Through the Breach Penny Dreadful: What They Are and How to Run Them

Quick answer

A Through the Breach Penny Dreadful is a self-contained adventure book for the Through the Breach roleplaying game, built to run in a small number of sessions. Use one when you want a complete, low-prep story you can drop into an ongoing campaign or play as a one-shot. Read it end to end before your first session, decide whether it is canon or a side story, and pre-select the clues your players must find so the plot cannot stall.

Penny Dreadfuls solve a specific problem for Fatemasters: you want to run Through the Breach tonight, but you do not want to build a scenario from scratch. Each Penny Dreadful is a finished adventure with its own cast, locations, and stakes, so your prep time goes into understanding the story rather than inventing it.

This guide walks through what these adventures are, how to choose one, and an ordered process for running it well. The advice applies whether you are running a one-shot for new players or threading a Penny Dreadful into an established campaign.

What a Penny Dreadful actually contains

A Penny Dreadful is a standalone adventure module for Through the Breach, the tabletop roleplaying game set in the same world as Malifaux. It gives the Fatemaster a complete scenario: a situation, the people caught up in it, the places the Fated will visit, and the events that unfold if nobody intervenes. Because the adventure is self-contained, you can run it without owning a long campaign arc.

The practical difference from a campaign book is scope. A Penny Dreadful is designed to resolve in a handful of sessions, which makes it ideal for a one-shot night, a convention slot, or a break between larger storylines. If you are new to Through the Breach, a Penny Dreadful is also one of the easiest ways to learn the game's tone before committing to a full campaign.

• Check the session count before you commit. A four-session adventure needs four evenings, not one.
• Penny Dreadfuls assume the core Through the Breach rules. You still need the core rulebook to run one.

How to choose the right Penny Dreadful

Match the adventure to your group's appetite for investigation, horror, and combat. Some Penny Dreadfuls lean into mystery and legwork, while others push toward confrontation. Read the opening situation and the antagonist's plan first; those two things tell you more about the table experience than any summary.

Also consider where the adventure sits in the setting. An Earthside mystery plays very differently from one set in Malifaux, and your players' expectations shift with the location. If your group already knows Malifaux, an Earthside story can feel like a change of air; if they are new, a Malifaux-set adventure introduces the world they will spend most of their time in.

• For a focused investigative night, Penny Dreadful: Obsidian Gate is a four-session Earthside mystery with a clear deadline.



• For a campaign that needs more player options rather than a new plot, expansion books such as Through the Breach: From Nightmares and Through the Breach: Into the Steam add character material instead of an adventure.

Preparing a Penny Dreadful without over-prepping

Read the whole adventure once before you prep anything. Penny Dreadfuls often hide the real shape of the story behind an early scene, and knowing the ending changes how you present the beginning. After that first read, write a one-page cheat sheet: the antagonist's goal, the three clues the Fated must find, and the two scenes you are most excited to run.

Then decide how the adventure connects to your campaign. If it is canon, note which NPCs or factions should recur afterward. If it is a side story, tell your players up front so they do not derail the main plot chasing loose ends. Either way, pre-select the clues that cannot be missed; a mystery that stalls because of one failed roll is a prep problem, not a player problem.

• Common mistake: prepping every location in detail and none of the NPC motivations. Motivations are what you improvise from.
• Checkpoint: if you cannot state the antagonist's plan in one sentence, reread before session one.

Running the adventure across sessions

Open with the hook, not the history. Penny Dreadfuls usually give you a strong inciting incident; lead with it and let the backstory emerge through play. Keep a visible list of open questions so your players can see what they have learned and what still nags at them.

Pace by session count. If the adventure is built for four sessions, aim to close one major thread per session. End each session on a decision or a discovery rather than a lull, and recap the stakes in two sentences at the start of the next one. This keeps a multi-session Penny Dreadful feeling like a story instead of a sequence of rooms.

• Common mistake: letting investigation run long with no pressure. Use the adventure's own deadline or a ticking consequence.
• Checkpoint: at the end of each session, ask what the Fated intend to do next and prep only that.

Making it fit your table

Penny Dreadfuls are written for a default group, but your table is specific. Adjust the number of combat encounters to your group's taste, and reskin NPCs if a player has history with a similar character. The structure of the mystery matters more than any single stat block.

If you are running a one-shot, cut ruthlessly. Keep the hook, the central mystery, and the climax, and summarize the middle. If you are running it as part of a campaign, do the opposite: slow down, let the players build relationships with the adventure's NPCs, and let the consequences spill into later sessions.

• For one-shots, pre-generate characters or use the Through the Breach: Male Multi-Part Kit to build a cast quickly.
• For campaigns, decide before session one whether the Penny Dreadful's events are canon.

How to run a Penny Dreadful: step by step

1. Read the whole adventure first: Finish the book before you prep a single scene. You need the antagonist's plan and the intended ending in your head before you decide how to present the opening. Checkpoint: you can summarize the plot in three sentences without looking at the book.
2. Decide canon or side story: Tell your players whether this adventure's events will matter to the wider campaign. This sets expectations and stops them from chasing every thread as if it were the main plot. Common mistake: leaving this ambiguous, then being surprised when players ignore the main campaign.
3. Write a one-page cheat sheet: List the antagonist's goal, the clues the Fated must find, and the scenes you most want to run. Keep it in front of you during play instead of flipping through the book. Checkpoint: every essential clue is reachable without a single lucky roll.
4. Match the session count to your calendar: A four-session Penny Dreadful needs four real evenings. If you only have one, cut the middle and run the hook, the central mystery, and the climax. Common mistake: starting a multi-session adventure with no scheduled follow-up.
5. Open with the hook: Lead with the inciting incident and let backstory surface through play. Keep a visible list of open questions so players can track what they know. Checkpoint: the first ten minutes give the Fated a reason to act.
6. Pace one thread per session: Close a major thread each session and end on a decision or discovery. Recap the stakes in two sentences at the start of the next session. Common mistake: ending a session mid-investigation with no new information.
7. Adjust to your table, then stop prepping: Tune combat frequency, reskin NPCs, and decide what consequences carry forward. Once the essentials are set, prep only what the players said they would do next. Checkpoint: you know the next scene and nothing more is required.

Products that support Penny Dreadful play

• Penny Dreadful: Obsidian Gate: A four-session adventure in which an ancient evil waits behind a sacred gate and a doomsday cult has decided the wait is over; the Fated investigate an obsidian Buddha, a glowing gem, and fanatics in a quiet coastal town in Japan. The four-session structure and clear deadline make it a strong choice for a short arc or a focused convention game, and the Earthside setting gives your group a change of pace from Malifaux.
• Through the Breach: From Nightmares: An expansion book that opens the campaign to the Neverborn, with Fated origins including Nephilim, Woe, Nightmare, or Mimic, plus strange magic and vicious tools. Use it when your players want to play the things waiting in the dark rather than investigate them, and when you want new character options to carry between Penny Dreadfuls.
• Through the Breach: Into the Steam: An expansion book set in Arcanist territory north of Malifaux City, adding new Pursuits, unusual technologies, and the option to play a sentient machine. A good fit if your group leans toward invention, rebellion, and technology, and it gives the Fatemaster new factions and locations to hang adventures on.
• Through the Breach: Male Multi-Part Kit: A multi-part plastic kit with enough material to build up to eleven 32mm heroic-scale miniatures for Through the Breach. One box can supply an entire campaign's cast, so you can put a face on the Fated and the NPCs a Penny Dreadful introduces without hunting for individual models.

A Penny Dreadful gives you a complete Through the Breach story with a defined ending, which is exactly what you want when prep time is short or your group wants a break from a long campaign. Read it fully, decide how it connects to your game, and run it with a light hand. If you want a focused four-session mystery to start with, Penny Dreadful: Obsidian Gate is built for exactly that.