This Five Scene Adventure is designed to fit well into any setting or campaign, and to work especially well as a one-shot or as a first session.

The Premise: Keep on the Moulderlands

Read or paraphrase the following to the players, or establish these facts during a short opening scene:

▶ Mirewatch is a remote port and trading village on the edge of a dense fungal swamp known as the Moulderlands. A garrison of soldiers led by Castellan Bellairs, sent here to keep an eye out for threats, protects the village from the watchtower of a ruined keep they’ve named Fort Heeding.
▶ The PCs have been given a missive to deliver to the Castellan’s hand—and no other. (Who has tasked them with this delivery is up to the table, and isn’t particularly relevant to this adventure.)
Provide the players with the following milestone for the length of this adventure:

Session Milestone: Under Mirewatch

▶ 1 XP when you first enter a new underground area.
▶ 3 XP when you find a hidden object or learn more about the ancient history of the region.
▶ 10 XP when you discover the force driving the undead and then either free the Castellan or retreat back to the surface without her.

The Portcullis: The Hamlet of Elemental Weevils

Read or paraphrase the following:

You can see trails of smoke—black and sooty, not clean and white—as you approach the town of Mirewatch. When the town’s wooden palisade comes into view, you can see that it is breached in a handful of places. Once through the gates, the extent of the carnage becomes clear. Scattered clumps of shattered wood and roof thatching are scattered across the main road. Livestock and a few unfortunate mortals lie dead in mud. A few armored skeletons, battered and smashed, lie beside them. The struts of the palisade and many of the buildings seem to be infested with cat-sized parasites, chewing things apart. Trails of smoke rise into the sky from still-smoldering fires. Mirewatch was attacked by the undead last night, and the town is struggling to recover. What do you do?

Nobody in town is keen on answering questions right now; they’re all intent on putting out fires, finding lost children, and patching up both walls and neighbours. Our heroes can help townsfolk recover, heal, or shore up defenses. Treat each of these as a test with a difficulty of d8 d8.

With every success, they get a new piece of the story, as delivered by the people they help:

▶ The Moulderlands used to be plagued by regular waves of undead that rose up every decade or so, out of an ancient graveyard. Two years ago, the Castellan had her soldiers seal up the various crypts and mausoleums an ancient empire left behind. No more undead were seen for many years—until last night.
▶ One of the soldiers from Fort Heeding reports that last night the undead came pouring out of a previously undiscovered secret passage at the base of the watchtower. Caught flat footed, the garrison was slaughtered. He barely survived to stagger into the town at dawn.
▶ The undead captured the Castellan and a trio of her lieutenants, retreating back into the tunnels before anyone else realized what had happened.
▶ The remaining people of Mirewatch aren’t soldiers or adventurers. They’re crafters, fishers, lumberjacks, homemakers, and dockworkers. And now they are unprotected. There is no one to venture into the revealed passage and try to rescue Castellan Bellairs and her officers… except the player characters.
▶ (Reveal this one last) The small council of merchants who lead the town call upon the PCs to go after the Castellan and offer a persuasive reward.
When the players have heard all the points of information listed above, ask them what they do next.

If the player characters head out on a rescue or investigation mission, the exposed entrance to the tunnels under the watchtower is the obvious place to start. Transition to the Tomb of Borers scene. Still reeling from the attack, the town cannot offer any material support.

If the players investigate elsewhere —such as looking into the ancient cemetery or getting the lay of the land in general—provide or improvise short answers without calling for die rolls. The meat of the adventure is down the tunnels.

If the PCs remain in town, the undead will raid again the next night, attacking a local shrine and taking the last soldier they left behind, as well the local clergy caring for him. After that, they will keep raiding every night until they are stopped or all the townsfolk are gone. They attack in overwhelming numbers; give each PC a d12 d12 difficulty test to escape; on failure, they are dragged into the Curse of Kraad scene.

The Exploration: Tomb of Borers

Read or paraphrase the following:

Fort Heeding was once a much larger fortification, but today only one of its wings and its watchtower are standing properly, recently renovated. The rest are tumbled ruins, overgrown with swamp grass. The entrance to the tunnels is easy to find: a river of shambling tracks lead back to a gaping hole in the inner curtain wall. Within you find a labyrinth of twisting tunnels and the distant sounds of digging echoing up from the depths. What do you do?

Players may want to prepare for spelunking by fashioning torches or scavenging the watchtower for ropes or mapping supplies. Treat each of these attempts as a difficulty d6 d6 test to create an asset.

As before, if the players want to investigate the tower or ruins, give them simple, forthright answers without tests. The old castle is in tumbled ruins; the interior of the watchtower is, too, but more recently. All the real action is underground.

Once the players head downwards, describe twisting tunnels snaking eastward (towards the ancient cemetery). Eventually the tunnels feature excavated and pried-open coffins and occasionally open onto a subterranean mausoleum, each grave exhumed and desecrated. That’s about when they stumble across the animated skeletons and the overfed grave worms.

In this scene, the PCs confront two challenge pools: the Undead Diggers and the Tide of Carrion Worms. The GM can present them both at once in one grand running melee or intersperse tunnel exploration with encounters alternating between the two.

Tide of Carrion Worms

Imported from lands afar, they’ve overgrown on the feast of the necropolis below and have become less picky about whether their food is wriggling or rotting.

Mob Dice: d6 d6 d6 d6 d6

Drive: Longing For Home Soil d8
Drive: Insatiable Appetite d8

All-Out Attack: Spend a Ⓟ to target multiple opponents when you roll to inflict Damaged. For each additional target, add a d6 and keep an extra effect die.

Tunneler: Spend a plot point to burrow a child size tunnel.

Swarm Assault: Take Enthralled d6 to double your Drive die and keep an additional die for total when overwhelming a single enemy.

As the scene progresses (or after the dust settles entirely), drop these little tidbits of information:

▶ A number of tunnels arc upwards towards the cemetery but have been collapsed; similarly, whenever a tunnel breaches an underground mausoleum, that mausoleum’s entrance to the surface has been bricked over.
▶ Other tunnels seem to curl and probe through the earth; it is as if the diggers were searching for a way out.
▶ The undead diggers are exhuming corpses to raise as new skeletons and zombies.
▶ Remains from graves bearing a heraldic crest of a dragon impaled on a sword are not immediately reanimated, but dragged deeper into the labyrinth.
Players may also try to discern the nature, source, or motivation of the undead; this is a d8 d8 difficulty test; success reveals the following:

▶ The undead are cursed to rise each blood moon to find and kill the living and raise the dead to swell their own numbers.
▶ (Effect die of d10 or larger, or subsequent success) The curse is sloppy and hastily laid; clever spellwork could subvert or remove it entirely. However, that would take the PCs days of research and is outside the scope of this adventure.
Once the Diggers and Worms are dealt with, the players can easily find their way into Thalos Kraad’s sepulcher-sanctum for the Curse of Kraad scene. Player characters who fall in this scene are dragged away by the Undead Diggers… into the sepulcher-sanctum, for the Curse of Kraad scene.

Undead Diggers

Pulled by two masters, the skeletons dig ceaselessly hunting bodies or escape.

Mob Dice: d6 d6 d6

Drive: Serve the Curse that Animated You d8
Drive: Serve the Scales that Guide You d8

Shovels and Blades d8
Robed Ghasts d10

Death-Swollen ranks: when the dead uncover a new body, the ghasts among their number reanimate the corpse to join them. Step down the asset Robed Ghasts to add a d8 to Undead Diggers’ challenge pool.

All-Out Attack: Spend a Ⓟ to target multiple opponents when you roll to inflict Damaged. For each additional target, add a d6 and keep an extra effect die.

Fleshless: When a roll would inflict Exhausted stress on you, or stress or complications from poison or piercing weapons, step down that roll’s effect die against you. You can also spend a Ⓟ to ignore the stress entirely.

Brittle Bones: When a roll to inflict Damaged on you with blunt force or bludgeoning weapons succeeds, earn a PP and step up that roll’s effect die against you.

The Catch: The Curse of Kraad

Read or paraphrase the following, and then one of the subsequent boxes:

The tunnels turn back westward and breach a massive chamber lined with elaborate stonework. Captured will-o-wisps drift along the arched ceiling, lighting the room in an ethereal glow. The room is filled with rank upon rank of stone work tables—no, sarcophagi converted into work surfaces. Funereal urns, grave goods, and desiccated bodies lie scattered across these tables. All the remains are emblazoned somewhere with the crest of the sword-impaled dragon.

If the player characters gained entry here on their own power, read or paraphrase this:

In the corner curls a gaunt figure, clad in tattered vestments that must have once been regal, before the rot got to them. As you approach, he cringes back against the stones, as if he could push his way though them to escape. “Don’t come any closer,” he rasps, then shakes his head. “No. Wait. Do come closer. Be quick. Help me. Please. You’ve got to kill me!”

If the player characters were dragged here, direct them to step down all their stresses and then read or paraphrase this:

You take all this in blearily as you come to. Clammy hands pat your cheek gently. “There now,” says a voice. “All fixed up. Or at least, fixed up enough to do what’s necessary.” A gaunt, pale face floats into your vision, attached to a body in tattered vestments that must have once been regal. “Now,” your rescuer says, “Please kill me.”

The figure is Anton Kraad the First; he reeks of grave rot, wears a decayed tabard bearing the sword-impaled dragon crest, and has recently been reanimated as vampire spawn. Struggling with his overwhelming thirst for blood, he alternates between begging for the player characters to put him out of his misery before his humanity drains away… and lashing out to disable and feast upon their hot blood.

Anton is a reluctant challenge pool: at times, he may not want to be actively hostile. Other times he may lash out as his hunger overwhelms him. He (and his blood curse) are a lingering threat until his challenge pool is reduced to zero dice—but that does not necessarily require violence or his death in combat.

On their turn, players can try to convince him to accept restraints, or even submit to a clerical cleansing ritual. All of these are actions that reduce his challenge pool. So too is forcibly subduing him so they can deliver a merciful deathblow.

On his own turn, Anton might lash out physically, volubly despair at the inevitability of his damnation (inflicting Demoralized stress on the players), attempt to flee, or develop a pitiable demeanor (if successful, his effect die adds to his challenge pool). This need not be a knock-down drag-out fight… but it also can be if the players choose to make it so.

Anton Kraad the First, Vampire Spawn

Boss Dice: d8 d8 d8

Drive: Yearning For Blood d8
Drive: Yearning For Release d8

Predatory Senses & Stealth d6
Wall Crawler d8
Claws & Fangs d6

All-Out Attack: Spend a Ⓟ to target multiple opponents when you roll to inflict Damaged. For each additional target, add a d6 and keep an extra effect die.

Insatiable Thirst: When you inflict Damaged on a willing or helpless target, step down one of your stresses or your Bloodthirst complication. You can never step down a Bloodthirst complication on yourself except by using this SFX.

Lesser Vampiric Resilience: Take a Bloodthirst d6 complication to step down your Damaged, to wake from your daily slumber, or to ignore stress from necrotic energies or nonmagical weapons. When you take stress from a vampire weakness, shutdown Vampiric Resilience and gain a plot point. Recover when you use your Insatiable Thirst SFX.

Vampire Weaknesses:

Creature of Darkness: When you take Damaged from fire, holiness, or radiance, step up the stress you take and gain a plot point.

Forbiddance: The vampire can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants.

Harmed by Running Water and Sunlight: Take d8 Damaged stress whenever you enter running water, sunlight, or holy ground, or when you make a roll there. While you are in such circumstances, both 1 and 2 on your dice count as hitches.

Stake to the Heart: If you are taken out by a piercing weapon made of wood driven into your heart, you are also paralyzed until it is removed.

Over the course of the scene (or after Anton has been defeated, in a dying soliloquoy), reveal the following:

Anton Kraad ruled these lands centuries ago as a benevolent sorcerer-king. When his lands and people were preyed upon by the seemingly invincible dragon Murmurant, he turned to necromancy to defeat her.

▶ His victory did not come without a cost: his children, his children’s children, and his whole dynasty after him, fell into the infernal depths of necromancy and became horrific tyrants. They conquered neighbours, oppressed their subjects, and turned his good name into a curse.
▶ Eventually the Kraad dynasty pushed too far and an alliance of their neighbours rose up to purge the Kraads from the land. They almost succeeded.
▶ Thalos Kraad, the last of the Kraad line, made his final stand here, in the now-destroyed keep. Knowing the end was near, Thalos dug a secret tunnel to the necropolis a short distance away and escaped, casting a vengeful spell that animated the buried warriors and filled them with a hateful need to destroy the living.
▶ Warriors were raised as skeletons and zombies; clerics of the Kraad death cult became robed ghasts; but a special role awaited the members of the Kraad dynasty: they would be raised as vampires to lead the undead army. Anton has been raised as such; presently he is merely vampire spawn, but once he drinks mortal blood, his humanity will boil away and he will become a vampire bound to the same infernal curse.
▶ “Murmurant had the last laugh in the end,” he cries with his final breath. “She broods beneath us, she has turned Thalos’ curse to her own ends…”

If the players were dragged here and wonder why they weren’t just killed, Anton explains:

▶ The party is bearing a Kraad artifact—he can sense it, just as the undead can, and he points it out (and maybe takes a hungry swipe)—inside the missive intended for the Castellan.

Once Anton is dealt with, the players might search through the Kraad artifacts piled up in the sepulcher. Among them is the journal of Thalos Kraad himself, detailing his rule, his experiments, and his final lingering curse. He also outlined his plans to escape to a distant shore and become a lich.

Players searching for riches or useful gear may roll for a test-created asset at difficulty d10 d10 to find something that isn’t cursed by its original Kraad owner. On any failure, they gain the complication Devious Curse.

Now the players know that the undead are being directed by Murmurant, deeper in the labyrinth. If the player characters were brought into this scene directly from The Hamlet of Elemental Weevils, proceed to the Temple of Borers scene to find the dragon’s lair. Otherwise, proceed directly to The Dead Hand of Gloom.

The Boss: The Dead Hand of Gloom

Read or paraphrase the following:

You scour through the labyrinth until all that is left is a tunnel that ends where its floor collapsed into a deeper chamber. Scaling down the walls is difficult, but when you reach the bottom, you find yourself in a water-carved cavern around yet another mausoleum, this one buried deeper than all the rest. One of its walls has tumbled out into the cavern, and within you see a glittering yet insubstantial serpentine form. Behind that are four crude cages hanging from the ceiling, each containing a slumped mortal figure. But the shimmering figure raises its head, spreads its wings, and the ghost dragon Murmurant advances upon you, screeching, “More minions of Thalos Kraad?!”

This scene confronts the players with a boss challenge pool: Murmurant, the Faded. The spectral dragon is obsessed with seeking her vengeance and assumes any mortal from the surface is a Kraad subject, including the Castellan, her lieutenants, and the player characters.

She also likes to talk. Punctuate every roll she makes with exposition, such as:

▶ “What kind person becomes a willing minion of the Kraads? You bend your will to their evil intents!”
▶ “The Kraads are a curse upon this land, look how they desecrate even their own dead!”
▶ “Great and terrible sorcerers, they claim to be. Pah! I unwound Thalos Kraad’s little curse in days, and seized control of his pathetic little shambling army.”
▶ “The mortals came to my swamp, I took their cattle as tribute, and we lived in peace for centuries, and then Anton Kraad said No more! All these lands were the domain of his family, his dynasty, his petty little kingdom!”

Players can address the challenge pool with violence: the standard operating procedure of hacking and slashing and fireballing. But they may also attempt to talk down the vengeful ghost, convincing her that the Kraads no longer rule above, that she’s abducted the wrong people, and that Thalos Kraad has already escaped. Presenting Thalos Kraad’s journal can especially help in this effort (if it’s not already an asset, a plot point can turn it into a d8).

Players can also mix and match approaches. Murmurant is attacking them with overwhelming violence, and responding in kind in defense is an understandable response and does not really hamper their rhetorical position.

Whether the players attack or talk to the dragon, all such actions still whittle down her challenge pool.

Players may also attempt to free the Castellan and her lieutenants. Murmurant will oppose that action, so she rolls the difficulty. Success does not reduce her challenge pool, but creates an asset equal to the player’s effect die, representing these allies joining the fight.

The players may also choose to cut and run, with or without the prisoners being freed. Murmurant’s mausoleum does have a staircase leading up to the surface. Murmurant rolls the difficulty for escape tests, as well; each successful test gets one player character to the stairs. Once up in the tight confines of the staircase, the spectral dragon cannot follow. The surface entrance is bricked over, but even weary adventurers can get through a brick wall.

Murmurant, the Faded

Boss Dice: d10 d10 d10 d10

Drive: Bring Ruin to Thalos Kraad d8
Drive: Preserve and Hoard Mortal Antiquities d8

Brawn d12
Ethereal d12
Resilience d8
Sense the Living d10
Bite d10
Claw d6
Tail d8

Immunities: When a roll would inflict stress or a complication on you from acid, necrotic, or nonmagical weapons, step down that roll’s effect die against you. You can also spend a plot point to ignore the stress or complication entirely.

All-Out Attack: Spend a Ⓟ to target multiple opponents when you roll to inflict Damaged. For each additional target, add a d6 and keep an extra effect die.

At Home in the Mire: Spend a plot point to gain the asset Amphibious d8. While you have this asset, you are unrestricted in swampy terrain.

Draining Presence: When you succeed on a roll to inflict stress or a complication, spend a plot point to inflict d8 Demoralized stress on the same foe.

Acid Breath: When you use your All-Out Attack SFX, add d8 for each additional target instead of a d6 and choose Damaged, then shut down this SFX. Step down your Resilience asset to recover.

Legendary Resistance: Step down Resilience in lieu of spending a plot point or to ignore an incoming complication or stress. Recover Resilience at the beginning of a new scene

The Loot: Against the Tyrants

This final scene plays out differently depending on what the players have done throughout the adventure.

If Murmurant is slain or subdued, the undead army collapses into inert corpses. They will rise again at the next blood moon unless a purifying ritual is performed, but there is no rush and the town cleric can handle the rites if the player characters cannot. The labyrinth of tunnels is clear (aside from the rogue carrion worm) and can be investigated, plundered, or burned until it collapses.

If the players escaped with Murmurant still active and ranting, the undead army will attack the following night. If the players plan a defense, warn them that they will be testing against a d12 d12 difficulty. Otherwise they may try to evacuate the town or simply make their own escape.

If the players rescued the Castellan, the town merchants happily turn over their promised reward. If an attack is imminent, she will organize an evacuation herself; if the undead army has collapsed, she will escort the town cleric down to purify the curse in a few days and then lead her surviving soldiers to collapse the tunnels. The Castellan can also fill in any exposition the players are unclear on: she’s been sitting there while Murmurant ranted at her for almost a full day, after all.

If the players deliver the missive to the Castellan’s hand, she opens it to reveal a Kraad artifact and a letter recommending the PCs for a dangerous assignment (ie, the next adventure).

Any loot the players have created as assets are valid candidates to be turned into signature assets by spending XP.

Additional Details for the GM

The empire that once ruled these lands was led by a royal family of necromancer-kings who preyed on neighboring nations. Their enemies allied to destroy them, and the last scion of the ruling house—a powerful spellcaster called Thalos Kraad—made his final stand in the now-destroyed keep. Knowing the end was near, Kraad dug a secret tunnel to the necropolis a short distance away and escaped, casting a vengeful spell that animated the buried warriors and filled them with a hateful need to destroy the living. The necromancer fled to far off lands and became a lich, but his villainous plans are another tale. The undead that Kraad left behind lay dormant for years at a time, but every blood moon they rise again to form an army and make war upon any mortals they can find.

The last time they arose, however, the skeletons and other walking dead found no way out of the crypts and catacombs in which they were interred, since the Castellan and her soldiers had sealed them up and buried them. So they began exploring and digging, looking for an exit. Their excavations unearthed the resting place of Murmurant, a dragon slain by the necromancer-kings in the course of building their empire. The army raised Murmurant’s ghost to add to their numbers, but then the mindless undead fell under the sway of the spectral dragon.

Murmurant wants revenge. She seeks the descendants of those who murdered her, but she knows nothing of the empire’s fall or other surface events in the many centuries since her demise. After she found and unlocked the secret passage, the ghostly dragon sent her undead soldiers to capture local leaders to interrogate. The skeletons took the Castellan and her officers back to Murmurant, who has tried to extract answers to her questions. The prisoners know nothing of the fallen empire, but the spectral dragon dismisses their protestations of ignorance as lies. Believing they are servants of the necromancer-kings trying to protect their masters, Murmurant intends to lock the captives away until they reveal the truth, and to keep raiding the village for more potential informants.

Ironically, the answers Murmurant seeks are within the catacombs. A journal Thalos Kraad carelessly abandoned in his rush to escape details his plans to travel to a far-off wilderness and cheat death by becoming a lich. Murmurant could use that information to track down this last of the necromancer-kings and seek her revenge—if she knew it existed. The PCs may need to defeat or avoid the ghost dragon to rescue the prisoners, but if they recover the journal, it can also be a precious bargaining chip to negotiate with.

More About Mirewatch

Clinging to life on a rocky peninsula at the edge of the Moulderlands’ swampy forests and surrounded by danger and wilderness on all sides, Mirewatch can be a great base for ongoing adventures. Here is some extra background on this village and trading post in case your PCs spend more time there.

The village grew out of the partially demolished keep and watchtower now known as Fort Heeding, built by some lost empire that once ruled this region. In addition to the ancient cemetery nearby periodically unleashing hordes of warlike undead, various pirate crews, marauding creatures, and bands of brigands use the marshy woods of the Moulderlands as a hideout after raiding distant shores. To keep an eye on these threats, the respected halfling mercenary captain Yasmin Bellairs was appointed as Castellan to garrison Fort Heeding, leading a dozen soldiers to this desolate frontier.

The Callestan erected docks, created a defensive wooden palisade around the whole area, sealed up the neighboring crypts and mausoleums to prevent further undead incursions, and then shored up and repaired the once-crumbling watchtower. Hoping to one day rebuild the whole keep, she began sending lumber and other resources back by ship to trade for other supplies. These businesses grew, and more laborers were recruited, both from across the water and from local families of dwarves and goblins dwelling beneath the hills to the south. Also, a handful of scholars arrived to study the cemetery and other neighboring ruins. In less than twenty years, this community became a small hamlet, and now at least 60 souls call Mirewatch home.

Ideas for Future Adventures

The PCs may want to retrace Thalos Kraaad’s escape to return his grimoire, find a way to break his curse, or slay him in hopes that ends it.

Having proven their worth the Town Council needs a capable escort aboard the Lady Demeter as she ferries a special cargo out of port.

Deliver news of the events and convince the local lord to send a new Castellan and retinue to protect the Mirelands.