Introduction - Dragon Delves: The Forbidden Vale

Introduction. Dragons in Dungeons Nothing is more quintessentially Dungeons & Dragons than gathering a group of heroes to face a mighty dragon in a mysterious dungeon. These classic elements link players across time and space, from the first adventurers who forayed into the gloom more than 50 years ago to players beginning their first adventure now. Dragon Delves is a celebration of this shared tradition. Each of the ten adventures in this book features a dragon in a lair. Designed for characters of levels 1 through 12, the adventures offer a range of challenges, from defeating evil dragons to working with good dragons, as well as navigating more complicated moral dilemmas. The dungeons where the dragons make their lairs range from cavern complexes to ruined cities and more. Where there are dragons in dungeons, there's always adventure! Using This Book The adventures in an anthology such as Dragon Delves are versatile resources that can fill a variety of needs at your gaming table: as one-shot adventures, as "filler episodes" in an ongoing campaign, or as a series that forms a campaign, bringing characters from level 1 to a climactic conclusion at level 12. These adventures are designed to require minimal preparation (see Running the Adventures later in this introduction). One-Shot Adventure Maybe you're normally a player in an ongoing campaign, but you want to try your hand at being the Dungeon Master. Maybe you're trying to pull a new group together, and you want to see how all the players get along before you start a whole campaign. Maybe your regular DM is sick or has a scheduling conflict, but everyone else is ready to play. Or maybe your group needs a break or a diversion from the ongoing campaign. In any of these cases, you can pick an adventure from this book and run it. In an Ongoing Campaign Maybe your players' characters know what they have to do to foil the evil boss's plans, but they're not quite high enough level to accomplish their goal. Or they've...