[OC] The Cave of Elder Runes - A classic Dungeon Map, and a 6 Page One-Shot Adventure (No AI)

**The Cave of Elder Runes** is a 6 page adventure I wrote this week. I intentionally wanted to make something similar in scale to the Cragmaw Hideout from Lost Mines of Phandelver, combined with a more stylized battle map, rather than realistic. Nothing wrong with a good realistic battle map, but I found myself nostalgic for something that felt like a classic DnD dungeon map, with the crosshatching borders and all.

The adventure is written for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, and is fully compatible with either the 2014 5e rules, or the 2024 5.5e rules. That said, it's probably *very easy* to run with just about any RPG system. It's fairly mechanically simple. Pathfinder or Daggerheart GMs would be able to run it with barely any changes at all.

It's intended for a party of 4, at either level 2 or 3, but it can work for a level range of 1 to 4. Any party at level 5 and above I think would find this adventure far too easy, buuut if the DM wants to scale the difficulty up even more, I'm sure that'd still work.

Each section of the adventure is written with multiple options. There's always a branching path, and usually something hidden to find as well. There are suggestions in each section for scaling combat difficulty up or down as well. At the end of the adventure, there are suggestions for plot hooks to use for a follow up adventure or two.

The beginning and end are intentionally written to be open ended, so it can fit into any setting or campaign as needed. The quest hook is simple, but the rewards and potential for adventures that can come from this adventure are very cool. Ending Spoiler: >!The final reward is basically a Dragon Shout from Skyrim, and just like the basic "Fus" ability, it can be expanded upon and powered up with more Words of Power being found and acquired in future adventures!!<

Dimensions of the map are 3861 by 4166 pixels. Versions with and without grids are available. This was made entirely in Photoshop. No AI was used for the map itself, or for the writing of the adventure. I wrote the adventure in Google Docs and exported to PDF.

Included are 4 variants of the adventure map.

* GM Version without Grid
* GM Version with Grid
* Player Version without Grid
* Player Version with Grid

The full Cave of Elder Runes adventure is for Paid Subscribers over on my Patreon. The map is fully free here on Reddit.

**Full Adventure and Map Link:** [**https://www.patreon.com/stoneward13/posts/cave-of-elder-6-162340625**](https://www.patreon.com/stoneward13/posts/cave-of-elder-6-162340625)

There is also a **Free Preview PDF** as well that has the first 2 pages (out of 6 pages total).

**Preview Link:** [**https://www.patreon.com/stoneward13/posts/free-preview-of-162342810**](https://www.patreon.com/stoneward13/posts/free-preview-of-162342810)

Enjoy! Let me know if you'd like to see more adventures and map like this in the future. Feedback of that sort would be really helpful!