A Book of Books

Candlekeep Mysteries is an anthology of adventures written by members of the Dungeons & Dragons community. Each adventure begins with a book that the characters find in Candlekeep, an enormous library located on the Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms setting.

If you’re not running a Forgotten Realms campaign, you can adapt the adventures in this book for other settings, substituting any large library similar to Candlekeep. Examples from other published D&D settings include the following:

• On the world of Exandria, the Soltryce Academy in Rexxentrum (a large city on the continent of Wildemount) or the Cobalt Reserve in Westruun (a small city on the continent of Tal’dorei)
• On the world of Eberron, the Library of Korranberg in the nation of Zilargo, the University of Wynarn’s library in the nation of Aundair, or Morgrave University’s library in the city of Sharn
• On the world of Oerth, the Great Library in the Free City of Greyhawk

Using the Adventures

The Candlekeep Mysteries table summarizes the adventures in this anthology. Each adventure is designed for four to six characters of a particular level, but you can adjust it for larger or smaller groups as well as for characters of higher or lower level by swapping one monster or trap for another, changing the number of foes in an encounter, and adjusting DCs to make important tasks easier or harder for the characters to accomplish.

Each adventure in this anthology embraces one of the following narrative conceits:

• The characters discover a book in the library that contains a mystery. Getting to the bottom of this mystery requires embarking on an adventure.
• The characters come to Candlekeep on a quest for information, perhaps to solve a crisis elsewhere in the world. During their research, they uncover a book and the mystery it contains, which leads to adventure.

These short adventures work best with players who like mysteries and discovering their secrets. That said, each adventure contains opportunities for exploration, roleplaying, and combat, to appeal to players of all persuasions.

Running the Adventures

To run these adventures, you need the fifth edition core rulebooks (Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual).

Text that appears in a box like this is meant to be read aloud or paraphrased for the players when their characters first arrive at a location or under a specific circumstance, as described in the text.

The Monster Manual contains stat blocks for most of the creatures encountered in these adventures. When a creature’s name appears in bold type, that’s a visual cue pointing you to its stat block as a way of saying, “Hey, DM, get this creature’s stat block ready. You’ll need it.” If a stat block is new, the adventure’s text tells you where to find it.

Spells and equipment mentioned in the adventures are described in the Player’s Handbook. Magic items are described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide unless an adventure’s text directs you elsewhere.

Be a Sensitive Dungeon Master

Before running an adventure with a new group of players, have a candid out-of-game conversation with them about hard and soft limits on what topics can be broached in-game. Your players might have phobias and triggers you aren’t aware of. Any topic or theme that makes a player feel unsafe should be avoided. If a topic or theme makes one or more players nervous but they give you consent to include it in-game, incorporate it with care. Be ready to move away from such topics and themes quickly if a problem crops up. It’s okay for characters to feel stressed and anxious, but your players should be relaxed and having fun.

Dissecting the Adventures

You can dissect an adventure and use pieces of it rather than the whole thing. Nothing in these adventures is too sacred to tamper with and repurpose to serve your own needs.

Most of the locations described in this book can be used as stand-alone adventure sites. With a little effort and a few name changes, you can transplant them into other campaign worlds, including your own.

Take the Lykortha Expanse, a cave network that figures prominently in one of this book’s adventures. You could situate these caves in any wilderness or Underdark setting where fungi are likely to be found in abundance. You can also modify the villain and its goals to better support an ongoing story or threat in your campaign. Conversely, you could remove the villain, keep the map, and repopulate the Lykortha Expanse with creatures that better suit the characters' level or the particular story you want to tell. Sometimes a good map is all a DM needs!

About the Forgotten Realms

The world of the Forgotten Realms is one of high fantasy, populated by elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, and other folk. Steel-hearted adventurers from backcountry farmsteads and sleepy villages follow tales that take them to strange, glorious, faraway places. Good maps and clear trails can carry inexperienced youths with dreams of glory far across the world, but these paths are never safe. Traveling throughout the Realms invites the perils of fell magic and deadly monsters. Farms and freeholds within a day’s walk of a city might fall prey to monsters, and no place is safe from the sudden wrath of a dragon.

Details about the history and nature of the Realms fill volumes, and much of that knowledge resides in books and scrolls sealed in Candlekeep’s vaults. For a detailed description of Candlekeep, see the next section. This product also includes a foldout poster that features an illustration of the library-fortress.

Tendays and Dalereckoning

In the Forgotten Realms setting, a week is ten days long and is referred to as a tenday. There are three tendays in a month and twelve months in a year. For more information on the calendar of the Forgotten Realms, see “The Calendar of Harptos” sidebar in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Dalereckoning (DR) is the most common reckoning of years in the Realms. The adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries are presumed to take place in 1492 DR, but the exact date is not important.

Candlekeep Mysteries