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.

Know your system - Dungeon Master Tools

The player's handbook compels you!

 I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition for several years now.  I've came to the realization that this game has a very specific style it is going for. Understanding that helps me prep and run my games in a way that works for me and the players.

This seems like obvious advice, but I can't tell you how much I've struggled against what 5th edition is, and what I wanted it to be. It created an odd disconnect that ended up frustrating me, and in one case ended a campaign way too early.

So what is D&D 5th edition at its core? It is a game about super heroic characters in a high fantasy-high magic setting fighting monsters and performing impressive heroic acts.

The game works best when you embrace these key elements:

• 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.

Keeping these points in mind while prepping for your next session or building your campaign can lead to more fun at the table and a better experience overall.

Let's look at some examples for making this work.

• Know your player characters - review the spells, abilities, feats, and magic gear they have as part of your prep session. Then build encounters (monsters, traps, NPCs) that allow them to use these cool features. If using a published adventure, modify encounters to highlight these elements. 
• After hitting level three, and certainly by level five, most players characters are very powerful. You can toss a lot at them, and they will survive. Embrace this instead of fighting against it. The bigger threats and overcoming them are part of the fun.
• Most 5th edition settings are full of magic and magical mayhem. This means that you can play around with all kinds of storylines and elements including time travel, dimension hopping, encountering gods (or god like beings) and more. The scope for a 5th edition campaign can be HUGE, and leaning into that gives the players a sense of achieving important and amazing tasks.
• Combat is a big part of the game. As much fun as roleplaying and exploring are, combat is where the characters shine. So spend a bit of time giving your combat encounters a bit of flavor, with memorable monsters, or an interesting environment, or an element of added tension. Don't go overboard with combat, but keep in mind it is a key element of the game.

If they are level 7, they've got this.

Game Log: Shemshime's Bedtime Rhyme

In my previous article I provided some tips for running Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme from Candlekeep Mysteries. Most of those tips came from running the game myself. We had a good time overall, but I was hoping for a smash success with this one. I love horror as a genre, and while I’ve been incorporating horror elements in my 5^th edition campaigns, this was the first full horror scenario I’ve had the pleasure of running. In this article I’ll describe what I did, and where I could have done things a bit differently.

 

Candlekeep looms over the Sword Coast.

I ran this online over three sessions. The first two were about three and half hours long and the last was about two hours. 9 hours total with five players. They were playing new characters for this little side adventure from our weekly Ravnica campaign.

 

Summary: The characters arrive at Candlekeep in the night and are sent to a cellar beneath the inn (which is full). Once there they meet a group of NPCs and explore this hidden portion of the library. In the morning, they awaken to a tune playing in their head non-stop. The NPC in charge seals the cellar after sending out a message for help. She reveals that the tune is an ancient curse that afflicted the library once before. As the curse continues to manifest, NPCs start to lose their minds, violence erupts and something sinister becomes more and more powerful. Eventually the PCs discover source of the curse, and are given a hint or two on how to stop it. The finale is spent trying to finish off the malevolent being Shemshime, and breaking the curse.

 

My first big change would occur before we even start playing. Setting expectations. I told my players that this was “more of a horror adventure than a mystery”. But I really should have just said, “This is a horror adventure. Your goal is to survive long enough to break a curse.” Nearly all my players created investigators of some kind. As such, they didn’t really get to use their skills and abilities that much. This led to some frustration from them, because half of their stuff wasn’t super useful. To be fair, this adventure can work with pretty much any character group. That said, their expectation was to be able to use mystery solving skills to help them in this adventure. But those skills aren’t really vital to survive the scenario.

 

This expectation also made the resolution of the “mystery” of why this was happening feel unsatisfying. One player actually said, “I don’t know what to do, because it feels like we aren’t finding any clues”. And no, they weren’t finding anything, I was handing them clues when I needed them to find them. As I mentioned in the other article, this adventure is on rails, like a house of horrors carnival ride. For a real mystery, the players need to time to search, to put pieces together, to follow up leads. Now you could restructure Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme to play out like a classic locked room mystery. But you need to put in some extra work to do that. To really run this right from the book, it is better to make sure your players know this is a horror adventure to enjoy as an experience, not a mystery to be solved.

 

Creepy drawing by a child. Always fun.

Finally establishing this was a horror game, I should have found out what kind of horror the group wanted. I didn’t ask if they were good with evil children or harm to children. So when little Gailby was in the spotlight, I wasn’t sure how far I could or should go with her character. My players liked most of the NPCs so I ended up pulling my punches when it came to violence toward them. And some player characters were never in actual peril. The main bit of feedback I got at the end was that the scenario wasn’t scary enough. They wanted more thrills, more peril. Not necessarily more blood (because I had one player who said “I’m a weenie and get grossed out easily”). But if I knew their comfort level with scary/imperiled children and that they wanted more spooky scares, I could have adjusted things to hit that mark. I also should have been very clear that a Total Party Kill (TPK) was a very possible end for this scenario. That way, I wouldn’t feel like I had to pull punches at the end, or worse drag things out into a third session. In the end they wanted “more Hellraiser and less Hocus Pocus”. I delivered somewhere in the middle and it didn’t satisfy anyone.

 

With that in mind, I had planned to only run two sessions for Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme. I should have stuck to that with all my might, because the momentum of this scenario really flagged with the third session. We have a hard end time, and we ended mid-fight with Shemshime. Yeah, don’t do that! It sucked. In my previous article I outlined the optimal way I should have run the adventure. What I did instead was spend way too much time with the set up and then tried to work in all the Events. 

 

Would you trust old Krinkle?

Knowing that the players wanted a bit more Hellraiser in the game, I would have started session two with the Puppets event, and had the NPCs go all out in trying to harm the player characters. Stakes would have been high, because the players liked the NPCs, and I could have even added some flying books adding chaos to the situation. A good strong start for session two.

 

From there we could have jumped into finding the book must faster. Instead, I let them spend way too much time trying to find the book and looking for clues, and just slowing everything down, instead of keeping it fast moving and fun. We did hit all the events. And the discovery of the singing skull was a great macabre moment. But It isn’t really necessary. I could have had possessed NPCs start shouting “Finish the Rhyme!” or have them find that scrawled in a book that falls during the chaos of the Puppets event. Lots of ways to do it.

 

Now my favorite bit of tabletop roleplaying games is the character interaction. As a player, I’m definitely an actor type with a bit of storyteller thrown in. As a DM I love the stories we make together, and that means having NPCs that I love playing. I tweaked my NPCs a bit for this game. I did my best to have each NPC find something interesting about a player character, and share a nice moment with them. This means I altered some personalities here and there, and adjusted some NPC motivations or backstories. But it was worth it. If I ask my players about this session a few months from now, I think they will remember the NPCs and the Shemshime being invincible. 

 

However, my strength as a DM is also my weakness. I love creating and playing NPCs. But I also overindulge in social interactions. In a long running campaign it isn’t so bad, if the players are also really into it. My players are, and we can have a few sessions without combat and only social and exploration events. But in a short scenario, this is not good. Once I get the players connected to the NPCs, then I need to really lighten up on the social interactions and ramp up the scares and thrills. I dropped the ball here. 

 

Welcome to the Cellar.

The set up took almost the entire first session. Now, they were all playing new characters who had not met before, so there was the good old fashioned awkward player character introductions. But I anticipated that, and we moved through them as quickly as possible. But I did spend too much time with the grand tour of all three levels of the cellar, and meeting the NPCs. I realized this when I hadn’t hit the quarantine mark by the break in session one. What I should have done was have the remaining NPCs all be in the main floor to meet at once. Instead, I sprinkled them throughout the cellar and just slowing things down meeting all of them. I did accelerate events a bit, and we ended with the fireflies going dark right before the shadows attack. Not a bad way to end things.

 

However, we started session two with a fight, and that ate up a bit of time. Then I tried to cram in all three middle events (Singing Skull, Escape Attempt, Puppets). It was too much. Add to that the confusion of the party searching for clues that aren’t really there to be found. I drip feeding them secrets as described in the events. It felt awkward and a bit frustrating. When they finally found the book and figured out how to repair it, I gave them a little time to plan… and then a little more time… and then a little more time. I should have just said, “we are ending tonight, so let’s just go with the plan you’ve got.”  I must say the in-character discussion was a blast, and I was having a lot of fun having the NPCs chime in with bad advice and distractions. But I really should have just backed off and stayed locked into our end time.

 

They started the Shemshime battle with only about 20 minutes of game time left. And things did not go as they hoped. But they were inching toward the correct resolution. Again, I should have either let their original plan work (or partially work), or just leaned into the horror of Shemshime wiping the floor with them. But because I didn’t set that expectation, I wasn’t sure how comfortable they would be with a TPK ending. I ended up stopping the game at our set end time, and said we’d finish the adventure next session. 

 

When the third session rolled around, I could tell the players just weren’t as engaged. They shifted strategies a few more time and then finally destroyed Shemshime. I did an epilogue scene and actually stretched that out a bit so we didn’t end super early, but that just made the finale feel even more sloggy. The session ended with a bit of shrug, when it should have been a cheer of victory or a bunch of laughter at getting wiped out. 

 

Music from the book sets the mood.

One last thing that happened that was no one’s fault, but that ended up impacting session one was that none of my music was working on Discord. I didn’t have a backup solution, and so the session played in silence. Normally not a huge deal, but with a scenario so focused on the musical rhyme, I spent a ton of work on the playlists and timing for implementing them. Because the first session was silent, all that establishing mood was lost. I really should have had a backup ready to go, even a Youtube playlist for individual players to run on their side to build that atmosphere. I will say that when the music did work on Discord for Session 2 and 3 my players loved it. 

 

Looking at this long ass article you might think that this mini-campaign was a failure. But it really wasn’t. Everyone had fun. They made great and memorable characters. Each of them said they would love to play these characters again. They liked the NPCs. They liked the set up and scenario of the curse. It was a nice break from our regular campaign and was a lot of fun to prep and run. 

 

But hindsight is 20/20. I could have run Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme in a way that was more fun, and memorable. It really hammered home how important expectations are to a new game. I don’t think a session 0 is needed for something like this. But if I had been clear this being a horror thrill ride, we all could have embraced it, and really made something we’ll talk about years later.

Tips for running Shemshime's Bedtime Rhyme

I ran Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme from the Candlekeep Mysteries adventure book. I learned quite a few things from running it. I figured I’d share them with you, to give you a hand running your game.

Let the investigation begin... in another adventure.

I ran this online over three sessions. The first two were about three and half hours long and the last was about two hours. 9 hours total with five players. They were playing new characters for this little side adventure from our weekly Ravnica campaign.

 

Summary: The characters arrive at Candlekeep in the night and are sent to a cellar beneath the inn (which is full). Once there they meet a group of NPCs and explore this hidden portion of the library. In the morning, they awaken to a tune playing in their head non-stop. The NPC in charge seals the cellar after sending out a message for help. She reveals that the tune is an ancient curse that afflicted the library once before. As the curse continues to manifest, NPCs start to lose their minds, violence erupts and something sinister becomes more and more powerful. Eventually the PCs discover source of the curse, and are given a hint or two on how to stop it. The finale is spent trying to finish off the malevolent being Shemshime, and breaking the curse.

 

Here are a few things I learned.

 

Shemshime’s Midnight Rhyme is a horror adventure, pure and simple. The mystery portion of the game is actually very limited in scope. To be honest this scenario plays out more like a ride through a house of horrors. The characters sit in their seats and the DM takes them through scare to scare until they get to the finale where their big decision is how to finish Shemshime (if they figure it out). Make this clear to the players. They are not here to solve a mystery. They are here to survive a curse. This should help them focus less on the “why is this happening” to more of “how do we stop it”. 

 

Tied to this, find out how horrific your players want this to run. You can adjust the horror dials pretty easily on this scenario. If they are hard core horror fans and want more gore and scares, use the NPCs as the punching bags. It is very hard to scare players with character death in D&D 5^th edition. But if make your NPCs likable and engaging, then hurting them or having them hurt each other can really make things horrifying. I mean you have a child and her father as NPCs. Possessed children make for a great moral quandary, but only if the players are OK with that. 

Isn't little Gailby cute?

 

You may have a group that doesn’t want to see children come to harm, or isn’t really into gore. Then stick to the atmospheric spooks and scares. Lean into the creeping darkness, and the shadow attacks (even at this level, shadow attacks against physically weak characters can be scary with their strength drain to death ability). Have the floating books and freezing rooms make a bigger punch (maybe even creating condition affects like exhaustion). Create your own mind-bending scares. Suddenly the passages and stairs in the cellar don’t lead to where they are supposed to. Add voices calling to them in the darkness or add ghostly figures of the unfortunates who were killed by the curse before. To paraphrase my players, find out what kind of horror game they are looking for. Are they feeling more like Hocus Pocus or Hellraiser?

 

This adventure has moments that force player characters to attack other players characters, and it can get deadly very quickly. It also takes away player agency and some players hate that. Before running this game, make sure your players are good with this. If they aren’t, then lean into the NPCs, most are weak and can’t really harm the player characters. But if you make the NPCs likable and relatable, your PCs are going to struggle with hurting them, especially knowing they aren’t in control of their bodies. 

 

This adventure is best when it is kept short and visceral. I don’t think you want this going over two sessions. Break down what needs to happen in the game. Identify your natural breaking points (because they make a good place to stop, or because you can raise tension by pausing there).  Then keep an eye on the time as you run. Do your best to hit those stopping points. Remember it is better to have a shorter session in this case. The longer it goes on, the less intense the game becomes.

 

Here are the key points I identified and where to break for a two-session game.

• Set up – Meet NPCs, explore setting, the curse starts.

  

  Lurking Shemshime

  
  
• Quarantine – Varnyr’s announcement of the quarantine should happen right before your mid-session break.
• Tension moment – atmospheric scare like books moving, room getting cold or firefly behavior 
• Ebder’s Outburst – Characters learn the words to the rhyme
• Tension moment 2 – Shadow attack, finish the battle and describe a downed NPC or strength drained character and end session one.
• Singing Skull or Escape Attempt or Puppets – Start the session with one of these. If your players really bonded with K’Tulah, then the Escape Attempt is a solid one. If they want more of a Hocus Pocus style game, the singing skull is perfectly creepy. If they are more of a Hellraiser group, the Puppets scene can be brutally disturbing. Whichever one you start with, keep the other two in your back pocket in case you need to fill in some more game time. But don’t feel like you have to run them. It is more important that they…
• Find the book – Use NPCs or clues to direct your players to the book. Don’t get bogged down here.
• Book fixed – Shemshime appears at the midsession break.
• Planning – Allow them some time to come up with a plan based on the completed rhyme. If needed remind them that the adventure will end with this session. The longer they take to plan, the less time they have to deal with Shemshime.
• Battle – The players attempt to strike back, and adjust plans as needed. 
• Epilogue – Either a quick scene of the survivors leaving the cellar and getting the reward – or of the Candlekeep wizards finding the corpses of the player characters and NPCs, and a slow pan over to the book looking innocent in a pool of blood. 

 

This scenario features music, which means you really should try to include some kind of audio version of the rhyme. There are a few on YouTube to pick from. My favorite used the lullaby from the film Pan’s Labrynthand shifted the words of the poem slightly to fit. The tune is melancholy and sets a great mood. You can also cobble together a great playlist of music including tracks from the film score, or just play the whole film score to Pan’s Labrynth. This way the background music contains the rhyme as well as having the performed version form YouTube handy. 

Overall keep it fun. It can be tempting to get too dower with horror games. But this scenario isn’t so much a creeping dread story, but a brisk and punchy set of thrills with a terrifying conclusion. When you feel things bogging down too much, throw in another scare. The room gets colder. The books start moving. An NPC suddenly shrieks and runs at a PC with a heavy book. If the players get stuck on how to finish off Shemshime, use the NPCs to guide them, or decide to let whatever idea they did cook up actually work. Remember the “mystery” isn’t the point of this scenario. It is fun scares. If your players end the game frustrated because they didn’t solve the mystery in a satisfactory way then you didn’t set the correct expectations for the game. They should be enjoying the thrill ride, and even if they all get slaughtered by Shemshime, they should end the session laughing and chatting about how awesome the scenario was. 

 

I learned most of these lessons the hard way. Coming up, how I ran the game and what I would do differently.