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MINES OF MADNESS

By Scott Kurtz & Christopher Perkins

A REALLY FUN ADVENTURE (FOR THE DM, AT LEAST)

The wizard Abracadamus hid the

Forever Stone

in the darkest depths of a failing mine,

coerced monsters into serving as guardians, and rigged the dungeon with traps galore.

Then he died, as all good wizards do.

Many heroes have fallen prey to the

Forever Stone’s

lure of immortality. To date, only one

stalwart band has plunged into the Mines of Madness and lived to tell the tale. You think

you’re better than them? You think you got what it takes to grab life by the stones and

conquer the dungeon that won the 2012 Gygaxian Award* for Bonecrushing Awesomeness?

We seriously doubt it, but go ahead . . . prove us wrong!

Mines of Madness

is a Very Special D&D

Adventure written for PAX East 2013

and designed for four 3rd-level characters. All characters must be created using

the rules in the D&D Next playtest package, available for FREE at

dndnext.com.

*Not a real award, though seriously, it should be.

ntroductIon

Mines of Madness

is a rollicking D&D

adventure designed

for use with the D&D Next playtest packet, which you

can download for free at

dndnext.com.

The adventure is

intended for four 3rd-level characters, created using the

rules in the playtest packet.

The Mines of Madness is a fictional adventure loca-

tion (aren’t they all?) first introduced in the web comic

PvP,

as a loving tribute to the classic D&D “dungeon

crawls” of old. This adventure brings the adventure loca-

tion to life, allowing D&D fans at PAX East 2013 to

experience the Mines of Madness for themselves.

Let us begin by saying:

This is not a fair test of the play-

ers’ abilities.

The dungeon is tragically stacked in the DM’s

favor and built to frustrate, maim, humble, and ulti-

mately kill adventurers. But if the players band together

and use their brains, with a little luck their characters

might survive to tell the tale of how they descended into

the Mines of Madness in search of the

Forever Stone

and

prevailed.

What’s the

Forever Stone?

We’re glad you asked. . . .

hat the

layers

Ill

ever

noW

The masters of the dwarven Glitterdark Mining Consor-

tium thought they’d struck it rich with the Corkscrew

Mines, so named because of their distinctive, downward

spiraling tunnels. Deep within, the dwarves unearthed

veins of a never-before-seen red crystal they took to

calling krimsonite. Unfortunately, the substance was dif-

ficult to extract and turned brittle once separated from

the indigenous rock upon which it grew. The consortium

tried to market the crystal and failed horribly.

A mine foreman named Pax Jaggershield had

invested his life savings in the mines. Stubborn yet per-

suasive, he refused to sell his shares and (foolishly, some

say) convinced his fellow miners to help him buy the

rest. The consortium gladly took the dwarves’ money,

leaving Jaggershield’s crew with a worthless haul of

krimsonite and their misplaced pride.

By delving ever deeper, Jaggershield hoped to strike

electrum (a few flecks of the precious metal had been

found here and there), but instead broke into a tunnel

complex inhabited by a purple worm. The dwarves

retreated, and that’s when the downward excavation

stopped.

At some point (scholars aren’t sure when), Jagger-

shield and his retinue were approached by an elderly

wizard. He told them that krimsonite dust was valuable

as a spell component. The dwarves, encouraged by the

news, worked feverishly to provide the wizard with all

the krimsonite he could afford. In fact, the ore had no

magical value at all; the wizard had lied to the dwarves

and had no real interest in the red crystal. His interest

was in the mine itself.

The elderly wizard, Abracadamus, was the last sur-

viving member of a secret society of do-gooders sworn

to protect the

Forever Stone

and other good-aligned arti-

facts from the forces of evil. He had used the artifact to

prolong his own life (for that is its greatest power), but

he was tired of being hunted. He urged the dwarves to

make several expansions to the mines and helped them

rig a series of deadly traps to discourage intrusion. Abra-

cadamus then sealed himself and the

Forever Stone

in the

mines’ depths, never to be seen again.

Pax Jaggershield and his dwarves, rich on the money

given to them by the wizard, chose to stay and guard the

mines. They were convinced that Abracadamus and his

treasures were worth protecting. After a few months,

however, the dwarves succumbed to a strange madness.

A handful of them longed to retrieve and sell whatever

the wizard was hiding. Greed and paranoia led to vio-

lence and betrayal, until only Jaggershield himself was

left standing. Still, he refused to leave the mine, and

there he died.

The evil forces hounding Abracadamus eventually

tracked the wizard to the mines, but they didn’t get far

before the various traps and wards disposed of them.

Since then, bands of adventurers have entered the Mines

of Madness in search of the fabled

Forever Stone,

only to

meet similar fates. No one remembers that the stone is

an artifact of good, only that it grants eternal life—and for

many, that’s a treasure worth dying for.

hat the

layers

eed

noW

Read the following to begin the adventure:

You have come to the Mines of Madness in search of

the

Forever Stone,

a powerful artifact rumored to have

many great powers, first among them the power to

grant eternal life. According to half-forgotten lore,

the stone was hidden from the world long ago by evil

wizards and greedy dwarves who coveted its power.

They are said to have perished in an orgy of magic

and bloodshed after turning on one another. You don’t

expect all the rumors to be true, but one thing is cer-

tain: Over the years, many adventurers have tried to

claim the

Forever Stone,

but none have succeeded.

To survive the Mines of Madness would be a feather

in the cap of any adventurer, but to retrieve the

Forever

Stone

would catapult you into the annals of awesome-

ness. And so here you are, on the brink of greatness,

ready to descend into the depths in search of glory,

infamy, and immortality. . . .

The adventure assumes that the characters know one

another and have been together for some time. It also

assumes that the party has discovered the location of the

Mines of Madness and made its way there. The adven-

ture begins with the characters standing at the entrance,

preparing to make their descent into history.

Speaking of history, characters can attempt to recall

certain supposed facts about the Mines of Madness by

making a DC 20 Intelligence check. A successful check

yields one random bit of information; have the succeed-

ing player roll a d4, and then consult the table below.

The dungeon is suffused with stray magical energies

that unsettle the unconscious mind, twisting dreams

into nightmares and leaving one weak and rattled upon

waking. In game terms, any adventurer who takes a

long rest in the Mines of Madness does not regain spent

Hit Dice.

An Adventurer’s

Worst nightmAre

Detail

The mines are rumored to contain veins of electrum.

The mines are known to contain veins of a worthless

crystalline substance called krimsonite (with a “k”).

The dwarves who owned the mines went mad,

hence the name: Mines of Madness.

A long-dead wizard named Abracadamus is thought

to haunt the mines as a vampire or lich.

Common Features

As the player characters explore the mines, they’ll dis-

cover several recurring features throughout.

Scale:

The maps use a scale of 10 feet per square.

When determining the party’s marching order, note

that tunnels are wide enough for characters to move two

abreast or single file.

Lighting:

All areas within the mines are unlit unless

noted otherwise. Characters must rely on darkvision or

their own light sources to see.

Ceilings and Walls:

Unless noted otherwise, rooms

have flat, 10-foot-high ceilings and are chiseled from

solid stone, and the walls have few handholds or foot-

holds; they can be climbed with a DC 20 Strength or

Dexterity check. Natural caverns vary in height and have

frequent hand- and footholds, but the walls are slick with

moisture; climbing the walls in these locations requires

a DC 15 Strength or Dexterity check, and failure by 5 or

more results in a fall (1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10

feet fallen).

Mine Shafts:

Dwarves like to name mine shafts after

dwarven kings. The named mine shafts in the Mines

of Madness vary in depth, but all are lined with rotting

support beams and crossbeams that offer plenty of hand-

holds. Climbing up or down a shaft requires a DC 12

Strength or Dexterity check, with a failure by 5 or more

indicating a fall (1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10 feet

fallen).

Tunnels:

All tunnels are 10 feet high and hewn from

dense earth and solid rock. At various weak points, rot-

ting wooden buttresses and crossbeams support the

tunnel walls and ceiling.

Corkscrew Tunnels:

Some tunnels coil upward or down-

ward, increasing or decreasing their depth by 30 feet.

The floors of these corkscrew tunnels are usually angled

no more than 20 degrees.

Tunnel Collapse:

A typical buttress has AC 0 and 10

hit points. Destroying a buttress has a 1-in-6 chance of

causing a ceiling collapse in the two 10-foot squares clos-

est to it. Any creature in a collapsing section of tunnel

must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw. On a suc-

cessful save, the target moves out of the collapsing area

to the nearest safe square. On a failed save, the target

takes 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage, falls prone, and is

elcome to the

Ines

The Mines of Madness contain traps and dangers

aplenty. Please read the adventure thoroughly before

attempting to run it, and refer to the maps of the upper

and lower levels as needed.

Read-Aloud Text:

Boxed text gives players infor-

mation about what their characters can see, hear, and

perhaps smell when they enter a given area. This text can

be read aloud to players or paraphrased as you see fit.

Monster Statistics:

For your convenience, monster

statistics are collected at the end of the adventure on

pages keyed to the encounter areas described below.

Each combat encounter comes with an initiative tracker

and spaces to record monster hit points.

Where To Begin:

After reading the boxed text in the

“What the Players Need To Know” section to the players,

assume that the adventurers are standing outside the

entrance to the mine (area 2), near the outhouse (area 1).

Dwarvish Runes:

The mines are riddled with

Dwarvish script carved into walls, doors, and other sur-

faces. If the party tries to decipher the script, you can

give

HANDOUT 1

(a translation of the Dwarvish alpha-

bet) to any player whose character speaks Dwarvish or

casts a

comprehend languages

spell.

Troubleshooting:

Some encounters are especially

dangerous. If a characters dies as a consequence of bad

luck or folly, use the advice in the encounter’s “Trouble-

shooting” section to deal with the sudden loss.

buried under 1d6 feet of rubble. While buried, the target

is restrained and cannot stand, and the only action it

can take on its turn is to make a DC 10 Strength check

to escape, taking a penalty to the check equal to the

number of feet of rubble covering it. An unburied crea-

ture adjacent to the target can attempt to pull it free as

an action by making a similar Strength check.

Inside the outhouse is a wooden bench with a hole cut

into it. Flickering orange light shows through the hole,

emanating from somewhere deep below.

Buried in the ground beneath the outhouse is an empty

wooden barrel to catch waste. Some anonymous miscre-

ant threw an

everburning torch

into the barrel. The torch

(which produces no heat) is the source of the light.

The outhouse is large enough to accommodate one

Medium character or two Small characters at a time.

Creature:

If one or more characters ignore the sign

and enter the outhouse, the ground begins to tremble

and bulge as the

purple worm

from area 32 erupts

from below and swallows the outhouse. The worm is 50

feet long, but its lower half remains underground.

Characters in the 10-foot squares adjacent to the out-

house must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw

or fall prone. Anyone in the 10-foot square occupied by

the outhouse must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving

throw or be targeted by the worm’s bite attack. (In this

singular instance, the worm can bite multiple creatures

with a single attack.) Characters inside the outhouse

PPer

evel

The following encounters are keyed to the map of the

upper level.

1. “Keep out!”

A ramshackle wooden outhouse stands about 30 feet

from the entrance to the mine. Carved into the door

are the words “KEEP OUT!” in Common.

Some characters might be tempted to explore the out-

house. If a character opens the door or peeks through a

knothole in the wooden walls, read:

take a –5 penalty to this saving throw, and the worm has

advantage on its attack roll to hit them.

Roll initiative as normal, and track any damage the

purple worm sustains; on its first turn after gaining

surprise, the purple worm retreats the way it came, pro-

voking opportunity attacks from characters adjacent to it

as it backs into the earth. In addition to the outhouse, the

worm also swallows the waste barrel and the

everburning

torch

inside it.

Worm Chute:

The purple worm leaves behind a

sinkhole of pulverized rock covering a lazily spiraling,

corkscrew-like chute 10 feet wide and 120 feet deep.

The chute is plugged with 5 feet of pulverized rock, but

the first character to enter or forcibly prod the sinkhole

causes the fine rubble to give way, exposing the chute for

all to see. Characters who dare to slide down the chute

arrive at the point marked

in area 32 on the lower

level, landing atop a heap of powdered stone and taking

no damage. It’s a DC 15 Strength or Dexterity check to

climb up or down the chute (DC 5 with ropes or climb-

ing gear), and failure by 5 or more results in a fall (but no

damage).

Troubleshooting:

This encounter sets the tone of

the adventure. If the purple worm swallows one or more

characters, resolve their fates quickly. In all likelihood,

they are dead meat. (That’s what they get for not heeding

the warning sign on the outhouse door!) Players who lose

characters to the purple worm can remain in the game

by choosing or rolling up new characters or renaming

the ones they already have. Let them contrive an unlikely

story to explain the sudden arrival of these new adven-

turers, then move on to the next encounter. (It’s not about

realism; it’s about having fun!)

It’s fine if the characters follow the purple worm

down to the lower level. Although they might seem to be

circumventing the dungeon, characters using this back-

door route are confined to areas 29, 31, 32, and 33, with

little hope of obtaining the

Forever Stone.

Rabble in the Rubble:

Four dead goblins are buried

in the rubble flanking the entrance (two per side). The

mine entrance collapsed as the goblins made their way

inside, and the survivors (see area 3) stashed the bodies

here after clearing the tunnel and looting the dead. (The

remaining goblins didn’t want others who wandered by

to see the corpses of their kin lying around.) Anyone who

takes the time to search the rubble finds the dead gob-

lins (no check required). The corpses wear crushed bits

of armor and have broken spears buried with them, but

they carry nothing of value. A successful DC 10 Wisdom

check reveals that they died from bludgeoning damage.

Trap:

Ten feet inside the tunnel, carved into the floor

between two ceiling supports and hidden under a thin

layer of dust, is a tiny rune composed of three Dwarvish

letters. If the characters take the time to sweep aside

the dust or cast a

detect magic

spell, they automatically

detect the rune (show the players

HANDOUT 2

at this

time). Otherwise, they have no chance of spotting it. The

rune consists of the letters P, A, and X. It radiates faint

abjuration magic when scrutinized with a

detect magic

spell, and a DC 15 Intelligence check confirms that

the rune can be disabled by uttering the word “Pax” or

its Common translation, “Great.” Speaking either word

aloud within 10 feet of the rune causes it to disappear for

24 hours, temporarily disabling the trap.

If a character moves from the first 10-foot square of

the tunnel to the second—or vice versa—without saying

“Pax” or “Great” aloud, the rune flashes brightly and

triggers a tunnel collapse that fills both 10-foot squares.

See “Common Features” (page 3) for rules on tunnel col-

lapses. Once the tunnel collapses, it’s completely blocked

off; the rune disappears and the trap is disabled for 24

hours. Clearing the tunnel after a collapse takes 5 hours

of work per 10-foot square; each additional character

reduces this time by 1 hour.

3. Pecking order

When the characters come within 30 feet of this room

(from any direction), they hear clucking and banging

sounds.

This 10-foot-high, rough-hewn chamber contains

shovels, picks, stacks of wooden planks, buckets of

nails, and piles of wooden beams amid three half-built

wooden mine carts and three eerily lifelike statues of

goblins brandishing spears.

An intact cart rests upside-down in the middle of

the cave, its wooden wheels sticking up in the air. Four

oversized chickens peck at the sides of the overturned

cart, determined to get at whatever’s underneath.

The four goblins that survived the tunnel collapse in

area 2 eventually ran afoul of some cockatrices (heh

heh)

2. entrance

Rubble and flinders of rotten wood are piled around

the mouth of a 10-foot-wide, 10-foot-high tunnel

carved into a rocky hillside. The floor of the tunnel is

covered in loose dust, and the wooden buttresses and

crossbeams that support the tunnel ceiling have seen

better days.

The entrance has collapsed several times, only to be

cleared now and then by intrepid explorers eager to

unearth the secrets and treasures beyond. The last group

to enter the Mines of Madness was a gang of eight gob-

lins. They fell prey to a trap (see below)—and so might the

adventurers if they’re not careful.

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