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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[Olive]

The fun thing is that it's likely to be the last adventure in the package, so making it deadly isn't as much of an issue.

Certainly solves the old 'how do I end the campaign' issue!

 

[Echohawk]

The fun thing is that it's likely to be the last adventure in the package, so making it deadly isn't as much of an issue.

Indeed, the Forbes interview confirms this:

To cap it off, if your characters have made it to 13th, 14th level, and hopefully you're not too attached to them because the final adventure in the collection is the Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Jester David]

I think we all agree that this book is sort of lazy (for lack of a better word).

But I think that was by design. The upcoming mechanical expansion requires way more thought, input, and testing than the previous fall releases (Volo's Guide and the SCAG). They are giving themselves a little break this spring because they need that time to balance new subclasses and other mechanics.

That is a fair point.
I'm uncertain how much Perkins will be involved with that book though.
Although, the time overlap will be much more intense over the summer. So we'll see what that book is. Maybe by making this one simpler Perkins frees up more time for much much crazier summer schedule and can start that sooner...

 

[Lanefan]

I'll be very, very interested in this as it'll be a wonderful hands-on guide to converting older material to 5e should I ever want to go that route.

That said, along with some other above I'm wondering how they're going to keep these modules as edgy as they used to be given 5e-as-written's lack of level-drain mechanics and other such niceties. ToH can still be deadly as hell if only because of the traps, of course, but White Plume might lose some grit. And I suspect they're all going to be much less lucrative than their original versions - so, lower risk, lower reward.

I've either played in or run (or both) every one of these except Dead in Thay, which I don't know at all.

And as for Sunless Citadel, it's an adventure that plays much better than it reads.

Lanefan

 

[Mouseferatu]

To expand on the comment of the person who said the 4e Tomb of Horrors take was fun, if a version of the Tomb of Horrors was fun to play, a designer did something wrong.

Listen here, Henwen...

 

[Sammael]

The problem is that the World Serpent is more of a trap dimension than a useful adventure stop. Similar to the mists of Ravenloft. Once you enter, per the original concept of the inn, you have no idea where you are leaving to.
Whereas, the Yawning Portal is a true rest stop before adventuring, being the last bed til Undermountain and Skullport. And you can choose to go anywhere from Skullport.

Yes, it's the last stop before Undermountain and Skullport, which means that in order to get to Skullport, you first have to survive Undermountain, and then you have to survive Skullport, and then you have to actually find a portal that actually leads you anywhere.

Whereas with the World Serpent Inn, you can get it to actually point to any location in the known Multiverse.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

It's not as though anyone can just walk up to the entrance to the World Serpent Inn, walk inside and go off wherever they want.

It's a high level haven for a reason, and even then it's not that easy to make your way where you want to go in the multiverse.

Whereas the Yawning Portal accepts most anyone who has already made it into Waterdeep proper, and more than one novice adventuring party had made their name by paying the minor fee to take the ride down into Indermountain a time or three, and then returning with riches and tales of daring adventure.

Speaking of, one need not plumb Undermountain's depths in their entirety to find one of its many portals; you can encounter them at any level of play, per the needs of the DM.

Undermountain was made exactly for what's a WotC is doing. Plenty of DMs (like me, and the ones I games it's back in the days of 2E) have done exactly the same thing.

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This is another must buy book for me. Looking forward to it.

 

[werecorpse]

I wanted some new smaller modules to fit into my game. This isn't quite what I wanted but it's close enough.

I'm glad they have shown that everything they produce doesn't have to be big single themed adventure paths

I will be very interested to see how they convert these adventures. I own all except Dead in Thay and have run most in previous editions. I have run Sunless Citadel & Forge of Fury converted to 5e and currently run a lot of converted previous edition adventures.

 

[The Human Target]

D&D has become the 40 year old guy who still wears his highschool football letterman jacket every day and spends his nights sitting in a recliner drinking Bud Light and flipping through his senior yearbook with tears in his eyes thinking "those were the days."

 

[Sammael]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a lot of people treat Undermountain like a roller coaster in a theme park instead of a deathtrap dungeon run by an insane epic mage yes, many adventurers go there - and, IMC, maybe 10% ever come back.