Preface

Welcome to Tales from the Yawning Portal. Within this book you will find seven of the deadliest dungeons from the history of D&D, updated for the current edition of the game. Some are classics that have hosted an untold number of adventurers, while others are newer creations boldly staking their place in the pantheon of notable D&D adventures.

Just as these dungeons have made an impression on D&D players, so too have tales of their dangers spread across the D&D multiverse. When the night grows long in Waterdeep, City of Splendors, and the fireplace in the taproom of the Yawning Portal dims to a deep crimson, adventurers from across the Sword Coast-and even some visiting from other D&D worlds-spin tales and rumors of lost treasures.

• A wanderer from the distant Shou Empire speaks of strange, leering devil faces carved in dungeon walls that can devour an explorer in an instant, leaving behind not a single trace of the poor soul’s passing.
• A bald, stern wizard clad in blue robes and speaking with a strange accent tells of a wizard who claimed three powerful weapons from a city on the shores of a lake of unknown depths, who spirited them away to a slumbering volcano and dared adventurers to enter his lair and recover them.
• A one-eyed dwarf spins tales of a castle that fell into the earth, and whose ruins stand above a subterranean grove dominated by a tree that spawns evil.

These are only a few of the tales that have spread across the Sword Coast from the furthest reaches of Faerûn and beyond. The minor details change with the telling. The dread tomb of Acererak shifts its location from a dismal swamp, to a searing desert, to some other forbidding clime in each telling. The key elements remain the same in each version of the tales, lending a thread of truth to the tale.

The seeds of those stories now rest in your hand. D&D’s deadliest dungeons are now part of your arsenal of adventures. Enjoy, and remember to keep a few spare character sheets handy.

Using This Book

Tales from the Yawning Portal contains seven adventures taken from across D&D’s history.

The introduction of each adventure provides ideas on adapting it to a variety of D&D settings. Use that information to place it in your campaign or to give you an idea of how to adapt it.

These adventures provide the perfect side quest away from your current campaign. If you run published D&D campaigns, such as Storm King’s Thunder, the higher level adventures presented here are an ideal way to extend the campaign beyond.

About the Adventures

The Sunless Citadel

The Sunless Citadel, written by Bruce R. Cordell, was the first published adventure for the third edition of the D&D game. It is designed for a party of four or five 1st level player characters.

Ever since its publication in 2000, The Sunless Citadel has been widely regarded as an excellent way to introduce new players to the game. It’s also a great starting experience for someone looking to be a Dungeon Master for the first time.

The Forge of Fury

The Forge of Fury, written by Richard Baker, was published in 2000 shortly after The Sunless Citadel. Characters who succeeded in that mission and advanced to 3rd level were now ready to take on the challenges of a ruined dwarven fortress.

Like its predecessor, The Forge of Fury is tailored to provide increasingly tougher threats as the characters make their way through the fortress. Those who survive the experience can expect to advance to 5th level—seasoned adventurers ready to strive for greater glory and renown.

The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan

The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, written by Harold Johnson and Jeff R. Leason, made its debut under the title Lost Tamoachan at the Origins game convention in 1979, where it was used in the official D&D competition. The first published version of the adventure was produced in 1980.

The updated version of the adventure presented herein is designed for a group of four or five 5th-level player characters.

White Plume Mountain

Lawrence Schick, the author of White Plume Mountain, related in the 2013 compilation Dungeons of Dread that he wrote the adventure as a way of persuading Gary Gygax to hire him as a game designer. Not only did he get the job, but White Plume became an instant favorite when it was first published in 1979.

The version of the adventure in this book is tailored to a group of characters of 8th level.

Dead in Thay

Dead in Thay, written by Scott Fitzgerald Gray, was created when the fifth edition D&D game was in the testing stages. In its original form, it was used as the story of the D&D Encounters season in the spring of 2014. Featuring an immense and lethal dungeon known as the Doomvault, the adventure serves as a tribute to Tomb of Horrors, Ruins of Undermountain, and other “killer dungeons” throughout the history of the game.

The version of Dead in Thay presented here is modified for use in home campaigns. It is designed for characters of 9th to 11th level.

Against the Giants

The three linked adventures that make up Against the Giants were created and originally released in 1978, during the time when Gary Gygax was still writing the Player’s Handbook for the original AD&D game. Despite being (in a sense) older than the game itself, these adventures continue to hold a special place in the hearts and memories of D&D players of all ages.

The compilation of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and Hall of the Fire Giant King was published in 1981 as Against the Giants. The version presented here is designed to be undertaken by characters of 11th level.

Tomb of Horrors

Before there was much of anything else in the world of the D&D game, there was the Tomb of Horrors.

The first version of the adventure was crafted for Gary Gygax’s personal campaign in the early 1970s and went on to be featured as the official Dungeons & Dragons event at the original Origins gaming convention in 1975. The first publication of Tomb of Horrors, as a part of the Advanced D&D game, came in 1978.

As a proving ground for characters and players alike, fabricated by the devious mind of the game’s cocreator, Tomb of Horrors has no equal in the annals of D&D’s greatest adventures. Only high-level characters stand a chance of coming back alive, but every player who braves the Tomb will have the experience of a lifetime

Running the Adventures

To run each of these adventures, you need the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. Before you sit down with your players, read the text of the adventure all the way through and familiarize yourself with the maps as well, perhaps making notes about complex areas or places where the characters are certain to go, so you’re well prepared before the action starts.

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 monsters and NPCs found in this book. When a monster’s name appears in bold type, that’s a visual cue pointing you to the creature’s stat block in the Monster Manual. Descriptions and stat blocks for new monsters appear in appendix B. If a stat block is in that appendix, an adventure’s text tells you so.

Spells and nonmagical objects or equipment mentioned in the book are described in the Player’s Handbook. Magic items are described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, unless the adventure’s text directs you to an item’s description in appendix A.

Creating a Campaign

While these adventures were never meant to be combined into a full campaign-over 30 years separates the newest from the oldest-they have been selected to provide play across a broad range of levels. With a little work, you can run a complete campaign using only this book.

Starting with The Sunless Citadel, guide your players through the adventures in the order that they are presented in this book. Each one provides enough XP that, upon completing the adventure, the characters should be high enough level to advance to the next one.

The Yawning Portal, or some other tavern of your own invention or drawn from another D&D setting, provides the perfect framing device for the campaign. The characters hear rumors of each dungeon, with just enough information available to lead them to the next adventure. Perhaps a friendly NPC drawn from the upcoming adventure visits the tavern in search of help, or some element of a character’s background pushes the group down the proper road. In any case, these dungeons are designed to be easily portable to any campaign setting.

The Yawning Portal

Amid the bustle of Waterdeep, within the Castle Ward where barristers, nobles, and emissaries battle with word and contract, stands an inn not quite like any other. Before there was a Castle Ward or even what could be recognized as an ancestor of the City of Splendors, there was a dungeon, and in that dungeon begins the tale of the Yawning Portal.

In ages past, the mighty wizard Halaster built his tower at the foot of Mount Waterdeep and delved deep into tunnels first built by dwarves and drow in search of ever greater magical power. Halaster and his apprentices expanded the tunnels they found, worming out new lairs under the surface for reasons of their own. In time, their excavations grew into the vast labyrinth known today as Undermountain, the largest dungeon in all of the Forgotten Realms. Halaster eventually disappeared, as have all his apprentices, but the massive complex he built remains to this day.

For untold years, the secrets of Undermountain remained hidden from the surface world. Everyone who entered its halls failed to return. Its reputation as a death trap grew to the point that criminals in Waterdeep who were sentenced to die were forcibly escorted into the dungeon and left to fend for themselves.

All of that changed with the arrival of two men, a warrior named Durnan and a ne’er-do-well named Mirt. The duo were the first adventurers to return from Undermountain, laden with riches and magic treasures. While Mirt used his wealth to buy a mansion, Durnan had different plans. Durnan retired from adventuring and purchased the land on which sat the deep, broad well that was the only known entrance to the dungeon. Around this well he built a tavern and inn that caters to adventurers and those who seek their services, and he called it the Yawning Portal.

Some of the magic Durnan looted on his successful foray into Undermountain granted him a life span that exceeds even that of an elf. And for decades Durnan left delving into Undermountain to younger folk. Yet one day, something drew him back. Days of waiting for his triumphant return from the dungeon turned to months and then years. For nearly a century, citizens of Waterdeep thought him dead. But one night, a voice called up from the well. Few at first believed it could be Durnan, but folk as long-lived as he vouched it so. The Yawning Portal had passed into the hands of his ancestors, but Durnan returned with enough riches for them to quietly retire. Durnan took his customary place behind the bar, raised a toast to his own safe return, and then began serving customers as if he’d never left.

Adventurers from across Faerûn, and even from elsewhere in the great span of the multiverse, visit the Yawning Portal to exchange knowledge about Undermountain and other dungeons. Most visitors are content to swap stories by the hearth, but sometimes a group driven by greed, ambition, or desperation pays the toll for entry and descends the well. Most don’t survive to make the return trip, but enough come back with riches and tales of adventure to tempt other groups into trying their luck.

The Green Dragon Inn

The Yawning Portal is not the only renowned tavern in D&D lore. In the Free City of Greyhawk stands the Green Dragon Inn, which has been the starting point for some of the most successful expeditions to Castle Greyhawk and beyond. The place is crowded and smoke-filled. Patrons talk in low voices, and anyone attempting to strike up a conversation without making a clear intent to pay can expect a cold reception. Paranoia and suspicion run rampant here, as befits a free city that stands at the nexus between a devil-haunted empire, a vast domain locked in the iron tight grip of a demigod of evil, and a splintered, bickering host of kingdoms nominally committed to justice and weal. In the battered, weary world of Greyhawk, profit and power take precedence over heroics.

Features of the Yawning Portal

The Yawning Portal’s taproom fills the first floor of the building. The 40-foot-diameter well that provides access to Undermountain dominates the space. The “well” is all that remains of Halaster’s tower, and now, devoid of the stairways and floors that formed subterranean levels, it drops as an open shaft for 140 feet. Stirges, spiders, and worse have been known to invade the Yawning Portal from below.

Balconies on the tavern’s second and third floors overlook the well, with those floors accessed by way of wooden stairs that rise up from the taproom. Guests sitting at the tables on the balconies have an excellent view of the well and the action below.

Entering the Well

Those who wish to enter Undermountain for adventure (or the daring tourists who just want to “ride the rope”) must pay a gold piece to be lowered down. The return trip also costs a piece of gold, sent up in a bucket in advance. Once the initial payment is made, a few stairs takes one to the top of the waisthigh lip of the well. The rope that hangs in the center of the well is levered over to the lip by a beam in the rafters, and when those who have paid are ready, they mount the rope and take the long ride down.

Oddities on Display

A staggering variety of curios and oddities adorn the taproom. Traditionally, adventurers who recover a strange relic from Undermountain present it to Durnan as a trophy of their success. Other adventurers leave such curios to mark their visits to the tavern, or relinquish them after losing a bet with Durnan, who likes to wager on the fate of adventuring bands that enter the dungeon. Occasionally, something that strikes Durnan’s fancy can be used to pay a bar tab.

Yawning Portal Taproom Curios

(See also Template in the next Story)

A Typical Evening

On quiet nights, guests in the Yawning Portal gather around a large fireplace in the taproom and swap tales of distant places, strange monsters, and valuable treasures. On busier nights, the place is loud and crowded. The balconies overflow with merchants and nobles, while the tables on the ground floor are filled with adventurers and their associates. Invariably, the combination of a few drinks and the crowd’s encouragement induces some folk to pay for a brief trip down into Undermountain. Most folk pay in advance for a ride down and immediately back up, though a few ambitious souls might launch impromptu expeditions into the dungeon. Few such ill-prepared parties ever return.

Groups seeking to enter Undermountain for a specific reason generally come to the tavern during its quiet hours. Even at such times, there are still a few prying eyes in the taproom, lurkers who carry news of the comings and goings from Undermountain to the Zhentarim, dark cults, criminal gangs, and other interested parties.

Starting the Story

Kicking off a dungeon adventure can be as simple as having a mysterious stranger offer the characters a quest while they are at the Yawning Portal (or some other tavern). This approach is a cliché, but it is an effective one. Use the following two tables to generate a couple of details, then tailor the particulars of the quest and the quest giver to suit the adventure you plan to run.

Mysterious Stranger Quest

Mysterious Stranger Secret

(See also the Template below)

Durnan

The proprietor of the Yawning Portal is something of an enigma. Blessed with a seemingly limitless life span by treasures he brought back from his expedition nearly two centuries ago, he is as much a fixture in the tap room as the well.

Durnan is a man of few words. He expects to be paid for his time, and will offer insight and rumors only in return for hard cash. “We know the odds and take our chances,” he says, whether he is breaking up a card game that has turned violent or refusing the pleas of adventurers trapped at the bottom of the well who are unable to pay for a ride up. Despite his stony heart, he is an excellent source of information about Undermountain and other dungeons, provided one can pay his price.

Personality Trait: Isolation

It’s a cruel world. All people have to fend for themselves. Self-sufficiency is the only path to success.

Ideal: Independence

Someone who can stand alone can stand against anything.

Bond: The Yawning Portal

This place is my only home. My friends and family are long gone. I love this place, but I try not to get attached to the people here. I’ll outlive them all. Lucky me.

Flaw: Heartless

If you want sympathy, the Temple of Ilmater is in the Sea Ward. No matter how bad things are, you’ll be gone in a blink of an eye.

Other Denizens

The Yawning Portal is host to a variety of regular visitors, most of whom offer services to adventurers. Chapter 4 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide provides plenty of resources for generating nonplayer characters. The following table provides some possibilities for why an individual is visiting the Yawning Portal.

Denizens

The Sunless Citadel

All things roll here: horrors of midnights,

Campaigns of a lost year,

Dungeons disturbed, and groves of lights;

Echoing on these shores, still clear,

Dead ecstasies of questing knights—

Yet how the wind revives us here!

• Arthur Rimbaud

This adventure concerns a once-proud fortress that fell into the earth in an age long past. Now known as the Sunless Citadel, its echoing, broken halls house malign creatures. Evil has taken root at the citadel’s core, which is deep within a subterranean garden of blighted foliage. Here a terrible tree and its dark shepherd plot in darkness.

The tree, called the Gulthias Tree, is shepherded by a twisted druid, Belak the Outcast. He was drawn to the buried citadel twelve years ago, following stories of oddly enchanted fruit to their source. The druid found an old fortress that had been swallowed up by the earth in some sort of magically invoked devastation. With the previous inhabitants long dispersed, vile and opportunistic creatures common to lightless dungeons infested the subterranean ruins. At the core of the old fortress, Belak stumbled upon the Twilight Grove. He discovered at the grove’s heart the Gulthias Tree, which sprouted from a wooden stake that was used to slay an ancient vampire.

A perfect, ruby-red apple ripens on the Gulthias Tree at the summer solstice, and the tree produces a single albino apple at the winter solstice. The midsummer fruit grants vigor, health, and life, while the midwinter fruit steals the same. In the years since Belak’s arrival, the enchanted fruit has been widely dispersed through the surrounding lands, promoting good and ill. The seeds of either fruit, if allowed to sprout, grow into small plant monsters known as twig blights.

Adventure Synopsis

During their trip through the Sunless Citadel, characters deal with monstrous threats and ancient traps, as well as warring tribes of kobolds and goblins. The adventure is designed for four 1st-level player characters. They should advance through 2nd level to 3rd level before the finale. The adventure has four basic parts:

1. Oakhurst. Although it isn’t part of the adventure per se, the village of Oakhurst can provide the characters with valuable information about the citadel. They can also use Oakhurst as a place to recuperate and replenish supplies.

2. Kobold Den. The characters' foray into the citadel begins with an incursion into the most accessible areas of the fortress, where a tribe of kobolds has taken up residence. The characters can avoid strife with the kobolds by agreeing to retrieve a lost pet for the kobold leader, and they might be able to persuade the kobolds to join their side.

3. Goblin Lair. The goblins that live deeper inside the citadel consider themselves the owners of the place. They defend themselves aggressively against intrusion, making it difficult to avoid combat with them.

4. Hidden Grove. Eventually, the characters discover the lower level of the citadel and the Twilight Grove that lies within. There, they learn the truth about the enchanted fruit, and they must confront Belak the Outcast and the Gulthias Tree.

Running the Adventure

To enhance the experience of the players and help you do your best job as Dungeon Master, take the following pieces of advice and information into consideration.

Mapping

It can be difficult to keep track of all the corridors, turns, areas, and other features of a dungeon setting, and the player characters could soon get turned around without a map. Ask for a volunteer to be the party mapper. It’s the mapper’s job to listen carefully to your description of each area, noting its size and exits, and to record that information by sketching on a sheet of paper.

Placing the Adventure

The Sunless Citadel is designed to be easily located in whatever setting the DM prefers. Here are some examples.

Dragonlance

On Krynn, the citadel was once part of Xak Tsaroth, and it harbored worshipers of Takhisis. When that city was destroyed during the cataclysm, it fell into a rift that opened in the earth. In this setting, consider replacing the kobolds in the adventure with gully dwarves.

Eberron

Located near the western edge of the Mournland, the citadel was an ancient ruin even during the time of the Last War. Agents of Cyre used it as a way point for conducting espionage against neighboring realms. On the Day of Mourning, the earth opened up and swallowed the place. The Mournland is within sight of the rift.

Forgotten Realms

On Faerûn, the Sunless Citadel was once a secret stronghold of the Cult of the Dragon, located in the foothills northwest of Thundertree. It plunged into the earth when Mount Hotenow erupted and threw Neverwinter into chaos.

Greyhawk

The Sunless Citadel is a ruined Baklunish stronghold that was cast into the bowels of the earth when the Suel Imperium unleashed the Invoked Devastation. It is located in northwestern Bissel, in the foothills west of Thornward.

Time of Year

If you would like the characters to have the opportunity to find a fruit, begin the adventure a few weeks before either the summer or winter solstice. Apart from making a piece of fruit available on the Gulthias Tree, choosing a season provides you with additional details to set the scene, which enhances the adventure.

If you choose summer, the hills are lush with growth, though the heat sometimes grows oppressive. If the characters embark in the winter, temperatures hover just above freezing during the day and plunge below it at night.

About the Original

The Sunless Citadel, by Bruce R. Cordell, was originally published in 2000 as a beginning adventure for the third edition of the D&D game.

The adventure is widely regarded as an excellent way to introduce players to D&D. It’s also a great starting experience for a new DM.

Adventure Hooks

Adventurers can find the Sunless Citadel within a remote and lonely ravine. The characters can be drawn to the dungeon for any of the following reasons. Relate the information below to the players as necessary to get them interested in journeying to the dungeon site.

Going for Glory

You are eager to make a name for yourself. The legend of the Sunless Citadel is well known locally, and stories indicate it is a place that holds promise for those intent on discovery, glory, and treasure!

Rescue Mission

Another party of adventurers, locally based, delved into the Sunless Citadel a month past. They were never seen again. Two human members of that ill-fated party were brother and sister, Talgen Hucrele (a fighter) and Sharwyn Hucrele (a wizard). They were part of an important merchant family based in the nearby village of Oakhurst. Kerowyn Hucrele, the matriarch of the family, offers salvage rights to you and your team if you can find and return with the two lost members of her family-or at least return the gold signet rings worn by the missing brother and sister. She also offers a reward of 125 gp per signet ring, per character. If the characters bring back the Hucreles in good shape (of good mind and body), she offers to double the reward.

Solving a Mystery

The goblin tribe infesting the nearby ruins, called the Sunless Citadel, (though no one knows why) sells a single piece of magical fruit to the highest bidder in Oakhurst once every midsummer. They’ve been doing this for the last twelve years. Usually, the fruit sells for around 50 gp, which is all the townsfolk can bring themselves to pay a goblin. The fruit, apparently an apple of perfect hue, heals those who suffer from any disease or other ailment. They sometimes plant the seeds at the center of each fruit, hoping to engender an enchanted apple tree. When the seeds germinate in their proper season, they produce a twiggy mass of twisted sapling stems. Not too long after the saplings reach 2 feet in height, they are stolen-every time. The townsfolk assume the goblins send out thieves to ensure their monopoly of enchanted fruit. You are interested in piercing the mystery associated with how wretched goblins could ever possess such a wonder, and how they steal every sprouting sapling grown from the enchanted fruit’s seed. Moreover, you wish to find this rumored tree of healing, hoping to heal an ailing friend or relative.

Oakhurst

The community closest to the Sunless Citadel is a village called Oakhurst. Most of its 900 residents (including outlying farms) are human, with a sizable minority of halflings and a scattering of other races.

Significant locations in Oakhurst, and the people to be found within them, include the following:

Village Hall. The center of government in Oakhurst includes the office of Mayor Vurnor Leng, a male human noble.

General Store. The village’s main source for supplies and merchandise is the general store, owned and operated by Kerowyn Hucrele, a female human noble.

Shrine. Advice, information, and healing are among the services dispensed at the village’s shrine. It is maintained by Dem “Corkie” Nackle, a female gnome priest of Pelor.

Jail. Next to the village hall is a stout building where miscreants serve their sentences. Oakhurst’s constable is Felosial, a female half-elf veteran. She commands a force of sixteen guards and four scouts who keep the village safe.

Blacksmith. Repairing and forging arms and armor is the job of the village smithy, Rurik Lutgehr, a male dwarf commoner.

Ol' Boar Inn. Garon, a male human commoner, is the owner and barkeep of the Ol' Boar Inn. He serves food and drink, and the place has a few rooms that visitors can rent.

Rumors Heard in Oakhurst

Player characters can discover the following additional information while spending time in the local tavern, or through asking the right questions of the locals.

• No one knows for sure what the Sunless Citadel once was, but legends hint that it served as the retreat of an ancient dragon cult.
• The Old Road skirts the Ashen Plain, a lifeless area. A character who succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (History) check knows that the desolation is attributed to the long-ago rampage of a dragon named Ashardalon. A few locals also know this fact.
• Cattle herders don’t graze their stock too far afield these days. They’re frightened by stories of new monsters that maraud by night. From time to time, cattle and people who have gone out alone at night have been found dead the next day, bearing dozens of needle-like wounds. No one has seen the creatures that cause this mayhem, nor do they leave a discernible trail.
• The missing adventurers include a fighter (Talgen Hucrele), a wizard (Sharwyn Hucrele), a paladin of Pelor (Sir Braford), and a ranger (Karakas). Sir Braford was not a local, and he had a magic sword called Shatterspike.
• Sometimes the goblins offer a different apple at mid winter. This apple is corpse-white and poisonous, even to the touch. No samples of either apple are to be had.
• Garon, the barkeep of the Ol' Boar Inn, remembers the last time anyone, aside from Talgen and Sharwyn, asked questions about the Sunless Citadel. About thirteen years ago, a grim human named Belak stopped by, and he had a very large pet frog

Wilderness Encounters

If the characters are anywhere between Oakhurst and the Sunless Citadel at night, four twig blights attack the party. The blights attack stealthily from out of nearby foliage.