D&D 5E Quest From The Infinite Staircase Adventures Revealed

Crystal caves, barrier peaks, pharaohs, lost caverns, lost cities, and fallen stars feature in the adventure anthology.

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Roll20 has today revealed some information about July's Dungeons & Dragons release, Quests from the Infinite Staircase.

The Infinite Staircase spirals in a dreamlike expanse, with doors leading to fantastic realms. It's home to the noble genie Nafas, who hears wishes made throughout the multiverse and recruits heroes to fulfill them. These pleas summon adventurers to lost caverns suffused with planar energy, fairytale gardens in the Feywild, futuristic spaceships, and other wondrous locales.

This anthology weaves together six classic DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® adventures while updating them for the game's fifth edition. You can run these quests individually or as a campaign that takes characters from level 1 to level 13.

This book includes the following adventures:
  • Beyond the Crystal Cave
  • Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
  • Pharaoh
  • The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
  • The Lost City
  • When a Star Falls

These are all adventures from previous editions of D&D (in much the same way as Ghosts of Saltmarsh was). All of them are AD&D (1E) adventures except for The Lost City, which was a Basic D&D adventure.

EN World member @pukunui provided a quick summary of each:

For those like myself who are unfamiliar with (some of) these adventures, here are summaries based on info from wikipedia:

Beyond the Crystal Cave: An AD&D 1e adventure set in Greyhawk which sees the PCs hired to save a couple who eloped and fled into the Cave of Echoes. The PCs must resolve the secret of the cave to reach a magical garden where it is always summer. The adventure is noteworthy for rewarding players for resolving encounters non-violently.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks: An AD&D 1e adventure written by Gary Gygax himself. In this adventure, the PCs explore a mysterious spaceship that crashed in Greyhawk's Barrier Peaks mountain range. The ship is filled with robots, laser guns, power armor, and all manner of strange creatures (including vegepygmies and a froghemoth). The adventure also involves collecting colored access cards to open restricted areas and the like.

Pharaoh: An AD&D 1e adventure written by the Hickmans of Ravenloft and Dragonlance fame. This one sees the PCs exiled into a desert after being falsely accused of a crime. They end up encountering the spirit of a dead Egyptian-style pharaoh who implores them to break into his supposedly thief-proof pyramid tomb and steal some things that will enable him to find eternal rest or something.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: Another of Gary Gygax's AD&D 1e Greyhawk modules. This one sees the PCs as treasure hunters seeking the wealth of the archmage Iggwilv. During their search, they encounter a vampire.

The Lost City: This is a Basic D&D adventure written by Tom Moldvay. The PCs get lost in a sandstorm and discover the lost city of Cynidicea, where the inhabitants are degenerate drug addicts. The PCs explore a pyramid and fight an evil monster.

When a Star Falls: An AD&D 1e module in which the PCs search for a fallen star in the moors. They encounter svirfneblin and derro as they seek to give the star to its rightful owner.
 

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Assuming they have an interactive spreadsheet to build monsters (which isn't guaranteed, but is the easiest way to do them), leveling everything up is really simple.

I hope they take the opportunity to drop the word "pygmy," though.
I would rather they replaced them with something else. When Barrier Peaks first came out they were weird and alien, but now they are standard monsters they don’t have the same impact.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend
Wait, what?! Really? There was going to be a film based on the Yawning Portal?
That was going yo be set in Waterdeep and feature the Yawning Portal, yup: before the pretty good Paramount gilm thst came out last year, Warner Bros spent years working on a movie that was supposwd.to hot like 2018-2019, that didn't end up happening: it's hard to find old articles about the details, but Waterdeep, the Yawning Portal, and characters like Volo and Xanathar appeared to be important elements. WotC D&D team actually spent 2016 through 2018 making books that tied into the movie plans (Volo's Guide, Xanathar's Guide, Yawning Portal, and both Waterdeep books). Might be why they didn't do so much for Honor Among Thieves, in the end.

 


Warpiglet-7

Cry havoc! And let slip the pigs of war!
So I went wild this year and acquired most of the Goodman Games conversions. Well all but isle of dread.

I feel a little weird about rebuying them. That said, this is a must buy for me. I liked the yawning portal and saltmarsh though I only used a fraction!!!

Did a release date get mentioned?
 



Parmandur

Book-Friend
So I went wild this year and acquired most of the Goodman Games conversions. Well all but isle of dread.

I feel a little weird about rebuying them. That said, this is a must buy for me. I liked the yawning portal and saltmarsh though I only used a fraction!!!

Did a release date get mentioned?
Yeah, July 16th
 

jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock
The Lost City, in its original version, has a lot of lightly detailed areas intended for the DM to fill in, so WotC has some interesting choices to make there. I suspect they may just update the previously detailed areas and just leave passageways off to other areas for the DM to either fill in for themselves or to seal off with cave ins. The OAR version of this -- out of print and increasingly hard to get -- is excellent, by the way.

No kidding! I saw how much some of the OAR adventures are selling for on eBay (actual sold listings) today and immediately put up my copies of The Isle of Dread and The Lost City for sale. Can't eat books, after all! :)
 

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
While I own all of Goodman Game's OAR books, they are more like coffee table books for me. Love them for the history. Too unwieldy to run as games for me, especially now that I'm running games in a VTT. Looking forward to having these in D&D Beyond. It would be fun to do a mini campaign with Barrier Peaks and Lost Laboratory of Kwalish. I'd like to try to run a more VTT light game with DDB Maps if all the maps for Infinite Staircase are prepped and supported in it.
It sounds like your problem with the OAR books conversions are that they don't come in digital form, like some sort of "Portable Document Format," a magical mythical format which so many other books come in... Except WotC hates PDFs for their current editions 😆

Yeah I agree on all counts, the OARs are great for history and reading, and they're ok for in-person use but they can't compare to the convenience of a digital copy... Which they don't come in, presumably because of WotC.
 

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
No kidding! I saw how much some of the OAR adventures are selling for on eBay (actual sold listings) today and immediately put up my copies of The Isle of Dread and The Lost City for sale. Can't eat books, after all! :)
Wait what? Aren't the OARs still in print and sold retail? Or do you mean the original adventures that the OARs covered?
 

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