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

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.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I must confess that I am quite disappointed for two reasons: first, because compared to other 5e adventure anthology books, this one will have fewer ones. Second, because the idea of the multiverse and the description of adventures such as Eberron's Shadows of the Last War during the WotC panel in which this book was announced had made me think that the latter and other adventures across settings and editions would be included, which turned out to not be the case

The touching on other settings is in the Vecna book, not this one.

 

[Aellic Mornbringer]

While I own all of Goodman Game's OAR books, there are more like coffee table books for me. Love them for the history.

For whatever reason I never purchased OAR #5 and it is now a glaring hole in what otherwise be the full collection*.

*to date. OAR #8 didn't really pique my interest so I didn't pre-order that one.

 

[Parmandur]

compared to other 5e adventure anthology books, this one will have fewer ones.

Weeell, I mean...not so much? Tales from the Yawning Portal had 7, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh had 7, but both of those had some very short Adventures. This book is updating 4 32 pages Adventures, a 64 page Adventure, and a 68 page Adventure, nit even considering the maps on the folders. That is pushing the 256 page mark, even allowing for 5E pages being bigger than TSR era ones.

 

[Parmandur]

For whatever reason I never purchased OAR #5 and it is now a glaring hole in what otherwise be the full collection*.

*to date. OAR #8 didn't really pique my interest so I didn't pre-order that one.

It's not available new from Goodman, and is OOS on Amazon, but you can still find a copy right now at decent prices. The moment I realized Goodman Games was scrubbing the books from their site, I snapped the last two I did not have up (OAR 4 and 5)

 

[sevenbastard]

. I was hoping for my two favorite modules: UK2 The Sentinel and UK3 The Gauntlet.

I was hopping Goodman Gmaes would OAR UK 2 and 3 these as they are a great fun. I ran the heck out of these in the 80s.

Two other great UK that would have for are

UK 7 Dark Clouds Gather would seem like a good fit for a book like this. It's a railroad, but fun with lots of unique and memrable bits. And the airborne combat finale is a blast.

X8 Drums of Fire Mountain is another great UK module. Very open on how it's aproached. But some of the content has aged very poorly.

 

[Parmandur]

I wonder to what extent these Advebture choices may have been chosen for Mosnter stat block efficiency? Both S4 and UK4 seem to heavily involve Derro, shich will need to be reprinted in this book, to play double duty.

 

[sevenbastard]

They are also a little lost, so by wandering the area they have opportunities to stumble into the area and encounter stuff from the module in a different order. I'll let you know how it work out.

Sweet. I think this module works great expanded to a Sandbox to nexplore and your prework on prophetic dreams is a great idea and fits with the theme.

 

[Joshua Randall]

"We have no new ideas, but we rock at recycling old ones." -- is how this reads to me. Kinda sad.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wonder to what extent these Advebture choices may have been chosen for Mosnter stat block efficiency? Both S4 and UK4 seem to heavily involve Derro, shich will need to be reprinted in this book, to play double duty.

A fair chunk of Lost Caverns was taken up with statblocks and spells from the Demonicon, and didn't relate to the adventure at all. Barrier Peaks would require the most monster stat blocks, especially if they are going to try and make vegipigmies relevant at level 13, but a fair chunk of the original page count was the art book.

 

[Parmandur]

"We have no new ideas, but we rock at recycling old ones." -- is how this reads to me. Kinda sad.

The last time they had a retro Module collection was half a decade ago. Since then, they have had no less than 3 collections of brand new short modular Adventures, not to mention some half dozen full length new campaigns.