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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I'm a little disappointed that they're doing Pharaoh without doing the other two adventures in the Desert of Desolation series. And man, if you're going to do Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, why not go ahead and do Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun? Yeah, I know, space is limited. I guess they wanted to do an assortment of stuff, rather than a couple of mini-campaigns.

I'm a little surprised that ten years into 5E we haven't seen any love for Vault of the Drow, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, or even Ghost Tower of Inverness.

I'm still waiting for the announcement that as part of the 50th anniversary, they're reprinting the first 25 modules in a high-end boxed set or somesuch. There's a lot of love for those early adventures (and a lot of older gamers with disposable income).
Great point! Pairing Lost Caverns with Forgotten Temple and strengthening the links/building out the region would have been a fun product to see.

I always thought Ghost Tower of Inverness would be a fairly simple one to update and use as a tournament module again. And I think Into the Abyss (along with FR drow and their plotlines in general compared to Greyhawk's) has kept the D1-3/Q1 series from getting attention.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Yeah, I hadn't realized OAR #1-6 had gone out of print. Shoot, GG just shipped out #7 The Dark Tower. Seeing these two titles included in Infinite Staircase probably explains at least somewhat why that particular licensing agreement came to end when it did and GG pivoted to non-WotC adventures for OAR #7 and #8.
Into the Borderlands ended up being the best selling product Goodman Games has ever released: could be they proved to Hasbro the market is there.
 
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Parmandur

Book-Friend
Somewhat surprising line-up. I wish they'd not done Expedition and Lost City since I've got the Goodman overkill versions, and sort of wish they'd tackle some of the others that haven't seen a 5E conversion, such as Ghost Tower.
I am glad those Adventures are getting spread around more broadly, though: good stuff.
 



Definitely explains why Goodman Games lost the license for the OAR stuff. That's too bad as those were phenomenal books. Goodman took each of those old modules and turned out a 400+ page mammoth tome of history, interviews, and adventure. WotC is going to stuff six modules into less space.
All those modules were pretty short themselves.
 


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