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D&D Challenge Adventure: Gravemyst

by Mike on 21 March 2011

This year at PAX East, Wizards of the Coast sponsored the second Dungeon Master's Challenge. Dungeon masters were to come to PAX East prepared to run a level 8 adventure for a group of unknown players. Last year, the venerable Dave "the Game" Chalker won the competition. This year, the championship went to Matthew Brenner.

The following adventure, Gravemyst, was my entry and, while I didn't win, it is still an adventure of which I am proud. While preparing for the competition, I decided to make it "publishable" by designing it and formatting it like any other adventure you might get from DDI or another source.

Download Gravemyst in PDF (1mb)

Download 8th Level Pregen Character Builder exports (100k zip containing six .dnd4e files)

Even if you don't use the adventure as written, the adventure includes examples of the techniques described in other articles within the adventure such as including "outs" for every battle, skill challenges and puzzles within battles, and heavy use of environmental effects.

The adventure uses the poster map included with the Seekers of the Ashen Crown adventure, the Dragon's Lair Gamemastery Flip Map, and the Darklands Gamemastery Flip Map.

If you like this adventure, take a look at Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips and Running Epic Tier D&D Games. You can also bookmark this link to purchase anything from Amazon.