If you enjoy this post, please retweet it (Twitter/X), boost it (Mastodon), repost it (MeWe), or repost it (BlueSky).
A few weeks ago, I had a memory pop into my head. It was a stupid song parody my middle school friends and I used to sing around Christmastime.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse.
The children were hung by their stockings with care,
in hopes that Count Dracula soon would be there.
Mommy was screaming, and daddy was dead,
and Junior was splattered all over the bed.
That led to another memory of a friend, John, who wrote a Christmas-themed adventure during the 4th Edition days involving (Drow) elves working for and evil Santa Claus. (Santa might have been under mind control. I don’t remember.) I also recently observed that Jacob Marley is a Kyton (a.k.a., chain devil). These three memories came together to encourage me to write my own Christmas-themed adventure replete with carnage. While I intended to use the poem, a Visit from St. Nicholas, for the narrative, the fact that there were four encounters in a Christmas Carol made that story the better source material for the adventure. The goal was to write the second encounter in 1st Edition D&D, the third in 4th Edition D&D, and the fourth in Gamma World 7e, which is based on the 4th Edition D&D game engine (I hadn’t decided which to use for the first encounter). This in turn would mirror an adventure three of my friends and I wrote called “A Brief Tour of the History of Dungeons & Dragons” in which each of us wrote two hours of adventure each in a different edition of D&D, but all part of the same story. Each encounter was designed to exemplify the general feel of those editions. That was a fun adventure to write and run.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to write the encounters in the different editions, so I decided to write them in 4th Edition because I have a group playing that edition, which increased the chances I’d be able to run it. Whether not anyone will have time in December to play remains to be seen, but in any event, I’m publishing it for everyone.
If you prefer another edition (or game system), you’ll have to create your own stat blocks and perhaps modify the poetry to reflect the abilities of the enemies. “The poetry,” you ask? All my box text is written in verse, and it was surprising how much the beginning of a Visit from St. Nicholas synchronized with what I was doing. It inspired me to write everything in verse. So, when a player makes a successful knowledge check to determine what their enemies can do, even that information can be delivered in verse. However, moving from one edition to another may force you to change the enemies’ abilities and thus the verse describing them. On the other hand, you could just dispense with the verse and recite what they know without all the rhyming. For all I know that verse will quickly get annoying.
Despite being written for 4th Edition, I didn’t reproduce my Dungeon Tiles maps. Wizards of the Coast owns the copyright to the images on those titles, and while their use is almost certainly fair in this context, WotC is always looking for an excuse to threaten people. So, without the software to make my own maps, I’ve created some terrible ones based on my Dungeon Tiles maps, then told you the sets you could use to recreate them.
Also of note, I acquired the Krampus stat block from Kobold Press as envisioned by the Dread Gazebo.
If you have any doubts as to the legality of what I’m publishing here, or you’re publishing elsewhere, please visit my post here linking to relevant materials.
EDIT: After running the adventure on 12/13, the PCs are being tweaked, but the adventure is getting a major overhaul. In short, this was way too easy. While that doesn’t bother me completely — the primary purpose is to impart a moral lesson — this is D&D, and D&D should be a challenge.
I hope you enjoy the adventure. I had fun writing it. You can download it by clicking here (unless you may be playing it soon with me). The adventure is suitable for 5, 11th-level characters. James generously created pregenerated characters.
- The Adventure in PDF format
- The Adventure as a Masterplan Project File. You’ll need to delete the extension “pdf” from the end of “The Night Before Deadwinter.masterplan.pdf,” which will leave the name of the file “The Night Before Deadwinter.masterplan” (to be updated soon with the pre-generated characters).
- The Masterplan Library with the monster stat blocks. You’ll need to delete the extension “pdf” from the end of “The Night Before Deadwinter.library.pdf,” which will leave the name of the file “The Night Before Deadwinter.library.”
- Pre-generated characters and tactical advice for their play.
Of the pre-generated characters, Cameron is the most complex, and Argus and Fellick and the easiest to run.
Remember, the maps suck.
Disclaimer: Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this publication. (Okay, jackasses?)
Follow me on Twitter/X @gsllc
Follow me on Mastadon chirp.enworld.org/@gsllc
Follow me on MeWe robertbodine.52
Follow me on Blue Sky @robbodine
Play What You Want 