The author of Graystone Tower asked me to review his adventure and I am happy to do so. I crossed the path with Jim the first time a long time ago when I wrote Savage Space. He provided me with a review copy of his adventure. This is a reading review, I have neither run nor played it. I try to avoid overly specific spoilers but if you read this you WILL be spoiled about certain aspects. You are warned. Players: get out.

Graystone Tower consist of two PDF, one in the usual, good-looking BareBonesFantasy trade dress and one printer friendly. Additionally all maps from the adventure in 300 DPI JPG depicting the tower itself and an area map. Both are full color and look very nice. The Tower map is sparse, just showing the interior but no furniture or other details. Works for me though, makes it easier to be creative with a rooms contents and makes it possible to easily hand it to the players after the adventure when they want to make the place their own. The maps included are very re-usable, as usual from DwD Studios.

The adventure aims at low-level characters. The basic premise: There is this tower where someone evil sits and someone hires the characters to clear it out. As a reward they can win the title to the Tower and the surrounding lands. This is a great price to win indeed, even though the setup is very formulaic.

The PDF begins with a short overview of what to expect within. There is also some advice given on how to place the locale in the Keranak Kingdoms, BBF's official setting. There are sidebars encouraging GM to change the adventure to suit their needs. I appreciate these tips, even though they aim at newer GM. That is not a bad thing at all.

Before the characters actually reach the Tower they first have to travel along a road towards its. During that journey there are three different encounters. One ties to the deeper background of the Keranak Kingdoms and two set up the tower as a dangerous place as well as the potential enemy. There is one where the characters can help a victim of the BBEG with tips on how to “escalate” the situation in interesting ways, turning it into a dangerous roleplaying situation (Peasants with Pitchforks anyone?). Even though the encounters have numbers 1, 2, 3 the sidebar in the beginning advises any GM to not necessarily railroad the players in them. However on the map they are in the same order. You can shuffle the order of course, or leave something out. But still, the overall journey part is very straight forward .

Upon reaching the Tower the players propably will investigate and try to figure out what is going on. The structure consists of 12 rooms, only three rooms are actually occupied. You can discover something interesting in every room though. There are some really cool features in the tower that make it perfect for a spellcaster home as well as some unique and hidden treasures. Just do not expect tons of fighting. But there is enough and even one that might proof very deadly very quickly. All room descriptions begin with a short stat block like entry. Here an example:

Room 2: Door O‐2: Heavy Oak door, unlocked, untrapped, opens into room 2. Door 2‐3: Heavy wooden door, unlocked, untrapped, opens into room 3. Room: “torchlit”, quiet, occupied.

I totally dig this. More adventures should use this kind of no-nonsense stat block for room descriptions. It shows me what I need to know at a glance. More detail in the text. If a room is occupied the creature or NPC stats are right there in a sidebar, so no searching. Very thought out.

In classic dungeon crawl method the players sooner or later will discover that not everything is as expected. Sadly I feel the ending is not as strong as it could be. For one there is no motivation given for the final NPC. Why does he do what he does? A question I find important to answer. Also it seems written with the assumption that the players are not totally paranoid and a trusting lot. In my experience that is rarely the case. I would like to see more details here on ways this can go south and flow differently than expected. While the beginning of the adventure is beginner friendly the ending leaves you a bit alone. Because I can guarantee that not a single thing expected to happen here would happen in any of my groups. They are all a suspicious lot. Additionally some tips on roleplaying the character would be appreciated, as it is mainly a dialogue and any guidance is helpful in such a situation.

Lastly there are some seeds for further adventures. The appendix contains all the NPC, new monsters and magic items. Everything easy to find.

Overall a solid adventure, well written. Just a bit short of what it could be. There is this a good-looking hex map of the tower and surrounding area, but there are no locations given for further adventures. A missed opportunity I feel, especially considering the players can inherit the place. The ending could use some work, as it expects things going a certain way without offering any advice on what to do they don't. In its sum the adventure does more right then wrong and I hope a new adventure by Jim improves on the groundwork he has done here. Overall for 2,99 it is a good offering, enough adventure to last you an evening with a cool player base as a reward for further shenanigans.

The artwork itself is really good and i am looking forward to use it all in my Campaign. The size of the illustrations is perfect, and they print good. All the normal rings are good looking and everyone is unique. You can use them to illustrate alot of different Rings. Also you can colorize them easily if you want to and use one picture for different rings. The colorization is easy enough to do.

Now, the bad would be that almost half of the rings presented are not qiet usable for me. Piercings are just not that common in my fantasy campaignworld :) But your milage may wary, depending if you use nasal rings, lip piercings and bellybuttonpiercings in your campaign. But i must admit they are as well drawn as the others, so from an art point of view nothing to complain, and in a Modern game they would be very much usable.

All in all I am very Happy with my purchase, and i keep my eyes open for more releases by this artist.

Great supplement if you need to outfit a city or village with some shops. The presentation is good and the layout fitting. The Locales itself are not too extraordinary but also not Bland. There is a bit from everything in it. The Shops are very well presented from description, to inventorys to NPCs and even Plot Hooks. Each and everyone easily usable in any Fantasy Campaign.

My only gripe is that there are no Maps or exterior illustrations to go with the shops, wich kind of takes some value away for me. But still very usefull if you dont need maps or dont have a problem to create some of your own.

I liked this supplement almost as much as the Halfling player in my group liked it. He now is on the quest to become the most famous cook in my world and is out there adventuring to get the newest and weirdest ingredients for his creations.

The PDF is well thought out and very well structured, just like we are used to from Ronin Arts.

The Foods departement is a tad thin, and not that original. After all its Basicly nothing else but "Potions as food". I would have also like a bit more on different or exotic ingridients for foods. All in all its usable in any Campaign and is great if you have players who want to have something to do with food or you want to have some other means of delivering magical effects to players then potions. (Lembas anyone? G)

Great PDF i will get alot of use out of. My Bard Player is kinda annoyed that there are so few real "Entertainment" Spells in standard DnD and the Material presented here is right up his alley. Especially the "Spells" part of this PDF is good, since it neaty summarizes all spells usable in a performance with tips on how and also adds some new ones.

The "Roleplaying Alert" parts of this document, like in their other products, are a good read and can give you some inspirations or ideas.

If you look for new "Combat enhancements" then this might be not for you, but if you want to have some "Fun" this is for you.

If you want some focus in your campaign on Tobbaco and pipes this is your supplement. May it be the wizard who wants to look like Gandalf, or the Halfling or Gnome that just wants to smoke to relax, or an alchemist who wants to create something else then potions. Everyone can get a use out of this book. Some of the Material presented here is quiet interesting, and some of the Tobaccos really "Magical" ;)

Not a necessity for a campaign, but it shure adds flavor! I will use most of it in my Game.

Some very weird armors in there, and each unique on its own. SOme can be used blindly while others might be a tad to weird for most "standard" campaigns. Even though every single one is a good inspiration. If you like the other similar products, like a dozen masterwork weapons, you can?t go wrong with this one. Recommended for DMs who are either lazy like me, pressed for time or just need some inspiration.

Great takem and throw em in your campaign Weapons. Some of them have really interesting backgrounds and could spark adventures all on their own. Perfect for the DM who is either Lazy as i am or just pressed for time or needs some fresh inspiration.

Basicly this is a random Weapon Generator. The Generator is easy and fast enough to go through and could be a great help if you are pressed for time and need to create some Treasure. But you have to be carefull, there are no "By Party Level" tables so you can?t just roll ahead.

Also you get some more Exotic weapons and some new Item properties wich look OK. There is also the addition of a "Grand Masterwork Weapon" Type, wich i personally feel is not needed.

What i am missing most and i was actually looking forward to would have been an expansion of some of the Tables presented in the "Artifact" tome. Notably the "Made by" "Why" "material" etc tables, basicly everything that adds flavour to the Weapon. Here you get all Stats and no flavor. Too bad, i hope in future releases in this series we might get some more expanded "Flavour" tables.

Personally, if i had known there wouldn?t be any new, more detailed, "flavour" tables, i wouldn?t have bought this PDF.

Absolutely stunning work. A wide variety of Items with an elven theme. Even though most are not that elvish that you could?nt use it for something else. :-) From Boots, to Armors, Amulets, Weapons and even some Plants, there is alot of usable material in here. For 40 artpieces this is a real bargain you can?t go wrong with at that price!

The Bad: Most of the Items have a bit too much shading for my taste, wich doesn?t look that good on my cheap Inkjet. I?d suggest printing them out on a good quality Laserprinter.

All in all well worth my money, and I look forward to future releases.