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Embers of the Lantern Wyrm

Original

Campaign · Dark fantasy, hope against the dark

For three hundred years a dragon's light has guided travellers through the Ashpine Mountains. Now the light is failing, the lanterns in the valley are going out one by one, and something is walking in the dark that wears the faces of the people it takes.

Character Level 1–10

Length 16–20 sessions

Players 3–5

Map of the Ashpine Valley: Emberwick, Greyford and the barrow-temple, the snuffed roadside shrines, and the old mountain road up to the Lanternspire.
Click the map to open it full size; ⟲ ⟳ turn it. Numbered markers are explained in the map's key.

Read Aloud

Every night of your life, the light has been there: a white-gold star burning on the peak above the valley, steady as a lighthouse. The old folk call it the Lantern, and they say a dragon tends it. Tonight, as the bells of Emberwick ring the evening hour, the Lantern flickers. Once. Twice. Then, for the first time anyone can remember, it goes out. Somewhere on the dark road below the village, a dog begins to howl, and the lamps along the street gutter as if a cold wind has passed through them.

The rest of this adventure is for your Dungeon Master's eyes only: its secrets, maps, encounters and rewards. No spoilers here. Switch to DM in the header if you're the one running it.

For the DM

Vaelrith, a lantern wyrm, has guarded the Ashpine roads for three centuries. Her flame keeps the gloamhounds and worse things of the deep dark at bay. A year ago, a whisperhusk calling itself the Hollow Abbot came to her shrine disguised as a pilgrim. Over many visits it stole pieces of her mind: her name, her memories, her purpose. Now Vaelrith sleeps in her lair, confused and dimming, and the Abbot is using her stolen memories to find the old shrines along the road and put out their lights one by one. When the last shrine goes dark, the Abbot means to hollow out the dragon completely and wear her as its final, greatest face.

Act 1: The DimmingLevels 1–3

The party are locals or travellers stranded in Emberwick when the Lantern goes out. Over the next weeks, lamps in the valley refuse to stay lit and wolves come down from the hills, driven by something they fear more than people. The village elder asks the party to check on the three roadside shrines nearest the village. Each shrine has had its eternal flame snuffed out, and at the third they find a pilgrim's abandoned pack holding a map with all the valley's shrines marked, and a smooth grey seed pod that whispers when held. The act ends when a gloamhound attacks the village on the night of the new moon, and the party learn that only fire lit from a shrine flame keeps it at bay.

Map of Emberwick village: Bell Square, the Tallow Lamp inn, the mill, the Mill Road and the two nearest shrines.
Click the map to open it full size; ⟲ ⟳ turn it. Numbered markers are explained in the map's key.

Wolves on the Mill Road

The wolves are starving and frightened. A creature that waves a torch or scores a hit on the pack leader may scare them off; they flee at half their number.

Shrine Robbers

Bandits who were paid in silver by a 'grey pilgrim' to smash the second shrine's lamp. Captured bandits can describe the pilgrim: tall, hooded, and with a voice that kept changing.

New Moon

The finale of Act 1. Torches gutter when the gloamhound is near. If the party have relit any shrine flame, a lantern lit from it gives Advantage on attacks against the gloamhound.

Act 2: The Hollow PilgrimsLevels 4–6

Following the pilgrim's map, the party travel up the valley to the town of Greyford, where pilgrims returning from the Lantern's shrine have been arriving hollow: they smile and speak, but they remember nothing of who they were. The party uncover a hidden congregation in the old barrow-temple below the town, led by people the Abbot has hollowed and filled with its own whispers. In the deepest tomb they find a reliquary holding one of Vaelrith's stolen memories, a glowing scale that shows a vision of the dragon asleep and the Abbot standing over her. To reach the Lantern before the last shrine falls, they must take the old mountain road.

Battle map of the barrow-temple below Greyford: the congregation hall, the barrow galleries and the reliquary.
Click the map to open it full size; ⟲ ⟳ turn it. Numbered markers are explained in the map's key.

The Smiling Congregation

The cultists are hollowed townsfolk. Each one reduced to 0 Hit Points can be spared; if the party later restore Vaelrith, the hollowed regain their memories.

Barrow Nest

The centipedes nest in the walls and attack from above. Skeletons of the old barrow lords rise when the reliquary chamber is opened.

Keeper of the Reliquary

Spirits of pilgrims whose memories were stolen. They attack anyone holding the dragon scale but can be calmed with a successful DC 14 Charisma (Persuasion) check that promises to return what was taken.

Act 3: The Mountain RoadLevels 7–8

The road to the Lanternspire climbs through snow, ruined waystations and the last shrines. The Caravan Master Orla Venn, who has walked this road for twenty years, can guide the party for a price. Without the Lantern, the gloamhounds now hunt in packs, and the Abbot has hollowed a band of mercenaries to hold the pass. At the final waystation the party find the Abbot's journal, written in a dozen different hands, revealing its plan to wear the dragon.

The Pack

A night ambush in a snowstorm. The gloamhounds step between shadows; a strong light source (such as Daylight, or a relit shrine flame) denies them Umbral Step within its bright light.

Holding the Pass

Hollowed mercenaries who still remember how to fight but nothing else. Their captain, the mage, speaks with the Abbot's voice and taunts the party with things it learned from people they've met.

Act 4: RekindlingLevels 9–10

Inside the Lanternspire, the party climb through Vaelrith's lair, where her fading memories take physical form as echoes of the past three centuries. At its heart, the dragon lies asleep and the Hollow Abbot kneels by her head, almost finished. If the party destroy the Abbot, the stolen memories return to their owners, Vaelrith wakes, and the Lantern blazes again over the valley. If they fail, the Abbot wakes in the dragon's body, and the campaign's next chapter is a very different story.

Battle map of the Lanternspire: the tunnel, the Gallery of Echoes, the Hall of Old Light and Vaelrith's chamber.
Click the map to open it full size; ⟲ ⟳ turn it. Numbered markers are explained in the map's key.

Echoes of the Wyrm

Memories gone wrong. Each will-o'-wisp destroyed releases a vision of Vaelrith's past that hints at the Abbot's weakness: it can't steal from a mind that freely gives.

The Hollow Abbot

The final battle. While the Abbot lives, at the start of each round it can speak with the voice of a creature it has hollowed, imposing Disadvantage on one PC's next attack. A PC who tells Vaelrith their true name, as an action, wakes her for one round: she breathes light, dealing 6d10 radiant damage to the Abbot.

Characters

Vaelrith · The Lantern Wyrm

Ancient, proud and kind, now confused and fading. If restored, she becomes a powerful patron to the party and remembers every one of them by name. Use the Lantern Wyrm stat block.

The Hollow Abbot · Villain

A whisperhusk that has worn hundreds of faces and believes that a mind unused is a mind wasted. It speaks politely in borrowed voices and never uses the same one twice in a conversation. Use the Whisperhusk stat block.

Elder Maren Holt · Emberwick's elder

Practical, tired and frightened for her village. She remembers the last time the Lantern flickered, when she was a girl, and the stories her grandmother told about the dragon. Use the Commoner stat block.

Orla Venn · Caravan Master and guide

Has walked the mountain road for twenty years and buried more partners than she cares to count. Gruff, honest, and owed a lot of money by people who are now hollow. Use the Caravan Master stat block.

Brother Tam · Hollowed pilgrim

A cheerful young pilgrim who came back from the shrine with no memory of his name. Restoring him is a small victory the party can carry through the campaign. Use the Acolyte stat block.

Rewards

  • A Shrine Lantern: lit from a shrine flame, it sheds bright light that gloamhounds won't willingly enter.
  • Act 2: Potion of Healing ×3, a +1 weapon from the barrow lords' tomb.
  • Act 3: Cloak of Protection, Boots of the Winterlands.
  • Act 4: a scale of Vaelrith that works as a Dragon Scale Mail of the party's choice when worked by a smith, and the dragon's friendship.

Running It

  • Show the light going out. Describe the Lantern on every night scene, and let it grow dimmer as the shrines fall.
  • Let hollowed NPCs return. Characters the party liked in Act 1 can appear hollowed later; restoring them in Act 4 makes the ending land.
  • Gloamhounds are scariest when unseen. Use them at a distance before the party ever fight one.

Original adventure of The Dragon's Lantern. Monsters from the System Reference Document 5.1 (CC-BY-4.0).