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Scarab of Death

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"We laughed, we cried... people died... it was great."

"An excellent adventure that focuses on the pillars of exploration and social interaction."

"At this price I consider this a steal."

Scarab of Death is a mystery adventure for a party of 10th level characters. It takes place in the Raging Bull District in Waterdeep (Forgotten Realms) but you can easily adapt the adventure to any city.

A young noble is found dead a block away from Nabulee’s Bazaar of the Extraordinary. Everything suggests that Nabulee was neglectful and left his scarab of death unattended, which ultimately led to the death of the noble. But how did the cursed brooch find its way out of Nabulee’s impenetrable vault in the first place? And why doesn’t Nabulee remember taking it out? Will the characters solve this mystery before the noble’s vengeful father has Nabulee beheaded?

In this adventure, you will find:

  • Over 25 pages of quality content
  • 4 to 6 hours of gameplay
  • Beautiful color maps and illustrations
  • New monsters and magic items, including the infamous scarab of death
  • A complete description of the Raging Bull District with a detailed map of the area
  • A printer-friendly DM Companion Booklet with monster stats and detailed scaling guidelines (levels 8 to 12)

Looking for HD maps and tokens?

Scarab of Death - Maps & Tokens

Check out our other adventures on DriveThruRPG and on the Dungeon Master's Guild:

The Ghost and the Peddler The Chapel on the Cliffs The Butcher of Alcross Banquet of the Damned

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Reviews (12)
Discussions (14)
Customer avatar
Pascal G December 23, 2023 2:00 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This module is very well written and covers almost every possibility. But there is one thing that doesn't make sense to me.
If Nabulee is the only customer who buys clothes from Horus, where did Mortimer get the purple tunica from? The Butler says, that it's very over the top, even for Nabulee's standards, so Mortimer probably didn't steal it from him. If Mortimer bought it from Horus, wouldn't Horus he remember that since Nabulee is normally his only customer?
Customer avatar
Lisa W September 17, 2023 6:12 am UTC
Could this adventure be upscaled for 12th level characters without too much trouble? Any suggestions or things to look out for if I bring in slightly higher PCs?
Customer avatar
Callan O July 24, 2023 11:57 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Ran this and had a whale of a time with my friends!
A player suggested if the "murder" happened in the auction room and the "culprit" was part of the crowd. Just as a way to add them as a suspect from the offset.
Regardless, we had a fantastic time and made a top notch 2 session quest whilst my main Icewind Dale: ROTFM is on a short hiatus.
Customer avatar
Sosefo M May 31, 2023 3:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm really excited to DM this one-shot, however I'd like to scale it down to 6th level PC's as I have a couple of players who are new to DnD. Does anyone have recommendations/tips for the best way to go about that for this adventure? Does it only really matter in the combat or will this effect their investigating as well? I can give magic items to bridge gaps as well. Thanks for any insights!
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Customer avatar
Patrick B May 31, 2023 5:27 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I ran the campaign with 4 level 7 players, none of whom have 'optimized' characters. I don't recall them having too much trouble with the skill checks so you should be fine.

What you will need to adjust are the combat encounters in Mortimer's Mansion. In isolation none of them are beyond what they can handle, but if you have a party that likes to poke into every room they could get into trouble. Mortimer has some spells that could TPK if your group is too beat up.

My suggestion would be to hold some of the 'helper' monsters in reserve and only have them attack if you think the extra challenge is needed. Or send them in but be generous in when they decide to flee.
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Customer avatar
Sosefo M June 02, 2023 5:24 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for the info! It's really helpful to hear and glad your run through with level 7's went well.
Customer avatar
Patrick B April 07, 2023 1:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Really loving this so far. I do have one minor nitpick. The stairs leading down from the third floor are in the wrong place. If all the images are stacked, the stairs should be one space lower, where the barrel is. I wouldn't have even noticed except it makes it hard to line things up nicely in a VTT like foundry or roll20. One a related note, it would also be handy to have a version of the 2nd floor map with a transparency for use in VTT environments.
Customer avatar
Jason E July 26, 2020 10:06 pm UTC
PURCHASER
The bookmarks, they're... beautiful! I've never seen such wonderful bookmarking before!
Customer avatar
Michelle V January 28, 2020 11:45 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I cannot find the statistics for the Mugabu anywhere. Could anyone help?
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D January 29, 2020 11:03 am UTC
CREATOR
Hi Michelle

Mugabu is an iron golem with an intelligence score of 7 instead of 3. It's on page 13. The monster name isn't in bold, though. I'll fix that in the next update. Thanks for spotting it!
Customer avatar
Jim P May 25, 2019 5:42 am UTC
Can't leave a review, as I wasn't the buyer, but my DM was. Excellent 1 shot & great blend of investigation & combat. 4 stars!
Customer avatar
Eric S July 03, 2018 2:16 am UTC
Great adventure -- my players are having a lot of fun with it. BTW Nabulee's House map is off.
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Customer avatar
Benoit D November 10, 2018 8:37 am UTC
CREATOR
I fixed Nabulee's House numbers. Sorry about the very long delay... I don't know why I wasn't receiving a notification when someone leaves a comment.
Customer avatar
Mark P March 01, 2018 3:09 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Is it just me or is the map of the third floor at Nabulee's all wrong? Every room on that floor is wrong in the map/description tie up.
Reply
Customer avatar
Ivana N November 08, 2018 12:04 am UTC
PURCHASER
Has this been fixed?
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D November 08, 2018 2:55 am UTC
CREATOR
No... I just noticed this error because I hadn't recevied a notification of the first comment... I'll fix it this week...
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D November 10, 2018 8:36 am UTC
CREATOR
Now it's fixed :).
Customer avatar
Kenneth H January 10, 2018 11:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
@Benoit D: Is there a recommended way to print the maps in scale? So that the squares are 1" when pieced together. I tried inserting the image to MS Excel and printing from there, but they were still too small.
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D February 24, 2018 6:32 am UTC
CREATOR
Hi Kenneth

The grid has a 1" = 150 pixels per square scale. If you change the resolution to 150 dpi (instead of 300 dpi), you'll be able to print the maps and use them with mins.

Note that the maps weren't designed for this. They'll be a bit pixilized.

And sorry if it tookme so long to answer. The DM's Guild doesn't send me an email when people make comments...
Customer avatar
Jean-Marc C November 24, 2017 12:35 pm UTC
Bonjour, cette aventure sera t’elle disponible en français?
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D February 24, 2018 6:26 am UTC
CREATOR
Coucou Jean-Marc

Malheureusement non : (. Je n'écris pas assez bien en français pour la faire moi-même et la traduction coute trop chère...
Customer avatar
Benjamin H November 21, 2017 4:31 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Knocked it out of the park again!
Customer avatar
Corey R October 19, 2017 6:38 pm UTC
PURCHASER
The adventure pdf wont open gives the message "There was an error opening this document. there was a problem reading this document (14)." The DMs Companion and any other pdf I have opens and reads fine but the adventure one even in dropbox refuses to open and display.
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D October 19, 2017 6:55 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hmmm, that's odd. I just downloaded the PDF and it works fine here :(. Maybe something happened during the download and the file is corrupt. Can you try downloading it again from the DM's Guild?

Are you downloading the PDF on a smart device or a computer?
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D October 19, 2017 6:55 pm UTC
CREATOR
I just tried again both on my computer (Windows 10) and on my crappy Android phone, and it works on both :(.
Reply
Customer avatar
Corey R October 19, 2017 7:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I was downloading to my computer. DriveThruRPG was able to email an attachment that downloaded and worked! Unfortunately the majority of things brought up by a google search and a different pdf reader said the file was corrupted, couldnt even view in a browser, or on my phone. I hope that I was just a specialized case but maybe Jeff Montgomery, the guy that handled my report at DriveThruRPG, could give you more info than I could. Thanks for the fast reply and the adventure looks great from what I've read thus far.
Reply
Customer avatar
Benoit D October 19, 2017 11:37 pm UTC
CREATOR
Computers work in mysterious ways :). I was happy to help. I hope you like the adventure!
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30
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File Last Updated:
November 10, 2018
This title was added to our catalog on October 19, 2017.