Guide your players through this magical wonderland in this christmas themed Oneshot for DnD 5e. (Disclaimer: Players might find themselves enjoying hot cocoa or in a snowball fight with snowpeople) I know it’s a little late but maybe this oneshot will give you some inspiration for next year’s holiday season with your adventuring party.
‘In a small village, close to the North Pole, people had a rather curious christmas tradition. On Christmas eve just before going to bed, children were allowed to open the last door on their advent calendar. Now, in this village, advent calendars only came with 23 doors, as the 24th appeared every year in the center of the village on Christmas eve. Behind this door the children were allowed to play as long as they wanted until they were ready to open up their Christmas presents in the morning. Every year, this door was the highlight of the Christmas celebration for the kids in the village, if only they could remember what was behind the door the previous year…’
This adventure is built to be played by 3-5 4th level characters, though it can easily be adjusted for less players at a higher level or more players. Be aware that the more players you have, the game might take a bit longer. I set it to be about three hours, though it can easily take up to 5/6 hours, if your players want to discover everything.
As the children step through the door, they are transformed into magical Christmas creatures: Ginderbreadpeople, Chocolate Santas, Elves from the Shelf, Angel Ornaments, and Nutcrackers.
The party is teleported to giant room full of toys, sweets and other festive things. In the center of the room, there is a giant Tree with Ornaments and string lights. However, it seems there is nothing at the Top of the tree. Around the tree, there is a Toy train, that rides around the room, making stops at different locations around the room.
As the party takes all of that in, a figure materializes out of thin air. A man with a long white beard, a red jacket and a red hat. The projection of Santa clause says: “Ahh, it seems you are not yet too old to believe in the spirit of Christmas. I welcome you back once more. Have as much fun as possible in this wonderful realm. If you want something of a challenge, you might notice there’s no ornament on top of the Christmas tree… if you want, you can find the missing ornament and put it back where it belongs. But most importantly: Merry Christmas, and enjoy HO HO HO!“
At this point the players get to roll their race (Ginderbreadpeople, Chocolate Santas, Elves from the Shelf, Angel Ornaments, Nutcrackers) and their Fun Points (1d4+4)
Once the party runs out of Fun Points, they are brought back home, not remembering the adventures they had. Stats are provided at the end.
If you don‘t have lots of time, I‘d recommend having a more guided story with the help of NPCs and reducing the number of enemies.
Parts of the ornament can be found throughout the 4 areas of the room. Once all 4 Parts have been collected, the party can make their way to the top of the tree to place the ornament on top of it. These Areas can all be reached by train in any order. (Make the players aware of this in a manner you wish e.g. Santa, an NPC or on the train itself)
Ornament express
The Ornament Express is the central hub of the Oneshot. Here players can get information about every destination, talk to other inhabitants of the room, get to their destinations, or take rests in between the smaller adventures. If you want the party to have a guide through the adventure, there is Tommy, a small wooden toy with cymbals for hands, who is eager to tell the party everything they need to know about the world. Be aware that he usually doesn‘t know how to solve the challenges, just where they are.
The conductor of the train has the fourth piece of the ornament, however he is quite unwilling to part with it. He is bored, as most of the kids on the train don‘t understand his brain teasers, so he‘ll humor the party. If they can complete all three riddles, he is willing to part ways with the ornament.
The conductor can be charmed into giving the ornament freely, though he has a +7 to all saving throws, as well as advantage on any saving throws against being charmed or frightened
Riddle 1: On Christmas eve, when Santa leaves his workshop on the north pole, what direction does he travel? South. If you’re on the North Pole the only direction you can go is south.
Riddle 2: If it takes five elves, five minutes to make five dolls, then how long will it take 100 elves to make 100 dolls? 5 minutes
Riddle 3: If you have a three liter jug, a five liter jug and an unlimited supply of mulled wine, how would you get exactly four liters without estimating?
Fill 3l jug pour into 5l jug. Fill 3l jug pour 2l into 5l jug. Empty 5l jug. Pour 1l into 5l hug. Fill 3l jug pour into into 5l jug. Voilá.
These should be fairly simple riddles depending on who is in your party, however feel free to replace some of them, if you think they might be too difficult/easy for your friends, or replace them with fun trivia. Let the party make some checks as well, if they seem to struggle with the answers or give them small hints. A fail here should not (necessarily) be punished with the loss of fun points (only if your friends brag themselves to be puzzle solvers or math whizzes 😉 )
Snowman‘s land
A large snowglobe with infinite snow falling from the sky.
The snowpeople remember years ago, a piece of the great ornament falling from the sky into the frozen lake. The Party is asked if they want to participate in a Snowball fight. Rules are like dodgeball (if you‘re hit, you‘re out; best of three takes it; rules may be modified if party wants to) snowpeople have a +4 to hit and a 15 AC, Players will either make a strength or dexterity check to see whether they hit.
Swimming though the lake will trigger initiative. Every round at the beginning of their turn, a creature fully submerged in water needs to make a Con Save DC12 (creatures with cold resistance make this check with advantage) or generate a stack of Hypothermia. After 5 stacks of hypothermia, the creature takes 1 point of exhaustion and the hypothermia stacks are reset.
Additionally, a swarm of quippers attacks everyone underwater.
The ornament can be found after 2 rounds of swimming and a successful DC14 Perception check.
Un-Candy Valley
The party steps out of the train into an eerie landscape with crooked candy canes, hot cocoa lakes and roaming Marshmallows. Spiced biscuit warning signs are set up, in front of the entrance of the valley.
Hot cocoa lakes: a creature standing within a 5ft. Area around the lakes must succeed on a DC 12 constitution saving throw. On a fail, they have disadvantage on all physical ability checks and saving throws until the beginning of their next turn. If they fail their save by equal or more than 4 points (8 or lower) they additionally take 1d4 fire damage. If you start your turn in the hot cocoa, you immediately take 1d4 fire damage. Marshmallows thrown into a lake immediately dissolve.
Marshmallows: These ferocious creatures inhabit the Uncandy Valley, hunting down anything moving in it. They have an outstanding sense of smell, making them able to hunt down and track almost everything in their territory. They usually hunt in packs of 1d4+2. They use the Wolf stat block from the Monster Manual.
Navigating through the Uncandy valley is difficult and often dangerous. Because of the steam rising from the lakes, player‘s visibility is limited to 30 feet. For every 10 minutes the players spend in the valley, they have to make a group stealth check against the marshmallow‘s passive perception or face a pack of them. Whilst navigating through the forest gives the party a +2 to stealth rolls, the journey through the lakes might help in defeat in oncoming Marshmallow packs.
The ornament piece can be seen glowing in the distance circa 30 minutes away from the train station. As the players navigate towards it, they notice that it is the center of worship of a tribe of sour gummy frogs (1 Grung Wildling, 1 Grung Elite Warrior and 4 Grung[optimal if you have more players/more time]). Alternitavely, if you do not have Volo‘s Guide to Monsters, they are a tribe of Sour Patch Kids (1 Bearded Devil and 3 Imps [aalso optimal for 3 players]).
After getting the ornament, the Marshmallows leave the pary alone, as they associate it with the tribe, that is usually on the hunt for them.
Block Mountain
This small village right beneath the Christmas tree is the central hub for the inhabitants of this Christmas land. Here you can find delicious Christmas treats, beautiful ornaments, and some fun Christmas challenges. Players have to win 3 different challenges, to win the ornament piece that fell from the tree, however they are open to play as many games as they like. Here losing games should also come with losing fun points to give players a choice of continuing the narrative or just have fun with a relaxing game.
Challenges:
Snowball Target Practice: A snowperson from Snowman‘s land challenges players to throw snowballs at a shooting target. Whoever has more points after five throws is the winner of the game.
| Roll | Points |
| 1-6 | 0 |
| 7-11 | 2 |
| 12-19 | 5 |
| >20 | 10 |
Cocoa-contest:
2 contestants drink hot cocoa against each other. They roll contested con saves against each other. Whoever has three wins in a row (equal rolls do not reset wins) wins. However, if a contestant rolls a 6 or lower more than three times, they are out, as they burnt their mouth.
Candy cane Duel:
Players are equipped with Candy cane swords (martial weapon) and must duel another contestant. Whoever breaks their opponent‘s candy cane first wins the battle. The candy canes have an Ac of 15, 25 HP and deal 1d8 damage. The opponent has Bandit Captain stats, but can only use 2 attacks. Casting mending on the candy canes restores 1d6+2 HP to them.
Christmas Quiz:
Answer 3 out of 5 questions correctly:
-Whom is Santa Clause modeled after? St. Nicholas
-How many reindeer does Santa Clause have? 8 without Rudolph, 9 with Rudolph
-What does Ebeneezer Scrooge encounter in A Christmas Sory? 3 Ghosts of the past, the present, and the future
-Which of the following Questions is not one of the most searched (December 2020 on google.com) when searching for: ‘Is Santa Claus‘
-real? -American? (not one of the top 10 most searched answer) -dead? -an elf?
– Why did the Grinch hate Christmas?(1 reason)
-Noise -heart 2 sizes too small -bullied by his peers/no one liked him -Misophonia (See: Film Theorists ‘Diagnosing The Grinch‘) -Cheery people
Up the tree:
Once all ornament pieces are found it is easy to assemble all of them. The tricky part is to get up the tree.
At the lower part of the tree there are colorful Ornaments, the following tree represents the placement of these ornaments:
-Everyone must start at the same time on layer 1
-Everyone must move every turn.
-Everyone has to arrive at the red star.
-Everyone must get to every one of the five layers at least once.
-You must be able to reach the next Ball as the crow flies.
-No two people can be on one ornament at hte same time (exception: red star and green balls)
-A red ball can only be visited once in total. It is destroyed, after the character on it leaves.
-If you go to either a purple or orange ball, the next ball must be of the same color until you have an even amount of orange and purple balls.
-If you move to a light blue ball, the next ball must be red.
-Yellow balls let you teleport to another ball of your choice.
-Dark blue balls stun you for 1 round.
The treetop
At the top of the tree there are 4 ornaments: A snowflake, a set of antlers, a bell and an angel.
A choir of angels with trumpets appears and starts playing 4 different melodies. The players have to listen to the songs and say what song is being played. Alternatively you can ask the charcters (maybe the Bard) if they want to try and perform a song to activate the 4 ornaments.
The songs that could be played here (but not limited to): Let it snow/white christmas; Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer; jingle bells/jingle bell rock; hark the herald‘s angels sing. Try to only play snippets of the song, as to not make the session unnecessarily longer. You can swap out any ornaments/songs or just leave this part, if you‘re short on time.
Once a song has been guessed/played the ornament emits a bright green light. Once all lights glow, the party can climb to the top. And place the ornament.
Once the ornament has been placed, the characters wake up as themselves in their rooms ready to open their presents. This time, they remember everything that has happened.
Merry Christmas to all DMs and Players who want to play this adventure!
Custom races:
The races are based on the standard human, though everyone can chose an ability score to increase by two and an ability score to increase by one.
Ginderbreadpeople: You can use your gumdrop Buttons 3 times per day as an action to throw them up to 20ft. afterwards they explode in a 5 foot radius. Every creature in that radius must make a dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 points of damage. Either way, the area of the explosion becomes difficult terrain.
Chocolate Santas: You can cast the Goodberry spell a number of times equal to your constitution modifier per long rest.
Elves from the Shelf: Cast Misty step once per short rest.
Angel Ornaments: Get two uses of Bardic inspiration per short rest (1d6 bonus to attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws. Activated as a Bonus Action)
Nutcrackers: Advantage on all strength checks made with their mouth. Their mouth is a natural weapon using the player’s strength and proficiency modifier, and dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage.
Over the Top Poetry 