If you’re looking for a trap-filled location that could lead to a grisly total party kill, this is the adventure to run. The setting itself has a fairly small footprint - just a few floors and about a dozen rooms - but the experience is nonetheless dense and thrilling. This high-stakes heist attempt of a valuable painting allies the players with a group of allegedly forthright historians against the local thieves guild. References to these prior adventurers keep cropping up throughout the heist, and there’s even a potential hook for future stories based on the outcome of the mystery. The experience is elevated thanks to another band of adventurers that precedes the player characters - a smaller but no less skilled party that met with a grisly end. “Reach for the Stars” is a haunted-house mystery, sure to appeal to fans of cosmic horror and games like Call of Cthulhu.

The real pleasure in this one is the casino itself, a luxurious river grotto that runs through with multiple points of entry and exit.

If your group has been eyeing Poker Face, this is a great way to bring that kind of intrigue into your D&D night. It’s a fun little casino heist, pitting old gambling buddies against one another in pursuit of settling old grudges. Clever DMs will steal the setting for “The Stygian Gambit” even if they don’t want to run this particular adventure.

The adventure zone casino heist