D&D 5E Lost Laboratory of Kwalish: A D&D Adventure For Charity

WotC has released a 60-page adventure called Lost Laboratory of Kwalish over on DMs Guild, the proceeds for which go towards the Extra Life charity. "Lost Laboratory of Kwalish explores an alternate expedition into the Barrier Peaks. The legendary inventor disappeared in the peaks eons ago… as it turns out, finding a crashed planar ship and studying its technology to fuel his own experiments—only now, Kwalish’s lost research is desperately needed!"

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Here's the full product info:

Lost Laboratory of Kwalish explores an alternate expedition into the Barrier Peaks. The legendary inventor disappeared in the peaks eons ago… as it turns out, finding a crashed planar ship and studying its technology to fuel his own experiments—only now, Kwalish’s lost research is desperately needed!

For characters 5th-10th level.

This adventure explores two locations within the Barrier Peaks, and includes new monsters, magic items, and spells, plus sci-fi trinkets, random encounters, and even rumors of the area submitted by the player community! Further featuring new art, maps (from Claudio Pozas), and even a cartoon (from Jason Thompson)—as well as the famed suit of powered armor, as edited by Jeremy Crawford on the Dragon+ livestream!

Best of all, all monies that Wizards of the Coast receives from sales of this PDF are donated to Extra Life. Your purchase of this adventure goes to a truly great cause!

About Extra Life:

Extra Life unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children's Miracle Network Hospital. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $30 million for sick and injured kids. Sign up today and dedicate a day of play for kids in your community!

Thanks to Cliff for the scoop!

In addition, the adventure features items and spells named after Galder, the character of a fan known as "SomeHairyGuy" who passed recently of cancer.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not doing a full review, but I will make these points:

It requires quite a lot of work from the DM before play. It doesn't include maps, apart from town/village scale, so you would have to prepare battle maps for locations fights are likely to break out. It is also full of bits where "it could be this" or "it could be that", so the DM has some choices to make before starting.

The only connections to the original Barrier Peaks adventure are some of the magic items that can be looted, and the suggestion that levels from the original adventure could be added into the planar craft.


There is a lot of fun stuff in it, and it probably lends itself more to a comic tone than anything very serious.

 

[Ancalagon]

I've scanned it and my first impression is also that - lots of cool stuff but lots of prep work required. The encounter with the monk master for example... lots could go wrong there.

 

[Reynard]

::casts Raise Thread::

Where would you set this in Eberron? I was surprised to see there was no mention of potential Eberron location, and Google has failed me. I don't want to put it in Xendrik just because I don't want my Khorvaire bound PCs heading that way quite yet. Suggestions?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It was published before Wayfinder's Guide, so it's not surprising it doesn't feature Eberron. But it can go in pretty much any large unexplored mountain range. I put it in The Spine of the World (FR) with the second part "North of the Reghed Glacier" (I.e. off the top of the map).

There are a couple of reasons I wouldn't run it unmodified in Eberron myself though:

1) Eberron's Shtick is magic replaces advanced technology, so I wouldn't want to add laser rifles to the game.
2) Eberron is also supposed to be cut off from other planes, apart from the Eberron specific ones.
3) (this is the killer) In a world full of artificers, why bother searching for one of many? Kwalish is only interesting as a McGuffin in a world where artificers are rare.

This adventure would serve very well if you wanted to introduce artificers into a setting that hadn't previously had them.

Edit: I guess The Mournland. You might suggest that Kwalish might know something about/be responsible for what happened there.

 

[Ancalagon]

I'm currently running it, and will publish a review once I'm done

I concur with @Paul Farquhar that it may not fit the feel/lore of Eberron....

 

[Reynard]

Weird. I think it is perfect for Eberron. Once this thing is discovered, what's left of House Cannith will be all over it, I think. In the Realms no one would know what to do with it. In Everron it becomes a huge McGuffin.

Anyway, I think I am going to put it in the Howling Mountains on the Zil border, mostly because one of the PCs is a gnome and I want to send her home.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you are playing Eberron, where did the Planar ship/monastery originate from?

It's not consistent with any of the planes that canonically contact Eberron.

 

[Parmandur]

If you are playing Eberron, where did the Planar ship/monastery originate from?

It's not consistent with any of the planes that canonically contact Eberron.

Eberron is losing it's unique cosmology, and is part of the Great Wheel now: anything goes.

 

[Ancalagon]

The planar ship is just one of many planar elements of the adventure - the plot doesn't really work without planar travel. So if Eberron has a "no planar" aspect, it wont' work.

I'm currently setting mine inside Yoon Suin.

 

[Reynard]

If you are playing Eberron, where did the Planar ship/monastery originate from?

It's not consistent with any of the planes that canonically contact Eberron.

Rigell VII. Or, who cares?

Things are only true in a game at the table once they are spoken or otherwise become important. Introducing this adventure in my Eberron campaign means that the things in it are true for my Eberron campaign. There a massive technomagically advances spaceship from -somewhere- in the Howling Mountains. Maybe it was a thought brought into being in Dal Quor by a feverish artificer. Maybe it was from the Federation of Planets and suffered a warp drive overload that caused it to enter a subspace pocket universe created by one the Q. Who knows?

What I'm trying to say is: the campaign setting, whether in a hardcover or a Sprawl notebook, is just a starting place. No one should ever be afraid to run an adventure because some element doesn't line up with the "lore." Change the lore. The world gets deeper and more interesting that way.