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Dark Heart of the Wood Patreon Playtest
🕑 Added 2025-11-18 21:41:37 +0000 UTCThe feedback period for this playtest has now ended. You can still use the adventure below.
Hey folks! We are pleased to bring you a playtest for the first official adventure made for 2nd-level heroes in Draw Steel. Behold Dark Heart of the Wood. Here's a quick description from the adventure's interior, written by the designer, Sam Mannell!
Dark Heart of the Wood is an adventure for Draw Steel for 2nd-level heroes. The player characters are already local heroes—they might have a reputation for helping small villages or overlooked neighborhoods in a city, but they’re unlikely to be well-known outside of the region they’ve begun their story in.
This is intended to be a monster-of-the-week-style adventure: A memorable, early stepping-stone in the heroes’ career. You should be able to run it in one or two sessions. The players may not even know they’ve stumbled into the beginning of a new adventure until you reveal its name!
Byre is a small village in the barony of Dalrath. It lies along a well-used road between Broadhurst and Dalrath Keep. This road winds up from the south through an unusually fertile valley, which has long been protected by a high-elf sage named Whisper of Sunset Over the Frost.
Byre’s people have been blessed with good harvests for many years, but recently, drought and famine have been reported in the area.
What’s more, merchants have stopped passing through the valley in the last month. “Carts don’t make it out the other end anymore,” they say. None of them know why, and none of them want to find out.
A rough draft of the adventure is attached to the bottom of this post! We want you to play it and let us know what you think.
The best way to get us your feedback is through the following survey:
https://forms.gle/i5FQUfoQ8SNVi3o87
The survey is now closed. Thanks for your feedback!
As a heads up, this hasn't yet been through editing. You'll likely find some typos and wording that could be a little more clear. You don't need to give us feedback on that. We have editors who will do it for us! You just let us know how it plays at your table and if it's fun or not.
Discord and Reddit
If you want to find a group to playtest or want to chat about the adventure, head on over to the MCDM Discord. You can also explore the Draw Steel subreddit to discuss the game! Be sure to link your Patreon and Discord accounts so you can also chat about the content with our other Patrons.
Thank you all so much for supporting MCDM and Draw Steel!
—James
Comments
JumpingJ98
Lol my plants complained about this as well. I said that they were warped by the corruption of the Shrine.
KroH45
Would it be possible to put all adventures/encounters/modules in a collection? I would love to look through just the adventures while planning my campaign.
Cody Rapai
I know this isn't useful feedback but I can't help myself. Let me say this and I'll go away! Real nightshades are plants, they are categorized as plants in DS but have a feature called Fungal Structure. Why?
Sean Doubt
I love the verticality of the Shrine. Its going to be a super tough fight as Dragon fights should be!
Michael Hughes
I am loving the adventure layout! MCDM is killing it as per usual :)
G
Great name!
Daniel Friedman
Delightful, I've already seeded a Thorn Dragon around the Gray Waste, so I just need to shift it closer to Sealton Heath and I should be able to run it very soon in my regular game.
Isaac Remnant
Dang it! I already had my players fight a Thorn Dragon!
patrick ware
Awesome!
Sir Darles Chickens
I can't wait to read this when I get home from work!
ranch_big
fantastic, I know exactly where I can slot this in my current game.
Rise Heroes Rise!
Hell yeah! Running this ASAP!
