It seriously crossed my mind for this post to simply be “Dan Head has written a Christmas adventure. Go get it!”, but that’d mean I wouldn’t get to gush about the adventure a little. I mean, it’s not every day you get an adventure about helping an orc tribe defend itself from a dangerous predator!

Christmas with the Orcs: The Red Man Comes! is a free adventure you can download from Dan Head’s blog. A local orc tribe, who have made alliances with the humans and demihumans of the area, are worried because of fey spying on them. They call the adventurers to deal with the problem.

What’s great about this adventure is that it subverts a few expectations, and cheerfully explores the idea of what would happen if Father Christmas decided to deliver presents to a tribe of evil(ish) orcs. I mean, they’re unlikely to have many individuals that come down on the “nice” side of the ledger, and do they want presents anyway?

The adventure is fairly simple in structure and can be run in a single session; for the most part it uses standard monsters, although the flying reindeer and Father Christmas have modifications to their stat blocks. There’s a mix of role-playing and combat, with a little investigation as well.

Christmas with the Orcs absolutely delights me; showing what fun you can have with the game when you’re willing to expand its boundaries. I highly recommend you have a look at this free adventure.