I was a DM over 30 years ago and am now just getting back into D&D, as are my group of friends/players. This was a great set of adventures for them as 6 level 3 players (with a few modifications locally to make the encounters level and group appropriate). It was hugely successful for all of us to get our feet under us as a group, as it were, and for new characters (and some new players) to get acquainted with one another, with low enough stakes for us to work around things.

As for the other review, some comments:

I, too, was unsure of why my party would want to go to Aventus -- so I invented a reason for them to seek it out. I had my players write me backstories for their characters and wove their backstories and motivations into reasons to seek it out.

I also had to invent some connective tissue here for directions and connections, and used the Rhena encounter to make up more to her story and invented a game she and the fey dragon were playing that the party wound up helping Rhena win at. In other words, the encounters need some extra thought put into them but are very easily adapted to the group with a little local creativity.

I will likely use Kae'lien as a recurring character for the campaign, yet to be written. Instead of “Because something bad happened to us and we’re upset,” I wrote my own motivations and reasons for my group to want to get there, and you should, too.

Now that my party has arrived there, I look forward to more adventures in Aventus!

A New Home is an adventure for first level characters. In it, each PC is meant to have suffered some kind of genuine tragedy and want to go somewhere that isn’t nearly as painful for them. Thus, they decide to journey together to the hidden city of Aventus, passing through treacherous obstacles along the way. If they persist, they will make it to this magical land.

A New Home has some good bones, but I just didn’t quite like it as much as I’d hoped to. I’m unsure of why the PCs would want to go to Aventus and what they hope to accomplish there. I’m also unsure of how they found out how to get there. From the way the adventure is written, it seems like they just choose a direction and head towards it, easily finding the watchers. Then they get to Aventus and the adventure is over. It just seemed very disjointed, and I wasn’t quite as invested as I’d hoped to be.

However, there are some interesting elements. The watchers, whoever they are, are interesting and difficult, as are many of the encounters. I liked the puzzles overall too. I was just confused about the basic premise, and that hurt my enjoyment. In the future, I would make the why and objective much clearer. I would also give more information about Kae’lien and why anyone would want to go to Aventus. I don’t think the whole reason should be, “Because something bad happened to us and we’re upset.” It would be more compelling if there were multiple reasons to go to Aventus.