Beneath the river town of Gallows-Ford, a necrotic idol awakened by seeping groundwater is animating the hanged dead, poisoning the Gallows River with wasting sickness, and dragging bodies from the graveyard into the sealed execution tunnels — and the town has three days before the outbreak becomes unstoppable.
Welcome to “Filth Below Gallows-Ford” 5E adventure! Within these pages, you’ll discover everything necessary to embark on this thrilling quest, complete with detailed descriptions of locations, encounters, NPCs and stat blocks, maps, and handouts.
This adventure also features a versatile and scalable system, allowing Game Masters to easily adjust the difficulty and complexity of encounters to suit their players’ preferences and skill levels. Whether you have a party of advanced players or beginners, you can tailor the challenges to ensure an exciting and engaging experience for everyone involved. The scalable system guides modifying creature statistics, making it simple to customize the adventure to fit your party’s level.
In “Filth Below Gallows-Ford,” a party of 3-5 characters (levels 2-3) is drawn to the grim river town of Gallows-Ford, where corpses are disappearing from the graveyard and townsfolk are dying from gallows fever — a wasting sickness contracted by drinking from the contaminated Gallows River (DC 11 Constitution save or exhaustion, uncurable until the source is destroyed). Beneath the town’s windswept Gallows Green, a small idol of black wood carved by the long-forgotten Cult of the Empty Void has lain dormant for decades in the sealed execution tunnels — until a deliberate fissure in the tunnel wall (tool marks suggest this was no accident) let in mineral-rich groundwater that reawakened its necrotic power. The idol now animates any corpse in the tunnels as a rot-thrall, directs them to drag fresh bodies from above, and has coalesced its power into a single boss creature: the Rot-Stringer, an amalgamated ghast-like horror formed from the fused remains of hanged criminals. Sheriff Alard guards the sealed entrance but is too overwhelmed to act alone. A three-day outbreak timeline escalates to mass evacuation and total loss of the town if the idol is not destroyed. The adventure is optimized for four 2nd-level characters, designed for a single 3-4 hour session, and features a Lingering Rot condition (any character reduced to 0 HP by an undead auto-fails their first death save) that makes every fight genuinely dangerous. The adventure is divided into three chapters and a conclusion.
Chapter 1: The Gallows Green
The adventure opens at the Gallows Green — a windswept hill north of town dominated by a leafless, gnarled hanging tree and an iron-bound door set into the hillside, sealed with official wax for three generations. Black ichor weeps from the earth nearby. Sheriff Alard, a grim man in his fifties who guards the entrance alone, must be convinced to break the seal: DC 13 Persuasion (duty to the town) or Intimidation (threat of inaction), DC 15 Deception, or evidence gathered from investigating the area (drag marks from the graveyard, DC 12 Perception, grants advantage on persuasion). If all social approaches fail, Alard makes a counteroffer — he’ll join the party for half the eventual treasure, adding a fragile, combat-suboptimal companion the party must protect. Once inside, a descending corridor splits into two paths. The Catacomb Stairs (B1) is a 60-foot hazard gauntlet with no combat: loose stones (DC 13 Dexterity save or 1d6 bludgeoning and prone, alerting the ghouls ahead) and toxic deathcap mold coating the walls (DC 11 Constitution save or poisoned for one hour). The Bone Thefts corridor (B2) is 60 feet of difficult terrain carpeted in bones where four zombies ambush from alcoves at the halfway point, followed by a narrative-only butcher-thrall emerging at the far end that makes one attack on any grappled character before collapsing; treasure here includes a healer’s kit with 8 uses and a map scrap giving advantage on Investigation checks in the final chamber.
Chapter 2: The Ossuary Chapel
Both paths converge at a circular 40-foot-diameter chamber walled with bone-filled niches and hung with four iron cages on rusty chains — the once-place of final rites for condemned prisoners, now guarded by two ghouls that fight with predatory intelligence. The ghouls attempt to paralyze characters with their claws, drag paralyzed targets beneath the suspended cages, then break the chains (AC 15, 5 HP) to drop 2d6 bludgeoning cages on them; restrained victims require a DC 13 Strength check to escape. On the black stone altar rests the idol-key: a shard of obsidian the size of a dagger blade that pulses sickly purple, sheds dim light in a 5-foot radius, and acts as a compass needle pointing toward the necrotic idol deeper in the tunnels. A DC 12 Intelligence (Religion) check reveals the ritual requirement — three hits with the idol-key against the idol in a single six-second round — or fail-forward cues (glowing altar symbols forming the number “3”) ensure the party always grasps the mechanic. Treasure in the chapel includes a potion of healing and 15 gp in a hidden niche (DC 14 Perception), a silver holy symbol worth 25 gp granting advantage on frightened saves for 24 hours, and coin offerings scattered throughout.
Chapter 3: The Hanging Pit
The final chamber is a 40-foot-diameter cavern dominated by a 20-foot-deep pit lined with stagnant water and old bones, chains suspending dozens of hanging corpses from a 30-foot vaulted ceiling, and the necrotic idol pulsing purple on a stone ledge at the far side — with the Rot-Stringer standing between. The Rot-Stringer (AC 13, 42 HP; scales with party size) wields a Hangman’s Lash at 10-foot reach to grab and drag characters toward the pit’s edge, uses Claws to paralyze and position enemies, and takes 2 legendary actions per round. A brief social window exists — DC 16 Charisma to earn one round of hesitation for tactical positioning — but the idol’s control is absolute. Phase 1 (42–22 HP): the Rot-Stringer defends the idol with reactions, using opportunity attacks to lash characters who approach. Phase 2 (21–0 HP): a bone-chilling scream summons four waterlogged zombies at half HP climbing from the pit over two rounds while the Rot-Stringer turns aggressive toward spellcasters and idol-attackers. The encounter demands tactical split focus: a combat team holding the Rot-Stringer and zombies while an idol team coordinates three idol-key strikes in one round. Alternative destruction requires 30 or more radiant damage to the idol in a single round if the idol-key was lost. Environmental tools reward creative play: shoving enemies into the pit, cutting corpse chains to drop weight on enemies, or leaping the pit on a DC 12 Athletics check to shortcut to the idol. When the idol shatters, all zombies collapse instantly, the Rot-Stringer loses its damage resistances for two rounds, and the black ichor stops flowing from the walls.
Conclusion: Return to Gallows-Ford
The tunnels fall silent. Rot-thralls throughout the network collapse into inert heaps. The party emerges to find Sheriff Alard waiting and townsfolk gathered at a distance — the unnatural chill of the Gallows Green already lifting. Lord Mayor Darvin Holst convenes an emergency town council meeting and publicly recognizes the party’s heroism; the council awards 50 gp per character from the town treasury (reduced to 25 gp if Alard negotiated a share, or if collateral damage was excessive; increased by 25 gp if the party used the lesser restoration scroll from the idol’s ledge to actively save fever-stricken townsfolk). Town priest Mother Marion presents each character with an Anti-Rot Charm (advantage on disease and poison saves; once per day, react to reroll a failed save). Additional optional rewards include a deed to an abandoned farmhouse on the town’s edge, a letter of introduction to a regional lord, free lifetime lodging at the Silver Eel tavern, and honorary citizenship. The executioner’s iron key found on the Rot-Stringer’s remains opens a locked coffer in Sheriff Alard’s office containing 50 gp he doesn’t know is missing. The Gallows River purifies itself within three days, and fever victims recover within a week. Three lingering mysteries seed future adventures: the Cult of the Empty Void’s symbol carved behind the idol suggests other idols may exist elsewhere, tool marks in the awakening fissure confirm someone deliberately caused the outbreak, and Sheriff Alard’s private confession that his grandfather was the executioner who died when lightning struck the hanging tree raises questions about whether that event was truly divine judgment.
Release Date: 2025
Format: Digital (PDF)
Items Included
- Filth Below Gallows-Ford 5E (PDF)
- A B&W Printer-Friendly Version (PDF)
- Maps
- Illustrations (Generated with Midjourney)
- Monster Stat Blocks
Leave a Reply