Tales From The Yawning Portal - 7 Classic Dungeons Updated To 5E!

Coming in April is WotC's next official D&D product, Tales from the Yawning Portal. This hardcover book contains seven classic dungeons updated to 5th Edition, from adventures such as Against the Giants, Dead in Thay, Forge of Fury, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Sunless Citadel, Tomb of Horrors, and White Plume Mountain. This is, presumably, the product previously codenamed Labyrinth. It's set for an April 4th release, for $49.95.

When the shadows grow long in Waterdeep and the fireplace in the taproom of the Yawning Portal dims to a deep crimson glow, adventurers from across the Sword Coast spin tales and spread rumors of lost treasures.

Within this tome are seven of the deadliest dungeons from the history of Dungeons & Dragons. Some are classics that have hosted an untold number of adventurers, while others are newer creations, boldly staking a claim to their place in the pantheon of notable adventures.

The seeds of these stories now rest in your hands. D&D’s deadliest dungeons are now part of your arsenal of adventures. Enjoy, and remember to keep a few spare character sheets handy.

For use with the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide, this book provides fans with a treasure trove of adventures, all of which have been updated to the fifth edition rules. Explore seven deadly dungeons in this adventure supplement for the world’s greatest roleplaying game:

• Against the Giants
• Dead in Thay
• Forge of Fury
• Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
• Sunless Citadel
• Tomb of Horrors
• White Plume Mountain

Find it on WotC's site here. Forbes has an interview about it here. Mearls says "We're announcing a new D&D product, a book coming out this spring. It is called Tales from the Yawning Portal(out March 24th in local game stores and April 4th everywhere else) It's a collection of seven of the most famous dungeons from Dungeons & Dragons history. They're all collected in one hardcover book. The idea behind it is not only do you want to capture some of the most famous dungeons from the game's history, but we also wanted to give a selection of adventures that you could in theory start at Level 1 with the first dungeon and play all the way up to Level 15 by playing the adventures one after another."

Cover Image

Gibbering Mouther

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan



SaveSave



SaveSave
SaveSave​

 

[robus]

Based on this, I think the level order is going to be

Sunless: 1st - 3rd
Forge: 3rd - 5th
Shrine 5th-7th
Thay 7th-8th (since we're only getting the Doomvault)
Mountain: 8th-10th (on the higher end because some of the classic foes from it are an oni, a vampire, and an efreet, which are all on the higher end of the CR. Also, the three weapons are powerful per the DMG)
Giants 10th-13th (to match the upgraded giant stats)
Tomb: 13th-15th (hinted at in the Forbe's article)

I do wonder if there will be some "rebalancing" done, just simply do to the fact monsters changed challenge "level" from edition to edition. Perhaps less monsters in certain encounters, or traps whose damage falls more into 5e's parameters.

If the adventures can be stitched together in that way then it might make the book a suitable guide for my Zendikar campaign idea. Explore the world the find these legendary tombs/places. Names etc changed to suit of course. But that might be a nice way to take something old and give it a fresh twist.

 

[Jester David]

Out of curiousity, I did a quick check of the page count of each of the original adventures, including maps, but not covers:

Tomb of Horrors: 34 pages
White Plume Mountain: 14 pages
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan: 44 pages
Against the Giants: 38 pages
Forge of Fury: 34 pages
Sunless Citadel: 34 pages
Dead in Thay: 106 pages

Total: 304 pages

The last four WotC adventure releases have all been 256 pages, which gives us ±36 pages per adventure for Tales. That seems about right, and probably means White Plume will get the most substantial update, and Dead in Thay the heaviest cutting.

I believe Dead in Thay also includes playtest rules and the like, which liked eats up some of the pages.

 

[Demetrios1453]

This is why what Wizards needs to do the next time the revamp the Forgotten Realms campaign setting is:

* Make a single, system neutral "Atlas and Gazeteer to the Realms" (or whatever they want to call it) set in year XXXX.
* Stop advancing the timeline in the setting material and leave it up to individual tables to do what they will.

Honestly, all they really need to do is another SCAG-type book, and focus it on Cormyr/Sembia/Dalelands/Moonsea and surrounding areas like SCAG was focused on the Sword Coast/Savage Frontier/Western Heartlands region. That would cover the other main region of the setting where a lot of people set their campaigns. And, since SCAG has already covered a lot of the setting's general information like gods and races, this book could use the remaining page count to cover the rest of the setting in relatively broad terms (enough to know the important information for each region, but not town-by-town detail, similar to what the Gray Box did, although probably somewhat more detailed). If they were to do that, we would actually have a 2-book FRCS, and the situation would be rectified...

 

[Parmandur]

True, but even then, 7 adventures at 30 pages each is 210 pages. That leaves 38 pages for the bestiary (given the monsters that need to be updated, I see this as about 25 pages at most), conversion notes, as well as other miscellaneous stuff, which should be adequate.

Don't have Curse of Strahd: do the fold-out maps count towards the page count? Given a 256 standard pages, minus 8 (close to 7...), some fold-out dungeon maps may be in store...

 

[pemerton]

I was so surprised by this when I opened the PDF that I pulled the printed version off the shelf to double-check. The actual adventure is only 9 pages. The rest is two pages of player hand-outs, two pages of maps (back of the cover) and a title page.

This made me go and pull my copy off the shelf.

It seems to be a 1981 printing. And yep, it's 16 pages:

1 page front splash/publication details;

Half-page adventure intro;

1 page GM's notes, adventure set-up, wandering monsters table, plus a half-page illustration;

1 page overland map;

7 pages of dungeon entries (which includes 5 half-page illustrations, plus a few smaller ones; some of these show how the tricky rooms look, but some are just for fun);

2 full-page creature illustrations (the crab, the halfling);

Half-page of more GM's notes at the end (adventure resolution), which also includes another creture illustration (effreets) and credits;

Half-page of kelpie stats;

2 pages of player handouts.​

That's actually pretty slim - on the other hand, you could say the crazy-action-to-page-count ratio is optimised!

EDIT: should probably add that there is 2 pages of dungeon map, printed on the front and back inside of the module cover.

 

[buzzardoftheages]

The reason this is "low effort" is more for us than for them. They know that their Adventure Paths are long and people are still playing through older ones like Out of the Abyss, much less recent ones like Storm Kings. This is a light break for players and DM's to give them time to digest the material they already have released.

As to why they decided to remake old adventures rather than make new ones? Sales. 5th Edition is made to get people playing D&D. Old fans that left or stopped playing, new fans that never played, any and everybody. By remaking sure fire hits they guarantee sales will be positive. Sure some will complain, but a lot of DM's, old and new, will buy it regardless to have the conversions.

This is exactly my situation. In my group two of us are running home brew campaigns, I am running Curse of Strahd, and another player is going to be a DM for the first time using Out of the Abyss tomorrow night. We try to meet once a week and we rotate so prep work can be spread out to fit within our busy lives. I own a copy of Storm King's Thunder but it will be months before we consider running that one. Kobold Press's Book of Lairs has helped fill a couple of lulls in the home brew campaigns already and Tales from the Yawning Portal looks like another great fit for our group, either for one-shots when not all of us can get together or to plug a hole in one of our campaigns when things get stale.

I played AD&D and 2E with a solid group in middle/high school in the late 80's and early 90's, then stopped for a long time after we all went to different colleges. Over the years I thought about scratching that itch again but not having a core group of like-minded friends nearby (as well as that 3.5/Pathfinder/4E/Essentials "wall of books" Mearls mentioned) discouraged me from picking up the hobby again. The D&D Next playtest is what pulled me back in, and the slow publishing schedule has allowed me to keep up without straining the bank account. While I do own a few of these old modules in pdf form, I prefer holding a book in my hands and 5E's style really appeals to me. Tales from the Yawning Portal clearly isn't for everybody but I am firmly in their target audience.

 

[Bupp]

I'm torn with this announcement. At first I was excited. Some great adventures there! Then I realized I've been running a lot of classic adventures while converting on the fly. I'm running White Plume Mountain right now. I have the Classic Modules Today conversion guide for it, but have yet to reference it during play. So do I really need this product?

If it brings something new to the table, I think I'll get it. If it's just updated, cleaned up conversions? I'll pass.

I do hope it does well, though. I like the idea of them releasing a collection of standalone adventures.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well all the contents of the books are going to be cleaned up and made easier to read. We are getting new art and maps. (Some of the new maps were already made but that does not changed that some of this stuff has not been updated with new maps.) The Doomvault is probably the biggest dungeon in the book and it's likely going to be rewritten a bit as exploring it is the focus of the adventure.

 

[Echohawk]

I believe Dead in Thay also includes playtest rules and the like, which liked eats up some of the pages.

It does include those, but as separate files, not as part of the 107 page adventure. There are more than 30 pages of NPC and monster statistics in the adventure appendices, but not the rules.

Dead in Thay's 107 pages break down as follows:

• 1: Cover page
• 2-5: Credits, introduction, and other general information
• 6-10: Session 1 (the majority of which is NPC descriptions)
• 11-15: Elemental Nodes
• 15-17: Bloodgate Nexus
• 18-25: Doomvault (general info)
• 26-27: Session 2
• 27-33: Abyssal Prisons
• 33-37: Blood Pens
• 38-42: Masters' Domain
• 42-46: Far Realm Cysts
• 46-49: Forests of Slaughter
• 49-53: Ooze Grottos
• 53-58: Predator Pools
• 58-63: Golem Laboratories
• 63-68: Temples of Extraction
• 68-72: Final Session
• 72: Appendix 1. Magic Items
• 73-75: Appendix 2. NPCs
• 75-106: Appendix 3. Monsters
• 107: Doomvault map

Roughly speaking, pages 18-68 detail the Doomvault.

 

[Echohawk]

In defence of this inclusion, it was never physically printed before. Being originally available on the defunct D&D Classics site, and now on the DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG. And a Copper/Electrum seller, it's only really moved 300 or so copies on those two sites. So there are a lot of gamers who have never seen this adventure.

While I agree that Dead in Thay is the least well known adventure of the set, in addition to the copies sold via D&D Classics, the PDF was also made available for free to stores running it as part of WotC's organised play, which probably boosts the numbers quite a bit.