Staying at home can be hard, but at least everyone has more time for D&D. With plenty of online D&D tools, new campaigns are everywhere. The tough part is, getting enough content to keep up. Luckily, there are five adventures available for free right now through Dungeon Masters Guild and other sources.
Riddle of the Raven Queen is an adventure that takes players from the Cormanthyr Forest into the darkness of the Shadowfell. It includes plenty of monsters from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, plus an all-new monster and an original magic item. It offers some unique roleplaying experiences and challenges. It is perfect for 5th to 10th level characters, and with a runtime of 8 to 12 hours, it should take up a few sessions to complete.
The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount Adventure Preview is a free preview of the D&D sourcebook of the same name. It includes the “Frozen Sick” adventure, set in Wildemount of Critical Role fame, as well as 4 full-color maps. Even better, it is integrated fully with Roll20, so there’s no need to spend time setting up digital battle maps or minis. Players can jump right into the game. Plus, since this is just a preview, any players who like it can continue their adventures with The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.
A Dish Best Served Cold is great for players who want a giant adventure. That is, an adventure with actual giants. Players can intervene in a conflict between Stagwick and a local tribe of giants as tensions rise. This is another adventure that is great for 5th to 10th level characters. At a length of about 2 hours, it works for a one-off adventure or a single-session side quest. It also comes with a converted version of the adventure for use with the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop software.
The last two offerings are less “adventures” in the traditional sense. They serve as “filler episodes” – mini-adventures and encounters that DMs can use to keep players entertained while writing the next big story arc. Encounters in Sharn is a set of a dozen mini-adventures that take place in the popular setting of Eberron, and include everything from fighting tournaments to heists to noir mysteries. Three of these mini-adventures even form a storyline called “The Fallen Mad,” so players can feel like they’re progressing through a subplot while the DM makes battle maps for their next big dungeon crawl. The level of each encounter varies, but in general they fall between 1st and 10th level.
Prepared! also includes a dozen mini-adventures meant for keeping parties entertained when they go off the rails in a campaign. These adventures are not Eberron-specific, so they include far less noir detective work and more fantasy weirdness. They include alien factories, goblin fortresses, and abandoned alchemical labs, along with much more. DMs can insert these adventures into traveling sequences easily, giving players something interesting to do on the road outside of being attacked by bandits. These adventures can be used by players from 1st to 15th level, meaning that they can entertain even higher-level parties.
DMs who are strapped for time, short on energy, or just want to try out some new adventures should check out these new resources. After all, there’s nothing to lose by getting free adventures.