A young black dragon rules a flooded temple in the Dreadmire — but the lizardfolk priest who serves her is waiting for the day her blood is spilled, because that is the only thing that can wake the god chained beneath the altar.

Welcome to “The Halls of Vraxith” 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 is built around a treacherous central twist that transforms a familiar “slay the dragon” premise into something far more dangerous. The encounter design includes guidance for scaling difficulty to suit your table: numbers assume a party of four, with simple adjustments for groups of five or six, so Game Masters can tailor the challenge whether their players are cautious tacticians or reckless heroes.

In “The Halls of Vraxith,” a party of 4-6 characters of level 9 is drawn into the Dreadmire, a fetid swamp where caravans along the Mireway have been vanishing for three years. The hook can come from the Greycloak Trading Consortium and its 2,500 gp bounty, a half-mad survivor begging for the threat to be ended, or an aging historian who fears for something buried beneath the ruins. The truth has two layers. Vraxith, a young adult black dragon, has claimed a flooded temple as her lair and preys on the trade routes to feed a growing hoard. But Ssethrak, high priest of the Mireborn lizardfolk, bows to her only because she is useful to him. Deep beneath the sanctum lies the Chain Altar, a relic of the Chained God — a primordial deity of decay — sealed by divine wards centuries ago. Ssethrak has learned the seal can be broken only by the lifeblood of a dragon, willingly given or violently spilled, upon the altar itself. For three years, he has fed Vraxith’s arrogance, seeded the caravan routes with stories, and waited for heroes to come and wound her. The adventure asks the party to recognize that the dragon is not the real danger — and to avoid handing the priest exactly the death he has been praying for.

Part 1: Into the Dreadmire

The party arrives at Mireway’s End, the last waystation before the swamp swallows the road, where a wary innkeeper named Brecca and a reclusive trapper called Old Fennic can point the way to the temple island. The Dreadmire itself is a hostile place by design — difficult terrain, choking sulfurous air, fog that limits sight, and a low resonant hum pulsing up from the buried altar. The journey delivers a selection of swamp encounters: the Drowned Caravan, where giant crocodiles lurk beneath a looted wreck that conceals a Mireborn deserter’s map; a Mireborn Patrol of warriors and a shaman who, if captured and interrogated, can reveal the temple’s hidden entrance; and the Black Pool, a corruption font that whispers promises of power and grants visions of a vast chained figure straining against its prison. The swamp’s job is to build dread before a single sword is drawn.

Part 2: The Flooded Temple

The Halls of Vraxith is a two-level flooded dungeon of black stone, sickly fungal light, and acidic water. The ground floor moves the party through the watched temple entrance, an antechamber of restraining chains, a fungal hoard chamber where the temple’s history is carved in stone, an armory, and Ssethrak’s Quarters — where the high priest’s journal lays out his three-year scheme in his own chilling words for any party willing to read it. At the heart of the floor waits Vraxith atop her hoard. She does not attack on sight; she is arrogant, curious, and willing to parley at length, dismissing Ssethrak’s faith as a harmless delusion. She can be bargained with, fought, or — with great difficulty — turned against the priest who has been using her all along. The crucial detail is hers to overlook and the party’s to discover: if she is mortally wounded near the altar, she becomes the key Ssethrak has waited years to turn.

Part 3: The Chain Altar

The lower level descends past a warded staircase into the Drowning Cells, where captured prisoners can reveal what the priest does with their blood, and on to Ssethrak’s Sanctum, where the high priest stands in the churning water and openly welcomes the party — he wants the dragon driven down to him. The climax hinges on what the party understands. Slay Vraxith away from the altar and defeat Ssethrak, and the Mireborn scatter and the trade routes reopen. Slay her on or near the Chain Altar, and the seal shatters in a wave of necrotic energy, and Ssethrak rises transformed as Ssethrak Ascendant for a desperate final battle in the flooding, crumbling sanctum. Turn the dragon against the priest, destroy the altar outright, or leave the seal to slowly fail — each path closes the adventure differently, and not every ending is a clean victory. A full XP breakdown rewards the party for the dragon, the sealed altar, the rescued prisoners, the fallen priest, and the corruption font destroyed back in the swamp.

---

Release Date: 2026 Format: Digital (PDF)

Items Included

• The Halls of Vraxith 5E (PDF)
• A B&W Printer-Friendly Version (PDF)
• Maps
• Illustrations (Generated with Midjourney)
• Monster Stat Blocks

© Copyright 2026. 5E Adventures. All rights reserved.