Just ran this last night for a mixed group of new and experienced players. We had a blast! With 5 1st level characters we finished in about 4 hours, and I skipped the "ambush" encounter in a effort to finish in one session. Great balance of social, exploration, and combat, and my players really responded to the animals and animal hybrid creatures. A great introductory adventure, and pretty easy to run. A couple minor problem areas for me:

• I wish there were more maps. I had trouble visualizing some of the geography around the bridge and the demon rock.
• My PCs absolutely destroyed every encounter! If I were to run it again I would beef up the enemies. Even at 1st level, they had access to area of effect spells like entangle, which basically locked down the goblins, and they were able to sneak up on almost every encounter. Often the enemies would get killed before they could alert others or free the owl-bear. I should note that the players really enjoyed having the advantage in combat, but I wish I could have challenged them a bit more. [UPDATE] I just ran this again for a group of 3 2nd level characters, and it was fun again! However, the final battle has proven consistently underwhelming. The PCs easily get the drop on the boss, giving them a chance to take him out with ranged attacks and spells before he does anything. If I run it a third time I will make him harder to access or more vigilant. I would also give him more hit points and some lair actions, like being able to summon some kind of flying pests from the pit, like a swarm of insects or stirges.

Love these options - they add a lot more interest to combat. I hope the author comes out with another volume covering more monsters!

First off, this is a review for the digital map back, NOT the book, which is an excellent product filled with clever and useful content. This digital map pack is a big letdown. To begin with, the maps are, let's face it, a bit ugly. They are black and white with lots of extra gray textures that make them a little hard to read. It would have been nice to offer color maps. The worst part: these maps are very LOW RESOLUTION, and contain visible compression artifacts. Not really suitable for print, and barely suitable for screen. In fact, the maps included in the book pdf are often slightly better quality. Clearly they did not use the higher resolution source files for this map pack. It looks like they just reformatted the maps from the book pdf. Are these maps prepped for printing or VTT? NO! They come in a book-sized pdf for some reason, so you'll have to figure out how to scale them yourself. It would have been nice to give us jpeg or png versions of these maps. It appears the minimal amount of effort was put towards this map pack. I wonder if the original author was even involved. The only advantage I can see is that the number labels have been removed from the maps. Beyond that, you would do just as well to take screen shots of the maps in your book pdf, or scan the maps out of your print copy. I want my $10 back.

This adventure is fun to read and delightful to look at! It's also very well-organized, and the information is presented in clever and useful ways. As a DM who likes to do different voices at the table, I particularly appreciate the roll playing voice suggestions for each NPC. The adventure offers a nice balance between linear and non-linear story progression, and even anticipates the many possible endings and their repercussions. Full disclosure: I have not run the adventure for my players yet, but I will update this review after I have. I think we're going to have a blast!

Update January 22, 2022

I just finished running this campaign on Roll20 for my crew of 6 friends. Their PCs were all 9th level, so I had to bump up some of the difficulty, which was pretty easy (the author was kind enough to offer some suggestions when I reached out Dungeon Masters Guild).

It took us 7 2-3 hour sessions to complete, spread out over 3 months

Overall it was a really fun adventure to run, and I think my players had a good time as well. There was a good balance of roll playing, exploration, and combat; a lot of twists and turns in the plot to give the players interesting choices, and a lot of memorable and fun inter-related NPCs. The adventure can be dark and scary in places, but it generally has a very tongue-in-cheek tone, which I embraced.

I really like how the adventure is organized, and how the author accounts for multiple possible outcomes and epilogs based on the character’s actions.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After the party got their quest from Lord Orion and had explored a bit of Storaad, I added an encounter in the town square where the Pink Miasma was creeping up through the sewer vents and causing some of the villagers to transform into horrible aberrations (based on Chuul statblocks).

The party ventured down to the Cove of the Damned in search of Chadwick and The Souther Scourge, as well as the sidequest for Nara. I made the Pink Miasma harder to avoid, and came up with extra effects beyond the 10 options included in the adventure (some of which I thought were not fun).

The party met Chadwick and stole back Orion’s teeth; he didn’t notice they were missing until later, which caused him to freak out. Together they killed the Southern Scourge and rescued Ni’ena, and the party was getting ready to kill Chadwick too (I played him pretty annoying and arrogant) before he spilled the beans about his true motivation to save his son. After learning about his dilemma, the party decided to try to help him. They used the Brooch to summon Lord Orion to Chadwick’s house. He got his teeth back and was ready to kill Chadwick too, but the party convinced him instead to help recover Liam.

For the final confrontation I buffed the Mind Flayers to full strength to challenge the characters. I turned a few of the NPCs the players had met into mind-controlled goons, which the Mind Flayers commanded while levitating above the rooftops. With clever use of Orion’s spells (Nondetection and Greater Invisibility) the party was able to steal Liam back before the Mind Flayers caught on. After one Mind Flayer was killed, the remaining two fled, perhaps to resurface again someday for revenge. All the PCs survived, but player-favorite NPC was slain.

Afterwards there were some nice interactions between the party and Chadwick as he thanked them, and they honored the dead NPCs. Lord Orion invited the party back to his castle for their rewards: some bespoke magic items, which I will work with the players to design, as well as information from scrying that may be helpful for their individual character hooks.

I can highly recommend this adventure, though of course there are some small areas for improvement:

Statblock inconsistencies - the Southern Scourge is resistant to lighting damage, but is also susceptible to being shocked by lightning damage?

Chadwick has no attacks listed in his statblock. I let him use the Soothsayer sword from his trophy case, because why not?

Logic problems - Chadwick should have a way to conceal the fangs from Lord Orion, otherwise a simple Locate Object or other divination spell could find them. I gave Chadwick a magic bag.

Art and Maps - The art is great; it would have been nice to have some VTT-formatted tokens for NPCs and creatures. There is no scale or grid on the maps for Cove of Damned or Chadwick's Place. This made sizing them for VTT a bit tedious.

Other - There is a lock on the large sewer grate between B1 and E1, but no DC for picking the lock or forcing the door open.

Pretty minor issues, and there is plenty of room to expand on or alter encounters with your own ideas. Enjoy!

I was hunting for a goblin-infested keep that I could modify for my homebrew campaign, and oh boy did this fill the bill! There is so much good stuff in here, whether you plan to run it as written or scavenge just the elements you need. Includes great maps and art, a clever villain concept, gobs of goblin lore and variants, and really fun ways to customize goblins and make them formidable foes for even Tier 2 parties. Highly recommended!

I love collections of random generators for building items, characters, and locations, so I was looking forward to this pdf. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it - there are lots of interesting magical features you can mix and match to create interesting and unique magic items. You will likely want to pick and choose some of the feature combinations manually, as many of the the random combinations wont make sense.

The updated pdf which appears here is searchable, which is much nicer than the original version which was image based. I'm still hoping for a printer-friendly version, though.

There are a few spelling errors, which I'll let slide, but more annoying are the gaps or overlaps in the numbering of the d100 tables.

The most odd part of the document is the potion building section. While I like the idea of potions with added effectiveness or unexpected side effects, it doesn't make sense to me to add extra features to standard healing potions. For instance, why would you want a healing potion that also lets you walk on water? Seems like there's not a lot of overlap in potential use cases there, and you wouldn't want to waste one feature just to gain the other. Or how about a poison potion that cures the "poisoned" condition?

For potion building I would probably ignore the base healing effects of the potion and just combine the prefixes and suffixes in interesting ways.

Just finished running this adventure with my family and it was pretty fun! It took 5 ~3 hour sessions but a lot of that time was just them arguing about where to go next! My wife has seen the movie and she caught on pretty fast, so that gave her a bit of an unfair advantage, but it didn't bother me. The kids have never seen it so they were clueless.

SPOILERS BELOW

Overall it's a pretty tight little adventure with some fun twists on the film's premise. The events are laid out mostly linearly, but there's little to stop the party from visiting the various floors out of order and exploring a bit before you force them back on track with some well placed encounters and "radio" communications via Sending Stones. I highly recommend working in some friendly NPC's that the party already knows into the reception at the beginning, so that the villain Shan can threaten someone the PCs actually care.

My only complaint is a couple of major logic problems with the adventure as written: Shan's goal is to empty the vault and blow up the building so the authorities think he is dead and don't pursue him. If he wants to bring the building down, why would he put the bombs on the top floor instead of the Basement or 1st floor? The party will most likely recover the bomb detonater from the Eldritch Knight pretty early on, which Shan needs to detonate the bombs. At the beginning of the final confrontation on page 8, it says that "the remaining bombs on the 11th floor are triggered by Shan", but how could he do that if he doesn't have the detonator? And WHY would he do that before he has cleaned out the vault? And why don't the bombs destroy the building??

My solution: once Shan had accessed the vault he would send his Flesh Golem to manually detonate the bombs on the 11th floor by smashing them, while he made his escape. This would give the PCs something else to worry about while trying to fight Shan and his goons.

Ultimately my party avoided direct confrontation with Shan by using the Eversmoking Bottle they found on the 4th floor to fill the 5th floor with fog, effectively blinding everyone. The wizard set about casting Tiny Hut to block access to the levitators and trap the villains on that floor until the City Guard arrived. They didn't realize Shan has spells like Dimension Door, and he just teleported into the open vault and started emptying it out while the party fought the Golem and some goons. By the time the Tiny Hut went up, the battle was over, the smoke cleared, and Shan was long gone through his Arcane Gate.

I was pleased with this resolution. The party killed a lot of bad guys, saved some hostages, got some nice loot, and they made an enemy of Shan by interfering with his plans. I think he'll make a nice recurring villain, and I look forward to refining my Alan Rickman impersonation!

These are great little adventures that could be developed and scaled to fill out campaigns or used as side quests. The descriptions are concise and follow the "Lazy DM" style, which I'm a big fan of. I have a few nitpicks, which is why I didn't rate 5 stars:

• The maps are nice, but they don't include any location numbering or scale information. They have grids, but they don't all appear to be 5 foot squares
• All the adventures are rated for levels 2-5, which is odd because it spans 2 tiers. The suggested APL is 3, and I imagine level 5 characters would have it too easy. It would be nice if some of the adventures were built for higher levels, or if there were tips on how to scale the adventures for higher-level groups

This is possibly the best book I have purchased for DMing! The content is very useful and empowering, with great ideas for simplifying and organizing your D&D session preparation and play. I really appreciate how the material is presented, too: concise, to the point, well-organized, with solid examples and practical checklists. The book is not long, but it's rich with ideas, and very easy to read. I look forward to applying some of its principles right away!

Pro's: Great Location with lots of possibilities Lots of interesting NPC's High quality layout, maps, and illustrations Unique Sanity system A lot of value for the money

Con's: Requires a LOT of DM preparation Inconsistencies in NPC descriptions, motivations, etc. Prewritten adventures have lots of gaps to fill in (again, LOTS of DM preparation) Incomplete/illogical maps (no exterior location maps, no kitchen, asylum doesn't have enough beds for all the patients)

SPOILERS BELOW: I just finished taking my family through the "Apotheosis of Nightmares", which is the largest of the included prewritten adventures - it took 11 sessions to complete (we usually only play for 2-3 hours at a time, and they spend a lot of time arguing).  The party consisted of a wizard, cleric, and a rogue, all 5th level. I am an experienced DM, and this adventure definitely challenged my organizational and improvisational skills.  If you're not comfortable juggling a lot of quirky NPC's in a relatively open environment, this is not for you!  Also, if your players prefer adventures that are a bit more linear or structured, this may not be for them.  Our first couple of sessions were a bit dull as the party went around the asylum interrogating NPC's and looking for clues.  I don't think we had any combat until the 3rd session, and that was an encounter I invented just to spice things up. To be honest, I invented a LOT for this adventure:

• Stronger character hooks - The wizard's best friend is a patient at the asylum, who has mysteriously stopped corresponding (she got possessed by a demon!).  The rogue was secretly hired to assassinate one of the asylum doctors!
• Stronger villain motivation - Rose's reasons for hiring the party are inconsistent as written.   I positioned one of the other doctors, Quintus Hahn, as a foil for Rose, who was keeping her from summoning the BBEG.  Not coincidentally, Hahn is the assassin's target!
• More adventure - I added some caves below the sanitarium that could be accessed from a secret door in the basement.  These caves have a tendency to intersect with the Abyss, which explains the recent demonic influences on Lamps Light's inhabitants.  They are also filled with some beasties that Dr. Renwick uses in his experiments, like Gibbering Mouthers and Intellect Devourers
• I added a workshop where the PC's can experiment mixing potions, just for fun
• I created a quick NPC generator spread sheet because I was constantly needing names and descriptions of new patients and orderlies
• I changed the BBEG's name to "The Ollmareg", because "The H’awouahoua" sounds ridiculous and would just make my players laugh.  I also buffed his powers and changed him to a shadow-based fiend rather than a "Frankenstein" creature made of different animal parts
• I added LOTS of foreshadowing, which is essential to build tension in a horror game.  The players had visions of the final BBEG in their dreams, and saw drawings of it in the patients' quarters
• I added a kitchen because food
• I converted a room in the West Wing to a large dormitory with many beds to increase the asylum's patient capacity
• For the final summoning ritual I had Rose restrain the PCs with straightjackets (Prosper’s Camisoles) instead of just having them standing there in robes, ready to fight. Of course my players did lots of things to throw me for a loop, and I was constantly writing new stuff to keep the adventure on track.  My wife figured out that Rose was the villain by the end of the first or second session, so I had to find reasons for the party to stay.  Having an assassination job and a friend in danger were essential for keeping the PCs invested!

Other notes: There is a pretty robust sanity system built in to Lamp's Light, but we were all disappointed that none of the PCs ever suffered from more than transient madness.  They could never retain insanity long enough to build up to Short or Long Term.  I would probably revise the sanity rules if I had to do over again.

In retrospect I would have also invested more prep time in pre-generating NPCs for the tertiary patients and staff, and assign them to specific locations and times.

I played a lot of music during the campaign, which really helped set the tone.  Any time they explored the sanitarium at night, ventured into the basement, had a bad dream, or battled a monstrosity, I played music.  TabletopAudio.com has great choices for this, and it's free.  I also played tracks from the film "Alien" for the final BBEG battle.

In the end the party was able to kill Rose before she could summon the BBEG, but they still had to figure out how to save their possessed friend.  I had Renwick rig up a Revelans Mallum for two, so the PC had to go into the possessed friend's mind and try to draw the demon out.  I used the BBEG for the exorcised demon battle, so they ended up having to fight it anyway!  Good thing too, because I had built a custom lego miniature for the creature.  I had Japhi the cat show up to help in the final battle when the party got desperate - he was probably our favorite NPC.

Looking back I'm glad I ran this adventure, though if I had known how much work I was making for myself I may have reconsidered.  I'm looking forward to running a much simpler adventure next time!

ALSO: While prepping this adventure I contacted the authors with questions, and they were very responsive. Thanks again!

I'm and experienced DM and my player is also experienced, but this was our first duet adventure.

I think this would be a fine introduction to D&D for those new to the game, for us it required some adjustments. My player wanted to create his own character and backstory, and I didn't want him to be tied to the setup in the first act of this adventure. I felt the forced rollplaying and training grounds were a bit silly, so we came up with a different opening to the adventure which resulted in the player starting off in the snowy mountains. I added an encounter where he witnesses sabertooth lion attacking a giant elk, and the PC intervened on behalf of the elk, who then led him to the entrance of the temple, and from there we played it pretty much as written. The adventure is very simple and pretty fun, albeit a bit linear, and I wish there was more thoughtful backstory to the temple, which feels a bit hodge-podge. At the end I had the elk return at the last second to rescue the PC and Garren from the frost giant sculpture, and then the avalanche ends the adventure as a nice cliff-hanger.

As a followup to this we played "Second Glance", which was much more enjoyable and open-ended. There were a lot of NPCs to manage, but at least the PC had a lot of choices and potential outcomes. If you're not opposed to an adventure "on rails" then give this one a try, but be prepared to fill in a lot of story gaps on your own if you continue onward.

I love all the Dungeon Coach's content, and this supplement is no exception. Fun and practical rule revisions that players and DMs will enjoy.

This is a fun one-shot adventure that doesn't take a lot of preparation time from the DM, and can be dropped in to just about any campaign. I really appreciated the formatting which made it easy to read and find important info on the fly. [SPOILERS] There are some nice roleplaying opportunities in here on the docks at the beginning (my party loved Sheila Coppertree) and with Lucien in the Lighthouse, and the eelfolk's tendency to explode when they die made combat more interesting. My favorite part was probably the underwater combat with the sharks; I cued up the Jaws soundtrack just before the encounter and made the players really nervous!

If I had one complaint it would be about the final encounter. The temple area is one giant room filled with about a dozen eelfolk, which made for a long slog of a combat. It didn't help that one of our PCs just ran into the room and alerted them all; it might have gone better if they had attempted some stealth and subterfuge. Having our tank paladin almost die from a lightning bolt attack was a thrilling moment, but the rest was a bit tedious, as the party laid down an area of Spike Growth and the eelfolk laid down Fog to block any movment around the room.

A fun balance of role-playing, open-ended problem solving, and combat. There are a LOT of NPC's to manage, which can be challening for the DM. My player's character isn't the most outgoing, which made it tricky to have him get the necessary info from the NPC's to move the story along. Having the paladin "Garren" as a sidekick can be a lifesaver, literally. The side quests were sometimes more entertaining than the main storyline, but overall it made for a good time. I wish the maps were a bit better quality, and the map of the temple doesn't quite line up with the description, so I had to improvise some details.