The Lost Laboratory of Kwalish as a 1-Shot 5e Adventure

About the adventure

The legendary inventor Kwalish disappeared eons ago… as it turns out, finding a crashed planar ship and studying its technology to fuel his own experiments. Only now, Kwalish’s lost research is desperately needed!! Will you dare an expedition into the Barrier Peaks to find where he disappeared and perhaps recover some of his technological marvels? Will you do it to save a friend? In this one-off adventure, the party has a friend, perhaps an old member of their adventuring company, a mentor, or family relation, trapped in stasis in an ancient machine of Kwalish' design. They have made a deal with an eccentric gnome, nicknamed the Cartophile for his obsession with maps who recently uncovered a map indicating that the historic gnome sage, Kwalish, had his laboratory hidden deep in the mountains. With the Cartophile's chosen emissary beside you, you headed out, hoping to gather lost research that would bring your friend out of stasis. After braving the dangers of the passes, you have moved out of a mountainous tunnel and come out into a huge, hidden valley. Floating hundreds of feet in the air at the center of the valley is a large island of rock. Enormous chimney-engines extend from the bottom of this island, burning with fitful, deep-red fires that appear to keep the island aloft. A series of odd structures rise from the rock, appearing almost like metallic crystals. As you watch, the engines sputter and start, sending a shudder throughout the entire island. Farther down the cliff-side ledge is a flat metal dock, on which reclines a feline monstrosity with a female humanoid head — a regal gynosphinx. A matching dock is thrust out from the floating rock island across from this dock, but there is no obvious way to cross the hundreds of feet of open space between them... How do you proceed?

Additional Details

How to prepare

Contact me directly on Discord (my user name is MistrHusband#1322 ) prior to game-time to get character creation taken care of and get access to the server we will be using for play. Players will be connecting to my tabletop using a standard web browser (chrome seems to work best) and will need a microphone set up for Discord communications. They'll also need to make an account on Forge-vtt.com for access to the table.

What I provide

I bring shareable access to every book on D&D Beyond, access to the virtual tabletop, and a prepared game! The tabletop takes care of all the dice and such for you.

Gameplay details

This adventure allows for many different paths to success. Expect to be allowed to follow your own imagination and preferences as you strive to find proof of Kwalish's travels to this flying island. There is a definite mix of exploring and puzzle solving roleplay encounters built in, with ample opportunity to pick a fight (or get one picked for you) depending on your choices.

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

(none)

How will character creation work

Characters should be created beforehand on D&D Beyond, and will be imported into Foundry VTT for use (I'll take care of that part). I can guide through character creation before the game, or provide a pre-made character as necessary.

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
• Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.
• If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.