Description
The best way to learn a tabletop roleplaying game is to play it.
The Storm Over Skyreach Spire is a standalone introductory adventure designed to teach Dragonbane at the table, introducing its rules a little at a time as they become relevant instead of asking new players to master everything before the first die is rolled.
Note: You will need the Dragonbane Core Set (or Rulebook) and Bestiary to run this adventure.
A red distress kite has been raised above the abandoned ruins of Skyreach Spire. A survey expedition is trapped somewhere inside, harpies circle the broken upper levels, and a hobgoblin salvage crew has become stranded in the lower tower. Worse, an unnatural storm is gathering around the mountain with every passing hour.
The player characters are sent to rescue the missing expedition, but the climb quickly reveals a much larger problem. An earthquake has awakened the ancient machinery buried inside Skyreach, and a stolen magical crystal has thrown the tower’s forgotten storm engine into chaos. Lightning tears through the ruins, strange creatures are forming from wind and electricity, and an ancient guardian has begun protecting a machine that is rapidly becoming a threat to the entire valley below.
Designed as a seven-area tutorial adventure, The Storm Over Skyreach Spire gradually introduces new players to the core systems of Dragonbane through actual play. Skill rolls, dragons and demons, boons and banes, pushing rolls, conditions, initiative, movement, attacks, parrying, dodging, opposed rolls, fear, resting, Willpower Points, heroic abilities, monster attacks, and environmental hazards are all introduced when the characters encounter situations that make those rules matter.
The adventure also emphasizes that Dragonbane is about more than simply defeating whatever stands in front of the party. Characters can negotiate with enemies, rescue stranded NPCs, exploit the environment, solve problems creatively, and complete the final encounter without destroying the monster guarding the storm engine.
Inside you’ll find a complete standalone adventure, GM-facing tutorial notes for introducing Dragonbane’s rules during play, encounters using hobgoblins and harpies from the Dragonbane Bestiary, two new monsters created specifically for the adventure, guidance for adapting generic maps or Dyson Logos’s commercially available Shattered Tower maps, and a climactic multi-objective encounter where saving lives matters just as much as winning the fight.
Whether everyone at the table is completely new to Dragonbane or an experienced GM wants an easy way to introduce new players to the game, The Storm Over Skyreach Spire is built to get the party adventuring quickly and teach the system the way tabletop RPGs are learned best: by playing.
