The world of Etharis is a grim land full of deadly creatures and trying choices. Players will have to put their monster-hunting skills to the test when exploring the dangers of this realm in Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis, now available on D&D Beyond!

Produced by Ghostfire Gaming, this book offers Dungeon Masters 20 unique lairs and adventures for 1st-20th level characters, as well as myriad creatures. These modular, setting-agnostic lairs can be run as an episodic adventure, or DMs can incorporate them into an ongoing campaign.

To learn more about the world of Etharis and what you can expect within its denizens' dangerous lairs, we sat down with Ben Byrne, the Creative Content Director at Ghostfire Gaming!

• What Is Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis?
• Face Deadly Creatures in a Monster Hunting Campaign
• A Menagerie of Horrorific Monsters

Third-Party Content

Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis is third-party content from Ghostfire Gaming. As always, your Dungeon Master has the final say on which aspects of the adventures will be included during gameplay.

What Is Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis?

From dragons to hags, creatures of all sorts seek to establish a lair—a place they can call their own, grow their power, and even stay safe from other predators. Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis includes 20 lairs for various creatures that can be found in locations ranging from temples and caves, to villages and ruins. Each of these lairs serves as a contained adventure, fit for characters ranging from 1st to 20th level.

Content Warning

Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis contains mature themes. Before playing, it’s essential to sit down with your players and have a session 0 to discuss the adventure’s content, each player’s hard and soft limits, and how players can flag issues during play.

“They work as their own standalone one-shots,” said Ben, “They're all set in the same world, but also, you're very easily able to pull each adventure out.”

He continued, “So you can run them as part of another campaign if you want to, or you can string them all together and run them as a single adventure module.”

Within its pages, you’ll also find over 75 horror-themed stat blocks. From the shatter corpse—a zombie whose body has been filled with glass—to the blightscale dragon, these horrific monsters will surely bring terror to your table.

“Dragons are terrifying enough, but when they're vomiting flies and pestilence at you, they become that much more intimidating on the player side of things,” said Ben.

Face Deadly Creatures in a Monster Hunting Campaign

Whether you’re a lawful good paladin, a money-hungry rogue, or a ranger doing their best Geralt of Rivia impression, Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis will pit your party against an assortment of evil creatures to defeat.

“It's a really good way to run a monster hunter-style campaign where the party travels around the realm stamping out different types of evil,” said Ben.

Embrace the Dark Fantasy Themes

In Etharis, you won’t necessarily be the archetypal shining hero clad in armor. Instead, you're an average individual, standing against the encroaching darkness or, in some cases, choosing to embrace it.

“Dark fantasy offers what I think is a different kind of power fantasy, which isn't that you're playing a superhero,” said Ben. “You're playing an average person who chooses to say no to the darkness around them and chooses to bring those glimmers of hope into the world that so desperately needs it.”

Investigate, Research, and Prepare

Like any good hunter, a monster hunter must first know their prey. In Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis, the adventures are as much about unraveling mysteries as they are about confronting fearsome creatures.

“A lot of these adventures are set up as mysteries where the players know something's wrong, but they might not know what the monster is at the start of the adventure, and they have to do a little bit of investigation,” Ben mentioned.

“They have to look at the clues. How does the monster kill its prey? Where is the monster hiding specifically? And, sometimes, there are multiple different types of monsters lairing together, so the party might have to use a mix of strategies to defeat different types of monsters.”

Salvage and Crafting System

As is often prevalent in the business of hunting monsters, Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis contains a system around valuable loot and salvage that can be scavenged from defeated foes.

“Mechanically, what's in Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis that players can be excited for is the salvage and crafting system,” Ben explained. “Every single monster has a sort of salvage that can be taken from it.”

The salvage could come in the form of the creature’s hide, which can be employed to make magical armor, or it could simply be a piece of equipment they were carrying.

“So there's this real sense of being a professional monster hunter who knows how to turn the advantages of monsters against them, you know?”

When asked for an example, Ben supplied, “There’s a candlelight daemon, which is a demon that's summoned by lighting a candle. And if you defeat the demon, you can take the oil or the spent wax from the candle and use it as an oil of sharpness against other Fiends or Aberrations.”

A Menagerie of Horrorific Monsters

Ben insists that monster-loving DMs will be a kid in a candy store when running Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis.

“We've actually got quite a few monsters here, over 75, and so those unique monsters are what GMs can really look forward to, whether they're going to run them in the lair or whether they want to port them into their own game.”

While there’s a lot to choose from, he provides a short list of his favorite monsters, “A shatter corpse makes a great alternative to a mundane zombie that can be just a little bit more horrifying and a little bit more flavourful.”

“I'm also a huge fan of the Bone Trader, which is a Fey creature that trades in bones. They can make great structures out of bones, and how many bones they have dictates how powerful they are and how much prestige they have.”

Lairs of Etharis is Maps Ready

To help save prep so you can play more, the maps and tokens from Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis are available in Maps. DMs with a Master-tier subscription can easily set these one-shot lairs up, invite their players, and get to the fun!

Your Dark Fantasy Adventure Awaits

Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis will immerse your table in a realm of monsters in 20 grim, gritty, standalone adventures. To survive, you’ll need to rally your party of monster hunters, keep your wits about you, and be prepared to do battle with horrific and deadly creatures.

Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.