Ruin

What is left of a town, a manor or a keep after war, fire or simply time: broken walls, roofless halls, cellars under the weeds. Trees grow through the floors and beasts nest in the towers. Explorers look for what the old owners left behind, and must watch every beam and every step.

Light
Dim
Going
Hard

Hear it

Hazards

  • Collapsing roof. A cracked vault held up by two leaning props. Touch the wrong one and the ceiling comes down. D&D 5e: A trip wire between two weak props brings the ceiling down: each creature under it makes a DC 13 Dexterity save, taking 2d10 Bludgeoning damage on a failure or half on a success, and the rubble turns the area into Difficult Terrain. A Search action and a DC 11 Wisdom (Perception) check spot the wire and the weak ceiling. Stronger: 4d10 and DC 15 (levels 5 to 10), 10d10 and DC 17 (11 to 16), 18d10 and DC 19 (17 to 20).
  • Rubble. Fallen stone, timbers and brambles everywhere. Every room is a climb. D&D 5e: Rubble and thick undergrowth are Difficult Terrain: every foot of movement costs one extra foot. A slope of 20 degrees or more counts too.
  • Rotten floor. The boards of the upper floor look sound, but the rain has been at them for a hundred years. D&D 5e: A falling creature takes 1d6 Bludgeoning damage for every 3 m (10 ft) it falls, up to 20d6, and lands Prone unless it took no damage. Our addition: a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check notices the rot before stepping on it.
  • Squatters. Ruins never stay empty for long: bandits, goblins, a bear, or a family with nowhere else to go. D&D 5e (House rule): Our rule: for every hour spent searching the ruin, roll a d6. On a 1, the party meets whoever lives there now, at a distance of 2d6 × 3 m (2d6 × 10 ft). Moving slowly and quietly (Stealth DC 13 for the group) halves the chance.

Adventure hooks

  1. Squatters living in a burnt manor make their living selling the lead from its roofs. The heir has come back from exile to claim it, and the squatters have voted to keep it.
  2. A fresco in a roofless chapel shows a feast, and every year a new face appears among the guests. This year it is the face of one of the party, holding a cup, laughing.
  3. An old woman pays a copper for every owl pellet brought down from the ruined tower. She reads the little bones in them, she says, and they are slowly telling her where the last lord buried his silver.
  4. A cellar has been found under the rubble with its stores whole: wine, oil, sealed jars. Some of the jars do not hold food, and not all of them are quite still.

What may happen

  1. A coat of arms over the gate, chipped but readable. Someone in the nearest town still bears it.
  2. A trapdoor under the ivy, its ring rusted shut. Cool air comes up through the cracks.
  3. Owls burst from the broken tower in a cloud of feathers. Their pellets hold tiny bones, and a gold ring.
  4. Half a fresco survives on a wall: a feast, and a guest pouring something into the lord's cup.
  5. An old well, its rope long gone. A coin dropped in takes far too long to splash.
  6. Local villagers are carting away cut stone to build their barns. They do not like questions.
  7. Warm ash in a fireplace and a pot of stew. Someone left in a hurry when they heard the party.
  8. The old kitchen garden has gone wild, but its herbs still grow: thyme, sage, and a few rarer ones.
  9. A stone head from a fallen statue lies in the grass, its eyes turned toward a wall that hides a niche.
  10. A beam overhead groans as the wind rises. Dust trickles down.
  11. A shepherd nearby swears a light walks the battlements on nights of the new moon.
  12. A strongbox, black from an old fire, still locked. It rattles.

Creatures

Other sites

Dungeon, Crypt, Graveyard, Sewer, Fortress, Mine Works, Temple, Laboratory, City

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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