Absolutely loved it. Had a great atmosphere and was comprehensively written that as someone who is not the worlds best improviser, I was able to DM without ever getting flustered. My players loved all the handouts and art. It did take us 3 sessions in total to complete, but my party did roll some bad checks and miss a few important things. Absolutely worth the price and I'd run it again with new players and probably have a whole new experience.

This is a fun, twisting tale that works well for an experienced player but first time DM. There's a great balance of puzzles, exploration, and combat, with encounters that aren't quite what you expect. A DM with a time crunch could streamline the module by making the house smaller and a group with time on their hands can crawl through every corner of every room. Would fit neatly into a larger campaign for an existing group but the house can pull in a group of strangers, too.

Heart of the House from Brittney Hay (@FNDungeonMom)

Content Warning: Horror Themes, Child Death (Referenced)

“Once upon a time, an old house sat perched upon a hill, its crumbling facade overlooking the town. Weeds grew in the yard and gardens, overtaking what once was beautiful flowers and a stunning landscape. The wrought iron fence creaked when Mother Nature sent gusts of wind to play, and shutters slammed against the rotting siding. The house had p assed through many hands throughout the years. Now, decades after the last owners left under mysterious circumstances, it stands destitute and alone. But that is not the end of our story; It is only the beginning”

The first thing I have to say about this adventure is that for how dark and spooky it is, which it is, the whole thing is a work of art! From Henar’s gorgeously chilling cover to Mackenzie’s beautiful cartography that brings the house to vivid life with isometric and regular battlemaps, all underpinned by Hay’s glorious design, using Roux’s fabulous template that gives so many supplements a professional base, choice of the smorgasbord of sourced artwork, and an array of sensational handouts! This really is a feast for the eyes!

As with any responsible work dealing with sensitive content of allusions to potentially triggering elements, the Themes, Expectations, and Safety are discussed right off the bat, which is so concise, yet effective that I want to include it in full, aside from their link to the phenomenal TTRPG Safety Toolkit, which can be found here (http://bit.ly/ttrpgsafetytoolkit), as a brilliant example: “This adventure tackles abandonment, memory loss, and neglect, and brief l y touches upon a child's death. Please make your players aware of these topics before playing through the adventure. Horror is a lens through which themes such as these can be explored safely, and it is the responsibility of the Dungeon Master to see that the exploration of these topics is not harmful or triggering for the players. While social contracts differ from table to table, no one wants to walk away from a game feeling hurt or let down.”

This knowledge, understanding and empathy make it clear that you’re in good hands.

Introduction The adventure background provides the inspired premise of the adventure, an old house has “gained sentience throughout the years of ownership and abandonment.” It somehow lures people in with its allure “like a siren’s call” to the point where local parents warn their children “not to “get too close.”” Once ensnared and inside, the house refuse to let them leave, tormenting its victims and “feeding off the memories of the life that they bring with them like a vampire.” You had me at sentient house, but sadistic, memory-vampire sentient house I am already getting my bags packed! A handout in the appendices goes into more detail of the recent history, I’ll get into that later. There is a very cool piece of prep work for the players ahead of the game, recording a number of positive a d negative memories of their character’s for the DMs use during the game, particularly in the climax, which is a thoughtful and effective element. A number of hooks are provided, from strange dreams that find the characters awakening in the foyer, to following up on people going missing, or character getting a mysterious letter informing them of their inheritance of this singular manse. However the characters find themselves invited into the malevolent mansion, they must find their way deeper inside to discover the secrets within its rotten core if they ever want to escape.

Part 1: A House is Not a Home The house has some very interesting mechanics to confuse those within its walls. The layout is constantly shifting and moving, so a door could lead anywhere with players rolling each time they open one. “It is entirely possible for them to be on the second floor and open a doorway to the garden outside or be in the freight elevator, pulling themselves up, and find that they enter the basement.” Doors left open stay connected to their rooms, though if too many are left open the house will send thraws, its previous victims and current minions to start closing doors, or worse, terrifying presence of the Hand of the House. Resting in the house is dangerous with saves, essentially to keep their memories, so they don’t become thraws themselves. To defeat the Heart of the House and ultimately escape, the party must acquire three seemingly random items linked to previous persons involved with the house. These items and the entities linked to them are scattered the house randomly when the DM sets up the game, or can be placed specifically for quick play. This approach to placement of the items ensures a get deal of replayability.

Part 2: A Maze of Rooms There are 19 rooms it is possible to roll when traversing doorways with the 20th room bed the Heart of the House. These 19 rooms are detailed with their features, NPCs, events, puzzle clues and treasure, as well as the glorious art and cartography form Mackenzie, from the Foyer: “...the only truly “safe” rooms in the mansion. With seven doors—eight including the front entryway—the house keeps it non-threatening in order to draw prey in further....” Through the Living Room with swarms of ravens in the roof and a puzzle that involves having a nice sit down with the thraws, playing games with ghosts in the Games Room, possibly nabbing the singular chess set whose “marble board folds up into a polished wood carrying case, and the pieces are carved from milky white quartz and obsidian”, dealing with a fascinating variety strange plants and a dangerous gardener in the Greenhouse, an unsettling polite and bizarre collector in the gardens-come-graveyard, run afoul of some of the conservatory plants, which are “deadly if not properly tended, and they have not been properly tended for many years”, play an uncanny symphony on an orchestra of animated armors, while two tattered thraws waltz in the Ballroom, discover the dangers of the hors d’oeuvres in the Dining Room, beware the negative space in the Gallery, get a hand or five in the Kitchen, uncover magically hidden secrets, a horrifying and glorious yearbook, and survive the sword wraith in the Servant’s Quarters, find some solace in, “ironically, the only truly safe place in the entire house”, the cellar, play hide and seek with a ghost in the Child’s Bedroom, but beware the rooms wrath if you break anything – it will throw everything but the kitchen sink at you and it has tactics! – share dream fast memories with a vast array of chilling options, battle paper mummies and search for secretes in the mulching Library, brave the Bedroom’s Malodorous Miasma and mouldering maggots, try not to awaken the vampiest-named vampire and in doing so the seismic anger of House or make a dream entry in Main Bedroom, find an Infernally frigid altar and glass prison in the Attic.

Let me be clear, this is just the slightest impression of the Rich lore, mystery, puzzles, combats, flora, fauna and thraw-na, across this beautifully crafted haunted house.

Part 3: The Heart of the House “This is the final room, the moment where the characters face the entity plaguing them this whole time: the “spirit” of the house. Unlike your typical bosses, the House cannot be killed by whacking away at its hit points, so no stat block shall be provided. Instead, the combat in this room is broken into three phases.” The First Phase: Blast from the Past pits the party against four sets of chosen or randomly selected creatures/ groups from the provided table with any restored fighting at their side. The Second Phase: The Power of Memory is an opportunity to run the party through the memories they provided or memories from the thraw they have come across. Depending on what has been provided and/ or discovered this could be a short, sharp set of big vignettes, or could be a series of bleak scenes that truly test the party. The Third Phase: Sacrifice gives the characters a chance to sacrifice happy memories they have in order to save the remaining thraws and heal the house. This sacrifice leaves “a gnawing emptiness where that memory once was.” Whatever was given up the party are free to leave, though if “he house isn’t healed, the thraws remain trapped, those that were revived are unable to leave, and any future attempts to permanently destroy the house are more challenging.” Due to the immense and variable nature of the house, this definitely leaves the option for future attempts that could well be entirely different each time.

The Appendix contains statblocks for animated furniture, animated plants and the hefty, Hand of the House, as well as five magic items, including the unique Book of Holding, filled with awesome magical goodies, and the Pristine Holy Symbol, which keeps you sparkly a clean like Mr Muscle in a bath Listerine. This is a monumental adventure that has a creepy feeling that it could fit into any time or setting and still work. The amount of work that has gone into this is evident on every page. The quality of writing, the ideas and tales, combining with the art, design and handouts is something else! This is the kind of adventure you buy and can play again and again, with the same or new players and have fun and have them find and experience new things every time. It’s also absolutely crammed with ideas and elements that will inspire and can act as a toolkit for creating or populating your own horror tales or mysteries. There’s just too much in here for me to adequately express and get into or that will even be seen in multiple playthroughs, it’s just that jam-packed with awesome.

Perfect for Halloween. Perfect for any horror or mystery game you have going. Could be a weird, old place in any setting, but would be perfect in Ravenloft, Gothic Earth, or anywhere else or in between. This is one of those projects full of phenomenal creators and that quality shines through the murky windows of this malign manse. Credits Project Lead: Brittney Hay Writers: Brittney Hay, Cat Evans, Kristina Sisto Kindel, Riley Gryc and, VJ Harris Editor: Ashton Duncan Sensitivity Reader: Riley Gryc Cover Artist: Sonya Henar Cartographer: Saga Mackenzie Layout & Graphic Design: Brittney Hay Layout Template: NathanaËl Roux https://www.barkalotdesigns.com Additional Interior Artwork: Sonya Henar, pixabay Myaffiliate Link https://www.dmsguild.com/product/331842/The-Heart-of-the-House?affiliate_id=1507682