The Mound of Harald the Conqueror – A Setting-Agnostic Old-School Dungeon

Beware Viking Tombs

Invite your players to plumb the tomb of one of the world's greatest explorers - Harald the Conqueror.

Secrets and danger abound, as does the promise of treasure, but not everything is as it seems. They'll be presented with many choices, both moral and social, to test their mettle and reward/punish them in kind. Pick it up and run it as you read, 

This low-level classic dungeon will give the thrill and excitement of the classic adventures with plenty to discover.

Was Harald as great as history remembers? Kattefjord has its believers, but everyone can have ulterior motives...

Features

• Adaptable - Fits easily into any campaign.
• Save on Prep Time - Don’t skip game night due to life events! It’s so simple to pick up and play, you can roll this out when you have a busy week.
  • 7 dense, easily consumed pages of immersive content to quickly roll into your campaign setting
• 3-5 Hours of Tense Tomb Dwelling - an evening of fun for the price of a latte
• High-Resolution Map - great for virtual tabletops like Roll20
• Great Content-to-Noise ratio: Tired of reading walls of text? No more homework! We get to the point so you can jump straight into playing!
• Strong Norse Theme - From the magic weapons, the locations, and the characters, it all reinforces the theme. Like historic sites, it could be a relic from a bygone era. Alternatively, you can easily strip the theme to add your own flavor.
• A Bonus Town with Points of Interest, Kattefjord, which comes with: 
  • adventure hooks, 
  • a rumor table,
  • two notable NPCs
  • The Drowning Kelpie - a tavern
• Replayability - Great for using repeatedly across groups because it has many moral, exploration, and social choices, allowing for very different choice-dependent outcomes.
• Bonus Random Encounters - Usable for any time your party is on the road.
• A Companion NPC - Friend or foe? That’s up to your party!
• 3 New Magic Items - Unique, fun magic items that help fill out the Exploration pillar of 5e
• 4 New Monsters - Interesting spins on ghosts, a human combatant, and the dreaded Ice Troll, throwing a curveball at veteran players (hint: it's not weak to the usual damage)
• 

  The promotional version of this dungeon!

Harald the Conqueror was the most famous explorer of his time

His voyages were the stuff of legend, and scholars continue to debate how he accomplished what he did. When he died, his trusty crewmen buried his body and his most treasured possession in a foreboding dungeon. 

The Mound of Harald the Conqueror is a short adventure inspired by old-school gaming. The PCs will explore the ancient tomb of a famous explorer, fight some of the most memorable monsters of the genre, yet the dungeon has been brought into the present enough to entertain even a more experienced audience.

This dungeon is designed to be beginner-friendly and easy for new DMs. The layout may be simple, but it also encourages exploration. 

Newer players will learn the basics of dungeon crawling: checking for traps, fighting ambushes, and looking for secrets.

In addition to that, there's a lot of treasure! Hidden in this dangerous tomb there are three new magic items that were designed to be memorable and fitting with the Norse-style setting.

The adventure is intended for a party of four 3rd-level characters. Characters of 2nd level may also make it through, but they will have to show off some clever tactics and be careful. A party of 4th level should have no problem at all.

If you decide to begin right outside the dungeon, it should take a single session of play to explore the dungeon. If you prefer to take your time, roleplay in Kattefjord, and explore the nearby region with random encounters, it can take up to three sessions.

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Created by Simo Santini; Edited & Promoted by Phil Shea; Final Formatting by Leonardo Andrade

Cover Art by Wilhelm Steuerwaldt, "A View of Snow-Covered Ruins" (1854)