Introduction: Wildspace Awaits!
Source: Light of Xaryxis, p. 4
This Dungeons & Dragons adventure begins in a world of your choosing, then ventures into Wildspace and the Astral Sea. The characters navigate these environments aboard ships that can traverse vast distances by using a magical form of travel known as spelljamming. Before running this adventure, read the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide”, which contains information about these settings and how spelljamming works. The adventure assumes the characters have no prior experience with spelljamming—but that is about to change!
The information in this book is for the DM’s eyes only. If you’re planning to play the adventure with someone else as your DM, stop reading now.
Adventure Summary
This story revolves around the characters’ efforts to save their home world from an attack by an empire of astral elves. The attack is underway when the adventure begins. After taking refuge aboard a spelljamming vessel, the characters head for the stars to discover who is responsible for the attack and how they can save their world.
During the adventure, the characters encounter many space-dwelling creatures, some of which become companions on the party’s voyage. The characters also meet Princess Xedalli, an astral elf who is embroiled in a power struggle with her twin brother, Prince Xeleth, over who will rule the empire that currently threatens the characters’ world. With or without Xedalli’s help, the characters must assemble an unlikely alliance to strike at the heart of the astral elf empire.
The characters encounter many grandiose locations as the adventure unfolds, including an asteroid city known as the Rock of Bral and the imperial citadel of the astral elves, which orbits a star called Xaryxis.
Xaryxis
The light of Xaryxis has nourished the Xaryxian Empire for millennia, serving as a wellspring for the magical power that the astral elves of Xaryxispace use to sustain their empire. A thousand years ago, the star’s light began to fade, threatening the elves’ prosperity, so Emperor Xavan turned the dying star into a parasite that leaches the life from worlds using crystal seeds harvested from the star.
After the elves select a suitable host world, ships known as star moths release hundreds of astral seeds into the planet’s atmosphere. The seeds fall from the sky and bury themselves in the ground and the oceans of the world. After the astral seeds take root, they produce enormous crystalline vines. The tendrils of these vines extend deep into the world and draw life energy from it. Once the vines have sapped a world of its energy, a process that can take months, they send out a bright beam of light that travels back to Xaryxis, temporarily replenishing the star’s radiance and leaving the host world a barren husk.
Although Xaryxis shines brilliantly after each replenishment, it isn’t long before the light of Xaryxis begins to wane once more, presaging the doom of another world.
Once astral seeds have taken root on a host world, there is no easy way to stop the transformation—the vines are too thick and too numerous to be uprooted. Destroying the star Xaryxis, which acts as a lodestone for the astral seeds, is the only way to free a world from their grip. If the star goes dark, the crystal vines release their stored energy back into the host world, shrivel, and die.
Adventure Structure
This adventure has four parts, each divided into three chapters. Each chapter is designed to be run as a single play experience lasting 2 to 3 hours, with the expectation that a group should be able to complete the adventure in twelve sessions of play.
Each chapter begins with an overview that gives you a sense of what is ahead for the heroes and recaps what has happened so far. There’s no telling how a session will unfold, since the players have some control over the plot, but the text tries to give you enough information to run the various creatures and encounters. If the characters do something unexpected, improvise as best you can while gently steering them toward their main goal. Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger to set the stage for the next session, assuming things go as planned.
The four parts of the adventure are as follows:
Part 1: Seeds of Destruction chronicles the devastation wrought by the astral seeds on the characters’ home world and the party’s escape into Wildspace. After fleeing to the Rock of Bral, the characters seek out Commodore Krux, a giff, hoping he can help them thwart the Xaryxian Empire’s machinations and save the characters’ world in the process.
Part 2: Terrors of the Void deals with the characters’ journey to the edge of their Wildspace system, where they encounter Princess Xedalli and learn the enormity of the task that lies before them. The characters head for Doomspace, where Krux plans to join a coalition of those that oppose the Xaryxian Empire.
Part 3: Chaos in Doomspace begins with the party’s arrival in Doomspace, where the coalition they had intended to join turns out to be a bunch of quarreling factions. They must find a way to unite the factions before attacking the Xaryxian Empire.
Part 4: Saviors of the Multiverse describes Xaryxispace and the characters’ climactic encounter with Prince Xeleth and the armada under his command. Finally, the characters arrive at the imperial citadel, where they discover the true cost of saving their world and must decide the fate of Xaryxis and the Xaryxian Empire before making the long voyage home.
Running the Adventure
To run the adventure, you need the fifth edition core rulebooks (“Player’s Handbook”, “Dungeon Master’s Guide”, and “Monster Manual”). In addition, you need the other two books included in this product: “Boo’s Astral Menagerie” and the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide”.
Readaloud
Text that appears in a box like this is meant to be read aloud or paraphrased for the players when their characters first arrive at a location or under a specific circumstance, as described in the text.
When a creature’s name appears in bold type, that’s a visual cue pointing you to its stat block as a way of saying, “Hey, DM, you better get this creature’s stat block ready. You’re going to need it.” Usually, you can find the stat block in the “Monster Manual”; if the stat block is in “Boo’s Astral Menagerie”, the adventure’s text tells you so.
Spells and equipment mentioned in the adventure are described in the “Player’s Handbook”, while magic items are described in the “Dungeon Master’s Guide”, unless the adventure’s text directs you to the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide”.
The “Astral Adventurer’s Guide” describes the many types of “spelljamming vessels” mentioned in the adventure and includes deck plans for each one. At your discretion, you can provide the players with a copy of the deck plans for whatever ship they’re sailing aboard and allow them to manage the ship’s activity during encounters, freeing you to concentrate on running the nonplayer characters and their ships.
Adventure Inspiration
Light of Xaryxis is inspired by the 1980 film Flash Gordon and serialized Flash Gordon comic strips from the 1930s. The adventure’s heroes, like Flash Gordon himself, must defeat otherworldly foes to save their home planet. Campy supporting characters, implausible situations, and over-the-top dialogue help push the story toward its inevitable conclusion. Absurd plot twists undercut the sense of urgency, keeping the heroes on their toes as they stumble from one cliffhanger to the next.
Here are some things you can do to make Light of Xaryxis feel like the pulpy sci-fi tales that inspired it:
- Watch the 1980 Flash Gordon film. It’s not Shakespeare or Scorsese, but the dialogue is quotable, and the costumes and sets are fantastic.
- Any nonplayer character who isn’t fighting the heroes should naturally defer to the heroes, giving players the sense that their characters matter (no matter how puny and insignificant they might seem to their enemies).
- End each session with a cliffhanger. The adventure already has one at the end of each chapter, but you can create your own cliffhanger by ending a session with an unexpected threat, twist, or revelation.
- When you’re ready to begin a new chapter, read or paraphrase the recap that appears at the start of the chapter, embellishing it with pertinent events or memorable quotes from earlier game sessions.
Starting Characters
The adventure assumes that the characters start at 5th level. If your players have characters of lower level, they will need to go on some other adventures first to gain enough experience to advance to 5th level. Both the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit contain adventures that will take characters from 1st level to 5th level. Alternatively, you can simply ask your players to create new 5th-level characters, as described in the next section.
Character Creation
If spacefaring races are common on your world, you can add backgrounds and races from the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide” to the list of character options that players can choose from when creating their characters. As the DM, you decide what is available to your players and what isn’t.
If, during the adventure, a player wants to create a new character (perhaps because their previous one died or left the party), that player can roll up a new character of the same level as the rest of the adventuring party, choosing from the options available. If the party is in Wildspace or the Astral Sea, you can assume that all the character options from the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide” are available.
To create 5th-level characters for this adventure, players can use the “character creation steps” outlined in the “Player’s Handbook”. In addition to more hit points, class features, and spells, each character has normal starting equipment plus 625 gp to spend on additional nonmagical gear. If you’re running a high magic campaign, each character also gains one uncommon magic item of the player’s choice, subject to your approval.
Character Advancement
At the end of each of the adventure’s parts, everyone in the party receives enough experience points to advance 1 level so that they are at the level they should be for the next chapter, as shown in the Character Levels table. Characters who finish the adventure advance to 9th level.
Character Levels
| Part | Character Level |
|---|---|
| 1: Seeds of Destruction | 5th |
| 2: Terrors of the Void | 6th |
| 3: Chaos in Doomspace | 7th |
| 4: Saviors of the Multiverse | 8th |
| ^character-levels |
Where to Begin?
The adventure begins in a coastal city or port town on a world where the characters are either seeking their fortunes or resting between adventures. Since most of this adventure takes place in Wildspace and the Astral Sea, the initial setting doesn’t have much effect on how the adventure will play out. The characters’ home world serves mainly to set the stakes for the story—it’s in danger of being destroyed!—so using a world your players are familiar with works best, whether that is a published campaign setting or a world of your own creation.
If you used Lost Mine of Phandelver (the adventure in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set) or Dragon of Icespire Peak (the adventure in the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit) to get the characters to 5th level, then Light of Xaryxis begins in the same region featured in those introductory adventures: the Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms setting, on the world of Toril. The city of Neverwinter, one of several major ports along the Sword Coast, could easily be where the characters find themselves at the beginning of this adventure.
All the locations the characters visit in this adventure are described in this book, and further details about the “Rock of Bral” are provided in the “Astral Adventurer’s Guide”.
Using the Starlight Apparition
In addition to being a fascinating encounter in its own right, the starlight apparition (see “Boo’s Astral Menagerie”) can be a useful device for you if a key nonplayer character meets an unfortunate and unexpected end. If, later in the adventure, the characters need a piece of information only that nonplayer character would know, you can have the nonplayer character appear in the form of a starlight apparition to guide the characters.