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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Warpiglet-7

Lord of the depths
It will be interesting to see how Infinite Staircase impacts those prices. I could see it going either way.
I am looking at my so far unused OAR series…just acquired this year…some at a discount, some as gifts.

At Gen Con, they were deeply discounted and I grabbed one and passed on others. Work up the next day and thought: “what was I thinking?”

They had run out after sale and I thought it odd…now I get it.

I would wager prices will drop on the ones in the staircase.

(Trample of elemental evil still seems to be in stock and reasonably priced at a major online retailer right now FWIW)
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I have all the OAR books. I'll never sell them. Most of my for-play material is digital. I only buy books that are beautiful or have special sentimental value, and a few go-to reference books, because I still like having books for certain kinds of references--gives you a better overview and holistic view of the topic than digital--for me at least.

The OAR books are like art or literature text books. Great for the essays and comparing different versions of a module though its printing history. The sad thing about the OAR books is that the conversions to 5e tend to be very well done, but I'm too precious with the books to use them when running games. I've thought of photocopying the 5e portion, prepping the maps for VTT, and OCRing the text to copy into a VTT or just running from a PDF. For those that will be released in DDB, I'll check those versions out and will likely buy the DDB versions to actually run a game.

Who knows, when I pass away my kids can sell my OAR books for twice or more what I paid for them.
 





Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks video from WotC. Chris Perkins talks about that adventure.

Juat watching thst on my Lumch right now. Very interesting tidbits in there.

They have multiple hooks for each of the 6 Adventures, including the original framing and one including the Genie Lord, and multiple Setting suggestions (they mention the Barrier Peaks in Greyhawk and the Greypeak Mountains in the Forgotten realms).

They have reduced the number of levels in the Spaceship and gotten rid of moat of the empty rooms to provide a more curated and focused experience, and introduced a narrative with an antagonist to provide an arc to the dungeon crawl.

So, this is very different from what Goodman Games did, which makes me happy. More options is better.
 

darjr

I crit!
Juat watching thst on my Lumch right now. Very interesting tidbits in there.

They have multiple hooks for each of the 6 Adventures, including the original framing and one including the Genie Lord, and multiple Setting suggestions (they mention the Barrier Peaks in Greyhawk and the Greypeak Mountains in the Forgotten realms).

They have reduced the number of levels in the Spaceship and gotten rid of moat of the empty rooms to provide a more curated and focused experience, and introduced a narrative with an antagonist to provide an arc to the dungeon crawl.

So, this is very different from what Goodman Games did, which makes me happy. More options is better.
Mixing with the Goodman Games book may be useful too.

I also love @Dyson Logos version of the level maps.

 

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
Mixing with the Goodman Games book may be useful too.

I also love @Dyson Logos version of the level maps.

No doubt! Very interested to compare and contrast how theybupdated all 6 of these, now. Also keeps the old PFFs available on DriveThru relevant.
 

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