Kobold Press has released the first published adventure for its DnD rival RPG. Caverns of the Spore Lord is the name of the first outing for the new tabletop RPG, once known as Project Black Flag, but now sold under the more trademarkable title Tales of the Valiant.
A mission for a party of first level adventurers, Caverns of the Spore Lord promises to keep a party busy from just starting out as frail nobodies right up until third level. It features a Last of Us-style infection turning villagers into ‘sporeborn’ creatures, and rising conflicts between humans and mushroom men as a result. There’s also an apocalyptic cult caught up in this somewhere. (They’re probably responsible.)
The adventure, which is the first released for Kobold Press’ DnD rival system, costs $4.99 and uses Tales of the Valiant’s Alpha ruleset. It can be located on the Kobold Press website.
For background, Kobold Press announced it was creating Project Black Flag in January, during controversy over changes to the DnD OGL that may have hurt creators, had they actually been implemented.
While Wizards of the Coast’s proposal shook the faith of many third party RPG designers in DnD 5e, it culminated in a full apology from Wizards – and the publisher moving the 5e SRD into the Creative Commons.
So, while Tales of the Valiant is built on Paizo’s brand new ORC (Open Roleplaying Content) license, it remains compatible with DnD 5e, because the latter’s ruleset is now CC. Its Kickstarter, which launched in May 2023 and raised over $1 million, insists it will “keep your investment in 5th Edition going strong!”
No doubt KP hopes to ensnare fans of 5e who aren’t so enamored with the One DnD changes slowly being rolled out. We interviewed the designers about how and why it chose to adapt 5e.
Myconid is not an official DnD race, but did you know you can play a Centaur, a Githyanki, or a Tortle? Explore these and other DnD class and 5e character build options with these handy DnD character creators.