Do you want your holiday parties to be filled with more dungeon diving than Dirty Santa? If so, these DnD Christmas one-shots for 5e are going to have your halls decked in no time. Whether you’re looking for holiday happiness or horror, if you’re having a Christmas DnD hankering, any one of the one-shots below should scratch that itch.
From saving Santa Claus from a Christmas Witch to jarring a Gingerbread Golem’s jingle bells, these are practically the perfect presents for your party. This list includes the following holiday-themed adventures, in no particular order:
Claus for Concern
Claus for Concern is my own Adamantine bestselling Christmas one-shot! How cool is that? (Pun always intended!)
Since its release in 2020, it’s reached the highest status on DMsGuild and is in the top 0.5% of all titles published there. As of this writing, Claus for Concern has been downloaded over 27,000 times and has a solid 5-star rating.
It’s totally FREE, too! Well, it’s technically Pay What You Want, but that can be $0! 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.
Welcome to GingerDEAD House
For those of you who want a little body horror for the holidays, you’ll love Welcome to GingerDEAD House. The party gets transported to the inside of a snow globe with a gingerbread house, but things aren’t quite as sweet as they look on the outside.
After finding a series of dismembered gingerbread people, the party has to fight for their lives as they try to escape the demiplane in which they’ve been trapped. Christmas DnD at its finest, I tell you.
Like my other holiday adventures, GingerDEAD House is Pay What You Want, so you can get it for FREE.
How the Lich Stole Christmas
How the Lich Stole Christmas is one of the most popular DnD Christmas one-shot adventures on DMsGuild. It 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.
How the Demilich Saved Christmas
There’s a sequel now, too! If you couldn’t get enough lichy shenanigans in the first one, you can now continue your adventure with the next in the series. It’s just as high-quality as the original DnD Christmas one-shot, and you shouldn’t think twice about shelling out the $3.95 pricetag.
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.
Danger in a Midwinter Wonderland
Danger in a Midwinter Wonderland is a DnD Christmas one-shot that 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 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
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. It means there’s depth here, but isn’t too complicated for a Christmas DnD one-shot if you’ve had a bit too much eggnog at the party.
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, if you’re a weirdo like I am.
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 pre-generated 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.
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. In other words, it’s a crazy good DnD Christmas one shot.
Side Quests & Stocking Stuffers
Side Quests & Stocking Stuffers 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.
While the side quests aren’t 4-5 hour one-shot adventures, they can be run as-is, giving your holiday group a bite-sized bit of DnD Christmas fun.
Merry Monster Mashing in Your DnD Christmas Shenanigans
The winter holidays are amazing for Dungeons & Dragons. What’s not to love about getting together with those you love, rolling dice, and saving Santa (or killing him).
These are just some of the amazing DnD Christmas one-shots out there, so tell me in the comments which ones are your favorites? What should we add to this list as we update it?
Those not enough DnD one shots for you? Then check out the lists I curated at my other site, Geek to Geek Media. I put together a list of the best free non-holiday one-shots for D&D and some of the most creeptastic 5e Halloween adventures.