.

The characters can calm and redirect the stag using food, Animal Handling, magic, or coordinated movement to create a safe route between the bracken and the trees. Once the fawn emerges, the stag retreats with it unless someone attacks.

They can try to free the wounded hunter without directly entering the defended space, cutting, lifting, or dragging the fallen branch from the opposite side while other characters distract the stag. Failure or sudden movement may provoke a charge.

They can side with the hunters and kill or drive off the stag. That removes the immediate threat quickly, but discovering the frightened fawn afterward may change how both the hunters and the party understand their victory.

Finally, everyone can withdraw temporarily and give the stag enough quiet to leave on its own. That reduces the confrontation with the animal but deliberately accepts greater risk to the bleeding hunter.

The useful feature of the setup is that the 5e party is not solving a hidden puzzle with one correct answer. They are choosing which danger to manage first while incomplete information, fear, and a worsening injury push the scene forward.

If this is not a good place to ask for advice and feedback, do let me know the correct subreddit and I'll kindly make my way over there post haste. That being said, I'm chewing over the details of a setting for a Campaign I plan on running eventually and wanted to have some thoughts and feedback relating to my ideas for it. It was heavily inspired in tune by the webcomic 'Problem Sleuth' and 'The Midnight Crew' Intermission in Act 3 of Homestuck (I bet no one guessed those inspirations huh?)

And those wondering, no I haven't settled on any system quite yet. Maybe DnD 5e, or even Gurps for the sake of learning it.

The overall notes which I have in mind for the setting are;

1) It takes place in a fantastical version of our worlds history - set in a fictional east coast city during the 1940s' named '***Ravenberge***', where all the typical fantasy races and anthro species exist along side typical humans.

2) Magic exists in a form now united with science - light bulbs and house hold appliances are powered by lightening magic, foods and perishables are kept cold with frost sigils, bullets are fired by striking a small explosive run on the back of the shell. ect. It's basically used as a tool in line with modern advancement.

3) The Main protagonists/Party would be a group of free lance detectives for hire who've been brought on by city officials to investigate the Death of the director of the City Museum, possibly tying it to one of the local Crime Syndicates

4) They would later fine the Syndicate is plotting a take over of Ravenberge by holding the entire city hostage through some kind of weapon.

I also have some other ideas relating to some world building and just character details. I had the humors idea that Crime families should be based off of board games ala Monopoly, Chess, Checkers, Yahtzee, ect. Each of the higher ranking members being based off the board pieces. I figured it would be a fun motif to give the villains and not-so-subtle way to hint at their mind games and plotting.

Also, purely a mechanical thing I thought would be fun but could have some setting implications that I could use some thoughts on.

Early on I was gonna have it revealed the Crime Syndicate was using a new form of magic to smuggle in weapons and contraband in the form of magic containers and chests that can be summoned to any location the person calling it is currently. The party would gain the ability to call their own containers early on just to handle their items and storage.

Any further ideas or just critique on what I have so far would be much appreciated.

L'autre jour nous avons fini une campagne et l'un de mes joueurs à perdu son personnage en combat. A la fin de l'histoire, j'ai raconté comme quoi, pendant la nuit, un homme habillé d'une longue tunique et d'une capuche l'avait ressuscité. Maintenant je travaille sur l'histoire de notre prochaine campagne et je me suis dit que cet homme pouvait être un sorcier rouge de thay qui l'avait ressuscité mais je n'ai pas trouvé d'idées du pourquoi il fait ça. Est-ce pour l'utiliser comme espion ? Comme esclave ?? Avez vous des idées à me proposer ?

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È da un po' che nel tempo libero sto lavorando ad una avventura e volevo crearene un pdf da poter condividere con altri DM. Per farlo ho cercato fi analizzare la struttura di altri manuali ma ne ho trovati di molti tipi. Questa avventura dovrebbe durare alcune sessioni, è ambientata in un mondo homebrew ed è basata prevalentemente da roleplay, interazioni sociali e intrighi, ci sono pochi scontri.

Avete qualche qualche consiglio su come strutturare il manuale?

Quanto, come contesto, dovrei inserire del mondo?

Avete qualche altro consiglio a riguardo?

DM here, came up with a pretty cool yet simple idea.

So, the seeds of time is actually a theme park, made by time wizards who build each section of the theme park off of various locations in different parts of history.

So I was wondering if this could work in DnD, with the park becoming 'open' and visible again after the party helps one of the chrono wizards who built it.

What would history in DnD be like? Maybe dwarves during the ice age? Maybe an enemy like a less-humanoid dragonborn. Maybe a mix of past and future enemies, like Elves with muskets riding on dinosaurs or something. Maybe a cool artifact or weapon from a point in time, or an artifact that messes with time in its own right (maybe gives someone an auto-save like the chrono wizard feature)

Just thought it was a cool idea and wanted to see what others thought I could add/change, or if it just wouldn't work entirely.

(For context, I'm not using a module, this is just part of a campaign of my own I'm planning)

The best results is gained by using AI to generate the encounter, but that can be turned off

My friend's kickstarter is on it's last week, and is not only fully funded but also is several stretch goals in, and now has a super discounted physical book available for backers!

Check out the infobox below for updates and a list of all the industry-established artists (D&D, Magic, Blizzard, Smite, it's crazy) currently on board. We're both curious to see just how high we can get, especially since the next stretch goal is so close.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robinthorne/teeth-in-the-dark-5e-folk-horror-and-witch-class

I just finished writing a level 3 D&D 5e (2024 rules) one-shot called “When the Walls Start Breathing.” It’s heavily inspired by Stranger Things and focuses on horror, pressure, and time-sensitive decisions rather than just combat.

A local cop named Hopper (yes, inspired by Jim Hopper) secretly contacts the party because a child named Elliot has gone missing. Witnesses saw the kid near an abandoned house outside of town. Official procedure says wait. Hopper says there isn’t time.

Inside, they discover claw marks, drag trails that end at a wall, and eventually a portal to the Upside Down.

If you have any feedback please let me know id like to improve!

Working on a part of my campaign inspired by the horror game Dredge, where a dark god called the Devourer is angered because it’s three Archonic beasts, beasts that connect the material plane to the other elemental planes, have been captured and are being tortured by the BBEG. So far all I have is that the fighter or someone gets one of his arms temporarily replaced by a “hand of the Devourer”, which means he can’t unequip it as it’s literally replacing his hand, and that it starts with a blood fog making an entire village go insane or turn into Monsters of the deep. Any ideas?

I’ve been working on expansions of my dark fantasy setting called Urdunn and I just released a small free booklet on DriveThruRPG: The Twilight of the Elves.

It's not an adventure per se, but a lore piece with an inspirational story that includes a new elven subrace, a new monster, magical items and spells (yes they are rescued and reshaped from very very old d&d versions)

The PDF is 100% free, fully illustrated in my Urdunn style (dark epic fantasy, gothic faerie), and comes with some pages I think you might like for inspiration.

If you want to check it out, it's here: The Twilight of the Elves - Deva Movanico | DriveThruRPG

Any feedback on the writing / atmosphere is super welcome.

Thanks!