The West Marches of Solasta (1-20)

THE CARNAGE OF THE DRAGON WAR
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A sinister alliance of dragons has left the Drake Valley in ruins. Depraved monsters infest the ruins of its many civilizations. Dark gods spread corruption across the land…

Draw your sword, and bring death to them all.

OPEN-ENDED PLOT, TACTICAL COMBAT, SANDBOX EXPLORATION
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In the spirit of the "West Marches" style of play popularized by the Alexandrian and Matt Colville, the campaign is a total sandbox, with each location being a self-contained adventure. The scope is on the scale of a standalone game, with 60+ hours of gameplay if you complete all of it. There are many routes from level 1 to level 20, and it all depends on the challenges you choose to prioritize. It is a module most focused on the combat and exploration pillars of gameplay, designed to truly test your skill as a 5e player. In the manner of an old-school hexcrawl, it has an array of bite-sized locations and dungeons sprinkled throughout a wild, desolate land. The lore is given in sparse details and evocative vignettes, using literary language to create a mood. Every region has at least one dungeon to discover, and almost every magic item in Solasta can be discovered somewhere within the game. The party chooses the difficulty of their adventure by how far they stray from the hub city, Sanctuary. In the center of the map you will find low-level content, but around the periphery, great challenges wait.

This campaign makes full use of high-level play, and revels in giving you new goals where most campaigns stop. Once you will reach level 20, and you will finally have the mettle to take on the epic dungeons: the castle of an ancient gold dragon, the citadel of the god Sorr-Tarr, a great temple of the four elements, the jungle fortress of the goblinoid knights of Ugarh, and the hell-fort of Tiamat herself. There are many attribute-increasing book rewards in the endgame to encourage epic-level play; you won’t run out of things to do at end level–on the contrary, that’s when the real trials begin! The module is totally open ended, so if you have maxed-out characters from another campaign, just import them here and throw them against the epic-level challenges in this module.

This campaign makes full use of almost all the items and monsters that Solasta has in it, and then some. There are a variety of tactical situations, and careful, observant exploration is richly rewarded.

Another note is that Unfinished Business is required if you’re going to play this mod. This is because UB lets you advance to level 20 and use a few crazy-powerful level 9 spells. This is indispensable because this module will contain some encounters where you face vast throngs of foes. Also, if you don’t have UB installed, you won’t even be able to see this module in your list.

SAVE BEFORE ENTERING EACH ZONE. Almost every new zone you enter requires you to find a long-rest campfire before you can backtrack. This means you might get locked into an unbeatable challenge if you don’t save often enough. Keep your wits about you!

Lastly, it is highly recommended to turn on the UB setting that speeds up time when you hold down the spacebar. This will save you some grief in the horde battles.

CHARACTER CREATION GUIDE
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~Skills~
EVERY SINGLE SKILL will be useful when making your character. There are skill challenges for all the skills that aren’t directly related to play. The main skills used in skill challenges are: athletics, acrobatics, animal handling, deception, history, intimidation, investigation, nature, sleight of hand, performance, persuasion, and religion. The most common skills challenges are for Athletics and Investigation.

~Combat~
Build a diverse party that can meet a variety of challenges. AOE is pretty much a hard requirement to survive. Some of the battles involve lots of enemies. Stealth is also a great investment for every party member; if you are getting TPK’ed a lot, start moving around in cautious mode. Scouting is also a very good idea, so make ample use of stealth to even the odds. Also, I recommend having at least one or two characters who specializes in using weapons, since a lot of the endgame magic items you can buy are powerful weapons. Arcane spellswords are especially spoiled for choice in this regard, so I would recommend taking one of those if you want to have lots to spend money on at the endgame.

~4 player or 6 player?~
6 player parties are fully supported. If you have trouble finding the 6-player exit, hold down the alt button and look for a doorway. However, the campaign is balanced for 4 players, ultimately, so if you play a 6 person party, the campaign will be far easier. If you would like to preserve the challenge to some extent, I recommend changing the XP gain to 67% in UB to mimic a 6-way XP split as opposed to the default 4-way split. You will still have ample XP to reach level 20. Also, if you opt for 6 characters, some dialogs may not function as intended. While 6 player parties are supported, my recommendation for those who are having trouble with the difficulty would be to roll a 4 person party and just use a 35-point point buy (As opposed to the standard 25).

~Resource management~
In this module, you will almost always be able to take a short rest, but only rarely can you take a long rest. So, design your party to have endurance. Every time you enter a new area, the entrance will be locked until you find a long-rest campfire. Be sure to save frequently, preferably BEFORE you enter any new zone, because once you’re in, there’s often no going back until you go forward. If you have trouble with this dimension of the difficulty, talk to the "easy moder" in the graveyard Sanctuary, and this will automatically unlock all bonfires by default. You can also recruit NPC companions from the Monster Slayer’s Guild in Sanctuary, and you will unlock more companions the more monsters you kill.

~Bastion mechanics~
In the city of Sanctuary, you can acquire a player home when you gain the Apprentice rank in the guild. It contains many upgradeable vendors who sell alchemical ingredients, potions, and even ability-enhancing books. You can get the best selling prices in the game by upgrading this mansion, so be sure to check it out.

~Bonus martial playstyle~
There are special katanas from the distant land of Gauntlon, which are available at a dealer in Sanctuary as well as in Shalepeak hold. These katanas are designed to pair especially well with the Dueling style of fighting, with increased versatile damage. This makes Fighters using this fighting style especially viable, most notably Weapon Master Fighters.

AREA INDEX
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Tier 1 (Levels 1-3)
-Royal Preserves
-Eastern Steppe
-Gakbolg Swamp
-Wildmaze

Tier 2 (Levels 4-9)
-Mortgard (Megadungeon lv 3-16)
-The Direwood
-Bleakhaven
-Western Steppe
-Aarlad Woods
-Poolplglup Swamp

Tier 3 (Levels 10-12)
-White Dragon Baruvex
-Tower of Khaal
-Northern Ornon Rainforest
-Southern Ornon Rainforest

Tier 4 (Levels 13-16)
-Black Dragon Odalrang
-Tower of Kra
-Fralorne Steppe
-Hrorlad Craglands

Tier 5 (Levels 17-19)
-Green Dragon Oghrigaal
-Tower of Oros
-Forsaken City

Tier 6 (Level 20)
-Gold Dragon Ur
-Glowing Pit
-Citadel of Sorr-Tarr
-Temple of Ordeals
-Ghulagarh Fortress
-Elemental Temple

Tier 7 (Level 20)
-Gauntlet of Tiamat
-Vault of the Final Scroll

Cover image: “Confront the Dragon” by David Revoy, 2022. CC-BY 4.0