The Hexen Temple, the second adventure in the Amberblight Quintet, is now live on Amazon – for those of you who prefer paper over pixels (like myself). If you are just getting caught up, here is where we sit at the beginning of The Hexen Temple:
An ancient Elven artifact has been discovered beneath the long deserted Dwarven outpost known as Rockshield. The artifact, once buried at the base of a great magical tree, unleashed a horrific blight upon the region when activated, and it was only the actions of a brave adventuring company that stopped the blight from spreading across the realm.
Now, the artifact is seemingly deactivated, but it has a strange habit of drawing in anyone near it with whispered promises of power, wealth, and potential.
The Elves are coming to reclaim the artifact for themselves, while the local dwarves have other ideas. On the eve of the arrival of two elven envoys, a group of Rockshield dwarves steal the artifact, determined not to let it fall into elven hands.
Enspelled by its power, they attack and kidnap the residents of a hunting village before retreating into a Dwarven crypt nearby, determined to reactivate the artifact and gain the wealth, and power the artifact has promised.
The elves are determined not to let this happen. They alone know what the artifact is, and what it is capable of, but they are not telling anyone.
All that is known is the artifact is important enough for the elves to be willing to die in service of retrieving it. And they are also willing to kill…
So that is the story. But you may be asking yourself, what do you actually do?
In The Hexen Temple, your players will be part of the discussions between the envoys and get a chance to decide for themselves which of the two competing groups of elves they join to reclaim the object. They will race into the mountains, trying to beat the competing elves to the site of the Hexen Temple, and then face off against dwarves, Skarnid mutations, and the competing elves who are now determined to claim the artifact at any cost. The adventure culminates in a battle between the horrific secret at the heart of the Hexen Temple, the dwarves, the Skarnid mutations, the competing elves, and the players themselves.
And you know, since this is book 2 of 5, you know it’s only going to get more dangerous from here on out…
Hope you enjoy it! And watch out for “The Hymn of the Hollow God” – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – coming out on digital at the Dungeon Master’s Guild later this month!
My latest adventure up at Dungeon Masters Guild is a level 20 horror adventure called The Tower at the End if Time. I originally wrote it in 2024 for my annual Halloween Horror one shot.
At the time, we were coming to the end of our two-year Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, and this sidetrek was a Ravenloft story with a few small changes. Most of the original story remains intact.
This adventure actually took two sessions to complete, as I didn’t anticipate my players getting lost in the labyrinth for as long as they did. I’ve changed some of the mechanics in this version with that in mind.
Adventuring at level 20
It’s pretty common wisdom among DMs that high level play is difficult to run. The players are basically demigods at this point, they never miss, nobody saves, and the amount of damage they can put out in a round is pretty staggering.
For my players, an illusionist wizard, an elven archer (fighter), paladin, rogue, and light cleric, they could put out anywhere from 75-200 points of damage each. Every round. EVERY. ROUND. Think about that range. an enemy with 400 hp could last 5-6 rounds or two rounds, depending on the luck of the dice. This makes combat very swingy in late stage play.
I noticed pretty quickly that adding HP was not the right answer here. The rounds can be agonizingly slow at this stage. Players with multiple effects, abilities, and turns. You have to account for a little bit of time for the players to still be weighing their strategies by the time it gets around to their turn.
And I know there is a lot of discussion out there about using minions, attacking player weaknesses, complicating combat – and yeah, those all have a place in your toolbox. They are just not the right tool every time. A lich will definitely be strategic about their attacks, but a giant purple worm? Nawwwwww.
My answer was to beef up the damage. Make combat even MORE lethal. Sure, they were going to paste my monsters in 1-2 rounds, but man, were they going to pay for letting me have a turn! And this seemed to add a level of panic to player actions. Drop 120 points of damage onto a paladin from a single arrow in the first round, and watch your players scurry for cover. It’s great fun. And the irony here is that this amount of damage was not far off from what my players were able to do themselves. Sauce for the goose.
Who Watches the Watchers? (Hint… it’s the players)
Circling back to The Tower at the Edge of Time, the adventure added a fun little bonus in the form of phantasmal creatures known as The Watchers. The Watchers do exactly as their name implies. They watch. Their only purpose in the adventure is to be there to witness the undoing of Creation with the release of Zar’Vul – an ancient god of unknown and forgotten things. Like I said, the stakes at level 20 are just that much higher, right?
I had a note in my original story about how The Watchers only watch The Obsidian Tower, unless a player commits an evil act in their presence or casts a necromantic or far-realm based spell (something I was using as “forgotten lore”). So of course, my Illusionist cast one of these spells, and was horrified to find one of The Watchers turn and look at him. That Watcher followed him through the adventure right up until the very end, when they returned back to the ruined Netherese city of Ythryn in Icewind Dale.
At this point, my Illusionist immediately asked, “Did that Watcher follow me home?”
I didn’t have any notes on this. I hadn’t really thought about it. But, generally being a “Yes, and!” DM, I immediately said, “Yes, and…” The “and” part was that The Watcher stayed with him for the rest of the campaign and into retirement. And my Illusionist tried EVERYTHING he could to rid himself of this creature. It never interacted, but anytime he looked out across the land, he would see a lone, robed figure standing off, watching him. Sometimes The Watcher was just a spec on the horizon. Sometimes it stood beside the table while my player sat in an inn trying to eat soup in peace.
After our campaign wound down, I asked the players where they saw their character a year after their adventure. It was part of an end of campaign session I learned about from Mike Shea of Sly Flourish fame. It’s a great idea, and if you don’t do this, you really should consider it!
The Watchers appear in this version of the adventure in the form they evolved into in that original Halloween game. Anytime they witness an act or spell that leaves a “taint” on a player’s soul, they will gain a new Watcher.
Forever.
Promo stuff
Here is the product teaser and promo video for The Tower at the End of Time. It’s about 42 pages long, so I’ve priced it a bit higher than my usual $2.99 USD for these. adventures – it’s priced at $4.99 USD. This just reflects the extra work that went into it. I hope this doesn’t dissuade you from dropping a couple bucks on it.
Not because it is forbidden, but because it was never known. The Tower stands at the edge of memory, waiting for those who were never meant to find it. Beyond its threshold lies a presence that should not exist, a being neither alive nor dead—only absent.
Step forward, and the world may change around you. Turn back, and you will always wonder what was waiting beyond the door.
Some things are meant to be forgotten.
But something is calling you to remember.
Before you go any further, read this!!!
This adventure contains themes of existential horror, reality manipulation, memory loss, and the unraveling of time. Players may also encounter themes of identity erasure, non-linear causality, and the consequences of altering fundamental truths. Readers and players should be aware that this is a story of inevitability and consequence, where choices shape the world in ways that cannot be undone. For some of you, this is exactly why you have purchased this adventure. For others…
The other day I mentioned that I had a castoff map written up that I was putting together as its own adventure – a plot line that had started tangling up the trilogy I’m working on. I took a break from the trilogy to put this together, and as of a couple days ago, it’s now live on the DMs Guild.
Here’s the teaser from the front of the book:
They were heroes lost to time. But they bore a dark secret…
Beneath the earth, where history is buried and forgotten, something stirs. The Crypt of the Four, once a monument to legendary heroes, has been defiled, twisted by a presence long erased. The Fifth has returned.
Shadows stretch unnaturally, whispers claw at the edges of thought, and the past refuses to stay dead. A name, chiseled from stone, lingers. Waiting to be spoken. Mockeries of the past writhe in stitched flesh, torches flicker with spectral flame, and sorrow thickens the air.
Uncover the truth. Face what was lost.
But beware… some names were meant to be forgotten.
So this is a mystery dungeon adventure, where the players can go through and explore rooms and collect clues to give them a better understanding of the story. My favourite kind of dungeon, really.
This is a longer adventure than the previous two, as the dungeon is much bigger. I’ve priced it the same as the others, however, because I’ve been a writer long enough to know that there is no money in writing. Just to be sure, I’m making these as affordable as possible.
I’m really have a lot of fun putting these together. And I’m thrilled that the prospect people are buying these stories to run at their own tables. Kinda makes me feel like I’m DMing a huge game all over the place.
I have been looking into nontraditional ways to make these into print copies, for conventions and stuff. My local museum stocks a bunch of my books because the Town of High Level staff are awesome and folks around here do one thing better than anyone else: lift each other up.
I’m including a copy of the cover of The Crypt of the Four, which you can find on the DMs Guild:
J.W. Schnarr 