Before I begin Spoiler warning for the entire adventure!!!

TLDR: The boneyard is a short horror-themed adventure. Overall, it is a really excellent product. It has a few minor flaws, but I would definitely recommend the adventure. It is well worth the $2.95, perfect for a Halloween adventure. If you want to learn more read on!

The adventure begins when the party arrives at an old graveyard called The Boneyard to pay their respects for somewhere dear to them who died some time ago. However, the Boneyard is ‘closed for repairs’ after an earthquake but all is not as it seems. Something foul is definitely afoot. Undead roam the graveyard and dead bodies are being mysteriously exhumed. Throughout the adventure, the party will investigate the graveyard in an attempt to get to the bottom of these strange happenings. The text begins with a bit of background about the boneyard and the gravedigger Drel, who is a ‘dhampir’, basically a ‘kinda vampire’. He is protecting his mother Rasha, who lives in the graveyard. This background also tells you about Slav and Trewdy, the two gnome necromancers who just arrived in the graveyard and are responsible for the undead. This background is quite important as it sets up all the motivation for Drel, who is the main NPC the party will meet. After that, we get into the adventure proper as it describes different areas in The Boneyard and the various goings-on inside. The adventure culminates with the party fighting the two gnome necromancers in a cave beneath the Boneyard.

The adventure is extremely well written and easy to follow, with read-aloud text for every area the party is likely to visit. I’m not usually a fan of random encounters but the random encounters in this adventure work quite well. If you are any bit of an experienced DM you can pick this up, read it in less than 30 minutes and be ready for an evening of good old spooky fun.

This leads me to my first critique of the adventure; however, this is more of a personal preference thing. There is no actual map of the boneyard. This may lead to DMs, especially newer ones, being confused while running the adventure as they don’t know where the locations actually are. Even a rough sketch of the boneyard, nothing fancy, purely for the DM’s use would be really helpful. However, on the flip side of that, it allows DMs to be flexible. If the adventure is getting slow you can just decide ‘alright the party reach the crypt entrance’. Again, this is mainly personal preference. I would prefer a map, so that I know where everything is. Still, this isn’t a big deal because if a DM wanted a map, they could easily whip one up fairly quickly. The adventure also contains no battle map for any of the combat encounters which is disappointing. Not every DM uses battle maps but is nice to have the option and once again helps keep things clear as to where everything is.

The adventure has a very solid plot hook that is expanded on during the adventure. I loved Area C – Grave portents. The characters arrive at the grave of their dead friend to find his body has been dug up by the necromancer wizards. This is really great as instantly the stakes are heightened, and the story is driven forward. Not to mention a potential heart-wrenching scene where the party must fight their undead friend. The main critique I have with the adventure is that some of the encounters feel a bit unbalanced. The main examples of this are the final fight and two of the random encounters, one where the party fight a flameskull and one where the party fight a ghost. With a few unlucky die rolls, I could see these encounters going south fairly quickly. I think this comes from the author trying to make the adventure adaptable for levels 1 – 4. I think it is probably better to choose a level and stick with that. The adventure does say that the necromancers flee when they get low on HP, but I think knowing that the encounters can be challenging is definitely something that a DM needs to be aware of before running the adventure.

The NPCs of the story are overall quite good and well thought out. While we get a bit of information about their background, the two necromancer villains of the story are a bit bland. I would have liked to see some more motivation to explain their actions, but I think they do their job well and don’t really need to be incredibly detailed characters. On the other hand, Drel and Rasha are excellent and very well thought out. I also really like the Detective character.

When I first began reading the adventure, I was skeptical about whether the author was going to be able to fit social encounters into an adventure that takes place in a graveyard. However, I was pleasantly surprised! There is in fact plenty of social encounters. From making a deal with Drel and Rasha to getting help from a priest, to aiding a detective. There are many opportunities for roleplay throughout the adventure. One small problem is what happens if the party doesn’t meet the detective? Or worse yet kill her! There is no written way to progress the story. Again, this is easily worked around. You could have the party glimpse one the necromancers returning to their lair. Still, I would have liked to see other ways to move the story forward written into the adventure.

The adventure ends with the potential for further development, which I love. The party could: explore an ancient forgotten tomb beneath the graveyard, track down one or both of the necromancers who managed to escape and are on the run or find themselves having to defeat Rasha. So to conclude, if you decide to pick up this adventure you’re certainly going to have lots of fun. I think a small bit of extra prep from the DM and a bit of tweaking is necessary before running it but for the price it’s being sold at it does its job well. 4/5 stars

Great adventure for new and returning players. I bought this to run for players who haven't played in years, and it was perfect. The adventure is designed for "old heroes" reuniting after a number of years apart. From the players' perspective, it seems like a straightforward investigation/adventure, but there's some really interesting twists that keep it fresh for experienced players. I think this adventure runs best with a slightly experienced DM. It's a great one-shot that I'm happy to have on call for quick games.

This adventure provides an excellent mini-sandbox with a church of Lathander, a gravekeeper, and a dark secret to discover. It was exactly what I needed for a short side-trek adventure for my 2nd-level PCs. I adjusted a few details to fit my campaign, and the result was a really fun session that prompted a LOT of conversation afterwards.

You can use the bones of this adventure to build just about any kind of play experience you want: action, intrigue, horror. It's well worth the purchase.

My players and I loved this one shot. I stumbled upon it one day when I was looking for one shots I could keep in my back pocket. When half of my game group needed a one shot adventure to play when the rest of the group couldn't make it, I busted out the Boneyard. It was a big hit.

It's well written, easy to run as is, or customize. Also easy to scale. Took us 3-4 hours to play with three 3rd level adventurers (whipped up that night). A little bit of spookiness, a little bit of mystery, and a lot of fighting undead.

Only one player went down in the final showdown. Although, his life was saved by the Cleric.

The Boneyard is a fantastic one-shot adventure for characters level 1 – 4! In it, the PCs are tasked with investigating the Boneyard, a large cemetery that was recently hit by an earthquake. It’s maintained by Drel, an odd man that is secretly a dhampir. His mother, a vampire named Rasha, lives in the cemetery and has been feeding on the townspeople for years. After the earthquake, a pair of gnome necromancers named Slav and Trewdy happened upon the Boneyard and used it for their necromantic experiments, raising the dead and desecrating tombstones. If the party can determine what is behind the recent rise of the undead, they’ll earn the town’s gratitude, but they must make sure not to offend Rasha and Drel or become puppets to the necromancers.

This is a great adventure! The cemetery is complex, and there are a lot of little random encounters. The NPCs are well-written, and the adventure has a lot of neat twists and turns, including befriending a vampire, saving a private eye, and avenging the spirit of the PCs’ fallen comrade. It’s also suitably difficult and the creator has given instructions on how to scale up the adventure as needed. My only real source of criticism is that I wish there were a map. While a map isn’t necessary, it would help orient the various gravesites and provide a nice lay-out for potential encounters.

If you’d like an awesome first tier adventure full of vampires, necromancers, and the undead, you should definitely give this a try! It’s great fun!

Solid adventure for new players and decent for new DMs. It has a great hook (you're all members of an adventuring party visiting the grave of a fallen comrade) that allows a group to have fun developing the story (I homebrewed a handout with picture and epitaph of their comrade, Valos, and had players fill in their character names and make up what killed him).

The adventure begins simple: the graveyard is closed. It could benefit from a troubleshooting section for newer DMs as it has some flaws (e.g. what if the players leave and get the sheriff, or someone is lawful and respects the right of the graveyard to close, or what if the players leave and rest, leave and rest - where's the urgency). The adventure does not have any maps, which forces DMs to make up, on the fly, how far apart the temple, crypts, and graves are, as well as use theatre of the mind or make up maps for combats. Fortunately, the internet has many options.

There's a few design flaws (e.g. allowing the spell "animate dead" to control undead not created by it, which requires a story fix to explain why a particular undead acts in a certain way), and use of a non Monster Manual creature (Redbrand Ruffian, can replace with 1/2 CR Thugs).

Despite the criticisms, with a minor amount of work, this was a good module that took 5 players with pregenerated characters a little over 4 hours to play through. For the price, a good buy.

A really well made adventure that both I and my players loved. The fun we had and the suspense we experienced will remain a sweet memory. Thank you Adam.

Great short starter adventure. Just enough to let the DM fill in the gaps of what is exactly in town and where that town is, fits in almost anywhere. The adventure did well in getting our new party to come together without having to spend a whole session on outlining how they all met. The hook at the end was good to let me introduce other elements too.

A fantastic one-shot easily adaptable to any campaign or any setting. Has a great hook, interesting characters, a good mystery, and then wraps up well enough that you could easily create some recurring villains from it. Would be a great adventure to help introduce people to D&D, and with a good horror vibe, would also be great for players who have enjoyed things like Curse of Strahd or other more traditional horror-themed adventures. Highly recommended.