While the adventure contained herein is a splendid additional chapter to the Road to Monsterberg series, this is as much a complete sandbox setting book as it is a campaign. This is 200 pgs of factions, NPCs, plot hooks, detailed locales. There's also no assumed outcome and refs to how different PC faction alignment impacts plot. Reference/re-read/replay value is very high due to sheer volume of detail. I eagerly await the POD version and also recommend Codex consider a RtM dead-tree bundle.

I'll consider this product in two parts:

The Adventure: It's an excellent adventure either as a sandbox or as part of the series. The adventure introduces players to a gritty/historical setting through the narrative and I found this to be effective. I've tried and failed to run historical settings for players, and part of my failure was front-loading too much setting detail. Here they do a good job of introducing the differences from standard FRPG tropes by introducing some fairly low-stakes social situations, and how they could go really wrong. The adventure itself is episodic and broken into digestable chunks. The episodes also progressively introduce more setting/cultural elements which helps with world building and bringing the players along. The adventure IS and CAN BE lethal, and a balanced party with urban, rural, social and combat skills will be essential. That said, the need for a balanced, resourceful party is a strength. You can't get through this adventure unless the party is flexible.

The Utility of the product as a standalone/reference: The book is full of maps, tables and NPCs that can be endlessly mined. You could easily use this as the basis for a quasi-historic hex-crawl. Additionally, while the adventure is designed with a D20 OGL in mind, much of the material here is system-agnostic and what isn't can readily be adapted into whatever else you're playing.

Full disclosure I also received a copy of this product to review.

I also come to this product from a d100 perspective and I would probably run this either using Mythras or Renaissance Deluxe.

This is a solid sandbox adventure that could also easily be bolted-on to an existing campaign set in a similar historical milleau. Codex Integrum does their homework, and this adventure is deeply informed and informative. If you're not used to a historical setting or don't have much of a background in either the Early-Modern period, the Hussite Wars, or Central European History, you're still ok, because the adventure gives you enough background to run as-is. A GM would benefit from acquiring other Codex books on the world of Central Europe in the 1450s, especially if they wanted to run this as part of a larger campaign. But as I said, it works great as a stand-alone sandbox adventure. What do you get? Lots of setting details, multiple great locations that you could use elsewhere, a stable of believable and playable NPCs, all of whom are worth keeping around for later encounters/adventures, as well as two emminently playable pre-gen characters with actual motivations and identities.

The adventure has two parts, a prologue of sorts, outside the valley, and a second part within the valley. The Prologue - By itself, this is an excellent interlude for a party of characters on the road in a dangerous/war-torn area. The Inn is a character as well and one could easily imagine it becoming a base of sorts for the players. The innkeeper is great and the adversaries are interesting enough to keep around if the players don't manage to kill them. It's also a great introduction/session 1 and is playable in a couple hours.

The Valley - Assuming the characters even get this far, there's a lot here that could stretch the adventure out over multiple sessions of play. The problems that the players need to resolve are not minor and there are a few situations that could result in a TPK, a particularly gruesome set of TPKs, actually. The Valley scenario will probably require a fair amount of negotiations and the players will need to find allies if they're to survive. Here you'll find several top-notch NPCs and plenty of stats for the various factional mooks. There are supernatural and horror elements, but the supernatural/magical elements don't need to dominate the story and aren't written in such a way that they couldn't be made entirely mundane. You won't need a spellcaster to survive this adventure. And here we get to something I really appreciate about the adventure - there's no assumed or desired outcome. The adventure is written so that whatever the players do, the GM has several options to spin it out other ways and build it into whatever they want to do next. Definintely worth picking up, especially for the price. The core Codex system is a d20 system, which, if you're playing PF or 3.x you'll get pretty quickly. I would specifically recommend this adventure for Mythras, RQ3, Renaissance Deluxe, WFRP 1st ed. or Zweihander.

I love the style, art, layout and general approach that Frostbyte takes with their material. I was pleased with the quality of the product (pdf). On the adventure itself I have mixed feelings which I will address while attempting to avoid spoilers. The main storyline, race against time, struggle for resources, not enough room on the lifeboat... it's great. It also "felt like" a Traveller in a little black book (chef's kiss). I might tone down the lethality of the environment though. I've played a fee games of Mythras, and if my group rolled dice like the folks I've played with roll dice? TPK on atheir first moonwalk! There's a side-quest though, (that's also incredibly, potentially lethal). It's railroady morality play that forces the players to confront child sex trafficking. WTF? There needs to be an advisory or something. I'm not a prude and I didn't have issues with any of the other elements, but this side-quest is a lot of the material and I would not choose to include that whole segment. That arc is a fine story and complex set of characters... the characters are great! but people are in therapy for that stuff and I won't inflict that on my players. It's a shame because I wanted to be more supportive of the Frostbyte enterprise, and Clarence in particular. It's a great Classic Traveller adventure with a creepy, upsetting nightmare bolted on. I enjoy my Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I know what I'm getting into.

I received the POD version and the quality was good. The book was smaller than I expected, but this is not a criticism. The I like the art quite a lot as well. I mostly got the book as source material for other systems, but the rules are not complex at all and I might give it a go on its own. I will probably pick up the Tribes and Armies, even though I understand there are only a couple paragraphs of material different from 2nd ed, since it's only .99 at the moment. Anyway, I am a deep nerd on historical settings and this one is awesome in it's niche. Well worth the look.

This is definitely my preferred format character sheet for ZH. Great layout and easy to use.

More languages = More fans. I only hope that generating more ZH interest in Mittel Europa generates fan-created products bring Central and Eastern European elements into the fold.

This early supplement quite handily proves the Grim and Perilous Library concept while also providing useful items and story seeds ready to plug and play.