A lake that should not be looked into. Three islands beneath perpetual fog. Something underneath them all.
Free to download, run, modify, and share with your table.
“Don’t stare too long at your own face in the Shine. It has a way of starin’ back.”
There is a place on the Lake of Tears where the fog never lifts.
The locals call it the Shattering Shine, a permanent, mirror-still mist that blankets the water and creeps onto the shores of the three islands it surrounds. It reflects everything with perfect clarity. The boats, the birds, the faces of the people who live there. All of it returned to you in silver, exactly as it is.
Except for the mouths.
In the Shine, every reflection stands with its mouth open. Wide, silent, and still. Not in pain. Not in warning. Simply open, the way a door is open, the way a wound is open.
The islanders have a name for this too.
They call it a Soursight, and they have learned not to look.
Stiltsmere is three islands lashed together by bridges over dark water. It is a cannery, a port town, a mountain community, and a farming settlement built on stilts above flooded fields. It smells of fish and coal smoke and, underneath both, something faintly sweet and wrong.
You are going there because someone died.
The boat leaves at dusk. Silas will not wait.
The Souring of Stiltsmere and the City in Mercury is a full, playtested cosmic-horror mystery campaign for 3–5 players, built for the D&D 5th Edition ruleset and designed to run across multiple sessions and character levels.
It begins as a murder investigation and becomes something considerably larger.
The campaign prioritizes:
- investigation and deduction;
- atmosphere and environmental storytelling;
- meaningful player choice;
- consequences that change what characters can perceive;
- horror that rewards curiosity rather than relying exclusively on combat;
- and tools that help a DM reveal the setting gradually at either a physical or virtual table.
The campaign includes several original systems developed specifically for Stiltsmere:
- A Sanity mechanic that is also a key. Losing Sanity does not simply move a character toward failure. It reveals people, places, threats, and truths that healthier minds cannot perceive.
- The Layer System. Maps and visual scenes can be altered through successive overlays, allowing hidden ghosts, doors, sigils, creatures, and environmental changes to appear without replacing the entire map.
- A complete bestiary and DM primer. The campaign includes its own creatures, major NPCs, mysteries, locations, encounter guidance, and support for scaling the experience to different groups.
- The City in Mercury. A deeper prestige section of the campaign for groups willing to follow Stiltsmere beyond its initial mystery and into the thing beneath the Shattering Shine.
Stiltsmere was created and written by me, with extensive AI collaboration helping me articulate, expand, organize, test, and refine the world and its writing.
My D&D group helped shape the campaign through early playtesting of individual scenarios, encounters, mechanics, and ideas before the complete campaign was assembled. They later played the finished campaign through to its conclusion, providing the table experience used to revise and prepare this release.
The artwork and visual materials were created collaboratively using AI tools under my direction.
This release is therefore the result of:
- my original setting, writing, mechanics, direction, and campaign design;
- extensive iterative development with AI;
- and practical playtesting with my own D&D group.
- Stiltsmere and the City in Mercury: Table-Ready Edition The complete campaign document, including the DM primer, Sanity and scaling guidance, setting material, campaign chapters, bestiary, Layer System documentation, and the City in Mercury.
- Maps and Visual Aids Player-facing maps, DM maps, location maps, diagrams, and layered encounter spaces.
The collection currently includes:
- separate Player and DM world maps;
- Blackwood Estate;
- Malakai’s Hideout;
- the Grand Plaza;
- the Resonator Core;
- the Submerged Shrine;
- the Tesseract Labyrinth;
- the Weeping Fresco;
- the Whispering Caves overview;
- the Ancient Lighthouse’s Celestial Chart of Erased Light;
- the Ancient Lighthouse’s Mechanism of Erased Light;
- and the Salty Squid Inn presented as a base map with successive reveal layers.
The campaign is collected into one table-ready document, but it is not necessary to memorize everything before play.
For the smoothest start:
- Read A DM’s Primer to Stiltsmere.
- Read the Sanity and Scaling Guide.
- Review the opening investigation and the locations your players are most likely to visit first.
- Download or open both versions of the world map.
- Keep the DM map, hidden layers, and later visual revelations away from players until they are discovered.
- Refer to the bestiary, event lists, and location material as the campaign expands.
The Layer System documents also explain how the same approach can be used in campaigns outside Stiltsmere.
The opening prose and player world map may be shared with your table.
The DM primer, campaign guide, bestiary, hidden maps, later layers, and City in Mercury material contain substantial spoilers and should remain DM-facing unless your group deliberately enjoys shared dramatic irony.
This campaign is free.
Run it, modify it, print it, add material to it, remove material from it, or hand it to another table. That is what it was released for.
You do not owe me anything for using it. If your group visits Stiltsmere, creates something inspired by it, or has a memorable experience with the campaign, I would genuinely love to hear about it.
The maps may be used digitally or printed. The successive Layer images are intended to be revealed during play as locations change, hidden details become perceptible, or characters descend into deeper Sanity tiers.
The original setting, characters, campaign structure, custom mechanics, Layer System, Sanity system, bestiary, and world of Stiltsmere are released under the terms described in the repository’s LICENSE file.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
In practical terms, you are free to use, share, and adapt the original Stiltsmere material for your own table or homebrew projects, provided that you:
- credit the original work;
- do not sell the adapted material;
- and release adaptations under the same license.
Streaming, recorded sessions, campaign journals, reviews, and actual-play use are welcome, subject to the full license terms.
The project also uses or references material associated with the D&D 5th Edition System Reference Document. Any third-party rules material remains subject to its applicable license and notices. Consult the campaign document and repository license materials for the complete terms.
This campaign engages with body horror, psychological distress, altered perception, loss of identity, and potentially permanent character consequences.
Talk to your table about comfort levels, boundaries, and safety tools before beginning play. It costs nothing and protects everyone’s experience.
There is a place on the Lake of Tears where the fog never lifts.
The boat leaves at dusk.
Silas will not wait.