Holt

Featured In Modules

This lore entry is featured in the following adventure modules:

• A City on EdgeGuildmaster Elrin Veymar tasks adventurers with investigating the disappearance of farmers in Evenfell, where nobles, merchants, and tradesmen have already vanished without a trace. Following clues about missing grain deliveries, they discover a warehouse where twenty people, including the farmers and two Unbound guardsmen from Kingdom Grand, are held captive in a secret underground chamber. After freeing the captives, the group is ambushed by Slumber Cultists who whisper "What slumbers soon awakes" with their dying breath. The rescued Unbound agents promise to investigate further disappearances.
• A Flashy SmileFollowing up on leads from the attack on The Copper Wake, the Adventurer's Guild investigates the mining town of Red Hawk at the behest of the Council of Grand. They confirm the town is the headquarters for the Road Thieves Guild and confront the Guild Master, Rath "The Gilded Maw".
• A Horse With No NameGuildmaster Thalin hand-picks a party and sends them west from Kingdom Grand to New Arcanum to investigate the caravan of strangely well-guarded stolen keepsakes tied to Cassius and, he suspects, to Biscuit's fate. Given a wagon, supplies, and an unnamed horse they are urged to name, the heroes must survive a week-long trek across the Western Wastes—rationing food and water, weathering a blinding sandstorm that forces desperate choices about what to save, and threading between unstable arcane crystals whose shattering warps magic and flesh. At a rare oasis they drive off a nest of burrowing Giant Scorpions besieging a merchant caravan, earning the gratitude of its leader Elanor Westwind, who escorts them the rest of the way in comfort. They arrive to be welcomed by Guildmaster Alyndor "Aly" Marvale, their business in the desert city still to come.
• A Minister Most FowlGuildmaster Elrin Veymar sends adventurers to infiltrate Silas Drenn's fortified manor to capture the Minister of Trade. They discover a hidden passage behind a painting in his study that leads to a secret chamber where Silas is communing with a strange orb alongside Slumber Cultists. When discovered, Silas shatters the orb, unleashing a psychic shockwave, and flees while the cultists drink dark elixirs that warp them into monstrous forms. The adventurers pursue Silas to a ruined courtyard where they find him fighting Galen Lamiur, who is barely holding his own. After capturing or defeating Silas, they learn that the glass and copper devices found in Kdor were manufactured in New Arcanum, pointing to their next destination.
• A Wolf in Adventurer's ClothingGuildmaster Thalin Fernstride sends adventurers to meet Holt and Sage Elbera at a newly discovered dungeon just outside Kingdom Grand and assist in its exploration. The dungeon seems strangely empty—no traps trigger, no monsters attack. At its heart lies a crumbled statue and a vast mosaic showing an inverted pyramid cradling an egg, with the phrase "He who sleeps will rise" carved across the wall. Holt betrays the party: he beheads Sage Elbera, unleashes Jeffery—a burning paper dragon monstrosity—to block their escape, and vanishes. After defeating Jeffery, Sage Elbera's body is burned beyond recognition. Returning to the guild, Guildmaster Thalin Fernstride demands vengeance on Holt.
• Aggressive BorrowingThe City Watch of Grand requests aid from the Adventurers Guild to stop a thief from raiding their supply warehouses. The party, working with Lieutenant Darnik De Roche, discovers the culprits are Burrowlings, a race of small humanoids, being forced to steal by an Aurumvorax Den Leader that had taken his mate and pups hostage.
• All Aboard to KdorThe Adventurers Guild is hired by the city of Kdor to provide security for the maiden voyage of its new monorail, which is transporting a vast amount of wealth. The journey is attacked by Mechanist Raiders affiliated with the Industrialists, who also have saboteurs aboard the train. The adventurers must defend the monorail and root out the saboteurs before the train derails.
• Ancient SecretsMaster Thalin Fernstride sends adventurers to investigate newly discovered ancient tunnels beneath Kingdom Grand that predate mortal civilization. The tunnels are infested with ankhegs, whose acid burns through the old stone. After fighting through the ankheg colony, they discover a sealed stone door marked with indecipherable primoridal runes, surrounded by the remains of a failed cult expedition. They recover an ancient shield similar to ones Holt discovered weeks earlier, and scattered journals which speak of "the one that came first" and "the one that slumbers."
• Ash House GoblinsThe Council of Grand hires the Adventurer's Guild to clear the infamous and supposedly cursed Ash House of its traps for demolition. Inside, the party discovers a tribe of Ash House Goblins who have made the house their home.
• Bliss UnmadeWith He Who Slumbers re-subdued in the caverns beneath Kingdom Grand, the four guilds send adventurers back down to clean up the aftermath. The surviving Cinder Guard stand masterless in a Bliss-Leeched stupor, and the coven that stole Molokite youth-magic has withered into bitter Witchlings and Withered Crones. Guided by Guildmaster Teyla Coalmaker and the hidden medicine woman Raphira, the party brews an Antidote of the Wardens, cleanses a corrupted cistern, and frees the Cinder Guard en masse—restoring the memory and name of one guard, Veyl.
• Calling All CodebreakersGuildmaster Elrin Veymar invites adventurers to trial for the Codebreakers—a calling that demands wits more than steel. With Monk Tzao, a Githzerai master of puzzles, they assess recruits, solve brain teasers and ciphers in the archives, and prove whether they have the inquisitive eye the guilds need for the battle ahead. The adventure offers little combat but heavy roleplay and puzzle play.
• Cold Case GrimoireSage Elbera of the Arcane Conservatory urgently hires the Adventurer's Guild to recover a stolen ancient Grimoire of Tyre and Merrick that belonged to Arcane Registry founder Tyre and was expanded by the leader Merrick.
• Dungeons and BiomancyMaster Thalin Fernstride sends adventurers with Sage Elbera to investigate a newly opened dungeon beneath the royal castle in Kingdom Grand. The dungeon contains strange stone containers filled with viscous liquid, moss-covered floors that induce madness, and shadows that move in the corners. They discover a laboratory with notes on biomancy experiments involving yetis, owlbears, and other monstrosities, as well as maps pointing to the door found in the Ancient Secrets adventure. In the central chamber, they find stone slabs depicting The Evil One creating an egg meant to destroy the world. They are ambushed by Hall Creepers that mimic their allies before escaping with evidence of recent cult activity.
• Evil from the PastThe four guildmasters of Kingdom Grand, Evenfell, Kdor, and New Arcanum send adventurers to Holt's abandoned laboratory beneath the temple of Vitalia, discovered through Sage Elbera's final intelligence. A magic mouth delivers Holt's farewell before vents release shimmering Lullwater that floods the chambers. Navigating rising water and failing magic, they recover Holt's journal revealing his childhood among the Molokite, his manipulation of their ancient desires, and his belief that their "god" was one of The Evil One's experiments—a creature grown from a tarrasque corpse through biomancy, controllable by the Lullwater. They escape the drowning ruin as the guildmasters prepare a full strike on Holt's camp at the dungeon gate.
• Finding the MolokiteWith Holt missing and Sage Elbera dead, Guildmaster Thalin Fernstride sends adventurers to the dwarven mountains to learn what Holt's notes mean by "Molokite." They travel by carriage—teleportation circles remain unreliable—and meet Durven MeadAnvil, who knows of no such ore but points them to an ancient sealed forge deep below the mountain, guarded by a demonic Armanite. After slaying the beast, they find no Molokite metal, only records of elves who sought ever-greater power, were corrupted, and were driven underground by the dwarves and other mortal races.
• Forge FireThe freed Cinder Guard need weapons, and only a sunsteel blade forged in divine fire can permanently harm He Who Slumbers's tentacles. Guided by Guildmaster Alyndor "Aly" Marvale and the ghost of Captain Kaelen, the party relearns the lost forging sequence at the Sunsteel Forge and uncovers the Book of Molok, Chapter IX, a prophecy naming the Living Seal needed to hold the Beast forever. The first new Sunsteel Blade is forged for Veyl.
• Ledger of SoulsWhen the delivery girl Kori crash-lands her flying gondola at the party's feet, her undeliverable brass cylinder—addressed to ring three, one-hundred-and-twenty degrees, "but there's nothing here"—proves to be the missing piece of the Soul Brokers' hidden archive. Following the swan Kori saw vanish into a canal culvert, the party plays her remembered melody (F-A-C-A-D-E) on a chained pan flute, defeats the water-jug scale guarding the inner door, and finds a brass clockwork counting machine binding the Ledger of Souls—the master tally of Aurelian's debtors, friends, and materiel. The Swan and his Ugly Ducklings bar the only way out, and a flying gondola chase through New Arcanum's canals follows, with Kori proudly at the tiller. The Ledger's first page names Aurelian's Spire as the seat of the whole operation.
• Looking for New RecruitsAfter the earthquakes from the battle beneath the Elderdungeon crack the streets of Kingdom Grand, Master Thalin Fernstride opens the Adventurers Guild to new recruits. A magical Storm Orb, damaged in the tremors, scattered dangerous items across the city, and the new adventurers are sent to recover a gust-of-wind orb from a collapsing building, a Decanter of Endless Water from the flooded Central Library, an Immovable Rod stolen mid-chase by a Roads Thief, and a Portable Hole jammed through a mill wall.
• Mad MechsThe Adventurer's Guild is hired to escort travelers through the Mountain Pass between Kingdom Grand and Kdor while investigating rumors of bandits. The culprits are revealed to be Industrialist kobold raiders who have constructed a powerful, unstable Kobold Mech.
• Masks and MasqueradesGuildmaster Elrin Veymar sends adventurers to meet Galen Lamiur, the flamboyant Minister of Civil Projects, who may know where the missing nobles are hidden. Despite his peacock-like demeanor, Galen reveals his cunning when Crown officials interrupt their meeting, and he cleverly passes the adventurers off as actors in a play about The Evil One. He suspects the Minister of Trade, Silas Drenn, is behind the disappearances and has discovered blueprints revealing a hidden dungeon beneath Drenn's mansion. The adventurers infiltrate a masquerade party at the manor, navigate the secret dungeon to rescue the captive nobles, and escape disguised as performers with the rescued nobles hidden beneath elaborate costumes.
• Nightmares and Old MagicsNightmares grip Kdor after the Goldstiel Festival. Citizens report identical visions of ancient stone laboratories, strange waters, and a crow-shaped monster watching them. Guildmaster Teyla Coalmaker urges adventurers to enter a dream realm with Holt and sever the connection before the nightmares spread. The Crow Knight was defeated but its mind survived and is now projecting visions: memories of something far older. The party must enter the Crow Knight's dying mind, navigate a surreal labyrinth of ancient experimentation, and confront the Crow Knight in his fractured consciousness.
• Perfect ExecutionThe party travels several days outside Kingdom Grand with Biscuit to clear a young Roc's nest from the Fangridge foothills. Between skill-check travel and a fight against a brood of Baby Rocs, the party notices Biscuit never rests, never falters, and keeps fighting through wounds that should down anyone else. The trip ends with an ambush by the nest's Mother Roc on the road home.
• Retail TherapyMaster Thalin Fernstride hosts a bake sale as the Industrial Market reopens in Kingdom Grand, introducing six new shops: Arhm's Arhms and Armaments, Elise's Registry's Index, Dewy's Cozy Nook, Lilly's Brews & Potions, The One's Augment, and Osborn Tallmen's hidden The Hideaway. Between shopping trips the party chases down an escaped exotic cat and a pickpocket, while Biscuit is noted to be spending suspiciously well for a guild member.
• Scoops and SpectersThe Adventurer's Guild is hired by the new Church of Elina to cleanse the haunted Tyre Castle of spirits. Guided by Cleric Ellowen Thorn and after researching the specters with the grumpy expert Holt, the party chooses a wing of the castle to purge.
• Scribes and SwordsThe Adventurer's Guild tasks a party with investigating strange elemental signs in the Farmlands surrounding Kingdom Grand. Livestock and trees have been burned, and strange laughter is heard on the wind. The adventurers are paired with Sage Elbera, a researcher from the Arcane Conservatory, to investigate the matter.
• Shining SpireOver dinner at an open-air cafe, Guildmaster Alyndor "Aly" Marvale sends the party on a night infiltration of Aurelian's Spire, the Soul Brokers' newly revealed stronghold. Climbing the tower with captured soul tokens as keys, they interrupt an enthrallment "orientation" run by the manager Durnan Bronzeforge—freeing the tavern keeper Nessa Vey mid-ritual—file Harlan Stonefoot's botched paperwork to restore his suspended clearance, battle the eerily positive Soul Broker Recruiters of the glass-walled third floor, recite affirmations to the professional-development mirrors, and reach the Enlightenment Lounge at the top. There they learn the tower is only "New Arcanum Sector 1" of a far larger operation, that even Regional Director Elara Voss is owned by Aurelian, and—as Voss speaks through her hand-mirror soul token and locks the penthouse doors—that she will be happy to discuss their future in the morning.
• Sound the Horns of WarThe four great guilds unite to stop Holt and the Molokite from awakening He Who Slumbers. Their combined forces march on the ancient gate beneath Kingdom Grand, where the final dungeon has opened and Holt's army has already entered. Adventurers join the vanguard, clearing Molokite cultists, mind-controlled adventurers from Evenfell, and remaining defenders to establish a forward operating base before the assault on the dungeon proper.
• Stoned in the DungeonAt the request of Sage Elbera, the Adventurer's Guild dispatches a party to a newly discovered Ancient Dungeon in the Mountain Pass. This dungeon is believed to predate Dead Wars I. The party finds the ruin is already being looted by the newly founded Road Thieves Guild.
• Street RatsThe Adventurer's Guild is tasked by the City Watch of Grand to investigate a band of young, elusive pickpockets in the city markets. The investigation reveals the children are part of the Road Thieves Guild and are using Hidden Tunnels from the old faction war to escape capture.
• Supper and SurpriseLady Mardell, a noblewoman, discreetly hires the Adventurer's Guild to act as security at a dinner party, fearing a theft. The target is The Grand Grimoire of Grotesqueries, a book on monster anatomy she recently acquired.
• Terms and ConditionsA coordinated wave of sabotage and theft hits the Industrial Market, robbing Arhm's Arhms and Armaments and Elise's Registry's Index. Master Thalin Fernstride sends the party to investigate, and a tracking bead leads the trail back to the Adventurers Guild Hall itself. There, wounded guild members turn out to be Turncoats rigged with a Glyph of Warding, and every clue—footprints, ledgers, a witness's description—points toward Biscuit. The evidence reveals he is bound by a soul contract to the demigod Aurelian, the guild's first brush with the reality of thralldom.
• The Black Sand BeachesA teleportation spell from Kdor to Evenfell goes awry, stranding adventurers on the black-sand beaches beneath stormy skies instead of the guildhall. Surrounded by black-cloaked Slumber Cultists, they must fight their way through the eerily silent city streets, facing ambushes and cultists that vanish and reappear at random. Upon reaching the Adventurers Guild of Evenfell, they find the cultists gone and the city returned to normal, meeting Elrin Veymar, the city's embittered guildmaster who hopes they can restore life to the declining city.
• The DungeonThe tremors beneath Kingdom Grand intensify again. Guildmaster Thalin Fernstride orders adventurers back into the caverns to find the source, survive collapsing passages and Slumber Cultist patrols, and report on cultist numbers and whether the ancient door has been opened. From a cliff overlooking the monumental gate—now larger and pulsing with light—they spy Holt among pale-skinned elves marked with glowing green veins, kneeling with hundreds of cultists as he forces them to drink from water skins.
• The Living SealThe Liturgy of Binding holds He Who Slumbers, but with the Molokite civilization gone it needs a permanent living anchor. Led by Guildmaster Elrin Veymar, the party descends to the Sealing Chasm, fights off Dreamleechers at the threshold, and sings the Liturgy while the Beast's Dread tempts each of them with their deepest desire. Veyl steps through the arc of light to become the Living Seal, sealing himself into the binding forever as Captain Kaelen's century-long vigil finally ends.
• The Locket and the LedgerLieutenant Darnik De Roche of the City Watch of Grand hires the Adventurer's Guild to recover a brass-and-glass locket—a keepsake from his late wife—stolen by a westbound caravan fleeing into the desert toward New Arcanum. Tracking the caravan, the party ambushes a patrol of soulbound Thrall Grunt outriders, scouts a broken-down wagon, and confronts the soul broker Cassius. The locket proves to be collateral for a soul contract that would turn its owner into a thrall if not reclaimed in time, opening a new arc into how New Arcanum's soul contracts operate. Cassius, who prizes sentiment over gold, would rather bargain a Writ of Exchange than fight, and Darnik quietly pays extra to recover other trinkets he knows to be soul-contract collateral.
• The Worst PiratesThe Adventurer's Guild is hired by Captain Elira Morn to provide security on her merchant ship, The Copper Wake, on a voyage from Kingdom Grand to Grimsby. During the journey, they are attacked by Mechanist Raiders, a faction aligned with the Industrialists.
• Trade and CircumstanceFollowing intelligence from Unbound guardsmen, Guildmaster Elrin Veymar sends adventurers to investigate an underground fighting ring in Evenfell's undercity that may be connected to missing merchants. They meet Gaius, the charismatic tiefling ring master, who offers information in exchange for surviving three rounds in the pits. After the adventurers succeed, Gaius releases the missing merchants but betrays them by unleashing a Kamadan before fleeing with his profits.
• Underworld SecretsArriving in the magical metropolis of New Arcanum, the party puts on their detective hats for Guildmaster Alyndor "Aly" Marvale, who wants to know why sentimental trinkets are being delivered to the city like grand treasures. Working the city's secretive underworld—a tavern keeper (Nessa Vey) whose fortunes turned after her mother's bracelet vanished, a crotchety second-hand dealer (Milo Venn) who refused the brokers' bargain, and the cheerful customs clerk Orville Thrice-Checked, whose records show shipments expedited by the Church of Aurelian—they trace the Soul Brokers' rotating rented warehouses to the ninth ring. There they fight the expendable Thrall Grunts left behind to burn the evidence and recover the address of a hidden "Archive Intake" feeding something called the Ledger.
• Welcome to the Adventurers GuildAn introductory trial for new members of the global Adventurer's Guild. Adventurers are tasked with hunting one of five magical creatures and returning with a trophy to earn their starting rank of Tin, Copper, or Brass. The hunts take place across three regions: the Whispergrove Forest (for Cockatrice), the Old Sewers of Kingdom Grand (for Gazers and Gibbering Mouthers), and the Fangridge Peaks (for Rust Monsters). Harpys are also hunted in the forests or mountains.
• World TremorsSudden tremors shake Kingdom Grand and are felt across every nation, yet divination reveals no source. As panic spreads, three legendary monsters attack the city: an Underworld Cerberus in the main square, a Medusa at Nature's Pathway medica turning healers to stone, and a Deep Crow hunting from the warehouses. Guildmaster Thalin Fernstride mobilizes every team he has and sends the adventurers to choose which beast to face first. Defeating their chosen threat eases the quakes, though the tremors do not end entirely.
• Yeti or NotThe Kdor's Adventurers Guild tasks a party with tracking and eliminating a dangerous yeti that has been disrupting the work of ice harvesters near Lake Arrek. The party finds the harvesters' camp, a makeshift fort, and learns that three men have gone missing. They track the yeti to a cave where they find the frozen bodies of the missing men and discover a larger-than-normal yeti clutching a smaller, dead yeti. The mutated yeti has glowing eyes and strange abilities, and a brass and glass device with a glowing green liquid is found stabbed into its body. After the mission is complete, Guildmaster Teyla Coalmaker reveals there is new dungeon activity in the region.