Gravenhollow Manor: A One-Shot Adventure for 3rd-4th level Characters

Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild

Adventure Design and Summary

This adventure is a self-contained one-shot designed to be completed in a single four-hour session. Written for 3rd–4th level heroes, it is tense, unforgiving, and quick to run. Adapted from Chapter Two of The Heart of Vecna, it stands alone as a complete tale of dread and desperation. Vecna’s cult and its members are fleshed out here in gory detail.

The location is setting neutral. Gravenhollow Manor can be placed in any campaign world so long as there is a small village bordering a forest, and a lonely path leading toward a ruined estate.

The premise is simple and grim. Someone important to the heroes—an ally, mentor, or loved one—has been taken by a cult of the Whispered One and dragged to the abandoned manor. Beneath its rotting floors lies a drowned chapel where a midnight sacrifice will take place in two nights’ time.

This is a timed adventure. The moment the heroes set foot on the forest path leading to the manor, a forty-eight-hour countdown begins in-game, mirrored by roughly four hours of real time at the table. A visible timer can heighten tension; every minute lost brings the captive closer to death.

The heroes know only this:

• The captive is someone they care about.

• The cult has seized control of Gravenhollow Manor.

• A sacrifice will occur at midnight in two nights.

• When the ritual concludes, the captive’s soul and secrets will be offered to Vecna.

Their goal is clear: infiltrate or assault the manor, survive its defenders and horrors, descend into the drowned chapel below, and stop the ritual before the final stroke of midnight. Failure means the captive’s end—and another secret claimed by the Whispered One.

Time is running out.

Happy adventuring,
Christopher Hamwell

: $4.95