Amazing D&D Christmas One-Shots!
Every single one of these adventures rolled a natural 20 on Christmas joy and holiday happiness. Enjoy!
Do you want your holiday parties to be filled with more dungeon diving than Dirty Santa? If so, have I got the thing for you: Christmas one-shots for D&D 5e! From saving Santa Claus from a Christmas Witch to jarring a Gingerbread Golem's jingle bells, these are definitely the perfect presents for your party.
1. Claus for Concern
Claus for Concern is my own best-selling Christmas one-shot! I gotta be shameless, after all.
How cool is that? (Pun always intended!) It's totally FREE (well, Pay What You Want, which can be $0!) and has been downloaded over 7,000 times with a solid rating of 5-stars. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of it. I really do think you'll enjoy it.
Oh, no! Something's wrong in the toy factory! Santa has been bamboozled, and his workshop is overrun with frosty foes, wintry wrongdoers, and North Pole ne'er-do-wells. A team of Santa's elves manage to escape the workshop warzone and recruit a party of adventurers to go take back toyland.
Can our heroes muster enough cheer and joy to make sure all the good girls and boys get their holiday gifts? Or will everyone forever get stockings full of coal...whether they're on the Naughty List or Nice?
The adventure is designed to be a stand-alone Christmas one-shot. But with a few tweaks here and there, it could very easily be incorporated as a side story into any arctic or wintry campaign you have going. With the popularity of the Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign setting, Claus for Concern can be slotted into any shenanigans around the Ten Towns.
And if that's not enough, I have a follow-up companion supplement called Stocking Stuffers & Side Quests that is filled with Christmastime cheer and joy. It has 2 full side quests called Wally's Follies and Hag-ing A Few People Over, as well as 13 new magic items and 5 NPC stat blocks. Oh, and it's also FREE, too, and it has (And one of my favorite items I've ever made: the Wind-up Beholder.)
2. How the Lich Stole Christmas
How the Lich Stole Christmas might be the most popular Christmas adventure on DMs Guild. It definitely deserves the success, too. I mean, it has a story that's told through song and rhyme like this:
You’re a foul one, Mr. Lich
Your flesh smells like decay
For the crimes you have committed
There will be hell to pay
When the heroes come to save Christmas Day
How The Lich Stole Christmas is a short 3-4 hour one shot holiday adventure for characters of all levels. The encounters include variations for adventuring parties of each tier of play. The story unfolds through melodic rhymes that are certain to get the players into the spirit of the adventure.
How the Lich Stole Christmas product description
The art is great, the storytelling is fun, and I am definitely a fan of anything with a lich in it. So go ahead and grab this one. $3.95 is definitely worth it.
3. Solstice Shenanigans
Solstice Shenanigans is designed for a Tier 2 party (meaning levels 5 to 10). You go face to face with a Gingerbread Golem and an evil druid who's using the Awakening spell on Christmas Trees and turning them into monsters.
Best of all, it comes with an entire set of print-and-play paper miniatures! I love paper minis, and the art on these is super cool.
Solstice Shenanigans is only $3.49 at the Dungeon Masters Guild, and that's a steal for a full adventure with tokens and minis and even Avrae support.
4. Danger in a Midwinter Wonderland
Danger in a Midwinter Wonderland takes the party to the Noel Isles to save the Midwinter celebrations from Krampus, as the Winter's Father is missing! And who doesn't love Krampus? Or love to hate him, I guess.
This one is designed to be a single-session one-shot for 4th/5th level characters, which is the sweet spot for many people when it comes to 5e adventures.
This adventure also includes Christmas themed magic items like the Exploding Midwinter Crackers and has stats for a number of new monsters including the fearsome Snoman and the deadly Krampus.
Everyone has heard of the festival of Midwinter, the great Winter's Father and his dutiful Toy Makers. They are the core of the Midwinter celebrations and there is no better place to visit than the Noel Isles and see the Winter's Father in person during these celebrations. Each year the Toy Makers decorate the Isles with such splendour that it can only be fully appreciated in person.
But this year something foul is afoot, the Winter's Father is missing and the Noel Isles are too quiet. Something is definitely wrong but you're not quite sure what. All you know is that you sense Danger...in this Midwinter Wonderland.
Product desctiption for Danger in a Midwinter Wonderland
5. Last Christmas
Last Christmas is unique in that instead of saving Santa Claus from the grips of some evil, you're working to kill Santa Claus (or his corrupted form, at least). Which is really, really awesome and definitely worth the price of admission right there.
This Christmas, Santa Claus must die! Adopt the role of one of the characters based on iconic Christmas villains and raid Santa’s North Pole base in order to destroy Santa’s corrupted form.
Due to Grunch’s machinations, Santa’s jovial form has been corrupted and he’s called off his annual gift-giving journey. Now, the Spirit of Christmas gives Grunch an ultimatum: he must assemble a team of other famous villains, infiltrate the North Pole base and destroy the corrupted Santa Claus so he can be reborn and deliver presents. The team will have to navigate environmental hazards, deal with four factions of Santa’s elves and finally battle the Man in Red himself.
However, each team member has their own secret agenda to complete … and time is running out!
Product description of Last Christmas
One of the most useful parts of this package is that for $5.99, you get 10 pregenerated player characters, each themed around a different villain from a holiday story: Grunch, Mr. Potato Sack, Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, Barry and Harv, Gremlin Mohawk, Ebenezer Scrooge, Hans the Skyscraper Terrorist, and Angry Elf.
I love it, you'll love it, and I think you'll have a blast playing the bad guys and making sure that it's Santa's...Last Christmas.
6. Once Upon a Winter's Eve
Let's be really honest here: Once Upon a Winter's Eve's cover has Santa's sleigh being pulled by a dragon. That immediately qualifies it to be part of the list. Because it's friggin' awesome.
On top of that, the adventure itself is fun and well-written. I think it's also worth mentioning that it came from the RPG Writer Workshop from the Storytelling Collective. For a while now, they've partnered with the Dungeon Masters Guild to put out bundles of the content that's created through their courses, and Once Upon a Winter's Eve is a testament to how good the teachers are at what they do.
The maps are nice, the story is fun, and the Harmonite Blade gets stronger if your party sings together. That alone is worth the cost of entry.
Happy Holidays and Merry Monster Mashing!
The winter holidays are amazing for D&D, getting together with those you love, rolling dice, and saving Santa (or killing him). These are just some of the amazing Christmas one-shots out there, so tell us in the comments which ones are your favorites? What should we add to this list as we update it?
Is that not enough Dungeons & Dragons for you? Then check out the showcase I did of the best free one-shots for D&D or my list of creeptastic 5e Halloween adventures over at Geek to Geek Media.