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



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[Echohawk]

Wow, white plume mountain is only 14 pages?

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.

 

[Echohawk]

Does anybody know what the original level ranges of these adventures where ?

Bearing in mind that levels don't necessarily compare that well between editions, and that early AD&D adventures often assumed a larger group of players than later editions:

Sunless Citadel: "The Sunless Citadel is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure suitable for four 1st-level player characters."
Forge of Fury: "The Forge of Fury is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure suitable for four 3rd-level player characters."
White Plume Mountain: "This module was designed for characters of fifth through tenth level."
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan: "An adventure for character levels 5-7"
Dead in Thay: "An adventure for characters of 6th–8th level"
Against the Giants: "Three adventures for character levels 8-12"
Tomb of Horrors: "An adventure for character levels 10-14"

 

[Parmandur]

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.

Per the product page, this will be 248 pages total; Dead in Thay is just the "Doomvault," so cut extensively I gather.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Given that there will be 7 dungeons and some pages will be needed for monster updates, I expect them to average around 30 pages each...

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[Parmandur]

Given that there will be 7 dungeons and some pages will be needed for monster updates, I expect them to average around 30 pages each...

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

don't forget they established there will be aids for setting the adventures in at least four worlds (Greyhawk, FR, DL and Eberron) and for linking them together...

 

[Remathilis]

WotC has kinda settled into a "big story/small story" rotation in that respect. The Winter story gets less digital support and so far has generally been a retreat of a classic: Temple of Elemental Evil, Castle Ravenloft, and now this. While the summer storyline is different and more "new" but also larger in scope, tying into stuff like Acquisitions Incorporated (and now Force Grey), convention play, Neverwinter, and the like.

It matches M:TGs Big-product/Small Product release schedule well.

That said, the Spring product is also a little more... experimental? EE/PotA had the digital player's guide, CoS was the first not set in FR, and TotYP is the first anthology adventure. Perhaps that allows them to try new things while having a more "traditional" summer release to hang their supplements on.

 

[Demetrios1453]

don't forget they established there will be aids for setting the adventures in at least four worlds (Greyhawk, FR, DL and Eberron) and for linking them together...

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.

 

[Remathilis]

Bearing in mind that levels don't necessarily compare that well between editions, and that early AD&D adventures often assumed a larger group of players than later editions:

Sunless Citadel: "The Sunless Citadel is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure suitable for four 1st-level player characters."
Forge of Fury: "The Forge of Fury is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure suitable for four 3rd-level player characters."
White Plume Mountain: "This module was designed for characters of fifth through tenth level."
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan: "An adventure for character levels 5-7"
Dead in Thay: "An adventure for characters of 6th–8th level"
Against the Giants: "Three adventures for character levels 8-12"
Tomb of Horrors: "An adventure for character levels 10-14"

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.

 

[Echohawk]

Given that there will be 7 dungeons and some pages will be needed for monster updates, I expect them to average around 30 pages each...

Remember that there were also pages dedicated to monsters in the originals:

Tomb of Horrors: none
White Plume: ½ page (Kelpie)
Hidden Shrine: 3¾ pages (compiled stats + Nereid, Gibbering Mouther)
Against the Giants: 1½ pages (Drow)
Sunless Citadel: 2½ pages (compiled stats + Twig Blight)
Forge of Fury: 3 pages (compiled stats + subterranean lizard)
Dead in Thay: 32½ pages! (lots and lots of creatures)

Total: 43¾ pages, or 14%

Dead in Thay is obviously an outlier here, both in terms of overall length and number of monster pages, but those are the raw numbers.

 

[Marandahir]

Of course, most of these adventures could fit in any setting. In fact, as we've seen last Edition, many of them were already transplanted from their original game settings to the continents featured in Conquest of Nerath, the most expansive world map we have for the Points of Light/Nentir Vale setting that dominated that edition.