Keys From the Golden Vault

Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition

by Wizards of the Coast

An anthology of 13 heist-themed adventures for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Some jobs require more than simply wielding a sword or slinging a spell. Whether it’s procuring a well-guarded item or obtaining crucial information from an imprisoned contact, these tasks require careful planning and flawless execution. The secretive organization called the Golden Vault specializes in hiring crews for such jobs, and for the most daunting assignments—pursuing fabulous treasures and stopping dire threats—that crew is your characters.

Keys from the Golden Vault ™ is a collection of 13 short, standalone Dungeons & Dragons adventures designed for characters levels 1–11. These adventures can be placed in any setting and you can run them as one-shot games or link them together into a campaign. This book also includes in-world maps to help players plan their heists, plus advice for running nontraditional games with high risks and huge rewards.

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Gaming, Fiction, Adventure, Games

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Justine Cucchi-Dietlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great resource for D&D 5e one shots. I felt this was much better-written than Candlekeep Mysteries, which was hit-and-miss depending on the one shot. I plan to use many of the adventures in this book either in their original or a modified format.

[Pádraic]

At the outset, the real problem with this book is that running heists isn't a particularly good use of the fifth edition ruleset. Anyone with a little experience can tell you that getting players to plan walking to the shops can take an hour; planning a full heist would be a nightmare. The solution, of course, is to not plan the heist, and use the flashback system from Blades in the Dark instead. Or, you know, just run a Blades in the Dark game. It's not a system that I love or anything, but you can't deny that this genre is its entire deal.

Well, anyway, for a lot of the adventures in this anthology, this isn't an issue, because they're not really heists at all, just regular D&D adventures wearing some unconvincing facepaint. Some of them are good though! Even my relentless negativity evaporates in the face of some decent game design. I'll break them down individually.

The Murkmire Malevolence. A fun little museum caper, with an evening gala event, opportunities for rampaging dinosaurs and some real Alien-level chaos if things go wrong. It mostly avoids the usual traps of first-level adventures (in that they're frequently boring as shit).

The Stygian Gambit. As far as I can tell there are two bits of CGI art in this book, instead of the usual painterly stuff. The first piece is here; it's bad. This one also has 'pass cards' and 'security mirrors' and 'copper slots', which is maybe too much modern tech by other names for your fantasy heist. I get why they've done it, but there was definitely another way to do it. Although the hell theme of the casino is fun, I think it's not enough. Probably the description and flavour could really elevate this one. Without them, it's just regular.

Reach for the Stars. Genuinely could not remember this one at all after finishing the book. Upon a refresh, it's fine. It's nothing I haven't seen before in a dozen other adventures, a bit tedious, and also definitely not a heist.

Prisoner 13. Now this here is a heist. I remember this location from Rime of the Frostmaiden, and it's a good one: a high security prison in the frozen north. Multiple avenues of entrance, multiple ways to complete the mission, all of it feeling tense and high stakes but not requiring any high level abilities to get through, really you just need to be clever (this is also good because high level D&D makes the heist genre superfluous). That said, these adventures make a big deal out of player's map vs DM's map, and here, as in many others, they're exactly the same.

Tockworth's Clockworks. This is actually pretty good, a nice little haunted steampunk sandbox to run around in, with a real undercurrent of tragedy to it. Plus there's an actual meaningful discrepancy between the player's map and the DM's map. It is, however, absolutely not a heist at all, come on.

Masterpiece Imbroglio. Now this is a heist, and a good one, stealing an intelligent portrait from a thieves' guild. Thieving from thieves is never a good idea, and their base is filled with interesting little things, people and places that are not what they seem, and all of it supporting multiple different approaches for the players. It doesn't have any astonishing flavour or anything, but would that everything in the book had this baseline level of heistyness.

Axe from the Grave. All-time great NPC names in Mackerel Mudbottom and Trout Bonanza, all-time terrible NPC name in Mytchyl. Also the player map is a sandcastle, which is very cool. The music school is a neat setting (although one of the students doesn't have an instrument or speciality listed, which seems an oversight), and there are complications and good choices to make. The use of demons to just attack the party on sight is lame, however, particularly in this heist genre.

Vidorant's Vault. Passable. Good rooms and such, details for gathering information in different ways, mechanics for guard patrols (why don't the others in the book have this?). There are some NPCs mentioned that the target meets with and it says more investigation will be required to find out who they are, and then it doesn't tell you who they are? Normally they say shit like 'this is outside the scope of this adventure' but honestly here is feels like it got cut or something, the party are definitely going to want to know who those people are, they seem important. Anyway, this is otherwise a fine enough heist, if a little ho-hum, and the 'twist' at the end isn't much of one.

Shard of the Accursed. Our second piece of CGI art; it's bad. The backstory for this one is so overcomplicated, with so little way of communicating it to the players, and then the conclusion involves being possessed and someone else solving it for you?? Yet another example, bloody endemic to adventure writing for some reason, of the players wandering into a story that has nothing to do with them at all. It's also not really a heist, not even a reverse one like it claims. Worst in the book, hands down.

Heart of Ashes. Now this one's not bad. It has a very cool aesthetic of the castle collapsing upwards into a void, it's apocalyptic and has multiple different approaches and success/fail conditions. This is the sort of very high fantasy heist that the book ought to be full of, really, using this genre to its utmost extent. Maybe I just prefer high-level play.

Affair on the Concordant Express. I never really understood the appeal of modrons. One of the maps here is also mislabelled, where have the resources of a massive corporation got you, hmm? Anyway, it tries to win me over by being set on an interdimensional train and then absolutely blows it. The bits and pieces here, the actual contents of the carriages, are boring. The one-carriage murder mystery, for instance, is garbage. It's all a bit thin, and squanders its great premise. Also, not a heist.

Party at Paliset Hall. Pretty fun! Feels heisty, everybody loves a feywild ball, but it doesn't seem as dense as some of the others. What it really needs is a table of events to roll on, or a schedule that plays out over the course of the evening. Besides that, the stuff with the malevolent entity from the far realm feels a little toothless, given the supposed great horror of it.

Fire and Darkness. Decent, actually. A hellish fortress with far too many demons and etc to fight, but there's betrayals to be had, factions to manipulate, and a prison riot to instigate. One of the best in the book, saved for last.

Each adventure has some plot hooks (not great ones), and then the framing device of the Golden Vault, an organisation that does crimes, but for good reasons. This isn't to my tastes at all. Let your players be a little evil, as a treat. There's also some guidelines on complicating the heists, moving the item the players are there to steal, or introducing a rival gang. This is good advice, as it goes, but I could have done with more specifics for actually using them in play. And as with Curse of the Netherdeep, you've got to be very careful with rivals so that the players don't just murder them immediately on sight.

I keep reading these books to see if there's anything I can use, and anthologies are particularly good for that, but less than half of these adventures are worthwhile, in my view. Also, don't publish a book and claim it's full of heists and then have a bunch of them not be heists! Did we learn nothing from Dragon Heist, with its heist in the bloody title and then no heist to be seen in its pages? Get it together, people.

[Geordie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been pretty disappointed by the majority of 5e official adventures, but I kind of liked this one. It had some flaws, but some of the adventures I'd gladly used, and I didn't hate any of them. There was a decent variety, though they're supposed to all be "heists" some of them could be run just like traditional "kick down the door and kill the evil overlord" type adventurers. I initially felt a little cheated by that, but have come around to thinking it's nice to allow a variety of play styles, and no doubt about it, every adventure is designed to be far easier if the PCs are smart and tactical.

Among the flaws, the adventures were written by several writers, and it shows. There are style differences and ruling differences, the tones are often different, and a few adventures feel rushed. Some adventures are pretty deadly, especially the level 1 adventure has far too many powerful creatures and traps, including a CR 2 monster that, in addition to being powerful enough to kill at least 1 PC without effort, serves ZERO purpose to the adventure. It's not the boss at the end of the quest, it's a deadly monster hanging out in a storage room. Some of the adventures have more appropriate challenges, but just don't feel right for the level anyway. The level 2 adventure is robbing a big-money casino, the owner of which has powerful fiends and high level wizard for allies. It's tough, but it IS appropriate a level 2 party. Why the heck isn't this an adventure for higher levels? And the level 4 adventure is breaking into the most secure prison in the Forgotten Realms. Level 4 just doesn't feel right! On the opposite side, the level 6 adventure is recovering a musical instrument stolen from a bard's grave by a petty music teacher. It feels like THIS scenario would have fit a level 1 or 2 party better. And the level 8 adventure was a real oddball, involving a ritual that put an immense curse on an entire kingdom. There are a lot of moving parts on this adventure, and it feels like it should be for epic level play. How can this wizard turn everyone in the kingdom into a loyal ash monster but not have the power to wipe a level 8 party off the map?

On the plus side, again, I didn't hate anything. Big plus. The level 6 and 8 adventures were a lot of fun, with lots of smart opportunities for the party to roleplay and to use their wits. In fact, every adventure gave opportunities (and DM freedom) to solve problems creatively. The art was good, and most of the adventures gave plenty of tips for how the DM could handle PC creativity.

I don't know if I'd ever want to run a campaign that was heavy on heists, but if that's what my party was hoping for, I wouldn't hesitate to lean on this book for some good ideas.

[Ross Kitson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology of short heist themed adventures proved to be fun and innovative. Although slimmer than most anthology books for DnD (such as the Candlekeep and Radiant Citadel ones) it's still 208 pages and doesn't squander too much time on setting. That might frustrate new DMs or those wanting to make a campaign out of it, and indeed dropping this into an existing campaign world like FR would need some work.
The 13 adventures in here are each 1-2 sessions, depending on your players and whether they are gung ho, casual planners, or obsessive planners! They all present in traditional heist style: a hook (which might be the Key schtick, which is really cool), a contact, a crappy map, gathering intel/casing the joint, and then the heist.
Some of the heists push the remit rather, and are kind of dungeons/normal short adventures dressed up with a mcguffin to grab. Fortunately these ones (Reach for Stars, Tockworths clockworks, Fire and Darkness) are each nicely done adventures so easy to forgive. of the more classic heist we have museums, casinos, prisons, mansions, vaults, thieves guilds, castles, abandoned temples (not a classic heist agreeably), a ball, and an interdimensional train to rob (,or reverse Rob in some cases). The Concordant Express is a great concept that I'll definitely use, just not with the rather patchy structure as written.
Coolness aside, I think this would appeal to more veteran DMS who wouldn't mind some fleshing out and extra material to make PCs work for the levels, who would expand on rivals and rival organisations, and also have the experience to run some of these adventures which are often well written settings, but without guidance on how the heist might be done. Many of these could go south very quickly with daft players, bad rolls, or playing tough with the players. The mechanics could have been refined more here (like alert levels, reorganization after failed attempts, consequences of failure or details of capture) which is more of an issue with 5e as a system for crime stories (Blades in the Dark is said to be much better, and their might be mechanics there that could be imported into here).
Ultimately I think I'll adapt 2/3 of these for my upcoming campaign which is a rendition of Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Tomb of Annihilation. Solid 4 stars for me.

[Arseni Kritchever · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will keep this review short because I don't want to spoil any specific adventures in it, and also because I only ran a couple of adventures from the book and read over the rest. I think this is the best story anthology Wizards of the Coast put out so far, aside from may Ghosts of Saltmarsh. While it lacks some of the intriguing world building of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, the adventure design is much more solid than either Radiant Citadel or Candlekeep Mysteries (although in my opinion that's not a high bar to beat - Candlekeep Mysteries was a terrible adventure book in most respects). Although notionally the theme of the anthology is heists, there's actually quite a good variety of adventures and a fantastic diversity of fun environments, from museums to Hell-themed casinos, to inter-planar magical trains. The adventures I ran were very fun, and most of the adventures I haven't run yet looked fun too. My only gripes with the book is the print quality and some of the art: the colors look quite faded, the paper feels rather thin and flimsy compared to many other RPG products, the spine is glued (so it doesn't feel sturdy), and there are some art pieces throughout the book I really didn't care much for (it looked like those cheap glossy-looking CG art, very stiff and boring looking).

If you are looking to run some fun crime capers in D&D or just need a quick one-shot adventure, you could do worse than Keys From the Golden Vault.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of adventures consisting of 13 heists where you have to steal (or occasionally return), an item or items from highly secured places, from museums to casinos, to underground lairs, magical trains or even a volcano fortress. These adventures have a nice variety and are quite amusing.

There are two ways to play this, the DM can use the heists as a kind of palate cleanser in another campaign, or this can be played as its own campaign with the players as agents of the Golden Vault, a kind of good aligned thieves guild who tries to capture dangerous artifacts from dangerous people to avoid disaster, for example.

It really feels like it would be more effective not to use this book as a campaign but as a reference book for creating heist-like missions for players, or as something to interpolate in a campaign. A campaign solely composed of 13 independent heists is a bit of a repetitive one, particularly if the DM doesn't make up some kind of more overarching plot than what is really available here, which is pretty much nothing. So, a good anthology but not a fantastic one. As a note, the limited edition cover exclusive to brick and mortar stores is really beautiful and I'm glad I got it.

[Sean]

A fun anthology of 13 heist adventures, most of which present at least one novel element. The short intro suggests a couple complications that can be added to any heist—a false MacGuffin or a team of rivals (briefly profiled) competing to complete the heist first (with a reason suggested for each adventure); several of the adventures also point out a place where you could add or intensify an encounter if things have been too easy. The heists are satisfyingly diverse and ramp up not just in combat/skills challenge but also somewhat in size and complexity. I particularly like the inclusion of a source-sketched players’ map in each adventure, and how the higher level adventures increasingly add complications there (misremembered information, fragments missing, changes since the map was drawn). The use of the Golden Vault as a patron is disappointingly underdeveloped, and no attempt is made to tie the heists together into a larger campaign, so those elements would take extensive work by a DM to be useful. A few of the later heists mention a (usually Radiant Citadel) world in which they can take place, which is a nice suggestion I wish had been included more consistently. Overall these are pretty satisfying and easy to drag and drop into campaigns.

[Neveah · Rating 3 out of 5]

These scenarios are ‘okay with a hint of greatness’. I think it tries to be too much, because heists are HARD, and tbh most of these stories are a bit of a brief rumble with the promise of more. The train heist is absolutely terrible, just a really cliched series of characters and the whodunnit is tbh, boring. It also relies on my least favourite artefact, an invisible ring of mind shielding (aka, we want this guy to be untouchable so he just is, okay?). I hate this almost completely unfindable item. Anyway, one scenario does not a book make and fortunately some of the others are better. Overall however, what this supplement shows is that you can’t force a rumble, and it really is down to the players. The alt cover is very very nice though.

[Jon Allanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent sourcebook, filled with numerous adventures I thoroughly enjoyed reading. All of the adventures are heist-style adventures, but are varied and distinct so as not to become repetitive. I was pleased with the creativity and variety of locations and situations on display here. I look forward to running these for my various gaming groups.

[Brian Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book of one shot adventures. I like to use these as a jumping off point for developing sessions with my rouge heavy group and it's been pretty good. I find it annoying that certain pieces of information like monster stats will be left out that would be included in an adventure from an independent publisher, presumably to force purchase of other books like the Monsters Manual.

[POLIK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good adventures filled with huge amount of traps and situations, which can happen in different heist mission. I've personally applied several of the ideas in my own campaign. Hardcover also gives a lot of fast to find random encounter tables. Speaking about all the books published in 2023, this is one of the best in that list. That's why 4 stars. If you want some really tense heists, consider buying this book.

[Mark Reece · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good quality anthology of mini-adventures. I found this similar to other Wizards of the Coast books, in that it provided a good framework to weave into other stories, although there were often too many empty rooms, and too many characters from the amount of plot in the stories.

Overall, a useful resource for DMs.

[Jamison Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The adventures are better than what you will find in the Radiant Citadel. It would be easy to drop most of these adventures into any D&D game. I'd rate the maps included a 2/5 stars. If you want to learn how to run a heist in D&D this isn't what you are looking for.

[Jon Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for adventures that is for sure. However, there is some work to be done when putting it into your adventure. As the locations are in some existing settings such as the Prison in Icewind dale it takes some work if you have not mentioned it before.

[Eric Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best ideas for a campaign but not a campaign series of modules in a while. Creative ideas for a series heists.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proof that D&D and the heist genre can productively talk to each other. Fantasy/heist has been done so well in Scott Lynch's work already it had to be possible!

[Charlotte Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all books that contain an anthology of one shots, there were some I liked more than others, but overall, I'm really excited to run these and see how creative players can get with the heists.

[Amélie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of fun adventures, and I really like the flexibility in being able to play them as one-shots or as one big campaign. Illustrations are gorgeous as usual.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely looking forward to running some of these but after reading 11 in a row I’m not sure if I could differentiate among the BBEGs

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun anthology