Voyage to the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

Let's get this out of the way right at the start. You don't need to include a voyage if you run Isle of Dread. I know that sounds odd since this adventure takes place on an island. But it is very possible to start the adventure with the ship coming into sight of the island, or the players waking up after being ship wrecked on the mysterious island.

But if you decide to include a voyage portion, here is some advice on how to run that.

The Voyage

First you need a crew and a ship. If you are playing 5th Edition you have a few resources to help you with this. The Player's Handbook provides the costs for passage on a ship (1sp per mile) and the cost and speed of a few types of vessels. Both of these appear in the Equipment chapter. And, um, yeah that's about all there is. I was hoping the Dungeon Masters Guide would have a few specifics for sea travel, but it is very focused on overland and dungeon exploration. There is a solid weather table you could use for travel, but that is about it.

I'm sure this is fine... right?

The 5th edition resource you may want to pick up is Ghosts of Saltmarsh which has an appendix all about ships and crew. It gives you plenty of material to work with, but some folks found the ship combat rules, and crew roles to be underwhelming. I think it depends on how much time you are going to spend on the ship and how involved you want to get with ship to ship combat. 

I found it all very helpful, and even though I referenced other sources like the old Rules Cyclopedia which has pretty detailed ship combat mechanics, and some of the material from The Mintrothad Guilds gazetteer to inspire some crew concepts, those were not necessary.

Ghost of Saltmarsh includes some solid sea travel/exploration rules, and I found those pretty inspiring to add hazards during the voyage. I think if you are going to spend a good chunk of your time at sea, then picking up this book for the appendix (and a few really well written adventures) is worth the money. 

When building out the crew, I would make most of them friendly and helpful. Maybe have one see a player character as friendly rival. Take some time to flesh out a few of these crew members, giving them a reason for taking to the seas, and seeking adventure. Make the crew likable and engaging, so when things start to go wrong on the Isle of Dread, you have a way to increase the stakes. It makes for a great tool to put some of the crew (or the whole ship) in danger. For a 5th edition game, this can be very important, since it may become harder and harder to actually cause tension for the players.

I would also decide on the danger level of the Sea of Dread. I mean, it has that name for a reason, so you may want to add some perilous natural features, weather or pirates. The trick is to not go too crazy with the bizarre and the terrifying. You want to save that kind of thing for the main event: The Isle of Dread. But you may want to make the voyage have some interesting and memorable moments.

Ragtag? Sure. But lovable just the same.

From a storytelling perspective, talk up the danger of the Sea of Dread. Perhaps most voyagers stick close to the coast and known islands. But the Sea of Dread is uncharted and filled with danger. Only the crazy or the fearless go there. Maybe the voyage starts off simple enough with some trips to local known islands. But that last stop, have the crew get nervous. Have the quartermaster triple check the supplies, because they are sailing into unknown waters. If you gave your group a nautical chart, have the navigator obsess over it, wanting to make sure they understand the distances at play. 

Then the ship leaves the known and heads into the unknown. This is a key moment in your adventure, and there should be a moment where the players and the crew let those emotions play out. Then the next encounter should reinforce that feeling of danger and oddity. Maybe a freak storm with magical properties erupts. Maybe some merfolk hail the vessel from a coral reef, and provide a hint about The Isle of Dread, or some bizarre sea creature attacks or tries to interact with the vessel. 

If you are going to include the voyage, make it memorable, but don't let it take up too much space in the adventure. The Isle of Dread is the star, the voyage is the warm up act. Pick your encounters to contrast with the world left behind, and preview the world they are entering. Then have them catch sight of the isle, and once again the crew can react. They did it! They survived the crossing of uncharted waters. And now riches and fame lie ahead - as long as they can make it back alive.

My Experience

The good thing about really turning the voyage to the Isle of Dread into an event in itself was that I really got to play up the mystery and danger of the island. When the players got a ship and crew they started the voyage into the very civilized Guild Islands (borrowed directly from Mystara).

More gazetteer action.

As the players continued south, the island civilizations became less advanced. I borrowed concepts from the Mystara gazetteer about the island Kingdom of Ierendi for this portion, and it was pretty neat. But let me clear - it was also a ton of extra work, reading these gazetteers, pulling them apart for pieces, and building adventures on them. It was fun. But it was also building up my DM Overload meter. Something I didn't realize I had. Burnout was coming right for me. 

Finally I added a magical barrier between the known sea and the mysterious islands to the south. I had been building up the dangers of the barrier for a good chunk of the game. And now I unleashed it on the players. It turned into a mini-game of insanity - literally warping the characters minds and causing them to do foolish and dangerous acts. My players were pretty resilient (this is 5th edition after all) but the crew of the ship wasn't. And putting them in danger made my players leap into heroics. 

That was the other side effect of building out the voyage. My players made friends (and in one case a lover) among the crew and officers of the ship. They really liked some of these NPCs, and to this day you can mention one of these character names, and the players will get nostalgic and happy with memories. It worked great for the barrier, because the crew was having a tough time with it, and the heroic players were doing everything they could to keep the crew from hurting themselves or others. Great stuff, and another moment that one player called his favorite event from the campaign.

After passing the barrier the sea encounters became more dangerous, the islands more wild and magical. There was more evidence of the works of ancient civilizations and gods. The players really felt like they had passed into a wild frontier of unexplored lands. And once again, I built all kinds of stuff here because I was afraid to screw up the actual Isle of Dread itself. Some of it was great, like the entire island of Colossa pulled from one of my favorite adventure movies as a kid The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. In fact it had elements from all three Harryhausen Sinbad movies, and was something I would love to run again some day. 

Oh yeah, she was there. Sadly the party never
ran into her.

All this was more work as I home-brewed more material, and tied it to more backstory elements. And continued updating the Isle of Dread with more homebrew content, so that when they arrived it felt unique and exciting. So much extra work. DM burnout was hurtling like a runaway train. And it was going to hit all too soon.

It was around this point that I really understood how powerful 5th edition player characters were. One player was running a simple Champion Fighter. Nothing special, and with simple Feats added. But the amount of damage he could dish out caught me completely by surprise. And the amount of punishment he could take was impressive as well. I also made the mistake of handing out a couple of very potent magic items to the group. Looking back, I should have nerfed them as soon as I was aware how broken they were, but I chickened out. The party really started to steamroll through encounters I thought would be very challenging. And suddenly an island full of dinosaurs looked much less impressive for this group of characters. It was one of the reasons I started to add more and more homebrew to the Isle of Dread itself - because I felt the encounters as written are just not going to be a challenge.

Eventually the party arrived at the northern islands of the archipelago including the Isle of Dread. The long overland journey, the dangerous voyage leading to this moment. I had spent two thirds of this campaign building up the isle, I felt there was no way it could live up to it. 

I was freaking out.

My Hook for the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

My previous post about hooks for the Isle of Dread was a bit long, so I figured I'd pull out my personal experience dealing with hooks for this article. No real advice here, but hope you find it interesting and a bit amusing, as I make several obvious mistakes in my zeal to get this adventure going.

My Experience

A fun adventure for starting players
and characters.

Looking back at the way I ran this campaign, it was a glorious mess. It was my first long running 5th edition campaign, and I threw everything into it. The result was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. It was the excitement of building this world for my players, but also fear of screwing it all up.

If I were to run this again, I would probably use the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh for new players, or start in the Guild Isles of Mystara with a cult of Kopru for seasoned players. Then have a few island hopping adventures before getting them to the Isle of Dread itself. A faster turn ramp up to the main event than I actually ended up doing.

Back in 2020, I was still a newish DM. I had tried to homebrew an adventure and failed spectacularly. Then I ran a good chunk of Dragon of Icespire Peak and had a lot of fun with it, before the pandemic shut it down. Now, I'd been playing characters in two regular games for about three years up to that point, but running the game sporadically.

So I was a bit timid to dive right into a nautical adventure, when I had only really run and played in more traditional settings. For some reason I was also convinced that I needed to have the port city be a huge impressive place. So I wanted the time to flesh that out. I started my campaign in a very traditional mountain village with a local problem with a cursed ghost. This town was miles and miles away from the big port city (based loosely on Specularum in Mystara). We ended up spending many sessions with the small village adventure and then overland travel to the city and then exploring the city and finally getting the ship. All of this was a ton of fun, and created so many memorable moments - but it was about a third of the total campaign - too much.

What is funny is that this whole start would have made a great mini campaign by itself. That starting village was great, and the situation and NPCs were a lot of fun. In fact one player admitted that it was his favorite part of the whole campaign. But I did all that, because I was world building like crazy behind the scenes trying to make this impressive city and island adventures for the journey and seeding the main plot.

This trilogy was one of my favorite during 
junior high and into high school.

In my quest to include all my favorite 80s fantasy stuff in one adventure (who knows when I'd get to run a homebrew world again) I took the world of Mystara as a skeleton, overlaid the lore from Dragonlance onto it (with the cataclysm and the gods vanishing) and then added the Chosen One concept, with one player being selected to bring the gods back to the world.

Don't do this. Ever.

Never put a player in the situation where they are the Chose One. It turns the campaign into a one person focal point. It puts pressure on that player. Or worse, you could get a player who abuses this. The poor player I did this to told me later that she really disliked this aspect of the story, and felt it forced her into too many awkward and uncomfortable situations. It was never my intent, I thought it was fun and a power fantasy - but that wasn't why she was playing. 

When I ran this, the gods were being prevented from returning by a powerful ancient monster, Kopru, who needed to be stopped. But first the characters had to find the location of the mysterious Isle of Dread, and then get a crew crazy enough to sail into the dangerous Sea of Dread. I added a bunch of other side stories and elements based on the character's backstories. It turned the saga into a very personal adventure for them - and I really love how that turned out. They were invested in those storylines and it helped build some great character moments.

One good thing about the way this all played out, was that the Chosen One elements and main storyline all evolved organically. It felt like a novel with the characters discovering what role they had to play and how it all interconnected. And yeah that is the writer in me speaking. But a novel and an RPG are very different things. Yeah, my story was linear for the most part - and in a way the opposite of what The Isle of Dread was supposed to be. And yet, the end result was a memorable campaign that ran for over a year. 

Great setting for classic D&D
adventures

For the main port city, I took the Gazetteer: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos and used that as my basis for this opening portion of the campaign. This old school resource is full of great locations, NPCs and plot hooks. You could use it to run a very fun campaign right here. I mainly used it for the town and city locations the characters encountered on the way from the starting village (that I created) and to get to the ship. While I was fleshing out the port city (transforming it from Specularum in the Gazetteer to Mystemere in my setting), I got completely immersed in city creation. I spent way too much time trying to get it "perfect". And while it was fun and interesting. Ultimately the party didn't spend a lot of time here. I really could have spent time on other things especially for the later portion of the campaign. 

Once the characters go their hands on a vessel and crew to sail the Sea of Dread, we were ready to dive into the voyage. But that is another story for another post.

Hooking the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

The Isle of Dread adventure is more of a campaign setting, full of interesting locations, encounters and treasures. While it contains adventure hooks to get things rolling, they are a bit bare bones. In this post I'll talk about what the adventure gives you, what other things you could try and what I ended up doing.

I'll be referencing the Goodman Games reprint for 5th edition. If I switch to the original printing, I'll let you know.

Starting using the Module

Alternate cover ahoy!

This adventure was written in 1980, and makes the assumption that your player characters are seeking treasure so they can level up. Back then, experience points were given based on treasure, and that was a great motivation for any party. With that in mind, most of the hooks revolve on finding untold riches on the Isle of Dread.

You get one detailed hook and three supporting hooks. The detailed one is an account by a sailor who traveled to the island and stopped there briefly. He talks about meeting the locals and trading with them. He discovered rumors of an ancient civilization flourishing and falling here. Its ruins are scattered across the island, the most impressive being a forgotten city filled with riches. He includes a rough map in his account.

This is a solid hook to work with. You could easily turn the written account into an actual NPC and have him tell the player characters all this and provide them with the map. Maybe he is too old or sick to go, but wants to pass this along to a dear friend or relative. As presented in the module this all happens because the PCs stumble across the account and map by pure luck. I like adding that personal connection.

One of the minor hooks is similar with a brief account of a massive black pearl of incalculable value hidden on the island. Not a bad hook. You could even say the pearl has magical properties that might entice the PCs further. This could be a local legend, but you need something tangible to kick the adventure off. Again, an NPC or chart to the isle or magical guide could be used to get the quest for the pearl rolling. 

"No, I really did see a black pearl the size of
your head. Do I look like a liar?"

Or you could combine the account of the sailor with the legend of the pearl, and give the PCs a goal to seek out on the island. If you have a group that needs or wants a clear cut goal, this could work great. With both of these hooks, you can easily skip past the voyage to the island and just start with the ship in sight of the Isle of Dread. You also don't have to develop the crew of the ship all that much, since they are pretty much around to take the players to different spots and wait for them.

Then you get the option to be working for a merchant who sees the Isle of Dread as a trading opportunity. Essentially he hires the PCs to travel to the island, scout out the resources and make contact with the locals to set up a trading post. If you have a group that likes to focus on role-play over combat, this might be a good option. They are not going to the isle to fight, but to make friends and set up trade. One thing I would avoid is turning this into an exercise in colonialism. That can lead to some very dark and disturbing areas that not everyone is comfortable with. If you do select this route, then creating NPCs for the vessel and their goal in the operation will become important. This may require some extra work on the DMs part.

The last option could be a fun one with the right group. Just start with the characters waking up after a shipwreck. They are on the Isle of Dread with a few other cast away NPCs, and then set about exploring and trying to survive in this dangerous wilderness. You could ramp up the survival aspects of the game (especially if you are using an old school rules variant). This hook throws the players right into the adventure, and you can keep the NPCs to a minimum (mostly as back up characters in case one of the player character's die).

Starting with other material

The Isle of Dread adventure is recommended for characters at level 3. If you want a full level 1 to 7 campaign, then you might need some material to get those first three levels under the character's belts. The adventure provides you with a mini world setting including some brief descriptions of lands and islands to start the adventure in. These would all become the Mystara setting in later modules and gazetteers. What you get here is pretty sparse, but you could use it as a jumping off point for some homebrew adventures

Go full classic Mystara if you
start here.

There are a couple of adventures that could provide a good starting point. One is the classic adventure The Veiled Society, which starts at level 1 and goes up to level 3. It takes place in the city of Specularum in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, which is a massive port city. It gives the players experience in the city and then you can tie it to obtaining the ship or the hook for the Isle of Dread as part of the reward for completing the adventure.

The other option is to take the first adventure of Ghosts of Saltmarsh (5th edition adventure collection) and use that as starting point. This adventure contains pirates and smugglers, and ends with the party possibly obtaining their own ship! It makes for a solid starting point, with some of the NPCs from that adventure and in the town of Saltmarsh being accessible as crew for the voyage. This is a great option if you are using 5th edition to run this adventure, and want to use published material to flesh out your adventure.

For even looser starting points, you could select ports in any campaign setting you wish, and build some low level adventures tied to those locations. Waterdeep in the Forgotten realms could work fine, with someadventures around the docks being a good way to start things off.

If you want to stick to the Mystara setting, but want the voyage to start a bit closer, you can pick up the gazetteer for the Minrothad Guilds which contains a bunch of information about these trading guilds and their rivalries. It includes several low level adventure ideas that you can use to build the characters up to level 3. This would be a solid fit for a group that wants to explore trading and role playing options on the Isle of Dread. 

Starting with home-brew

Magical trident on a lost island? Go for it!

If you want to craft your own material then even more options are available. Focus on your players and what they enjoy in a game. If you aren't sure, then you can give them a goal, but allow for some wiggle room to expand beyond that if you wish.

The great thing about this module is that it is very flexible and you can fit it into a campaign very easily. I see three obvious ways to make this work (and I'm sure you can come up with more). 

The Isle of Dread is the location of:

• A potent magical item or lore
• A dangerous enemy that must be defeated
• A powerful ally that must be bargained with

The first two are the easiest to manage, since the adventure provides you with plenty of material to work with. There are magical items scattered throughout the island, and you could pick one as a goal for your party. Or pick a magic item from the Dungeon Master's Guide (or other similar resource) that fits your campaign, and slide it into a location that is suitable. 

Forgotten lore works the same way, with plenty of ancient locations and artifacts waiting to be discovered on the island. You will need to seed hints about the location of the lore, and turn the adventure into an investigation as they piece together the location of the treasure or lore and discover it.  This option works great with the exploration focus of the original module.

When it comes to antagonists, you have a lot to pick from on the Isle of Dread. The two obvious one are the pirates and the monstrous Kopru. 

Did someone say orc pirates?

Focusing on the pirates is easy enough, making the Isle of Dread their base of operations. If this is the focus of the campaign, you probably need to flesh out the pirates a bit more, giving them more ships and captains. At the end of the Goodman Games update, you'll find a couple of pirate crews ready to be added to the adventure. One with ties to the shark cult and one that is undead. You may want to figure out a goal for the leader of the pirates, and how the players can interfere with it. For added flavor, make it a confederation of multiple pirate groups on the island, and the players can pit them against each other. While the rest of the island kind of turns into side quest material, it can also serve as hidden resources the pirates are attempting to find and use to complete their goal - whatever that might be.

Kopru are unique monsters in D&D history and most new players won't know anything about them. Their mental powers and specific biology make them tricky and dangerous opponents. Turning them into the focus of evil spreading out from Isle of Dread can be a lot of fun. Essentially allowing you to make a cult of Kopru that is bent on dominating as much of your campaign world as possible. This can be an insidious evil that starts with corrupted cultists doing evil deeds in the port city (a connection to The Veiled Society adventure). As the players uncover more information they find that the origin of the cult is across the Sea of Dread. They then seek out the source of the cult, leading to island hopping adventures - gaining levels until they reach level 3, and arrive at the Isle of Dread. Here they seek out the source of the cult, interacting with the various locals (who have cult member embedded within or may already be completely loyal to the Kopru). Eventually everything leads to the plateau and the hidden temple within. 

Don't see enough bronze dragons these days.

The ally option is a bit trickier because you would need a reason for the ally be on this very dangerous island. Are they a prisoner here? Are they researching the ancient ruins, seeking out forbidden knowledge? Are they obsessed with taming and training dinosaurs? You can have your ally be willing to help the PCs in exchange for something they need done. It can be as simple as retrieving the black pearl from the hidden temple or as dangerous as destroying the ancient monster Kopru. You have a lot of options to play with and build a fun story around. Your biggest hurtle is creating an interesting NPC with a valid reason for being on the island. One option would be to have a bronze dragon living on the island. These underused dragons live on coasts, are intelligent and helpful to a heroic party. Could make for some fun and interesting interactions. 

And this post is long enough. Next time I'll tell you what I attempted. Including all the silly mistakes I made.

Isle of Dread - Advice and Experiences

 Here is a spot where I will collect all my article about running the Isle of Dread adventure for Dungeons and Dragons. I ran this as a 5th edition campaign, but my advice is pretty system agnostic. I hope you find it entertaining and useful.

• What is the Isle of Dread? - Explanation of the adventure and a brief history of my experience with Dungeons and Dragons leading up to me running it for my group.
• Why Isle of Dread? - Why you should consider this adventure for your group and what it offers.
• Hooking the Isle of Dread - Exploring adventure hooks you can use for your game to hook the player characters into seeking out the island.
• My Hook for the Isle of Dread - I take a critical look at the path I picked and what I did wrong.
• Voyage to the Isle of Dread - How do you get your players to the island in the first place?
• Village of Dread? - Inhabitants of the Isle and how to use them.
• Dragons of Dread - Here be dragons and what they are used for.

Why Isle of Dread?

 Why run Isle of Dread?

With so many published adventures and campaign settings out there, why should you consider the Isle of Dread for your group? Here are a few reasons:

Ranger ready to range in the jungle

A lot of fifth edition hardback adventures focus on plot and combat, and the exploration angle to Dungeons and Dragons takes a back seat. But Isle of Dread leans into the exploration portion of the game pretty well. With this massive island almost completely unexplored and pockets of civilization rare, it really becomes a setting where characters like Rangers and Druids can shine. There are also a few abilities and feats in the game that are focused on the exploration side, and these will finally get some play. Finally there is a real element of the unknown to this setting. Upon landing on the Isle of Dread it really feels like the characters are entering a unique land with different rules, culture and natural phenomena.

As a campaign setting Isle of Dread is extremely flexible. You can run it right out of the book, and create a very classic 80s D&D experience. You can pick and choose your favorite set pieces, NPCs and monsters and use them in your homebrew world. There are plenty of fascinating elements to this setting that could work in just about any game with only a minor adjustment or two. I've also heard from several old timer GMs that they have run Isle of Dread multiple times over the years and it has been a unique experience each time. Some GMs shifted the focus of the campaign each time, but usually the players explored the island in a unique way from party to party. You can get a lot of use out of this setting over the years.

I'm sure it was all a mistranslation.

When this was released in 1980, this adventure was very unique compared to its contemporaries. Most D&D adventures of the era stuck with the traditional medieval inspired fantasy. But Isle of Dread is a unique setting. It is a tropical island filled with dinosaurs and long extinct giant mammals like saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths. You've got the villagers of Taneroa who use the undead was a workforce. There is an enclave of pirates - full on eyepatch, peg-leg pirates. Add to that the unique creatures you encounter like the flying squirrel/monkey hybrids the Phanaton. You also meet the wickedly intelligent giant spiders known as the Aranea who have disturbing chitinous hands. And then the first of the cat-people in D&D, the nomadic Rakasta. And of course who can forget the sinister Kopru and their mind control powers. Mix this in with some classic movie and novel tropes ranging from King Kong to Jurassic Park and you have something that your players will remember.

And that is the final reason to run this adventure. Because it has been around since 1980 and included in a widely available box set and then adapted several times over numerous editions of D&D, you run into a lot of folks how have played it. Isle of Dread links generations of game players, and they can share war stories about meeting the phanton tribe, their encounter with a T-rex and how they dealt with Kopru. 

For me those are four great reasons to give the Isle of Dread a try, or at least pick it up and read through.

What is The Isle of Dread?

Introduction 

The return of the classic.

The first successfully completed campaign I ran for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition was based on The Isle of Dread. This module was created for the Basic version of D&D back in 1980. I picked up the Goodman Games conversion to 5th Edition published in 2018. I bought it mostly for nostalgia sake, but also with a thin hope of running a retro campaign one day.

I got that chance in 2020, for a group of five players online for over a year. It was a ton of fun, and we created some great stories and memories that we still talk about to this day. In this series, I'm going to talk about my experiences running the Isle of Dread. I'll tell you what worked, what didn't and what I changed and what I wish had done differently. 

I will front load the advice at the start, and then save my reminiscing for the second half with section called My Experience.

What is the Isle of Dread

The Isle of Dread module is actually a campaign setting. It doesn't matter if you are using the classic module or the Goodman Games update - you are essentially getting the same material. 

Time, why are you so forgetful?

This setting is a tropical island campaign involving lots of exploration on land and at sea. The focus is a large island (the Isle of Dread) and its surrounding smaller islands and reefs. You get a bunch of adventuring locations and set pieces on the island. There are a large number of non-player characters (NPCs) to interact with including pirates, cultists, villagers and four unique races with their own societies/cultures and goals. 

Adventure locations include unique natural formations, strange ancient monuments, cave networks and even a couple good sized dungeons to crawl through. There are settlements on the main island, but also on the smaller islands and even under the water. Player characters (PCs) can befriend or antagonize the locals in a multitude of ways.

The Isle itself is very much inspired by Skull Island from King Kong and the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (such as The Land that Time Forgot) with dense jungles, roaming dinosaurs, and cave people. The adventure is targeted at characters from 3rd to 7th level, and is fairly grounded when it comes to magic. 

Treasures and secrets abound on the island, the players are expected to explore to find them. You get a nifty player map that only shows the basic outline of the island itself, with a few coastal details. The rest is for the players to fill in.

You don't get an overarching plot or central antagonist. There is a very powerful monster on the island who can act as your Big Bad, if you like. But there are no story threads leading the players to this monster. Story hooks to get the adventure started are provided, and they focus on your players seeking fame and fortune, and having a vessel to travel to the island. Depending on the group, the DM may need to create a bit more of a story to get everything moving.

You don't get any material for a ship or crew. These are things the DM will need to create, depending on how much you want that to be a part of the game.

Classic art of Kopru from the original print.

You get some bare bones material to get the adventure rolling from a port in civilized lands. Your mileage may vary with the provided material. But the focus of the adventure text is the setting and the encounters within.

The Isle of Dread is a rich adventure location with plenty to offer a DM. You can run it right from the book as straight exploration focused sandbox. Or you can modify it to fit your existing campaign but making it a key location in the larger scope of the story. It has some great locations to hide that special treasure of macguffin the party is seeking out. You have plenty of dangerous antagonists that can become a focal point for the adventurers including the pirates, the shark cultists, and of course the infamous monster Kopru and his dedicated followers.

This adventure book is very versatile and is an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a fun island location with lots of dinosaurs, exploration and unique characters to meet.

My Experience

My first experience with D&D was the red box Basic set by Frank Mentzer created in 1983. I probably ran into it a couple years after that, when a friend of mine tried to run me through the castle adventure included in the book. This was a hurried session during recess in fifth grade or so. I remember creating a thief and then failing to climb a wall and getting killed by a carrion crawler monster.

Red and blue box sets for the win!

I got the box set myself later that year, and was immediately drawn into the solo adventure where you meet Aleena the cleric and Bargle the infamous. I had already read some of the early Endless Quest books and had a couple in my collection. So I was familiar with the concept of D&D. But I struggled to get any of my friends to give it a try. Eventually the same friend who ran me through the castle adventure gave me the rules to the Expert set. But by this point I was more interested in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons - and thought that regular "basic" rules were for kids. Yeah I was kid myself, don't judge me.

I read through the Expert rulebook, and somewhere in it or with it was information about this module called The Isle of Dread, which just sounded cool! I remember seeing the cover with the characters fighting a T-Rex and it just got my mind going. But I never got my hands on the module, even though I'm pretty sure I saw it at the local bookstore on a number of occasions.

Jump forward to around 2019 or so. I'm thinking of running my own campaign for a group of friends online. I want to set it in a low magic low fantasy setting like my memories of old school D&D. I grab a bunch of world building notes for a fantasy novel I wrote around 2016 or so, and then looked for an old school module to combine it with. doing some internet research, I find the name Isle of Dread and it sparks all kinds of memories and ideas. 

Let the voyage to the isle begin!

Looking into it, this module is fondly remembered by a lot of older players. Plenty of war stories of exploring the mysteries of the island, battling pirates and facing down Kopru. Reviews also mentioned how it was a teaching module designed to show the new DM how to focus on exploration outside of a dungeon. This sounded useful, and when I discovered that Goodman Games had just published a revised version for 5th Edition, including the original versions of the old module and interviews with the original writers and creators of the module - it just sounded like a good buy. I do love me some RPG history.

So picked it up for myself, even if I didn't end up running it. And it was a fun read all the way around. When I ended up pitching campaign ideas to the online group, I threw in Isle of Dread as an option. Not really thinking anyone would be up for a nautical exploration campaign.

But I was wrong, nearly everyone selected Isle of Dread as their first pick for the campaign. And so I got to serious work re-reading the module and prepping it for play. In the end I fused several of my other campaign ideas into this one, turning it into a rather clunky but entertaining saga that took over a year to complete. But it all started here, with memories of an old copy of the Expert rules and the mention of that title.

Homebrew your 5th Edition setting - Dungeon Master Tools

Looks pretty darn magical out there.

 In an earlier post, I talked about knowing what type of game Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition was and how understanding that can lead to better games at the table. I gave some example on preparing your sessions using that information.

But what if you want to build a campaign world for a 5th edition home-brew campaign? How do you apply those points?

Here are the points again.

• The player characters are powerful and will only get more powerful.
• The game expects a setting where magic is everywhere and well known and used often.
• Anything can happen and it often does.
• Most of the rules in the game revolve around combat with monsters and how to resolve it.

While you often see the default setting for Dungeons and Dragons as medieval European inspired. That familiar trope can clash with the way the game is currently played. For me the disconnect is very strong. It can be difficult to reconcile medieval castles and knights dealing with flying player characters that look like cat people who can shoot lances of fire from their fingertips while strumming a lute. It gets comical and silly really damn quick. And if you are going for a comical game, then it works great. But if you are more interested in running a serious game, then it can be a challenge.

If you look beyond the classic Forgotten Realms setting and at some of the other campaign settings for 5th Edition from Wizards of the Coast you see some appealing alternatives. A lot of folks love the Eberonn setting, with its pulp noire aesthetic and fusion of magic and technology. 

Had a blast in this setting!

I ran a year long campaign in the Ravnica setting, based on a high magic super-city from the Magic: The Gathering card game. This was a blast, and the high magic/high power of 5th edition fit easily into the setting. It also allows for lots of intrigues and crazy combat situations. 

Spelljammer with its interplanetary travel, Planescape with its dimensional hopping and Theros with its divine powered characters and destinies can all work with the bigger scope that fits 5th edition. I haven't had a chance to take a look at it, but the setting of the Radiant Citadel, from the adventure anthology Journeys through the Radiant Citadel looks like a good fit and with an all new setting created specifically for this edition. 

So look at these settings for inspiration for your home-brew. For me, a lot of the powers and spells could also easily fit in fantasy worlds found in anime and Japanese role playing games like Final Fantasy. In my mind, the further you pull away from a grounded historical setting and open up an imaginative large scale world, the better the fit for this edition of the game.

So let's ask a couple of world building questions that will help you create a world for your 5th edition campaign.

• Why is your setting so magical - what caused it to be that way?
• What kind of threat are you presenting that will take super heroes to resolve?
• If magic is everywhere and nearly everyone can access it, what keeps everyone from being a super hero?

Coming to grips with those three questions will help you create a campaign that can build up to higher levels of play. If there is one thing that Dungeons and Dragons players love - it is leveling up. It also answers some basic questions about the world that your players may find useful during character creation and backstory development.

Worldbuilding can be a lot of fun, and a whole rabbit hole of work if you aren't careful. So remember, that you are creating a setting for your players to explore and interact with. Keeping that player focus helps you stay on target and only create what you need for your game first. And then, if you have time, you can flesh out more just for fun.

A violent argument broke out over whose day was more magical.