Eldritch Lairs: Adventures for 5th Edition
New from the design minds of James J. Haeck, Jerry Leneave, Mike Shea and Bill Slavicsek, is Eldritch Lairs! This is a 5E supplement from Kobold Press designed with eight short adventures for characters level 4-8. The adventures are built as standalone arcs but can always be worked into existing homebrew campaigns. Eldritch Lairs contains Pit of the Dust Goblins, Crypt of Green Shadows, Under the Devil’s Thumb, Blood Vaults of Sister Alkava, Carrion Shrine of Qorgeth, The Leystone of the Indigo Star, Palace of the Wind Lords, and the Undying Tournament. Creatures featured in the adventures can be found in the fifth edition SRD, except where noted as referenced to the Tome of Beast from Kobold Press.
Adventure beings anew from Kobold Press
The good, bad, and the “what was that?”
Generally as a rule, I personally am not a fan of many printed adventures. As of late I often find them convoluted with an awkward layout. That said Kobold Press has delivered something great here. Each adventure is well laid out, with detailed maps and clear definition for each section. With the encounter system being a bit fickle and unforgiving in fifth edition there’s no encounter here I would deem as unbalanced. Each adventure has designed plot hooks to pull the characters in and they’re all very easy to work into pre-existing games.
As far as the bad aspects of the book, I find it hard to place any. At most I could say something about red font but there is really nothing that takes away from this book.
The part I love though are the plots and villains in this book. There is so much in this book that will make your players go “wait, what was that?” It’s pure gold. I strongly recommend adventure four from Eldritch Lairs, The Blood Vaults of Sister Alkava. Without giving details on this, Dungeon Masters if you enjoy that look of fear and confusion on your players face, run this adventure.
Q&A with designer James Haeck
Looking over the book, where did the concept of Eldritch Lairs come from and was starting with smaller lairs/dungeons intended as an introduction to potential larger dungeon crawls or even mega-dungeons of old?
“Before Eldritch Lairs, Kobold Press published a a compilation of monster lairs as a companion piece to the Tome of Beasts titled Book of Lairs. A lair in that book was actually the first thing I ever wrote for Kobold Press! The small dungeon format used in Book of Lairs just struck a chord with people. I almost never use big published dungeons in my campaign (the only recent exception has been the dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse). What are really useful to me are little dungeons that I can use to fill out the back half of a game session or to run as a one shot. Having the chance to create this was perfect; it was exactly the book I had been wanting since 5E’s release.
In fact, the “Lairs” format has proved so popular, Kobold Press has done more than just print Eldritch Lairs. We release two new Warlock Lairs every month part of the Warlock Patreon campaign, creating tiny one-shot dungeons. They’re primarily for very low-level play, but there are a few higher level ones in there. I wrote a lair for 16th-level characters called The Seal of Rhydaas that pits them against a dragon priest trying to unleash a sealed flame dragon!
When it comes to larger dungeon crawls, I don’t know if they’re in the cards or not. If they are, they’re unrelated to the lairs we’ve been creating. It’s much easier to produce high-quality content when the dungeons are short and self-contained—and I suspect that these little lairs get more play than the big dungeons, overall. That said, dungeons that are epic in scale are fun to play too. Maybe we’ll do something like that in the future, hm?”
As GM I find the level range for the book interesting and almost a throwback to old AD&D with it going from level 4-8. Was there a particular reason this was the level range focus of the book?
“No. Next question.
Haha, I’m just kidding. If there’s historical significance to the 4–8 level range, I suspect it was subconscious on Wolfgang’s part. More likely, though, is that levels 4 through 8 have been historically the sweet spot of D&D play. Characters are strong enough to feel heroic, but not so strong that they’re able to totally go off the rails. Long story short, it’s very easy to let players and Game Masters alike have fun in that sweet spot.”
Given the level range, is there hope to make this a series? Could we expect the next book to focus on ranges 8-12?
“Nothing I can say right now, but if you’re dying for more lairs, the Warlock Lairs series I mentioned earlier is constantly creating new mini dungeons. They’re being produced by some of the best game designers I know, like Mike “SlyFlourish” Shea, Dan Dillon, and Jon Sawatsky. Oh, and I’ve written a few, too.”
How many of these adventures come from the designers own homebrew collections? Are these adventures in a way a collection of the designers favorite works that they’ve done?
“I can’t speak for the other designers, but the five lairs I designed for Eldritch Lairs were all created specifically for this book. I wish I could say I have a backlog of dungeons that I’ve played at home that I could turn into a published adventure in an instant, but it’s honestly less work to create a publishable dungeon from scratch than try to turn my home dungeons into something publishable.
That’s not to say that my notes are terribly messy or my dungeons aren’t fun. They are, however, all very specific to my campaign and my campaign world. The dungeons in Eldritch Lairs were very intentionally created to exist within the Midgard Campaign Setting, using its monsters, themes, conflicts, and politics. That said, it’s not hard to file the serial numbers off most of these dungeons and use them in your home campaign. Crypt of Green Shadows is my favorite lair of the bunch (one of the monsters within features on the cover of the book), and it’s easy to place that undead-infested dungeon in any campaign world. Just be aware that it has a Midgard-themed twist; there are shadow fey exploring the dungeon and butting heads with the demon-worshiping cultists that have disturbed the restful dead in the crypts.”
If you would like to know more about James, check out his Nerdarchy live chat appearance with our own Nerdarchist Dave below.
Final thoughts on Eldritch Lairs
Adventure books flooding the market has been an ongoing issue with roleplaying games since they started. Too often we have seen poorly written adventures appear with the promise of being the next great game. Having been a RPGA Dungeon Master for Wizards of the Coast and a Game Master for many other games, I’ve collected a fair sized collection of adventure books.
Eldrtich Lairs probably rates in my top five adventure books to own. Kobold Press has a great team on this book and it’s a gemstone. There are several adventures in here with plot hooks and mechanics I plan to make use of and strongly recommend it for others. If you are a Dungeon Master and often find yourself having to do quick one shots here or there because game night didn’t go as planned, Eldritch Lairs is what you need. It’s a fantastic supplement to any Dungeons & Dragons library.
This book is available now at DriveThruRPG, where Nerdarchy’s exclusive coupon code DTRPG-Nerdarchy gives you a one-time 10 percent discount on digital product orders $10 or more.
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