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Back in early October of 2018, a YouTube channel known as the Dungeon Dudes began an Actual Play series known as Dungeons of Drakkenheim. Spanning 52 episodes over the course of a year, it drew in a good deal of fans, and the group would continue to have adventures in the setting with even more campaign streams. The last episode for the final campaign, Fate of Drakkenheim, is slated for release on October 28th, 2025, bringing a close to a 7-year journey.
Dungeons of Drakkenheim quickly became one of the most popular long-running D&D Actual Plays. When the Dungeon Dudes set up a KickStarter for turning the campaign into a sandbox adventure, it received over 1 million dollars in funding. This would not be a one-off success story, for they produced several more crowdfunded sourcebooks set in the Drakkenheim universe with high production values and physical accessory add-ons. The Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel, which also makes a lot of content for player and DMing advice independent of the Drakkenheim brand, recently achieved its half-a-million subscriber count.
But while Dungeons of Drakkenheim is a very popular adventure, it doesn't have much in the way of in-depth reviews out there. And given that I'm a big fan of the Actual Play series as well, I'm quite motivated to share some more details about this module.
Sixteen years ago, the magnificent capital city of Westemär, Drakkenheim, was destroyed by a falling meteor. Its impact brought with it a supernatural force known as the Haze which permeated the surrounding atmosphere. Within it, the surrounding land warps beyond recognition and alien crystals known as delerium start to form. Exposure to Haze and delerium crystals causes creatures both living and undead to suffer a wide variety of maladies before eventually mutating into horrific monsters. Delerium shards hold within them magical potential, making the ruins a dangerous yet profitable place for adventuring types. But mere coin isn't the only value sought here: from loyal soldiers of the fallen kingdom who seek royal documents and ancestral heirlooms to legitimize the next ruler, to a foreign army of clerics and paladins who seek to burn down Drakkenheim and all the delerium within it, the powers that be across the continent have a vested interest in this shattered land.
In addition to combat against eldritch entities and exploring dark fantasy environments, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is also a heavily social campaign. There are five major factions with vested interests in the city's resources and political value. Some are capable of working together short-term, but all five have long-term irreconcilable differences on what to do regarding its ultimate fate. We get some brief snippets of said factions, who are detailed further in a chapter of their own:
- the Hooded Lanterns, veterans of Westemär's civil war who wish to rebuild Drakkenheim and appoint the legitimate heir of the formerly-ruling House Von Kessel.
- the Queen's Men, various bands of outlaws and criminals led by the Queen of Thieves. She seeks to keep Drakkenheim's status quo as a "gangster's paradise" that continues to exploit the ruins by claiming and selling its treasures and delerium.
- Knights of the Silver Order, a foreign military from the theocracy of Elyria. They view delerium as a force of evil and seek to destroy it by burning down the city and killing any corruptive forces within it.
- Followers of the Falling Fire, a breakaway faith that follows the same religion as the Silver Order, but whose prophet believes that delerium's a divine gift that can be used to save mortalkind from a greater unrevealed evil.
- The Amethyst Academy, an academic institution of arcane spellcasters whose greatest center was a tower in Drakkenheim. They have a deep interest in both reclaiming the tower and further researching delerium's capabilities.
While Dungeons of Drakkenheim can be adapted to other campaign settings (I think that Eberron in particular has a lot of potential), the default adventure presumes that it takes place in the peculiar World of Drakkenheim setting. Although said world is expanded on in another supplement, we get a sidebar going over some quick facts, plus some additions of my own that I think help set the stage for its most notable features:
- The World of Drakkenheim is a low-magic, low-power setting that takes place on an unnamed continent.
- The city of Drakkenheim is an epicenter for the continent's most powerful NPCs and mages, as delerium and the eldritch abominations its creating is a pretty new and unique phenomenon that everyone wants to get to the bottom of what it is and what to do about it.
- The existence of deities is not verifiably proven, and divine casting comes from matters of faith.
- Barring PCs multiclassing*, people cannot attain later proficiency with arcane magic by training or study alone, as it requires inheriting a unique bloodborne trait. Those who have it are known as magebourne, and almost all arcane casters have been identified as having the potential during childhood. The Amethyst Academy is entrusted with training such children in the use of magic.
- In the distant past, various Sorcerer Kings ruled the continent in bloody, tyrannical societies before they were overthrown. This was in large part to the efforts of a valiant paladin known as Saint Tarna, who founded a religion known as the Sacred Flame.
- Ever since, arcane spellcasting is strictly regulated, and a set of laws known as the Edicts of Lumen were drafted to prevent another arcane tyranny from arising. The Amethyst Academy is the continent's chief governing body of arcane magic.
- The Sacred Flame is the most popular religion and also the state religion of Elyria, the most powerful kingdom. It does not profess belief in deity or deities, instead focusing on mortal self-improvement and belief in an omnipresent benevolent cosmic force they refer to as the Sacred Flame. Other religions tend to be smaller and in number and oppressed or sidelined to various degrees, with the most notable being the pagan-like Old Faith of various nature deities.
*In a Q&A, the authors explained that the PCs are the stars of the show and thus aren't beholden to the wider rules of the setting if it would make for a good story.
While Dungeons of Drakkenheim leans on the higher scale of lethality and intentionally unbalanced encounters to reflect the city's dangers, it doesn't encourage the OSR style of making background-free expendable PCs. The book emphasizes that the Player Characters are the heart of the story, and that it will ultimately be their choices that determine Drakkenheim's ultimate destiny should they live to tell the tale.
In reflection of this, the book calls out two appendices in back containing new Backgrounds and lore about the World of Drakkenheim for players to peruse, along with a new rule known as Personal Quests. Each PC has an inbuilt Personal Quest whose specifics are determined by collaborating with the DM on an objective for them to accomplish during the course of a campaign. 12 sample quests are provided, but players can also come up with their own. When a Personal Quest is completed, the player chooses for their PC to either gain +2 to an ability score (and thus raises the maximum in that score by a like amount), or immediately gains a free feat subject to DM approval.
Thoughts: I like how the introductory chapter outlines the major themes of the campaign, from the brief discussion on the value and danger of delerium to the major factions and quick facts about the setting. The Personal Quest is a neat house rule, simple in feel yet also encourages the players to pursue their own goals for mechanical as well as story purposes.
This chapter goes into deeper detail about common elements and advice for the DM in running Dungeons of Drakkenheim. It begins by setting up the initial idea of how the PCs will get involved, with the presumption that they arrive in the region to pursue their personal quests. Emberwood Village, which is located on the outskirts of the city, serves as a safe hub for the party to return between delves into the ruins of Drakkenheim. While undertaking various missions, the PCs have multiple opportunities to learn more about major areas of the city, notably how the omnipresent Haze and threat of contamination presents a dangerous obstacle from fully exploring the city or even being able to safely take a Long Rest within its boundaries. The various factions will take note of the newcomers and seek their aid, providing the party with valuable information and resources. But eventually, they will be asked or demanded to take sides due to conflicting goals over the fate of Drakkenheim.
Dungeons of Drakkenheim is built to support either experience point or milestone progression for leveling up, and includes an Adventure Flow Chart which outlines suggested level ranges for particular locations and events. Being a sandbox environment, it is likely that PCs will visit locations "out of order" if not ignore some entirely. That being said, there are some narrative limitations on movement, such as aerial monsters on the lookout for people climbing the city battlements or the Deep Haze which requires precious equipment or powerful magic to safely traverse for any significant length of time. Adding onto the danger, the World of Drakkenheim's low-magic nature means that resurrection magic is a rare and valued power, and only a few NPCs in the module have the capabilities of doing so. Spell scrolls with such magic can be found as treasure, and certain factions can provide such magic to PCs who earn their favor. The book explains that new arrivals regularly make their way into Emberwood Village, which serves as a convenient means of creating replacement PCs for the fallen. Alternatively, an NPC of an allied faction may come in as a reinforcement to accompany the party and be controlled by the player.
Origins of the Meteor talks about how this celestial body is part of a larger cosmic cycle: when a world gets into contact with Haze, it can envelop the planet in several centuries. The land will be a Lovecraftian hell filled with unpredictable magic, the planet eventually exploding into a hail of comets filled with delerium. Spreading throughout the void, the process is repeated with any worlds upon which they land. No entity knows the Haze's "origin point" or how many worlds have befallen this fate, with the latter only that it's been countless in number. Even divination magic is inconclusive when it comes to such subjects.
A sidebar goes into further detail about the design decisions for the above: that Drakkenheim's doom (and possibly the world's) is not the result of intentional malice or a single villain to oppose, but a "cosmic accident" more in line with a natural disaster that is merely part of reality. This helps reinforce the themes of cosmic horror, where simply charging in and vanquishing evil won't be enough to undo the damage. It also acts as a catalyst for conflict between Drakkenheim's factions and power players: plopping in a demon lord or surefire blueprint in saving the world would act as a uniting factor, and by making it so that the explanation and solution isn't fully known acts as a dividing wedge.
Fall of House von Kessel discusses the political structure of Westemär, notably its former ruling family. Being very much a traditional feudal monarchy, the kingdom's administration was governed by a noble family known as the von Kessels for the past 150 years. When the meteor fell upon Drakkenheim, it not only wiped out the highest-ranking members, it also destroyed much of that kingdom's political and economic centers. Multiple military campaigns to reclaim the capital ended in failure, and the bodies and whereabouts of King Ulrich IV, his wife Queen Lenore (who is a Caspian princess), and 3 children could not be found. This caused civil war to break out among the surviving noble relations over the direction of Westemär. The King and Queen have been transformed into unique monsters that can be met in this adventure, but the fates of their children are left to the DM to develop. Beyond these core 5, the rest of the dynasty is left vague on purpose for the DM and players to create their own potential heirs. In fact, being the long-lost scion is a possible suggested backstory for a PC and one of the possible Personal Quests.
This section also discusses 6 unique magic items known as the Seals of Drakkenheim, and also who has them and where to find them during the campaign's outset. Beyond just having powers in and of themselves, they are collectively used for the coronation ritual to attune the new monarch to the Crown of Westemär. They are valuable to the five factions, but especially the Hooded Lanterns and Queen of Thieves who both have vested interests in gaining legitimate recognition of the kingdom's rulership.
Running Personal Quests provides sample suggestions for the 12 prewritten Personal Quests in the prior chapter, and how the adventure's existing material can be used in their advancement and resolution. For example, Arcane Secrets can involve learning various dangerous spells that can only be discovered during play (and which are detailed in this book), while A Lost Heirloom provides appropriate locations in the city for the PCs to obtain the item* in completing their quest. We also get four guidelines for creating custom Personal Quests and why: they should involve exploring one or more locations within the Inner City ruins so to ensure that the Quest is not completed too quickly; it should present some complication with one of the factions or require seeking out a faction's help in order to complete it; it should be specific and achievable, and not be based on acquiring a certain level of experience or class feature, and it should be a long-term goal rather than an urgent "countdown clock".
*Which is a Rare or rarer magic item as an added bonus.
Running the Factions is a short page-and-a-half of advice covering the five organizations as a whole. There's a Cast of Characters sidebar listing the names of each faction's leaders and VIPs along with parenthetical notes for their rank and role in said groups. The book notes that playing as "lone wolves" will be extremely difficult, and that the PCs should be encouraged to seek the aid of one or more factions in helping explore Drakkenheim. For that reason, the factions should initially take the "carrot" over the stick approach in encouraging the party to further their own goals. Thus, the players can decide for themselves who to ally with and against rather than having that decision made for them ahead of time. While several factions are strongly thematic of particular fantasy archetypes, such as the Amethyst Academy being very arcane caster-focused, a PC's race or class does not preclude them from forming an alliance in and of itself.
The book notes that while all factions are open to working with others on a short-term basis, the most realistic expectation is that the PCs might help foster an alliance between two factions, with three being very difficult yet possible. There are certain factions that are much less likely to work together: the Hooded Lanterns views the Queen's Men as outlaws antithetical to a restored Westemär', while the Queen's Men don't want a stable government which can more easily cut into their operations. The Silver Order and Falling Fire not only have bitter religious differences, but also opposing ideas on what they want to do about delerium.
Additionally, while the factions can be competent in their areas, they are not all made up of rational actors. The book notes that "people don't always act in logical ways," and alliances will inevitably collapse unless the PCs go out of their way to smooth out disputes and differences. Additionally, revealing the true threat and extent of the Haze won't unite the factions, but instead be used as evidence that their way is the correct way or cause a morale collapse depending on the group in question. The Silver Order can thus look the most logical in wanting to destroy a substance that may eventually end the world, but the book notes that this viewpoint should be put in contrast to the "rational yet questionable" opinion of the Amethyst Academy of researching and harnessing the delerium to better understand it and prevent further disasters. As for the Followers of the Falling Fire, they are driven primarily by faith and trust in their prophetic leader, who in spite of her cryptic nature does appear to have found a way to provide protection from the Haze.
Rival Adventurers talks about how the PCs aren't the only people interested in Drakkenheim's secrets. The book talks about how to use such adventuring groups as part of a campaign, from the more helpful friendly rivalries (share information about the city, team up with the PCs to take on a difficult objective, etc) to more hostile competition (act as reinforcements for an enemy faction, complete a quest/explore a location the PCs have ignored). Regardless, they should be ideally used to encourage the PCs to take an active role, and also notes that a friendly adventuring group can turn hostile and vice versa depending on events in the campaign.
There are as many as a dozen adventuring parties in and around Drakkenheim at any given time, although four sample ones are provided. The book suggests using prebuilt stat blocks rather than making custom ones, as interesting roleplaying traits stand out more than game stats, and does as much for the sample teams.
The Caspian Expedition is the personal guard of Jupiter Jones, a Caspian nobleman whose reason for Drakkenheim is outwardly to earn glory for his family. In reality, he is the nephew of Queen Lenore, and is searching the city for evidence of his family's connection to the von Kessels. They are by far the largest party in number, consisting of Jupiter Jones, a gnomish bard serving as his herald, and a dozen warriors.
Heroic Veterans is a three-person team who are actually the original PCs from the Dungeons of Drakkenheim Actual Play. They consist of Pluto Jackson, a Caspian prince who seeks fame by slaying Drakkenheim's most fearsome monsters, but like Jupiter Jones has a covert mission to find proof that his nephew is a legitimate heir to Westemär's throne; Veo Sjena, a catfolk woman who has lived in Drakkenheim's ruins for 15 years and is searching for the fate of her missing father; and Sebastian Crowe, a half-mage who dropped out of the Amethyst Academy and is troubled by frightening nightmares of the meteor crashing into the city.
Intrepid Explorers are experienced adventurers who are close friends. This five-person team uses stat blocks that closely correspond to the archetypical fantasy RPG classes/roles: Berserker, Hedge Mage, Priest, Spy, and Veteran. Unlike the above two teams, none of them have specific names or backstories.
Foolhardy Rookies are the weakest of the sample teams and "might not last a day in Drakkheim, but they've got spunk!" They're a four-person team which is quite imbalanced in terms of class/role, having only one spellcaster among the lot of them: Acolyte, Guard, Noble, and Scout.
Starting the Campaign talks about various means of beginning the first session of Dungeons of Drakkenheim, as well as what to discuss in Session Zero. One way is to start at 1st level, where the PCs are traveling to Emberwood Village as part of a supply caravan. Another way is beginning at 3rd level, where the PCs are hired by the lieutenant of one of the factions for a job in the Outer City. While not directly linked, the book does mention that the Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel created a series of Video Guides for running the campaign (plus 1 video for players), along with How to Run Session Zero.
For starting at 1st level, this chapter has a prelude adventure, the Road to Drakkenheim. In this, the PCs are hired on as caravan guards by Eren Marlowe (they/them), who regularly makes round trips between the city of Altberg and Emberwood Village. Besides the PCs and this 1 NPC, the only other company is a pair of draft horses which pull a covered wagon full of various foodstuffs. While Marlowe has Commoner stats, they have two healing potions and a light crossbow on their person in case of emergencies.
The first encounter involves a group of bandits who attempt to shake down the caravan,which can be non-violently bypassed via 3 successful DC 10 Charisma skill checks to get them to be bought off with a less extortionate fee, or DC 15 to convince the bandits to walk away empty-handed. PCs can make a detour to the bandit's hideout if they interrogate or track down the survivors. The hideout is in a barn with 6 more bandits, but 75 gold and a healing potion can be claimed as treasure.
The last encounter before reaching the village has the party meet a group of defeated-looking adventurers returning from a failed delve into Drakkenheim. They wish to take a rest near the PC's campsite, and while well-intentioned one of their number is slowly mutating into a monster. During the night, he will transform into a tentacled Delerium Dreg, first attacking his former adventurer companions. A Delerium Dreg is one of the new monsters in this book, representing people who warped into monstrous facsimiles of their original selves. Dregs are intelligent and capable of speech, but vaguely remember their original lives and constantly battle negative emotions such as fear and despair. This causes most of them to violently lash out at all others, but a rare few are capable of remaining lucid enough to become aware of their nature. Statwise they are a simple melee-focused CR ½ aberration, although there are 5 sample Mutations to further customize them, such as Aquatic which grants them the ability to breathe underwater and a swimming speed as well as Blindsight out to 30 feet.
Marlowe and any surviving adventurers can tell the PCs about the threat of Contamination, which comes from improper handling of delerium and long-term exposure to the Haze. In fact, Contamination is a new Condition in this adventure path, and follows a 6-stage step similar to Exhaustion with increasingly debilitating penalties before turning a character into a Lovecraftian monster at level 6. Upon completion of this adventure, the PCs should reach 2nd level. This chapter ends with a d100 Rumours table for the DM to dole out, almost all of which provide hooks to one or more characters or locations in and around Drakkenheim.
Thoughts: I like how this adventure goes over the broad strokes of recurring plot elements, and the Adventure Flow Chart and Cast of Characters are both very helpful in giving the DM a grasp on things. Giving tips on how to structure a Personal Quest, notably in when and where plot-relevant details should be found, is similarly helpful. The Running the Factions felt a bit too open-ended to the point of vagueness. While Rival Adventurers are a cool idea and help the setting feel more lived-in, the accompaniment of NPC allies can be a real gamechanger in terms of action economy, so I would've liked to see more information on how to handle this should a friendly party decide to team up with the PCs as well as when and how to do this in the campaign. The sample prelude adventure is short and sweet; the addition of allied NPCs and healing potions, along with a way to non-violently resolve the bandit encounter, gives some safe zones for a very fragile 1st-level party. I also enjoy how searching for the bandit hideout and the mutated adventurer highlight future themes of the campaign: for the former, the risk-reward factor of further exploration for treasure but at the cost of facing additional danger. For the latter, showing firsthand the consequences of what will happen to the PCs should they be exposed to Contamination long-term.
Thoughts So Far: I elaborated on my thoughts at the end of the chapters proper, but Dungeons of Drakkenheim has a strong start. On a technical level, the layout of the pages along with the placement of art, purplish font for headers, avoidance of walls of text and orphaned/widow lines, and bolded terms of significance all make for an easy read. The information provided is brief yet concise, prioritizing talking to the DM about the campaign expectations on a meta-level instead of drowning them in homebrew lore.
I will say that I do disagree with the authors to an extent on Dungeons of Drakkenheim's easy portability to other campaigns. While Drakkenheim's factions and kingdoms do strongly map to broadly-popular fantasy archetypes, the low-magic nature of the setting, the lack of easy communication with gods and similar cosmic authorities, and the emphasis on shades of gray politicking vs a straightforward "heroically vanquishing the BBEG" mean that the themes of Drakkenheim aren't a good fit for all published worlds. I can see DoD being ported into Eberron much more easily than Dragonlance, for example. Or how Forgotten Realm's interventionist deities and archmages will inevitably beg the question of how the Haze can end up threatening the world once it grows past a certain point. Or what happens when someone casts Commune in regards to the validity of the Falling Fire cult, one of the five factions which operates heavily on the unfalsifiable nature of many of its prophet's claims.
Join us next time as we take a look at Chapter 3: Factions, detailing the setting's power players who dominate the Social Interaction pillar of the campaign!
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