A poisonous dusk hangs over Aškara-Vuun as whispers spread of a relic awakening beneath the dunes. The Obsidian Sceptre of Naar-Uzir—long buried beneath an inverted ziggurat—calls out in dreams to the powerful and the desperate. Civilized towns tighten their gates. Barbarian tribes sharpen their blades. And you, solitary adventurer, stride into a world on the edge of revelation.

The Borderlands of Aškara-Vuun

Far to the east of the Karnaxian heartlands lies the Aškara-Vuun Frontier, a harsh, wind-scoured region where civilization ends and the barbarian tribes of the red sands begin. The land is shaped by ancient rivers that barely cling to life, their banks lined with clay ziggurats, forgotten shrines, and communities who trade bronze, grain, and sorcery with equal pragmatism.

Towns of the Civilised Basin

The greatest settlement is Uraḫ-Tammuz, a once-proud river-city surrounded by reed docks and terraced gardens. Clay-brick homes climb the slopes in honeycomb fashion while bronze-helmed guards patrol the Causeway of Kings. Great scholars study star-glyphs in the House of the Seven Lamps, and merchants whisper that a terrible omen has recently clouded the river’s reflection.

To the north lies Zurrath-Kaan, a fortified hill-town ruled by stern magistrates. It supplies the frontier with bronze spearheads and uncanny fortune-bones carved from desert beasts. The people are wary, for raids from the east have grown bolder.

Barbarian Tribes of the Red Sands

Beyond civilization rise the Šur-Marrakai, a confederation of tattooed barbarians whose axes echo across the dunes. Their shamans speak of a “night-serpent of living stone,” and many believe this omen tied to the artifact you seek.

Among them are the Gaatur-Raan, fire-scarred warriors who honor a creed of absolute strength, and the Ulku-Varr, who decorate their bodies with volcanic ash and swear oaths beneath eclipsed moons.

The Artifact of Legend: The Obsidian Sceptre of Naar-Uzir

Stories claim the Sceptre was carved from the heart of a fallen star in the age before Ael-kings. It is said to contain a shard of living night, able to smother sorcery or ignite it into devastating brilliance. Civilized scholars want it. Barbarian shamans fear it. And many factions believe only chaos will follow if it is found.

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HOW TO PLAY

In this Solo Adventure you assume the role of an adventurer in a Bronze Age Fantasy setting where kingdoms rise and crumble beneath obsidian skies, and where warlords, sorcerers, and wandering heroes carve their names into the annals of Karnaxos. You will require the Warborn of Karnaxos Core Rulebook (CRB) and any expansions you wish to incorporate. The story you experience is your own. The actions you choose depend on who and what you encounter, and how you elect to interact. Keep a record of your journey, tracking outcomes and branching consequences. Your decisions become the voice of the unseen Storyteller. The world of Karnaxos stirs to life through your interpretation, your vision, and your courage. This template provides structure, direction, narrative density, and motivational clarity, ensuring you always know what drives the hero, what threatens them, and what lies beyond the next torchlit corner.

You stand at the broken gates of Birak-Shul, dawn light bleeding across red-bronze rooftops. Behind you are the whispers of fearful townsfolk; before you, a cracked stone road leading into the wasteland.

Every instinct warns you:
Something alive in the dark is calling your name.

You draw your cloak tighter, steady your weapon, and begin the descent toward the Basalt Rift
where your fate, and the fate of Ishrukar, will be decided.

Far beyond the settled bronze cities of Karnaxos lies the blighted frontier of Ishrukar, a land once ruled by tower-sorcerers whose monuments now lie half-buried in black sand. Great basalt obelisks lean like broken teeth toward a bruise-colored sky, and trails of migrants whisper of a new darkness crawling from beneath the cratered earth. 

The people of Ishrukar are a mixture of barbarian clans—the Šamarr Tusk-Bearers, the Urdukk Flame-Bloods, the Mirakha Dust-Wanderers—and civilised bronze-towns like Zarun-Nekhul, Birak-Shul, and Tammiruk. Tensions between town and tribe have risen for generations.

But now, all divisions are meaningless. In the haunted gorges beneath the Basalt Rift, something ancient has awakened. Hunters vanish. Bronze caravans return hollow-eyed. Livestock is found drained to husks. And every night—no matter the winds—an oily incense rises from clefts in the rock, smelling of serpents, grave-wax, and burned copper.

Rumors speak of a forgotten deity:

Ušur-Namarra, the Night-Serpent Who Sleeps in Stone.

Some say it is a myth.
Some say it is waking.

And some… whisper it has already risen.

You are one of the few willing to descend into the black places of Ishrukar, where old sorceries seep like venom through the earth.

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HOW TO PLAY

In this Solo Adventure you assume the role of an adventurer in a Bronze Age Fantasy setting where kingdoms rise and crumble beneath obsidian skies, and where warlords, sorcerers, and wandering heroes carve their names into the annals of Karnaxos. You will require the Warborn of Karnaxos Core Rulebook (CRB) and any expansions you wish to incorporate. The story you experience is your own. The actions you choose depend on who and what you encounter, and how you elect to interact. Keep a record of your journey, tracking outcomes and branching consequences. Your decisions become the voice of the unseen Storyteller. The world of Karnaxos stirs to life through your interpretation, your vision, and your courage. This template provides structure, direction, narrative density, and motivational clarity, ensuring you always know what drives the hero, what threatens them, and what lies beyond the next torchlit corner.

In the cracked valley of Ulgarath, storms no longer bring rain—only ashes carried on winds that whisper in dead tongues. Long-abandoned shrines lie broken beneath a pall of grey, and the proud banners of chieftains flutter on empty poles, their warriors devoured by a rising plague. The ancient dead have torn open their tombs, filled with a hunger older than the Bronze Age kingdoms of Karnaxos. Now, the soil itself trembles beneath their march. A single rumor draws you here:
a sorcerous artifact, said to burn with the final embers of the Sun-Forge, stolen long ago by a priest-king whose tomb is now cracked open and screaming. If the dead reach the civilized cities of the south, all will fall beneath their dust-laden tide. And so you descend into Ulgarath… where the line between life and corpse thins with every step.

The Valley of Ulgarath

A plate-shaped gorge of blackened soil and shattered basalt, Ulgarath was once a caravan crossing between barbarian tribes and the highland cities. Now, skeletal orchards creak without wind, rivers run like iron-tinted sludge, and the very shadows cling to the ground as if afraid to rise.

Where once stood circle-forts and earth-hewn watchtowers, now loom only carcass-ridden ruins. But beneath the valley floor lies something older—catacombs carved in spirals, stepped ziggurats consumed by dust, and ossuaries humming with necrotic power.

The Barbarians of the Ash-Clans

Warriors of towering stature, the Ash-Clans once protected the valley’s outer reaches. Their bronze axes and obsidian blades were feared even by the priest-kings of the south. Now their numbers are decimated, their survivors half-mad, their shamans torn between fleeing and reclaiming their sacred dead.

The Civilized Towns of the Southward Road

Markets of hammered copper, orchards of pomegranates, and walls painted with clay-red murals—these towns stand at the edge of dread, watching the horizon as undead silhouettes gather. Traders whisper of caravans slashed open like carcasses, their guards twisted into bone-walkers.

Supplies are scarce. Faith is fading.

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HOW TO PLAY

In this Solo Adventure you assume the role of an adventurer in a Bronze Age Fantasy setting where kingdoms rise and crumble beneath obsidian skies, and where warlords, sorcerers, and wandering heroes carve their names into the annals of Karnaxos. You will require the Warborn of Karnaxos Core Rulebook (CRB) and any expansions you wish to incorporate. The story you experience is your own. The actions you choose depend on who and what you encounter, and how you elect to interact. Keep a record of your journey, tracking outcomes and branching consequences. Your decisions become the voice of the unseen Storyteller. The world of Karnaxos stirs to life through your interpretation, your vision, and your courage. This template provides structure, direction, narrative density, and motivational clarity, ensuring you always know what drives the hero, what threatens them, and what lies beyond the next torchlit corner.

Hello Nufriends! This an AMA for the new Muse you can use in this big wide multiverse! We will learn some fun new features and feats to take an old class off the beaten path and strait to the stars!

Arabian Nights Classes for 5e: Desert Wanderer

The desert is a place of silence, heat, and endless horizons. To the unprepared, it is a merciless expanse of sand and sun — a trial by thirst and wind. But to those who learn its language, the desert is alive. It whispers through the dunes, hides secrets beneath shifting sands, and tests every traveler who dares to cross it.

Among these travelers are those who do not merely pass through the desert — they belong to it. These are the Desert Wanderers, guides, hunters, illusionists, and survivors who thrive where others falter. They are the keepers of ancient paths, the readers of mirages, and the bridge between civilization and the wild expanse.

Children of Sand and Sun

Some Desert Wanderers are born beneath blazing skies, raised among nomadic tribes who know the stars better than the walls of any city. From childhood, they are taught to find water in dry riverbeds, track a caravan’s trail long after the wind has swept it away, and navigate by starlight when dunes shift like waves.

Others come to the path later — scholars, exiles, mystics, or adventurers — who find themselves tested by the desert’s cruel beauty and emerge forever changed. Whether by tradition, trial, or choice, each Desert Wanderer has forged a bond with the land itself.

Masters of Mirage

The desert plays tricks on the eye: distant oases shimmer, cities appear on the horizon then vanish like smoke, the air itself wavers under the sun’s relentless gaze. Desert Wanderers embrace this natural illusion, learning to shape heat and light into mirages of their own making.

They can make a caravan appear where none exists, hide themselves in shimmering haze, or turn the battlefield into a labyrinth of shifting sands. To fight a Desert Wanderer is to doubt your senses — every glimmer could be real, or a trap.

This contains a full class up to level 20 with abilities and background, based on the Arabian Nights stories and middle eastern culture, this is not written by a native of that area so may contain certain cultural biases from a european point of view.

Step inside the classic neighborhood barbershop with this detailed top-down battle map perfect for modern, urban, investigative, or slice-of-life adventures. This map pack features a fully furnished shop complete with barber chairs, mirrors, clippers, sinks, product shelves, waiting benches, a cash counter, back-room storage.

Whether your scene involves a quiet haircut, a covert meeting, a dramatic chase, or a sudden ambush among the scissors and shaving foam, this map provides everything a GM needs for dynamic encounters.

This is a Roll20 add-on with walls, doors and windows preset.

Step inside the classic neighborhood barbershop with this detailed top-down battle map perfect for modern, urban, investigative, or slice-of-life adventures. This map pack features a fully furnished shop complete with barber chairs, mirrors, clippers, sinks, product shelves, waiting benches, a cash counter, back-room storage.

Whether your scene involves a quiet haircut, a covert meeting, a dramatic chase, or a sudden ambush among the scissors and shaving foam, this map provides everything a GM needs for dynamic encounters.

License:

Users are granted a license to use these maps and GM Notes for their personal use only via either display on a virtual tabletop gaming system (VTT) or to print them to be used for reference and/or play-aids. Any commercial use is strictly forbidden without express written permission. If you wish to use the maps and/or GM Notes in a public live-stream video of your game or in the context of a review, please contact us at support (at) mmpapps (dot) com to secure permission. The license is not transferable, and the maps and GM notes may not be redistributed, resold or sub-licensed in any way.

In "Cheddar Late Than Never" two Guilds ordered identical crates of cheese.  Due to the Baron's new scheme to increase taxes, the merchant ship only successfully delivered one of those crates.  The head of the town guard has instructed the party that they have to investigate and judge over this cheese delimna.  There are only two rules, all parties have to agree with the outcome and the party only has 45 minutes to make a ruling.  If the party is not successful, the town guard will simply lock everyone from both guilds and the party in prison.

This adventure was built off of suggestions that came from Raleigh Playthrough's Game Convention panel called "Improving an Encounter Adventure Together".   It originally had a project title of "Who Moved My Cheese" later renamed to "Cheddar Late Than Never".  If you want to see a paper puppet show about this adventure and what happened at the panel, check out the attached video.

This encounter adventure was designed with both the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Core Rulebook. 

This is a novice encounter adventure, to run as a quick one session game or added to a larger adventure.  It is the second adventure released by BuildABetterAdventure.

If you'd like to support the channel please do so.  However, this adventure is provided to you for free.   I would greatly appreciate a subscription to the YouTube channel.  More adventures to come.

Need a creative boost—or simply want all your Shadowrun Anarchy v2.0 Amps in one place?

This consolidated gear and Shadow Amp compendium gathers every core-book amp alongside expanded options. Dive in, explore freely, and let this extended list inspire the creation of your own distinctive, unforgettable characters!

English & French available

Welcome to issue 51 of Never Mind the Dice Rolls zine, your friendly monthly TTRPG magazine. Each issue contains reviews, scenarios, advice, and other things TTRPG!

Never Mind the Dice Rolls Issue 51 contains:

Review: SPINE - We take a look at this horror solo TTRPG, can you escape before the book takes your soul?

Gaming Archives: Finale - Adam draws this fab series to an end for the time being as the vaults close their doors.

Flippets - Small, not very tough CoC monsters, but they can be a right pain in the side of any group of investigators.

Review Six Seasons in Sartar - Finally finished our campaign of this epic story, read our review about growing up in a small clan.

Missing Players & Prequels - How to keep to a regular session when you have a player or two missing.

Codex of the Void - Your investgators have found a strange book.

Rolling for Dinner - Want to make setting up camp a bit of fun? Well have your characters roll for their dinner.

Druids - A little guide to making more of this class at the table.

Town of Secrets: Pub/Tavern- Second to last of this series on making more out of your humble town.

This issue was published on the 28th November 2025

190 Tables for Epic 1920s-1940s Adventures

Everything you need to run thrilling pulp adventures in the golden age of exploration!

From dashing archaeologists to sinister cults, from lost cities to death-defying stunts - this comprehensive toolkit delivers instant pulp action across 8 complete modules with 190 d20 tables ready to fuel your campaigns.

WHAT'S INSIDE:

MODULE 1: PULP HEROES & ARCHETYPES (20 tables) Create memorable protagonists with archetypes, traits, backgrounds, motivations, flaws, and signature equipment. Build complex characters in minutes!

MODULE 2: EXOTIC LOCATIONS & TRAVEL (25 tables) Globe-trotting adventures from Egyptian tombs to Himalayan peaks. Complete with travel methods, complications, native guides, hostile environments, and colonial outposts.

MODULE 3: VILLAINS & THREATS (25 tables) Nazi officers, mad scientists, cult leaders, and ancient mummies. Build complete antagonists with motivations, lairs, schemes, traps, and dastardly plots.

MODULE 4: ARTIFACTS & MYSTERIES (25 tables) Legendary treasures, cursed relics, ancient civilizations, mystical powers, archaeological rivals, and puzzle mechanics for artifact-hunting campaigns.

MODULE 5: ACTION & ADVENTURE (25 tables) Heart-pounding chase scenes, combat scenarios, death-defying stunts, narrow escapes, vehicle incidents, and explosive set-pieces.

MODULE 6: NPCS & ENCOUNTERS (25 tables) Allies, contacts, rivals, informants, mentors, and memorable personalities. Plus random encounters for every situation.

MODULE 7: ORGANIZATIONS & FACTIONS (25 tables) Secret societies from Freemasons to Thule Society. Complete with structures, resources, rituals, headquarters, and internal conflicts.

MODULE 8: QUICK GENERATORS & CAMPAIGN TOOLS (20 tables) Instant plot hooks, complications, clues, twists, atmospheric details, and campaign management tools.