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First Blush

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Suggested Price $2.95

Start your own duet campaign! Teleport your way out of the confines of a castle to an ancient mountainside cavern with a secret waiting just for you...

First Blush is the inaugural adventure of D&D Duet, bringing you high quality, ready to play material focused on supporting adventuring parties of 1 Player and 1 DM.

This adventure is written for a first-level character in a one-on-one 5th edition D&D campaign. It encourages collaborative storytelling between the DM and the player and takes the PC through low-stakes social and combat encounters, culminating in a high-stakes combat far from home.

You’ll find everything you need to jump-start your own two-person game! Our newest update includes two sidekick characters and stat blocks as well as DM's notes throughout to help with running a duet campaign. 

This product includes:

  • 2-4 hour introductory adventure adaptable to any setting and spanning 2 parts
  • All necessary stat blocks for monsters and NPCs
  • DM's and player's battle maps
  • 3 ready to go character sheets complete with background information and personality traits
  • 2 sidekick characters 
  • Advice and ideas for adapting the adventure to suit your gaming table

This adventure is perfect for a first-timer or an experienced player looking to explore the hobby in a fresh (sans traditional group) way. This would also make for a great session zero or breakout adventure for a player before the character joins a larger party.

The storyline continues with Second Glance, a level two duet adventure, also available on DMsGuild!

And, after that, the narrative arc finds a resolution in Third Time's the Charm, available for download here.

Pick up the entire trilogy, conveniently bundled in The Crystalline Curse Trilogy!

Additionally, we have a fun, Sune's Day celebration adventure for pairs and parties, Cupid's Sparrow. Explore a small town during their Sune's Day festival, have a few surprising or amusing social encounters, and get to the bottom of the strange behavior in the Lovers' Nook Inn.

We'd love for you to check out our blog on dndduet.com

Follow us on Twitter @DndDuet

Please leave a review and tell us what you think!

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Reviews (52)
Discussions (48)
Customer avatar
Jason W December 28, 2023 7:29 am UTC
PURCHASER
Are the two 1st level sidekicks supposed to have 2HD each?
Customer avatar
Rene S December 26, 2023 12:31 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi! I understand the text on page 8 to describe the antechamber such that the players would have to clear the fallen pillars (and then be ambushed by the Ice Mephit) before reaching the talking mirror. To quote: "A long hallway stretches beyond the rubble, leading to a door carved to resemble a face." However, on the battlemap it looks like there is no need to go anywhere near the fallen pillars. The secret stairway leads right to the talking door, and there is nothing of interest behind the fallen pillars. Is this a mistake? I guess it would be better if the fresco and the secret stairway were in the north, so that the PC will have to clear the chasm in the receiving room or descend by rope and then clear the pillars in the antechamber.
Customer avatar
Stephanie M October 17, 2023 5:38 am UTC
PURCHASER
I was wondering: Are there gridless versions of the map available for the Trilogy? My boyfriend and I use Roll20 and the grids on the maps don't align with Roll20's grid, so it's pretty visually confusing.
Customer avatar
Logan Z May 02, 2023 9:45 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Is there somewhere I can find a region map and info on the area that first blush takes place in? reading through first blush and second glance, it says in second glance that info on the region and a map would be included. I am just looking to have some more information on the area for more depth when I start the Campaign. Thanks!!
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Customer avatar
Beth B May 15, 2023 1:52 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Logan,
We had originally set First Blush in a setting-neutral area but moved it to the Forgotten Realms. There are lots of resources online about Forgotten Realms lore and locations and detailed maps as well.
I hope that helps! Have so much fun on your adventures!
- Beth
Customer avatar
Gregory T July 15, 2022 7:32 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Do you have other titles suitable for 1st level duets? (I'm already familiar with this one and Second Glance).
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Customer avatar
Beth B July 26, 2022 9:28 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Gregory,
We have an adventure on DriveThruRPG and our website called "The Hardly Haunted Library," and you could also check out the intro arc of our Land of Vampires campaign. Both of those are designed for 1st level duets.
Thanks!
- Beth
Customer avatar
John C April 06, 2022 1:13 am UTC
PURCHASER
One quick question I have is whether this would work with two PCs rather than one with a side kick. Scrolling through some of the reviews and discussions, I didn't see anyone note that they played it that way. Also, how important is it to the story to use the pre-generated characters? Either way, this looks pretty awesome.
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B April 12, 2022 1:39 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi John,
Great question! I know there have been others who have run the adventure with two PCs instead of the sidekick, but it's been a little while since we were discussing that with someone. The adventure would definitely work with two PCs, though depending on the makeup of your party and their familiarity with D&D, it might still be nice to have a sidekick or DMPC of sorts to help with immersion. Instead of the player asking the DM a question, the PCs can ask the DMPC.

And you don't need to use the pre-generated characters! The important thing to pull from them is that someone needs a magical amulet or equivalent item to jump-start the adventure.

Thanks so much, and please let me know if you have additional questions!
- Beth
Customer avatar
Maximilian M March 08, 2022 10:11 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hey beth!
I'm really grateful for this campaign and excited to run it with my fiancé.
It looks really fun and I like how you've laid it out for first time players as I'm also fairly new to DMing.
I just had one question for now, Where would you put the pressure plate in the first building we arrive to after teleporting? 10x10 feet is massive and the rubble with the bag looks like its right in front of the door? so if the plate was in front of the door wouldnt it just open up automatically when searching through the rubble?
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B March 08, 2022 9:13 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Maximilian,
I'm delighted that you're excited about the adventure, and I hope you and your fiancé have so much fun playing it together! This is a great question!

I see a couple different options, and I'm going to answer with the assumption that your fiancé is also relatively new to D&D in hopes that the ideas will be easy to adjust if that's not the case.

You are right that the pressure plate is sizeable given the proportions of the room, so some of the possible adjustments depend on how likely you think it is that the PC will search the rubble. We had imagined the pressure plate needing some sort of skill or intention to trigger it rather than the PC just stepping on it, but I see how that conflicts with the size.

The other determining factor, to me, is the PC's class and your fiancé's style as a player. I know when I was first learning to play D&D, I would have dismissed the rocks and thought they were decoration on the map because I didn't hear the...See more
Customer avatar
DM C February 02, 2022 10:08 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Beth,

This is a way better starter adventure than the Dragons of Icespire Peak that came with my Essentials kit. As a new DM, I appreciate being being able to practice by running this with my wife before seeking out an entire group of players to disappoint. Anyway, I had the same questions as Luca, plus one more.

It's a little unclear on where everyone starts in Bharmyr's Arena. It says Torvald is behind the barrels closer to the point of arrival, so I assume the player starts on the bottom of the map? If so, where is Dresik hiding? Behind the little chair in the top left of the arena?

Thanks!
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B February 07, 2022 7:39 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Collin,
Thanks so much for your kind words about our adventure! And I hope you and your wife have (or had!) lots of fun playing together!

To answer your question, I would have Dresik behind the barrel on the top left of the map, a little bit out of the arena so he can have an elevated position to pop out of when you're ready, but you can also use the chair if that works for you!

Let us know if we can help with anything else!
- Beth
Customer avatar
Luca Diodato D November 23, 2021 4:39 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hello there,
bough the bundle and read through the first duet adventure, definitely reviewing that after I'll been able to play it out with a friend, in the meantime I only noticed a couple of things:
BEGIN SPOILERS
i) At page 13 we have both "The PC must get the door to say the word “Open” to access Area 3." and "As you say the word “open,” the door exclaims in surprise and slides into the wall.". Who needs to say 'open' for the door to open? The door, the PC or both?
ii) At page 14 we have "motes of light and fire from your torch break free, darting into the complex array of runes etched in a circle on the ground around the human statue." Shouldn't be something from the amulet and not the PC's torch to wake Garren up ?
END SPOILERS
Apart from that, amazing work *thumbs up*
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B December 02, 2021 10:25 am UTC
CREATOR
Hi Luca,
Thanks so much for your questions, and I hope that you and your friend enjoy the adventure when you get a chance to play!

For your first question, I would have the PC be the one to say "open." Sorry about the confusing wording there!

And for the second, it can totally be something from the PC's amulet! The way we were imagining it, it's both a combination of the proximity to the amulet and the element of fire that awaken Garren. I think that would really depend on how quickly you want the PC to understand the role their amulet is playing and its ties to Garren. I would shape that decision around the PC's backstory as much as possible.

Please let us know if other questions come up! And thank you for the thumbs up! I can't wait to hear about your adventure!
- Beth
Customer avatar
Bioshark D November 15, 2021 9:06 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi there,

I own the D&D Starter Set for quite a while now and finally I've decided to play it with my wife. We are both experience RPG video game players, including lots of D&D titles, but never played pen and paper. While re-reading the rules and provided adventure: "The Lost Mines of Phandelver" (LMoP), I got scared a bit because the adventure seems a bit long to jump right into it without any DM experience and because it's designed for a party, not for 1-on-1 play.

Reading your blog and finding this adventure was great so, I've immediately bought the trilogy bundle and can't wait to read it and jump into it. If you don't mind I have a few questions:

1) since one of the most important aspects of any RPG game is creating one's own character, we will use the character creator from dnd beyond: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/builder. I assume that's enough and I don't need to immediately buy the Player Handbook.
2) Is it easy to adapt LMoP for...See more
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B November 17, 2021 10:47 am UTC
CREATOR
Hey Bioshark! Thanks for reaching out. So happy you are enjoying the blog. Playing 1-1 is awesome and we love sitting across the table from each other with pen-and-paper the most. I totally understand your trepidation about running LMoP 1-1 right out the gate and I've got some ideas.

1) Creating your character with the Character Builder is a great first step. Without buying anything you have access through that site to all of the classes and options in the SRD. I like it because it is really quick to put a character together without flipping back and forth through lots of pages.
2) The Essentials Kit does have some rules for Sidekicks. It treats them basically as a monster stat block that the player controls and that has rules for leveling alongside the player. We write from the contention that there isn't an adventure or story that you couldn't run as a duet if you wanted, it really takes scaling encounters and making some narrative adjustments.
What you could do is consider running our...See more
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Customer avatar
Bioshark D November 17, 2021 8:40 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hey Beth,

Thanks a lot for your insights, they definitely help a lot. I was anyway going to play the Crystalline Curse Trilogy before LMoP, but I haven't thought about jumping straight into the latter. That's actually a very cool idea, I like it.

I already saw that you guys did a 4 part campaign, Land of Vampires, that brings the PC up to level 10. A few days ago the last part wasn't available... but now I see it is. I will definitely check it out, especially if it comes in a bundle :) As for the official WotC adventures, the ones that contain collections of old adventures adapted to 5e, like Tales from the Yawning Portal, have a certain appeal. At least from the descriptions.

I will post my gaming session results/impressions as soon as I play it.

Best of luck and thank you.
Customer avatar
Karol P October 14, 2021 12:03 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hello,
can i create my own character for this adventure (with a backstory connected to the plot), or should i use one of the 3 character sheets provided? This is my first d&d session ever. I bought a starter set, and I am really looking forward to start a campaing, but before that i want to practice the mechanics with my girlfriend by playing first blush, and I was wondering if i can mess with some stats, class, race etc.
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B October 15, 2021 2:02 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Karol,
You can absolutely create your own character and backstory and customize them however you wish! We recommend keeping the amulet (or other magical item of your choice that fits your character) so the PC is connected to Garren in the second half of the adventure, but outside of that, it's all up to you!

I hope you and your girlfriend have so much fun with this adventure and with your campaign! I'm really excited for you both :)
- Beth
Customer avatar
Keir M October 04, 2021 11:46 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hello,

I would like to try out D&D with my wife, but I am want to do this with as little cost as possible. I Thought this duet trilogy would be a good place to start but I was curious if this can be run with the Free D&D Basic rules or if the Game Mastery guide and Players handbook are really required, at least for the first adventure in this series.
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Customer avatar
Beth B October 06, 2021 2:56 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Keir,
You should be fine with the SRD rules! All the stat blocks are included with the adventure, and you won't need the core rule books for the trilogy. ☺️ There's a great guide on D&D Beyond if you do need easy access to the rules, and I also love 5thsrd.org as a reference for stat blocks if you wanted to add a creature or encounter or something.

I just wrote a post about this for our blog with some other helpful links and resources if you need them. You'll find it here: https://dndduet.com/starting-materials/

Thanks so much! And I hope you and your wife have an amazing time on your adventures!
- Beth
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Customer avatar
Keir M October 10, 2021 11:23 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks so much. I have also ordered the D&D Essentials kit. I am hoping to get familiar with the rules and try D&D with my wife. Because of her creativity and enjoyment of writing Fantasy stories she is quite interested in being the DM. I'm also going to give some of the D&D Solo Adventures a try that are on Dungeon Masters Guild
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B October 11, 2021 1:10 pm UTC
CREATOR
All of that sounds wonderful! I'm also a fantasy author, and I think your wife will really love the worldbuilding and character development aspects of duet D&D. It makes for great inspiration for stories and vice versa!

Have so much fun!
- Beth
Customer avatar
James P July 20, 2021 4:23 am UTC
PURCHASER
My wife and I are attempting to run this campaign (she has literally no D&D experience and I have played once a long time ago) and we are really struggling with combat instructions and how to read the character sheet among other things. There's a lot of info on the character sheets and we just can't find how to interpret it all. Also, in combats, there's no instructions as far as damage, hp, initiative, or how any of that works. Should we learn all of this on our own? We were hoping the documents we purchased could tell us all of this. Are we missing something?
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Customer avatar
Skyler Y July 21, 2021 5:32 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, I might be able to help a bit if you have any questions, D&D can be more than a little confusing if you don't have any experience. First Blush and the other two parts of this campaign are mostly story guides. First Blush can be a good introduction to the game as the first adventure you two have together, however it assumes that you understand core mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition already. It won't explain how to calculate the initiative stat or how class traits work or what an "Action" is. There is an official Player's Handbook by Wizards of the Coast that helps with everything from creating player characters, reading character sheets, initiating combat, and most of the other basic rules. There is also an official Dungeon Master's Guide that helps with running a campaign, playing and creating non-player characters, monsters, treasure, and more. But both of those books are long, daunting, and overwhelming to read (if you're like me at least). If you're going to try and learn on your...See more
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Customer avatar
Beth B July 21, 2021 2:12 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi James,
These are great questions, and I would love to help! Mr. W below made some great suggestions, and I agree that delving into the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide can be a lot to manage when just starting. On our site, dndduet.com, you'll find several guides for new players and new DMs that will help with the basics like initiative, calculating damage, and reading your character sheet. We also have a youtube channel where you'll find help with those things too. When I was first starting D&D, I found it helpful to watch other people play, like through a recorded livestream, just so I could get a feel for the game and the mechanics.

If I can recommend a few links for you, here's a guide for new players: https://dndduet.com/how-to-play-dnd/
And on that post, you'll also find tips and guides for new DMs.

My favorite resource for new DMs and players though is on D&D Beyond here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/essentials
It's really easy to navigate...See more
Customer avatar
Alex S May 03, 2021 1:02 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I ran this for my son (12) as our first solo adventure. We are both quite new to the game (I've listened to hundreds of hours worth, but only played half a dozen times and DM's twice).

I highly recommend this adventure if you or your player are new to the game and need a basic introduction to some of the roleplaying aspects and mechanics, or if you are a new DM (like me) it will help you draw out some roleplaying.

This took us just shy of 2 hours, and genuinely it was one of the best DnD sessions I've ever had. Simple, engaging, and a good cliffhanger! We will be buying and playing the rest over the newt weekend.

Thanks for writing it!
Customer avatar
Sabine T April 09, 2021 2:50 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi!
I downloaded the complete archive of files and I'm not sure which version is the most up-to-date.

First_Blush_Updated_Final.pdf
First_Blush_adventure_3.0.pdf

Thank y'all for creating these! My comrade and I have been wanting to do a one-on-one campaign!

One is longer, but the other looks more polished.
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B April 09, 2021 4:07 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Alex,
Sorry about that! The adventure has gone through several revisions, so the titles do get rather confusing. "First Blush adventure 3.0" is the most up to date! (I hope that's also the one that looks more polished!)

I hope you both have so much fun with the adventure! We would love to hear about it after you get to play!
All the best,
- Beth
Customer avatar
M A B March 25, 2021 3:47 am UTC
PURCHASER
On the Garren/the amulet: If Garren is forced to retreat to the amulet due to damage, does he get to treat periods in the amulet as rests (short/long)? Or does he immediately regenerate all of his HP, lose the effects of buffs/debuffs, regain spell slots, etc?
Reply
Customer avatar
Beth B March 25, 2021 2:11 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hi Alex,
To some extent that's up to you as the DM, but my recommendation would be to keep the mechanic as simple as possible. Like we say in the adventure, if he goes in and immediately comes out, he would do so at 1hp with no other changes. Outside of that, yes, if he were in the amulet for an hour, I would count that as a short rest, and the same for 8 hours and a long rest.

The amulet mechanic functions as a guardrail of sorts (or like gutter guards), especially for new players and DMs. If combat gets really intense and Garren falls to 0hp, no one's rolling death saves, and the PC has a chance to escape or whatever they need to do. I wouldn't use it as a magical reset. Instead, if the PC and/or Garren really needed it, perhaps they suddenly find a healing potion tucked away somewhere? :)

I hope that helps,
- Beth
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on January 12, 2019.