I have looming writing deadlines, yay! It follows that this is an ideal time to kick off a blog series that I’ve wanted to do for quite a while. I’m going to go through the adventures I’ve written and put down what I remember of them and the experience of writing them. Then I’ll read them and comment on what’s actually there. It might be interesting! I guess we’ll find out. First up…

The Barovian Book of the Dead! Spooky!

I came to 5e just as the DMsGuild was picking up steam. The DMsGuild was Chris Lindsay’s baby, and like most children, it took on a life of its own, sometimes meeting and otherwise deviating from its parent’s expectations. The original intention, as I understand it, was to have a space in which amateur writers could use WotC IP freely (classic prank call name query there) and the best of the bunch could receive their due attention from on high. Neither of those exactly happened. The DMsGuild is still a repository for amateur works, now doubled up with AI-generated material, the mass of which floats upon the surface like the shocking amount of plastic in the Pacific Ocean. However, treading that mix of water and non-biodegradable slurry are the would-be and sometimes-are professionals. At some point after the slow start, a switch was thrown, and a lunatic arms race began, hundreds of pages filling with commissioned art that would rarely be paid for with the meager fifty percent royalty rate on the often even more meager sales. It was madness by the common definition, doing the same thing again and again while hoping for a different result. Still, some folks found a way to make the system work for them.

Enter Christian Eichhorn. He put out an open call, probably on Twitter, as it was still an exciting and joyful place to talk about D&D at the time. He was looking for writers for an anthology of side adventures that could slot into Storm King’s Thunder. Why SKT? I’m not entirely certain. I think Tomb of Annihilation had been out for eight or nine months, but I’ll have to check the dates. But it didn’t really matter if it was the freshest release on the shelf. In those halcyon days of the slow WotC release schedule, adventures felt like they had some permanence. I think it’s shame to have lost that.

I reached out and said I’d like to take part, and despite my complete lack of experience writing adventures for publication, I was brought on. I spent a few afternoons that summer hammering out a siege scenario. It went through RP Davis’s capable editing, and then that was that. Shortly afterwards, it came out! Amazing, first try! Christian knocked it out of the park. He cleverly snipped and rearranged public domain art and made one of the best looking releases to grace the DMsGuild. The art race began shortly after, but I took away from Christian’s work the lesson that you can make things without spending a lot of money, and then as I got to watch the royalties be dispensed, you probably should. It was a great experience, Christian ran a tight ship, and I was able to pay for Adventurers League modules and other odd supplements afterwards without drawing on my PayPal account as much.

What did I write? I immediately departed from the giant theme, and I’m not sure why. I had a vision of a ruined temple that the characters could explore, and while they were poking around in it, an endless army of skeletons would lay siege to it. The PCs would have to figure out how to stop the undead or at least try to escape with their lives. An old fashioned siege defense, good times! It’s going to be interesting to see what I actually wrote, but think I was successful. I had a quest-giver NPC, a Halfling archaeologist named Iannar June, who could be ignored. In fact, the entire adventure can be ignored! Or at least the hook can be, and advice is given to the DM for that contingency (skeletons begin to roam the countryside and can be a problem for the PCs later). As I’ve stated previously, emergent, open play is at the heart of what makes RPGs matter, so designers should lean into it whenever possible.

I took a cue from AL modules and included scaling suggestions for the encounters in my adventure. This struck a chord and Christian asked the rest of the writers to do the same. Sorry for giving you extra work, team! It seemed to become more widespread on the DMsGuild after that. I obviously can’t take credit, it’s one thing that AL has done consistently from the beginning and it’s a generally helpful thing to include.

I don’t know exactly why I tied the Book of the Dead to Barovia. I had Curse of Strahd (and the rest of the WotC 5e books) on loan from my library for months (or years, Princes of the Apocalypse), but I can’t say I’d done much more than flip through it. I guess it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it was to make an extra connection? I pitched (or maybe wrote a sidebar) with an alternate idea of having Orcus be behind the titular evil artifact, and it would have made more sense. I still want to write an adventure around what Orcus was doing during Out of the Abyss, and maybe I will, someday…

The scenario was solid, as I recall. They can poke around in the upper level, and at some point, either the PCs find their way downstairs or the NPC does. If he gets down there first, he triggers the evil artifact and skeletons rise from the surrounding ancient battlefield and begin assailing the temple. I included a mechanic to pace the assault and ratchet up the tension. For monsters, I threw in a couple giant skeletons in to keep things somewhat on theme, and there are some mummified monks in the crypts who are pretty cool. All in all, it felt like a solid one shot or side quest. JVC Parry reviewed the anthology and said, “For what it is, this adventure is perfect,” and I thought that was a very nice thing to say.

And it catapulted me to stardom! Just kidding. But I did print out some copies to give out as writing samples at GameholeCon, and one in particular led to an important contact and my first AL writing gig, which led in turn to all the others. But that is a tale for another time. There was another anthology in the works, this time tied to Out of the Abyss, but it wasn’t completed. I still have half an adventure that I started writing for it, so I’m as much to blame as anyone else. Christian went on to make loads more lovely stuff, and I deeply appreciate that he took a chance on me.

What I Actually Wrote: “The Barovian Book of the Dead” is an enjoyable, quick read. I would change a few things, like trimming down the introductory boxed text, presenting descriptive text more efficiently, and dialing back the level range (8th level characters are going to tear through skeletons), but it’s structurally sound and would be a nice diversion. Christian drew the maps in addition to doing project management and layout and they look great. There’s a quirk on mine, the windows of the chapel are numbered one through ten because I made a tracker sheet for the DM to use during the siege, but it was accidentally not included with the adventure. No big deal, really. All in all, I’m pretty happy with this. Nicely done, Andy of Adventures Past.

Storm King’s Barrows: Tombs and Crypts of the North was originally published to the DMsGuild on July 15, 2018, a few days before my eleventy-hundredth birthday, and nearly a year after Tomb of Annihilation, to answer that question.