So it’s been just over a year since I started this website. In that time I’ve put up over 44 unique encounters, all with stories, maps, new monsters, combat hooks, and, hopefully, some cool ideas to inspire your game. Not exactly the 1 per week quota I was aiming for, but close enough I suppose.

I’ve thought several times about abandoning the site, since the traffic is nothing impressive and I wasn’t sure people were finding any use from the content here. This was originally supposed to be a year-long experiment, and I have other projects to take up my time. That being said, I’m going to try and keep it going and add to the encounters and class designs. I have plans to start an epic, long campaign in the next few months, so it’s possible that the content might follow a larger story – with a new addition each week or so – level by level. I’ve yet to decide exactly what to do. Until then, I’ll do my best to update regularly.

Now, on with it!

Timeless is a short adventure designed for five 6th to 8th-level players. The Tower of Temporus is under attack from within by a chronomancer’s rogue apprentice, Huductis. The players must enter the tower and put an end to the chronomancer’s plans, traveling through time as the fight progresses.

Download: PDF | PDF (no map)

Time has always been the one immutable stricture of the world; the one truth on which all others gain purchase. Even the sun must obey the power of time, rising and falling with rigid consistency; indeed, nothing escapes the grasp of passing days, months, or years. However, some disagree. The brave few, familiar with dire need and urgency, know better than to trust the rules of the world, and declare–with absolute certainty–that time is instead a fickle beast, pandering to chaos and unrest. When most desired, it evaporates into nothing–gone in an instant–leaving behind regrets and missed opportunities. If willed to pass, it mocks with a cruel ubiquity; time slows its pace to a near halt. Some speak of relativity, of an unchanging phenomenon experienced by stressed minds­, but others know better than to accept such a simple explanation for lost moments and lost lives.

Exploring these mysteries of time is an order of chronomancers called the Ageless. Such mages are found within the Tower of Temporus, a magic structure that is able to contain the temporal anomalies within its impossibly ancient walls. Here, the Ageless bend the rules of time and space to peer into the future and, sometimes, attempt to correct the past. Such acts can have disastrous consequences; a conservative mind and steady will are irreplaceable for time mages looking to breach and transcend beyond the invisible limits of the universe; a seemingly meaningless mistake can ripple throughout history in less than an instant. Because of this, those wishing to learn the secrets of chronomancy must under the most rigorous tests and trials­—if even one malicious apprentice gained knowledge of the order’s magic, kingdoms would fall and lives would cease to ever exist.

Though they do their best to defend against evil intentions, any member of the order would say that time is, at its heart, a wait for the inevitabilities of life. As if to prove their point, an apprentice of the order­—a particularly powerful and ambitious chronomancer named Huductis—suddenly unleashed a serious of attacks on the other mages in an attempt to seize control of the tower. Though suffering heavy losses, the Ageless was able to eventually fight off Huductis and, sealing the young chronomancer in a temporal prison deep within the tower. But Huductis, not to be forgotten, retained control of many of the order’s most powerful artifacts and been growing in power; he has begun breaking down the chronomancers’ spells, threatening to tear the tower and the Ageless apart with his escape. It appears, ironically, that it is only a matter of time before Huductis is released, and there’s no telling where­—or when—he will unleash his wrath.