A blood-red sun rises over the village of Reynhold. A sword is missing from the old shrine in the hills. The referee sends a party of 1st-level unfortunates to investigate. They never come back — not to Reynhold, anyway.

A Delving Most Dark is a 152-page adventure anthology for Old-School Essentials: four connected scenarios that begin with a village problem and end somewhere in the bowels of Hell.

Red Sun over Reynhold opens as a 1st-level funnel. A sealed temple beneath the shrine holds a hellmouth, and when it swallows the party, they land in Malfflesia — the rotting demonic principality of Phranax, Demon Deity of Disease.

Principality of Malffesia is a hex-crawl across thirteen named locations: the Butcher’s Road paved with angel skulls, the Arena of Wrath, a hall built of humanoid leather, a prison whose spores deliver visions of total failure, and Phranax herself on her fungal throne — jovial, pestilent, and willing to deal. The characters need an exit. She knows where one is.

The Black Ice of Drathnelar sends them across a color-drained hellscape to steal a contract from Vishanti, the Monochrome Malice. Her dungeon mutates flesh with every step. There’s a table for that.

Stealing from Coris Aurum drops the party into the City of the Damned, where a silver-tongued erinyes offers escape from Hell in exchange for a heist on Infernus’ floating golden palace. Six possible objectives. A suspicion-tracking mechanic. One very angry archdevil.

Three supplements close the book: a three-table Infernal Loot generator, a Bestiary of twenty new OSE-statted monsters, and a full writeup of Mephisteena, the unseen hand behind the whole affair.

Writing by William “This Effin’ GM” Tramp, John Baltisberger, Andrew Hindenburg, Zack Allen, and Frank Tedeschi. Lead Producer Zac Goins. Maps by Glynn Seal.

A Delving Most Dark is a 152-page A5 hardcover compatible with Old-School Essentials. The last line of the book is from Dante.