D&D’s Quests from the Infinite Staircase adventure anthology is chockablock with beloved crawls

Dungeons & Dragons provided fresh details for Quests from the Infinite Staircase on March 21st, outlining the six remastered adventures that will fill the anthology’s pages. Due to release on July 16th, this last hurrah for D&D 5E’s 2014 incarnation is a love letter to classic delves of all types.

Mike Bernier, a game designer and market guy for D&D Beyond, recently laid out the contents in a post to the platform’s forums. Groups can tackle the adventures piecemeal or weave them together into a loose campaign that should take characters all the way from their first steps to level 13. Aiding in that narrative conceit is Nafas, a genie who enlists the adventurers to aid in granting the wishes that bounce across the Infinite Staircase and into his ears.

Remastering the quests, which were apparently chosen for their “iconic locations, monsters, and encounters” largely involved updating stat blocks and other number-heavy features to fit with D&D 5E’s class math and party compositions. The spirit and intent of each adventure was preserved wherever possible.

Players will likely start with Tom Moldvay’s The Lost City (levels 1-3), a Cynidicean ziggurat that’s recently emerged from the desert sands. Full of nasty priests and the Elder Evil they worship, this quest was nonetheless designed to ease new dungeon masters into the facilitation pool. When a Star Falls, written by author Graeme Morris and taking character from levels 4-5, sends players on a complex and interweaving romp to retrieve a fallen star and return it to the rightful owners (or the power-hungry faction happy to take it off your hands).

Beyond the Crystal Cave was produced by TSR’s UK branch and appropriately adapts Shakespeare’s famous story of star-crossed romance – Romeo & Juliet. It was touted at the time for its emphasis on non-combat encounters and rewarding peaceful, weapons-free solutions to problems and will be appropriate for 6-th level partiers. On the other hand, Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Pharaoh (level 7 party) sounds like good ol’ fashioned tomb diving, plus some cursed undead. This is the adventure that landed Tracy a job with TSR – and later Wizards of the Coast.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth accompanied the PAX Unplugged 2023 panel where D&D’s crew, led by Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford, announced Quests from the Infinite Staircase for the first time. Designed for convention play back in 1976 by Gary Gygax, everyone else got their chance to investigate the suspiciously empty lair of Iggwilv, the Witch Queen (sometimes called Tasha) when it was re-published in 1982.

The final adventure, created by Gary Gygax, was originally meant to introduce fans to TSR’s latest science-fantasy RPG back in 1980. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks’ downed spacecraft full of weird and miraculous gadgets and tech became many 11-13th level characters’ first taste of Metamorphosis Alpha, designed by the recently deceased James M. Ward.

Pre-orders for Quests from the Infinite Staircase are now open on D&D Beyond’s marketplace and the Roll20 digital store. Physical editions should hit retail shelves and those of your friendly local game store on July 16.