Lair Zine is the next incarnation of our long-running Lair Magazine series! From 2021 to 2025, Lair Magazine was published exclusively as a digital resource, bringing game masters fresh adventures, monsters, and ideas for their games every month.

Now, for the first time, we’re bringing that same spirit to print with Lair Zine: a physical magazine you can hold in your hands, flip through at the table, and keep on your gaming shelf!

Each issue is designed to give you ready-to-use material for your game, whether you need a full adventure for your next session, a quick side quest to drop into an ongoing campaign, a strange new monster to surprise your players, or new options for the characters themselves.

This issue includes:

Everything is compatible with both D&D 5e (2014) and D&D 5.5e (2024).

Lair Zine gives us the chance to explore player-facing content in a way we rarely did with the original Lair Magazine. This issue includes two new character options—a playable race and a rogue subclass—designed to give players more than just new mechanics. They offer memorable character concepts, unusual abilities, and plenty of roleplaying hooks to build a character around.

Homunculus. Homunculi are artificial beings, rather than natural occurrences. Most are crafted by wizards or other tinkerers and only exist while they serve their purpose. A few, however, were so finely crafted that they had souls that endured after their purpose ended and were able to reproduce, creating an entire artificial race. You are one of those rare few, a being who shouldn't exist and yet you have a unique opportunity to create your own destiny.

Stitcher. While many rogues seem content to be loner outcasts, not all embrace the stereotype… at least not fully. While a stitcher doesn’t exactly help themselves stop being an outcast, they’ve discovered a way to avoid being alone; at least, that’s what they tell themselves as they put together yet another abomination to travel with them. Inspired by golems and mechanical soldiers, stitchers use once-living flesh as the base for their creations and graft together a vile menagerie of parts meant to help them in their work.

Lair Zine includes three full-length adventures for characters levels 3–5, each built around a different kind of problem for the players to solve. They deal with stolen magical creatures, a city under siege, and a desperate fight to save an entire community’s water supply. Furthermore, each adventure has plenty of room for combat, exploration, social interactions, and player choice.

A Bit too Charming. A small village known for the husbandry of unusual creatures has recently become the target of a rogue charmer who desires their unusual creatures. At first, the charmer approached the village to purchase a few creatures, but the villagers became aware of the charmer’s abilities and canceled the purchase. The charmer has responded by returning with a few “friends” to take possession of the creatures he wants.

The Siege of Edgerton. The City of Edgerton is under siege. A large group of mercenaries known as the Wayfinders have blocked off all exits and waged war against the city. Their attack could not have arrived at a worse time, adding panic to the brewing fears over the magical collapses happening everywhere. If the siege remains unbroken, Edgerton will be doomed to disease and starvation.

Appia’s Hope. A short while ago, Appia was given a lifeline: a new aqueduct began bringing water to the imperiled city, granting it a reprieve from its water crisis. However, this would not be the end of the story for Appia; nay, it was merely the beginning. Shortly after the water started flowing, a vile drow witch took control of the machine that keeps the water clean and flowing, nearly choking the city. If she cannot be stopped, Appia's last hope may be lost forever.

Lair Zine includes 15 brand-new monsters designed to give you memorable encounters, villains, allies, and surprises for your games. Many of these creatures also appear throughout the adventures in this issue, so you can see them in action before dropping them into adventures and campaigns of your own.

Whether you need a strange creature for a single encounter, a new group of enemies for your players to contend with, or a recurring villain like the drow witch Mömielle, these monsters give you plenty of new ways to challenge and surprise your players.

Butterfae. A shimmering swarm of tiny fey that takes physical form as a cloud of butterflies. It disorients and hypnotizes creatures caught in its path.

Charmer. A dangerous enchanter who bends beasts, monsters, and even people to their will, turning unwilling victims into weapons against their allies.

Conjured Servant. An invisible magical servant created for everyday chores that can also grapple, restrain, and crush intruders.

Crystal Ooze. An acid-filled ooze protected by a hardened crystalline shell that corrodes weapons and armor.

Dark Ooze. A magically resilient ooze engineered from black pudding that can absorb magical effects and duplicate itself when badly wounded.

Gahtalata. A tiny floating, axolotl-like aberration that forms psychic bonds with chosen companions and uses its strange powers to heal and protect them.

Journeyman Witch. An ambitious young witch capable of quickly replicating the magic she sees other spellcasters use.

Malformed Flesh Golem. A hideously imperfect construct stitched together from the remains of numerous victims. It is prone to berserk rages as its body literally falls apart in battle.

Mömielle. A centuries-old drow witch whose charming words conceal a cruel and calculating spellcaster with a talent for escaping when things turn against her.

Thundawl. A cat-shaped elemental that can masquerade as an ordinary housecat before transforming into a lightning-charged predator capable of blasting enemies off their feet.

Wayfinder Automaton. A seemingly harmless wheeled construct that transforms into a razor-mawed quadrupedal combat form when battle begins.

Wayfinder Captain. An experienced wandering leader who coordinates allies, guides the company through almost any terrain, and is nearly impossible to shake off one's trail.

Wayfinder Engineer. A support specialist who keeps the Wayfinders fighting with healing potions, magical repairs, and explosive arrows.

Wayfinder Scout. A wandering tracker and skirmisher with an uncanny ability to locate creatures and places it has encountered before.

Wayfinder Shield. A heavily armed defender who wades into melee, protects nearby allies, and uses battlefield experience to keep the rest of the company alive.

When you need more than a random encounter but don’t want to commit to a full-length adventure, these short adventures are built to fill the gap. Each one gives you a complete, ready-to-run scenario with multiple encounters, memorable NPCs, meaningful choices, and loot for the characters to discover.

They’re easy to drop into an ongoing campaign whenever you need a side quest, travel complication, or unexpected detour that feels like a real adventure instead of a single fight.

A Quandary of Raiders. What looks like a routine bandit attack on a merchant caravan turns into a moral dilemma when the characters discover the raiders are stealing to save their own people from a barbed devil. Do they bring the bandits to justice—or help them confront the real threat?

Diverting Destruction. A would-be dragon master is using magically empowered totems to charm two red dragons, and the characters have only hours to stop his ritual. How many totems they find and destroy determines whether they face no dragons, one enslaved dragon, or arrive too late altogether.

Power’s Price. The followers of the witch Mömielle are spreading chaos with malformed flesh golems, dark oozes, and other twisted creations. The characters can investigate the witches’ experiments, uncover more about Mömielle’s organization, and potentially put themselves directly in her sights.

Rocks and Pools. A roadside encounter leads to soldiers enthralled by a green hag calling herself Queen Grendaleaf. The characters must decide how far they’ll go to save her victims while navigating poisonous crystal traps, enchanted warriors, and a hag who may be willing to bargain.

Wartime Boons. An attack by the Wayfinders reveals a hidden magical well—and a portal to the Feywild—that could become a powerful asset in the coming siege of Edgerton. The characters must decide how to protect the site before the Wayfinders return to claim it for themselves.

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Compatibility

Lair Zine is designed to be compatible with both D&D 5e (2014) and D&D 5.5e (2024). There will not be separate books for each version. Instead, the zine is primarily written to be compatible with the 2014 rules. Sidebars will provide information on how to use the content with the 2024 ruleset with the fewest number of changes possible.

Fulfillment Timeline
Lair Zine will be fulfilled within a couple months of the project closing.

AI was not used to create the Lair Zine. Everything in the zine was created by artists and writers.