Nightmares of desert horrors trouble the dreams of the innocent while raiders grow ever bolder beyond the walls of the great city-state of Tyr. Children cry of midnight portents, and mercantile houses fear the disruption of their trade. Bandits and merchants chase rumors of a temple hidden in the desert, an ancient shrine to the primordial Ul-Athra said to safeguard a fragment of the artifact known as the Crown of Dust. Can the heroes recover a caravan lost in the wastes, repel the threat of vicious raiders, and win the relic from the perilous temple?
During the Green Age of Athas, civilization reached its zenith, and great structures were built above and below the surface of the earth. Today, lost ruins of that period lie across the Tablelands and beyond. Most of these crumbling structures are empty and worthless, but others have endured the ages, still guarding the secrets of ancient days.
Recently, gith nomads discovered the Face in the Stone, an old temple northeast of Tyr. Within the shrine, the gith found doors that bore runes referring to the relic of Ul-Athra, an entity also known as the Dust Kraken or the Mouths of Thirst. While trying to open the doors, the gith were attacked by creatures in the temple. The surviving nomads fled and made for the base of the raider lord Yarnath the Skull, hoping that he would reward their discovery. However, before the gith could reach Slither, Yarnath’s crawling citadel, a sandstorm caught them unprotected in the desert and slew them.
Later, Yarnath’s raiders found fragments of a journal among the nomads’ remains and pieced together what the gith had found, but the bandits did not know the location of the ruin. In addition, they found hints that the sandstorm that killed the gith was unnatural.
Intrigued, Yarnath became determined to find the Face in the Stone and its mysterious relic. He turned his attention to merchant caravans that passed through the area, hoping to force caravaneers to give up the location of the ruin. Unfortunately for the raider lord, so far everyone has been ignorant of the old temple.
Marauders of the Dune Sea is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for five 2nd-level player characters. It can be played as a follow-up to the short adventure in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting. The characters should approach or reach 4th level by the end of the adventure.


