You purchased your tickets and took a seat on the front row to watch the Whimsy Ensemble perform within this sheltered forest glade. Bright caravans encircle the portable, wooden stage and lazily hanging lanterns give a warm light to the dim evening. The acclaimed show is about to begin. Kacarosh welcomes the audience and introduces the first act, a group of dancers who perform a spectacular…

↓ Use Minimum Hit Points and Damage Rolls for this creature.

If there are parts of the game you prefer not to handle yourself, assign them to players who enjoy them. If you don’t want to break your narrative stride by looking up a rule, designate another player to be the rulebook reference expert. If you don’t like tracking Initiative, ask another player to do so.

"Stepping into the venue, you’re hit by a wall of warmth and a medley of mouthwatering scents. The blend of spices, freshly baked pastry and roasting meats is the unmistakable smell of Winterfest. As you shake off your heavy layers and stamp the snow from your boots, other staff hurry past you clutching supplies. It seems there’s still a lot to do to have everything ready for the banquet…

The preceding example of play shows how one Dungeon Master might run an encounter, but no two DMs run the game in exactly the same way—and that’s how it should be! You’ll be most successful as a DM if you choose a play style that works best for you and your players. The Rule of Fun D&D; is a game, and everyone should have fun playing it. Everyone shares equal responsibility in moving the game…

Each Dark Bargain is unique, and a character can enter into a given bargain only once. A character could be bound to multiple Dark Bargains at one time, but each one only once.

While adventuring in the Dragonlance setting, the siblings Caramon Majere, Raistlin Majere, and Kitiara uth Matar provoke the rage of a wyvern Imagination is a key ingredient of Dungeons & Dragons, a cooperative game in which the characters that you roleplay embark on adventures together in fantasy worlds filled with monsters and magic. In D&D;, the action takes place in the imaginations of the…

Estimated Duration: 75 Minutes In this part, the party meets with Caset at the University of Magical Arts, stays overnight, and attempts to locate the gems through their dreams, tracing the dark whispers back to their extradimensional source.

One of the best ways to learn how to run a D&D; game is to observe other DMs in action. Another DM can give you a solid foundation for understanding the role—as well as inspire you with cool things you can do in your games. You can use these questions to help you reflect on a game you observe: Beginning the Session. How did the DM start the session? Was there a recap? Body Language. What gestures…

† See the appendix.

Once you’ve chosen the DM, follow the instructions below to begin play.

Chapter 1

Once you’ve chosen the DM, follow the instructions below to begin play.

Player characters and monsters can also do things not covered by these actions. Many class features and other abilities provide additional action options, and you can improvise other actions. When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the Dungeon Master tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of D20 Test you need to make, if any.

N (they/them) human The mysterious and discreet Onaivu is a member of the Thieves’ Guild. They hide in the shadows and ply their trade in the most unexpected places, even those right under your nose. Who they are and what they are aren’t important at all, unless they know something about you that you don’t want the rest of the world to know. They keep their face covered beneath a cowl; no one…

List of Appendix C - Handouts from the Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club.

After clearing Government Hall, the party leaves to find a much better organized resistance set up in the square outside. Proceed to Chapter 2.

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Weapon (morningstar), uncommon You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Proficiency with a Morningstar allows you to add your proficiency bonus to the attack roll for any attack you make with it. This weapon has the following mastery property. To use this property, you must have a feature that lets you use it. Sap. If you hit a creature with this weapon, that…

Every night since the gems arrived, everyone’s dreams have been filled with dark whispers. Students, faculty—everyone’s talking about it. Caset believes that if the party sleeps a bit, they’ll also hear the whispers and could trace them to their origins and the location of the gems. If the group sleeps in Caset’s room, Caset can wake the party in four hours. Hopefully, by then they’ll have found…

Cilanthé has her wealth stockpiled in her lair. Old wooden chests hold 715gp in various coin values, a dragon-themed cutlery set made of gold (650gp), three paintings of her previous lair (400gp each), a Sword of Life Stealing and a Tome of Understanding.

When Matron Lethica ambushes—or is ambushed by—the characters, read or paraphrase the following: The Weeping Widow stands beside her hulking ward and quickly loads her syringe. “You threaten my work. You would put a stop to bringing peaceful bliss to all of Wickermoor Hollow. Enough. You are beyond saving… Hugo. Send these fools into oblivion.” Matron Lethica (The Weeping Widow *) fights with…

Empower Yourself with a Fiendish Presence Demonglass holds the essence of a fiend—pure malefic power yearning for release. A painful, and often lethal, ritual can embed a shard of demonglass in a mortal’s body; if the mortal survives, they can draw on the power of the fiend. The warriors of the Carrion Tribes in the Demon Wastes and the champions of Turakbar’s Fist in Droaam are eager to augment…

“The worried people of a coastal village asked you to investigate a lighthouse not too far from them that seems to project magical darkness. The closer you get to the tall, striped tower, the thicker the fog seems to grow. Thorny brambles cling to the walls, which you assume have also caused the long scratch marks down the front of the door.”