[DCC Day #7] DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2026’, which took place today on Saturday, July 18th, 2026, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Dungeon Crawl Classics #112: Mother of M0nsters. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ and ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’, appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack. ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ is written for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World, ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’ is for use with Xcrawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which combines Dungeons & Dragons and World Wrestling Entertainment, turns it into a blood sport, televises it, and throws in celebrity culture in an alternate dystopia shot through with a knowing black humour. Lastly, both Dungeon Crawl Classics #112: Mother of M0nsters and DCC Day #7: Pestilence at the Peak of Law are written for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics.

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As in past years, the DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack contains two adventures. The first and longest of the two is ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ are written for use with Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World. It is designed for a party of three to six Player Characters of First Level and begins with them in the jungle on the back of a fast-flowing river on the other wise of which is an island with some pre-disaster ruins on it.

The Player Characters—or Seekers—have been sent by their respective tribes to rescue a much-fabled artefact, called AESOP, from the ruins. AESOP is rumoured to be a learning device from before the disaster used to teach children. If it can be brought back, it will be a great asset to the confederation of local villages. Unfortunately, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and a series of storms has led to widespread flooding and the rising waters threaten the buildings in which AESOP is located. Thus, the Seekers have to survive the environment and the weather, explore the buildings, find AESOP, and then haul it back! The dangers of the floods are represented by a ‘Deluge Effects’ table which is triggered when a natural roll of one or twenty is rolled. The waters can swell and surge, the winds rise, wildlife flee, and more, plus some effects also increase the die size by a step for subsequent rolls. Which means that as the scenario progresses, the effects of the storm get worse and worse. Then if a Seeker gets caught in the waters, then is a ‘Fighting the Flood Waters’ table to be rolled on, the greater the strength of the Seeker, the less likely he will be swept away.

The ruins on the island are those of Pennsville Learning Academy, so the Seekers are exploring the ruins of an ancient school. As you would expect, there are classrooms dedicated to different subjects, including history, science, and art, a cafeteria, and so on. Each location contains a mix of things to experience and lots of things to loot. For example, in the history classroom, the Experio5400 is a teaching device that beams a holographic, immersive experience straight into the eyes of nearby pupils. One experience is given, but the Judge can be inventive here too, adding her own historical scenes, whether from actual history or the history between now and the events of the disaster that led to Terra AD. However, it is loot where the author gets to be inventive. Items to be looted include a Cheat Lens that when worn provides answers to written questions; a chemical cabinet in the science classroom full of ingredients to be mixed for various effects; school lockers containing things such as a Jet Board, a Dysfunctional Robotic Playmate, Acks Body Spray (incites attacks from nearby feral creatures!), and more.

Finally, there is AESOP itself. It is a A.I. with a pleasing personality—though for entertainment value, the Judge could readily change it—that the Seekers can talks to and ask questions of. The Judge has a list of questions and answers to facilitate any interaction. AESOP is easy to find, but rather than challenging to deal with, it is challenging to move! The seekers must find a way of transporting it out of the ruins, across the island, and then over the river with its raging waters. ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ is a good mix of exploration and combat, twisting a familiar location and making it a dangerous and rewarding in equal measure, before escalating the danger with the weather. The result is an excellent, entertaining scenario for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

The second scenario is ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’, which is designed for the Xcrawl Classics Role-Playing Game and for party of four to six Player Characters of First Level. Their Agent informs them that they have been invited to participate in a new gig—an Xcrawl designed by a first-time Dungeon Judge. Not just any first-time Dungeon Judge, but Tiger Silva, the world’s most famous and accomplished pro-golfer, who wants to try his hand at a different sport. Apart from the fact that it being organised by one of the most famous sportsmen in the North American Empire, it is meant to be a low-key affair. It is a chance for the Player Characters to pick up some new sponsors, look good in a celebrity-driven event, and perhaps move into the orbit of the rich and famous by association.

As you would expect, this Xcrawl is entirely Golf-themed and that starts with the sponsorships on offer, which include the Ultra Whack Golf Clubs and Golfing Gear and Super Aid Sports Drinks. It continues with the individual locations in the Xcrawl, a giant miniature putt-putt golf course, which include woad-painted Goblin Picts which attack to the sound of bad bagpipes being played (and unfortunately the bagpipe-player is a non-combatant, so cannot be attacked and the Player Characters will need to find another way to stop the playing) reflecting Golf’s Scottish origins; a giant sand trap and a even bigger windmill with deadly spinning blades; and a battle with a giant gopher! All of which is confronted whilst attempting to whack a giant Golf ball through the dungeon and into the cup at the end of each room. Being a dungeon for the Xcrawl Classics Role-Playing Game, the adventure is straightforward and linear, that feel exacerbated by the need to drive the giant Golf ball from one end of the dungeon to the other, room by room. However, it is ever so tongue-in-cheek and fits with the absurdity of the world of Xcrawl.

The absurdity of setting and the scenario are made all the more so by the satirical elements worked into it. These dig at the theme of Golf and at the contemporary politics surrounding Golf. These are likely to amuse or irritate in equal measure, but given the theme, it is no surprise they are included. ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’ is a silly, but fun adventure and there are notes too if the Judge wants to add it to her campaign.

Physically, the DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack is as well done as you would expect for a release from Goodman Games. The artwork is decent, but a little cartoonish in places—which actually suits the Xcrawl Classics Role-Playing Game.

The DCC Day 2026 Adventure Pack delivers two good scenarios for two different games, but of the two, ‘The Temple of Fluttering Terror’ is the most inventive and interesting, but ‘The Crawl is Not Always Greener’ is sillier and more immediately entertaining. Both are fun to play and both are easy to add to a campaign as they are to run as one-shots.

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2021’, which took place on Saturday, July 26th, 2021, the publisher released two books. One was Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #2: Beneath the Well of Brass, a classic Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. The other was an anthology, the DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack, which contains three adventures. One for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, one for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, and one a preview for the forthcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Temple Siege!’. This is designed for five to six First Level Player Characters and draws directly from ‘Appendix N’ by being inspired by the Cossacks stories of Harold Lamb, an influence on Robert E. Howard. The Player Characters will definitely encounter horse nomads—and they prove to be a rough, evil lot, ready to kill the Player Characters and take whatever they have. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a very different scenario. Rather than being an atypical dungeon, it takes place entirely in the confines of a single location. Such a constraint is a challenge to the author. Can he create an interesting location and an interesting plot built around the one place? Often, these are ‘locked room’ style adventures, but ‘Temple Siege!’ is not quite that. Rather, the Player Characters are trapped within the confines of the site, but the door is open and the enemy really wants to get in!

‘Temple Siege!’ takes place on the nomad steppes where the Player Characters have come to plunder an ancient temple, but not long after they enter its confines, they are besieged by a band of nomads. The Player Characters have a limited number of actions they can take between wave upon wave of nomad incursions inside the temple, but they also have a lot to examine in the temple. There are puzzles to be solved and traps to be discovered, some of which will lead to means and ways that the Player Characters can use to their advantage. To that end, the Judge is provided with a wealth of detail which she will need to understand and be able to impart to her players as their characters, as well as handle the three different waves of vile nomads, each of which is slightly different. The progress of the Player Characters will be greatly hampered if they do not have a Thief amongst their number. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a scenario which will keep a Thief really busy just as it will keep a Fighter—and other Classes—busy facing off against the nomads outside. ‘Temple Siege!’ might be slightly too long a scenario to run in a single session and its isolated, nomad steppe location make it a little too difficult to add to a campaign, although the prominent role of the Thief Class in the scenario means that it could work with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Overall though, this is a detailed and fun scenario which combines traps, puzzles, and combat in an entertainingly fought situation.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is really notable for its inclusion of the first scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, the adaptation of the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is again a scenario for First Level Player Characters, but just three or four. However, it does not require the use of Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth and does not make use of the new Classes from Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but can instead be run using the standard rules from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. (Doubtless, this will change once Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth is widely available.) The scenario opens with their travelling aboard the Calealen, a vessel pulled by giant sea worms that need careful handling throughout the journey. Due to circumstances beyond their control—and heedless of the Calealen’s somewhat scurvy crew—the Player Characters find themselves cast ashore on a decidedly strange island. One that has been turned upside down! To find out how this came about and perhaps make their escape back to sea, they must descend the upturned mountain and confront a mad hermit! 

‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is intentionally odd and weird, just as you would expect from something set in the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. For the Judge, the language itself is ostentatious and takes some getting used to, but the scenario works just as well under the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as it will under Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth. However, it does not quite feel weird enough, primarily because the players cannot engage with it as Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth characters yet, and only as Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game characters. This is still a decent scenario and will be enjoyable which ever version of Dungeon Crawl Classics is used.

‘The Neverwhen Rock’ is a Character Funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. It can be run on its own, or if the Judge has access, run together with ‘Ruins of Future Past’, the scenario from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack. As part of their Rite of Passage, the Player Characters are instructed by the tribal shaman to examine a strange boulder not too far away and explore the cave inside of it, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. Although their characters will have no idea as to what is going on, the players will quickly realise that this is a time travel adventure. It is a very basic one though, with an obvious nod to Doctor Who, and the Player Characters never get the chance to explore the strange boulder, merely get thrust out of it in different locations. It definitely feels like it should be more and like some of the great ideas presented in other titles from Goodman Games, it leaves the Judge left wondering what to do next if she wants to do more with that idea.

Physically, DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The maps for both ‘Temple Siege!’ and ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ are both well done. All three scenarios are well written and easy to read.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack contains three scenarios which vary in their utility and their capacity to entertain. ‘Temple Siege!’ is the standout entry, a thrillingly constrained and nicely detailed encounter which will challenge the player and their characters and is suitable for almost any Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game setting. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is a serviceable introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but will really come into its own when the Judge and her players can experience the whole of what the setting has to offer, including characters Classes. In comparison, ‘The Neverwhen Rock’ feels too slight, as if it wants to be something more, but the page count is constraining it. There are more than enough Character Funnels for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic that the Judge not really need look at this unless she has access to ‘Ruins of Future Past’ from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack.

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Incident at Toad Fork’, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game written by Brendan Lasalle. This returns to the Appalachian-style fantasy setting of The Shudder Mountains, first seen Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin and more recently compiled in Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin anthology. Consequently, the scenario has a strong sense of the rural versus the urban, the backwoods culture versus the sophisticated manners of the city, the distrust of the latter by the former, and the feeling that them there city folk are invariably out to bamboozle the good folk of The Shudder Mountains.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters invited to the Harvest Moon Dance, an important annual event when all of the Shudfolk from the communities across The Shudder Mountains come together. It is normally a joyous affair, with plenty of dancing and music, but this year is different. A strange shadow is cast over the activities as several of the young men suddenly bolt, running pell-mell into the surrounding woods, oblivious to all entreaties. The Elders entreat the Player Characters to go after them and they quickly encounter strange glamours and a representative of one the devil which competes for Shudfolk souls. This is a fun roleplaying encounter for the Judge to portray, the NPC being akin to the charming and seductive Mister Dark from the film, Something Wicked This Way Comes, as portrayed by Jonathan Pryce (or in this case, Vincent Price). Overall, reminiscent perhaps of Halloween, but set way in the mountains with a Hillbilly sensibility, if the Judge has not yet run Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin, then this is an entertaining and engaging adventure to add to the campaign setting.

Marzio Muscedere’s ‘The Last Life Guardian’ is the second scenario. In this adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, members of the Player Characters’ village have learned a terrifying tale of horror and hope from a dying outland trader. He told them that a Pure Strain Human wizard with the ability to heal and even bring the dead back to life is being held prisoner by savage mutants within a time-ravaged superstructure of the Ancient Ones. The village Rememberers—the wisest of the villagers—have said that the trapped wizard must be none other than a fabled Life Guardian, a surviving member of an ancient pre-disaster order sworn to heal and protect mankind. Consequently, he must be rescued. Which of course, as village’s Seekers, those that go out and search for technology and knowledge of the Ancients and protect the villagers from outside threats, is a task for the Player Characters.

Once at the site of the time-ravaged superstructure, both Seekers and their players will quickly realise one fact each. The Seekers that even the lake is artificial and their players, what with the ruins of café alongside the lake and the tubes curling all over the place, that it is actually a former waterpark! Part of the fun of the scenario is in recognising this fact, as is discovering that it is home to a tribe of fishmen! So what you have is not-Deep Ones at the deep end of the pool and they are not happy with the presence of the Seekers. As well as dealing with the not-Deep Ones, there is still a decent bit of exploration and investigation to conduct, with only a relatively small bit of roleplaying at the scenario’s end. The various locations are nicely detailed, and a lot of thought has gone into twisting a simple waterpark into an aquatic den of danger in Terra A.D. Especially the zombie which appears if the Seekers are just that too curious! Primarily an exploration and combat scenario, the isolated location for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes it easy to drop into a campaign, with success granting the Player Characters a potentially useful campaign reward rather than personal ones. 

Physically, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The map for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ though will need careful examination by the Judge as it is a little busy. Both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios. ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes a great deal from the one location for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, but ‘Incident at Toad Fork’ for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and specifically, The Shudder Mountains, is a fun, fast-paced Hillbilly horror scenario which will want to make the Judge take a closer look at the Appalachian-style fantasy of Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin—if he has not already.