A new third-party Dungeons & Dragons campaign presents mind flayers in a deadly and dangerous new light. The mind flayer is one of the most popular and dangerous monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. A race of alien creatures with fearsome mental powers and an appetite for human brains, mind flayers have plagued adventurers since the mid-1970s. Mind flayers have also made a comeback in popular culture, as the creature lent its name to the central antagonist of Strangers Things‘ season 2 baddie and seems to be a central threat of Baldur’s Gate III, if the game’s first trailer is any indication.
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A new full-length campaign recently published on the DMs Guild illustrates just how dangerous and deadly the mind flayers can be. Call From the Deep is a new Level 1-Level 10 campaign written and designed by JVC Perry that places a small sect of illithid at the heart of a very deadly mystery that threatens the entirety of the Sword Coast. What starts off as an investigation of a strange shipwreck leads to defending the Sword Coast against a full-blown pirate invasion and eventually culminates in a battle against a brand new type of illithid threat in the underwater ruins of an Elven city.
Call From the Deep has the same epic feel as many of the Wizards of the Coast-published D&D campaigns and syncs perfectly with the recent nautical ship rules presented in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The campaign also has a sizable “sandbox” section, in which players are encouraged to explore the Sword Coast for clues about the strange danger that plagues all of Faerun. While the book gives plenty of suggested encounters that tie into the central storyline, there’s also plenty of room for DM innovation or even tie-ins to other D&D campaigns set on the Sword Coast.
Call From the Deep is an impressive campaign that uses familiar D&D locations to craft a brand new story. The book also brings back several classic D&D monsters like the eye of the deep, a water-dwelling relative of the beholder, and reinvents other creatures by merging them with the illithid. The new campaign is also firmly “nautical” in nature, perhaps more so than Ghosts of Saltmarsh, which was billed as a nautical-themed adventure but mostly takes place on land. If players are truly looking for a dangerous campaign on the high seas, Call From the Deep might be a little more to their liking than Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Not only is Call From the Deep a fantastically built adventure, it also showcases one of the benefits from publishing under the DMs Guild, a platform that allows third-party writers to publish material using official D&D IP. This is a great adventure, and one that wouldn’t have been possible without the unique content-sharing rules of the DMs Guild. Strong content like Call From the Deep should keep building the reputation of the DMs Guild as one of the central hubs for high-quality D&D material.
Call From the Deep is available for $39.95 on the DMs Guild.
