Shards of Eberron is the name of a series of five short adventures set in the Eberron campaign setting and using the Dungeons & Dragons ® 3.5-edition ruleset that were used during the 2004 D&D Open Championship . They would later be rewritten and published in Dungeon #123 through #125 as " Crypt of Crimson Stars ", " Temple of the Scorpion God ", and " Pit of the Fire Lord ", though these reprints would drop the premade characters.
Adventure introduction
The Shadow Marches
Deep within the fetid lands of the Shadow Marches , an ancient shrine of the Gatekeepers rots in eternal ruin. Built atop a sealed portal to the plane of Xoriat , from which in distant memory horrid aberrations once emerged to wage brutal war upon the young nations of Khorvaire , the shrine is to this day a sinkhole of evil in the midst of the swamp, mutating nature itself to evil.
Somewhere within this shrine is said to be an Eberron dragonshard of enormous size and legendary power. Sometimes described as the solidified blood of the earth itself, Eberron shards are pinkish crystals containing writhing swirls of deep red color and hold a great affinity for magic. Artificers seeking to fashion spell storing items or metamagic rods, among other magical objects, use Eberron dragonshards in preference over other materials.
Tophran Damilek , one of Sharn 's wealthiest citizens, has hired the player characters (PCs) to retrieve the legendary Eberron shard hidden within the Gatekeeper shrine. For the purpose of this adventure, assume that the PCs have accepted his commission and are already deep within the swamps of the Shadow Marches, approaching the shrine. The equipment on their character sheets represents the result of their preparations for this expedition.
The Mournland
The blasted ruins of the Mournland —a lasting reminder of the devastation of the Last War —conceal many weapons from that conflict. Thankfully, the locations of many of these weapons have been lost from memory, but that is not true of all of them.
Hidden away in a well-protected vault lies one of these weapons: an Eberron dragonshard of enormous size and legendary power. Sometimes said to be the solidifed blood of the earth itself, Eberron shards are pinkish crystals containing writhing swirls of deep red color and hold a great affinity for magic. Artificers seeking to fashion spell storing items or metamagic rods, among other magical objects, use Eberron dragonshards in preference over other materials.
Tophran Damilek, one of Sharn's wealthiest citizens, has hired the player characters to retrieve the legendary Eberron shard hidden within the Vault of the Ancients deep within the Mournland. For the purpose of this adventure, assume that the PCs have accepted his commission and are already approaching the vault. The equipment on their character sheets represents the result of their preparations for this expedition. The read-aloud text for the first encounter provides all the background information they need to play the adventure.
When the adventure begins, the characters are passengers on an elemental -powered airship flying across the Mournland. At the start of the encounter, they are about an hour away from their destination, where the ship will drop low enough for the characters to disembark and complete the rest of their journey to the Vault on foot. All characters are wearing or carrying their gear, as they are prepared to leave soon.
Unfortunately for the characters, they aren't the only ones after this Eberron dragonshard. A sinister cleric named Delise has gathered a number of minions together to recover the very same item sought by the characters. As the adventure opens, some of the cleric's minions have boarded the airship with the intent of stopping the characters...one way or another.
The Talenta Plains
The wild Talenta Plains remain an untamed frontier on the continent of Khorvaire. Travelers can wander for days without seeing another living creature, but must remain ever wary of packs of predatory dinosaurs or suspicious halfling warriors.
Far from civilization, concealed within a trap-laden temple-tomb, lies an Eberron dragonshard of enormous size and legendary power. Sometimes described as the solidifed blood of the earth itself, Eberron shards are pinkish crystals containing writhing swirls of deep red color and hold a great affinity for magic. Artificers seeking to fashion spell storing items or metamagic rods, among other magical objects, use Eberron dragonshards in preference over other materials.
Tophran Damilek, one of Sharn's wealthiest citizens, has hired the player characters to retrieve the Eberron dragonshard concealed within the abandoned temple. Unknown to the characters, they aren't the first group that Damilek has sent after the shard: Another team of adventurers has already met their doom on a similar mission a few weeks earlier.
For the purpose of this adventure, assume that the PCs have accepted his commission and are already approaching the vault. The equipment on their character sheets represents the result of their preparations for this expedition. The read-aloud text for the first encounter provides all the background information they need to play the adventure.
Xen'drik
The heroes have accomplished their first goal, and delivered an Eberron dragonshard of great power to their employer, Tophran Damilek. Now they seek a second dragonshard, a Siberys shard , on behalf of their wealthy patron. Siberys dragonshards fall from the Ring of Siberys that forms a broken path across the night sky. A pulsating swirl of golden veins glows within the crystalline depths of a Siberys shard. These shards are greatly coveted by the dragonmarked mercantile houses that dominate the economic life of Khorvaire, for their inherent properties enhance and focus the spell-like abilities derived from dragonmarks.
For the purpose of this adventure, assume that the PCs have accepted Tophran Damilek's commission and are already deep within the jungles of Xen'drik , approaching the ancient ruins. The equipment on their character sheets represents the result of their preparations for this expedition. The read-aloud text for the first encounter provides all the background information they need to play the adventure.
Sharn, City of Towers
After discovering that their "patron" intends to use the recovered dragonshards as part of some horrible ceremony (in Round 2), the characters hurry back to Sharn. There, they seek to confront Tophran Damilek, only to find that he has disappeared. The characters follow Damilek's trail beneath the city, but must fight their way past several of his allies and minions before they can stop the ceremony that will unleash fiery ruin upon the city.