The Disappearance of Hildred Masten
A missing nobleman. A dangerous book. A maddening Truth. Investigate the disappearance of Hildred Masten and uncover what’s going on beneath the city.
Designed for 5e characters at level 1, this cosmic horror adventure is perfect to get your table into the thick of things in a slower, more atmospheric style. The city is built to be setting neutral, meaning it can be in a metropolis as large as Waterdeep or anything you have ready in your homebrew setting.
“Step One: Read the Play. Always read the play every morning, Hildred.
Step Two: Murder Doctor Gentlehand. Violently.”
Setting Neutral
Setting neutrality was a core idea when designing The Disappearance of Hildred Masten. Built from the ground up to work in any urban setting, this adventure slots into any world, any campaign, and any group without much prep. All you need is a city, some player characters, and an understanding of how to run a 5E game.
A New Way to Lose Your Mind
From Ravenloft to homebrew, the traditional Madness rules in the DMs Guide are weak at best and problematic at worst. A trademark of the cosmic horror genre is insanity and madness, but the way most games handle it isn’t great.
Dread solves that problem. It puts the agency back into the players’s hands without making their characters unfun to play. How they play their Marks of Dread are entirely up to them.
Built for New Players
Getting into DnD as a new player is a daunting prospect for characters and DMs alike. This adventure was designed to be purposely easy to follow with monsters to prep and main story beats included in the first few pages. Everything else is like reading from a script with the tools to improvise when you need to.
“…just wanted to say that this adventure is AMAZING! It's going to be my first game to DM and it's so easy to follow, great steps, clear and a brilliant story! Can't wait to get those dice rolling!”
- Failing Halfling Rogue