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The Lamenting Lighthouse

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Sven's Adventures: Collector's Edition

 

"This adventure is a critical hit on almost every single aspect of adventure writing."—Jason B. (Verified Purchaser)

"The Lamenting Lighthouse is nothing less than an amazing piece. With concepts and homages to The Princess Bride, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and even Pirates of the Caribbean, I absolutely love what Sven has created."Cameron Day from Comics, Clerics, & Controllers

"Highly Recommended: The Lamenting Lighthouse rates a solid 4.5 stars and makes for a fantastic adventure for any nautical campaign or one-shot."—Anthony Joyce for TT Level Up

"The Lamenting Lighthouse is well written and in such great detail that the NPCs and villains came alive for me immediately. I highly recommend this for a one shot."—Jörg N. (Verified Purchaser)

 

Welcome to The Lamenting Lighthousea four-hour adventure for 5th-10th level characters, designed for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition!

This is an adventure with a nautical theme, heavy undead and horror elements, and mysteries to solve!

One lonely lighthouse shines the way through the rocks and shoals that deny entry to the northern Moonshae Isles. But when the party’s transport approaches, a horrific gale at their backs - no light is in sight... The party must venture ahead of their vessel in a race against the storm to the restore the beacon before their ship is lost. What has befallen the keepers, and what dark secret does the lighthouse hold? Will the heroes prevail, or will they join the lighthouse's lament?

This adventure can easily be inserted into a run-through of Ghosts of Saltmarsh. This one-shot can also serve as a nautical interlude in any on-going campaign where the characters have to take to the sea.

 

Included with this adventure are:

  • 6 original custom creatures, the dread wraith, the dread wight, the swarm of seagulls, the captain, the rating, and the sailor
  • 12 player hand-outs with notes that shed light on the mystery of the lamenting lighthouse, with a randomization mechanic that ensures a degree of replayability
  • 9 original fleshed out NPCs, including personality traits and roleplaying tips
  • 2 original magical artifacts
  • 7 hand-drawn maps of important locations
  • a story reward and 2 story hooks for continuing the adventure (depending on how the adventure resolves)

Content Warnings: death or dying, horror, mental illness, profanity, violence.

If you want to know what else I’m up to, follow me on Twitter @TheRubyFeather! In case of any questions or business inquiries, please don’t hesitate to contact me at sventruckenbrodt@gmail.com!

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Reviews (22)
Discussions (18)
Customer avatar
Nicole R October 10, 2024 7:43 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi! I'm running this adventure tomorrow and I'm so excited. It reads so well and gives so much consideration to so many things. One question - in the Wight section, it says that he will use the Orb against a PC if the opportunity arises. But I'm not sure what that means? I don't see a stat block or any information for it beyond if a player attunes to it. How is it used by an NPC against a PC?
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T October 11, 2024 1:41 am UTC
CREATOR
Hey Nicole, for this encounter consider the wight to be attuned to the item, and use it as if a PC was holding it (e.g. the wight can cast spells from it, as described in the item description in Appendix C). I hope you have fun running the adventure!
Reply
Customer avatar
Nicole R October 11, 2024 4:50 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I’m such a dummy. I read the spells and was still somehow so confused. Pulling this together fast made me sloppy. I appreciate your fast response and will leave a review tomorrow! It’s written so well, I’m anticipating fun.
Customer avatar
Scott C August 25, 2024 10:23 pm UTC
PURCHASER
hey, i'm about to run this adventure, im gonna run it for 5 tenth levle characters so i'm looking to give the bosses a bit more punch. I gave them a legendary action but im looking at the create ghoul/create specter abilities, where are they getting the fresh bodies from? and is it worth it in combat to spend a whole round doing that?
Customer avatar
Annetta A August 04, 2024 5:04 am UTC
PURCHASER
What would be the APL for this adventure?
Reply
Customer avatar
Annetta A August 04, 2024 5:18 am UTC
PURCHASER
Nevermind. Figured it out.
Customer avatar
Charlie D June 12, 2024 6:37 pm UTC
Can I buy a printed copy of this?
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T June 15, 2024 5:59 am UTC
CREATOR
Unfortunately not at this moment, but it is possible there will be a print copy available via this website in the future.
Customer avatar
Brian E January 23, 2024 11:01 am UTC
PURCHASER
The creature should be a "flock of seagulls" instead of "swarm of seagulls" and the DM must play I Ran for atmospheric music.
Customer avatar
Elizabeth H November 14, 2023 10:51 am UTC
PURCHASER
Ran a modified version of this for a level 3 party (removed a lot of the combat encounters + weakened the statblocks)! I had a blast running it and the way the module and the locations were set out made it much easier on my end to figure out what was happening. Also really enjoyed some of the smaller details like mentioning what sounds and smells could be identified.
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T November 15, 2023 8:13 am UTC
CREATOR
Glad to hear you enjoyed it, always great to hear back from people who ran the module!
Customer avatar
simone C September 26, 2023 7:05 am UTC
PURCHASER
I wonder if its scalable for a party of 1st levels
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T October 04, 2023 7:02 pm UTC
CREATOR
The story bits would work for a party of any level, but while this is quite an exploration-heavy adventure, a lot of the exploration occurs with a high probability of combat. So any scaling down to level 1 would likely mean that you have to switch out almost every monster in the adventure. There might not be any straightforward substitutions for a few of them, so it could be quite a bit of work.
Customer avatar
JOHN S February 20, 2023 7:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Any chance for a Roll20 version?
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T February 21, 2023 3:55 am UTC
CREATOR
That is very likely to happen, eventually, but I currently cannot give an ETA.
Customer avatar
Glen W October 15, 2022 4:38 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Sven, just noticed a few little errors in the publication. The Giant Sea Eels attack is listed as a rapier attack instead of a XXX attack. The Dread Orb of Orcus has the attack finger of doom but the only reference I can see to that is a nightwalker attack. Was it meant to be finger of death?
Customer avatar
February 28, 2022 11:25 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi, I created sound boards for your module on Syrinscape. Would it be ok to have your permission to publish as community content for subscribers to use with your adventure, I don't profit from it in anyway
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T February 28, 2022 8:38 pm UTC
CREATOR
Absolutely, I would be delighted! Feel free to share the link here directly or with my personally as well, I would love to hear the soundboards you created :D
Reply
Customer avatar
March 01, 2022 2:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hey, not sure I can link because you need the digital player, and someone with a syrinscape sub to log in as dm and control the boards (that then play to the players) through the app. It's complicated to explain if you haven't used it! But if it's still cool to publish to community, it would mean any dm's that use the software have access to them.
Reply
Customer avatar
Joseph C March 15, 2023 5:57 pm UTC
PURCHASER
How do I find your soundscapes? I have a subscription.
Customer avatar
Corey H November 04, 2021 10:43 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I cannot for the life of me find at what point in the story you are to use the "Roberts notes handout"....can anyone help? Thanks
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T November 05, 2021 9:43 am UTC
CREATOR
Hey Corey, those can be found with a successful DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check in the Hag Grotto (referenced on the bottom right of page 13)!
Customer avatar
Jon H November 15, 2020 9:33 am UTC
PURCHASER
FYI I created some battlemaps for this module for when I ran it - I think they are pretty faithful to the module as written. If they would be useful to anyone else, they can be found here https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeondraft/comments/ju8hlm/the_lamenting_lighthouse/
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T November 15, 2020 12:07 pm UTC
CREATOR
wow, those are absolutely stunning, I love them! :D
Reply
Customer avatar
John B December 30, 2020 9:54 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for making those! They were much better than my initial efforts, both saving me lots of time and effort, as well as improving the quality of the sessions I ran.
Reply
Customer avatar
Drakon V March 23, 2021 5:20 pm UTC
PURCHASER
These are incredible!
Customer avatar
Ryan B September 11, 2020 4:52 pm UTC
Hi Sven,

How difficult would you foresee bumping this up to a level 11-13 adventure?

I've got a whole lighthouse theme I've been running for my group, and trying to progress quickly through levels. :)
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T September 11, 2020 5:07 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hey Ryan, I think this could be done relatively easily by bumping all skill checks by +2 in DC or so and increasing monster HP. However, this would only make encounters and progression tougher, it would not add any new encounter flavor or challenge specific to higher player character levels. So my fear is that it would feel a bit bland for a high level adventure, but I guess it might still work. That being said, if you are happy to improvise a bit, I'm sure you could easily add some additional abilities to the three central encounters to make them more interesting to higher level play!
Customer avatar
Dave A September 10, 2020 10:50 am UTC
PURCHASER
This looks an ideal one-shot for my PCs to get on the high seas whist in Waterdeep but will the FG version suffice for Roll20?
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T September 10, 2020 5:00 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hey Dave! Unfortunately, I think the FG files only work with Fantasy Grounds, not with Roll20 :-/
You might be better off with the PDF version, although I have little experience with Roll20, so I cannot be sure of this.
Customer avatar
Olov E March 06, 2020 12:53 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm translating the journal entries and I'm having trouble with the sixth one. Is the last word of the last sentence breacher? What is that last sentence supposed to mean?
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T March 07, 2020 12:33 pm UTC
CREATOR
That is a mistake on my part, thank you for bringing it to my attention! The word "breacher" is supposed to be "breaker", referring to a heavy wave washing over the island. I have updated the files!
Reply
Customer avatar
Olov E March 26, 2020 12:19 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thank you for the clarification! :)
Customer avatar
Lawful N December 17, 2019 5:05 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I purchased this one shot yesterday and have read through it, it is going to be a blast to run as my first one shot! I had a question about one of the NPCs I was hoping someone could answer.
It indicates the quartermaster, Harvey, is a Illuskan human rating. What is a "rating"? It also indicates he knows the cantrip druidcraft, but does not implicitly state he is a druid. There is no character stats for him, other than a blurb in the beginning. Thank you!
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T December 17, 2019 5:23 pm UTC
CREATOR
Hey Karen, I'm glad that you are looking forward to DMing this, I hope you and your players will have great fun!

A rating is essentially a sailor who is not an officer. You can find the stat block for the rating (which I created for this adventure) in Appendix B: Creature Statistics, on page 23 of the adventure. Harvey, the quartermaster, is indeed no druid - he just knows the druidcraft cantrip, which he picked up at some point in his life for its utility in predicting the weather at sea. A bit of additional backstory: this is one of the major reasons Captain Ailmon recruited him! You can think of this feature, mechanically, as a toned-down version of the magic initiate feat.

Let me know if you have further questions, I'm happy to help!
Reply
Customer avatar
Lawful N December 18, 2019 11:41 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thank you! I did indeed find it in the Appendix you mentioned. I overlooked it on my first read through. You were very thorough, which I appreciate.

I'm wondering if you have any advise regarding running this with a cleric in the party who has the turn undead spell? (A lot of undead on the island).

My normal group has been playing together for almost two years (me included, Level 9 - Tiefling Druid). I'm running this one shot for our group as a "gift" to our DM who "just wants to play", so I know pretty well what I'm going to be dealing with, therefore the question regarding the cleric.

I could ask them all to roll new characters and level them to 6 before we meet, but someone may roll a cleric again.

Any thoughts?

Thanks Sven!
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T December 18, 2019 12:05 pm UTC
CREATOR
That's awesome of you to do this for your DM! :D

My advice is to let the cleric have their fun! You are right, there are a lot of undead in this adventure - actually, quite likely too many to turn... ^^ I think you can run a single cleric (or even two) out of uses of turn undead pretty quickly here. I once ran a party with two sorcerers and a wizard out of counterspells with this adventure! Even if they annihilate a few encounters with turn undead, that's okay! Nothing feels better than getting some use out of rather situational abilities, such as turn undead. It's not entirely likely turn undead alone will save them, anyways: it only lasts for 1 minute or until the turned creature takes damage - and it's a small island, not very far for the turned undead to go, they might come back once this 1 minute is up ; ) You could even use this to your advantage with the drowned versions of common undead I use in this adventure: let the turned undead stumble into the foaming see, let the party think they are...See more
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Customer avatar
Lawful N December 31, 2019 6:38 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Sven,

I completed the Lamenting Lighthouse on Saturday. The group had a blast. They ended up going to Seagull Island first (after encountering the Sahuagin and sharks on the way). They jumped off the cliffs several times. I wasn't sure what the water depth would be in a case like this, so I didn't make them take fall damage, and I was so caught off guard I didn't have any of the drowned sailors or other underwater threats interact with them. I don't know why I didn't fathom they would jump off the islands.

Anyhow, the party rolled 6th level characters and not a cleric among them. In fact, they were rather squishy with a Tortle Sorcerer, a Half-elf Warlock, and a Gnome Bard. Overall, they did fairly well, at one point the party jumped off the cliff by the surf cave and the eels attacked, then they misty stepped back up to the Viledel Lighthouse, so I had to coax them back towards the cave!

Thank you for the great content, we had a lot of fun!
Reply
Customer avatar
Sven T January 01, 2020 1:29 pm UTC
CREATOR
Glad you had fun! =) You can never account for all eventualities when writing adventures, I think we can learn from your story :D But it sounds like you handled it great!
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