The Great Trial

“This is truly an epic undertaking and a seriously awesome adventure, which is impressively both a love letter to old skool dungeons and their creators both in and out of game.” –  Curse of Sebs

“There is a little bit of something for everyone in this adventure, and it is really fairly priced for what you get!” – Comics, Clerics, & Controllers d20 Roll: Nat 20

The Great Trial is a 5e adventure for characters starting at 7th level and ending at 10th level. It’s a dungeon consisting of three levels, where the first level is the lowermost one and the last is the uppermost one:

• The first level features vicious traps, puzzles, and combat;
• The highlight of the second level is a labyrinth with a construct Minotaur — the Minotal — and an iron wyvern, both original creatures;
• The last and uppermost level is actually a jungle-like demi-plane filled with dinosaurs in an open-world format.

Aenor Gleenwith, a powerful elf wizard, wants to make history alongside Acererak for his Tomb of Horrors and Halaster for his Undermountain. So he created his own dungeon. To test its effectiveness, he captures adventurers and puts them in the lowest level, where they must work together to survive and escape the dangerous place. At the end, Aenor himself greets the group, offers apologies for any harm caused, repairs all damage incurred, and rewards them for their involuntary help.

This module can be run in any setting or campaign, or as a one-shot. It should take around 10 to 14 hours to complete since it contains three chapters.

What’s included?

• A 49-page PDF with the adventure itself, with high quality maps and 6 new creatures
• A separate file called “The Great Trial — Maps.zip” containing 11 unique, highly detailed, high-quality maps (26 with their different versions):
  • Level 1: DM, player, and light versions
  • Level 2: DM, player, and light versions
  • Halaster level: DM, Player, and Hexless versions
  • Furious Zombie Ape Battle Map: standard and light versions
  • Minotal Battle Map: standard and light versions
  • Random Encounters for Halaster Level:
    • Random Encounter — Beach: Grid and Gridless
    • Random Encounter — Plains & Cliff: Grid and Gridless
    • Random Encounter — River: Grid and Gridless
    • Random Encounter — River & Cliff: Grid and Gridless
    • Random Encounter — Labyrinth: 4 versions
• A text file with resources and additional content to help you run the adventure
• A discount link to the sequel, The Great Trial: Frostbite

Any feedback or comment on the adventure is most welcome!

What to expect?

This adventure works best as standalone, as it takes your party from level 7 to level 10, or 11 if you decide to get its sequel, The Great Trial: Frostbite.

Additionally, it’s heavy on exploration and combat, having only a few opportunities for the social pillar:

• Dungeon Level: A friendly ghost, a former participant of the Trial, may be convinced to help the party
• Labyrinth Level: A revenant, also a former adventurer who died in the labyrinth and wants to get revenge on Aenor, but who is stuck in the labyrinth
• “Halaster” Level: there are a few social opportunities in this level.
  • Zyx, an imp working for Aenor, can provide some limited information to the party
  • A tribe of lizardfolk lives on an island in the south; their leader can help the party
  • A group of lizardfolk hunting on the mainland

Layout Preview

The Full-Size Preview at DM’s Guild contains the entire product, but here’s a peek if you don’t want to wait for the PDF to load.