Broadly speaking, adventures can be divided into two categories - those that are generic, and those that are written for a specific campaign. Granted the former can easily be adapted for a specific campaign setting, but that's not necessarily the goal at the outset. Both types of adventures have their own inherent constraints, but if you have a good campaign setting as the basis to write on, then it's the adventure specific to the campaign setting that's likely to outshine the more generic one. I mention this because this pdf, Blood Reign of Nishanpur, written for the Arcanis campaign setting, will likely hands down beat any similar adventure out there, because it's based on one of the best campaign settings ever created, and uses that beautifully in the adventure to create a rich adventure to play through.

Blood Reign of Nishanpur is a 35 page adventure for the Arcanis Campaign Setting, and follows on after the events in the adventure The Spear of the Loghin, also from Paradigm Concepts, as the second adventure in the Carceri Chronicles. While it's probably best that you run that adventure before Blood Reign of Nishanpur, this pdf adventure provides plenty of background and advice on running this adventure on its own. It should also be noted that despite being recently released in pdf format, this adventure is actually much older, and utilizes the 3e (not 3.5e) d20 ruleset. This adventure in Arcanis is suitable for characters of levels 5 through 7.

The product comes as a single pdf file. The presentation and look of the product is very good, although parts of the product look like they've been scanned in, in particular the front and back covers and the credits page. Writing throughout is excellent, and this is complemented by some good artwork from several artists. Organisation and layout is very good, with the product broken down into 'hard points' and 'soft points', the former being encounters that are required to be run, and the latter being those that are optional. There's a good number of optional encounters, and you can mix and match to add the flavor that you desire. Bookmarks are based on these hard and soft points, allowing you to easily find the encounter you're after, as long as you know it by name. Expanding the bookmarks to identify the hard and soft points in order of appearance would've been helpful. Overall, a well constructed and presented product.

In the previous adventure in the Carceri Chronicles series, the PCs set out to destroy a powerful demon and retrieve the fragments of a holy spear. In doing this, they become embroidered in the affairs of a demon prince, and soon find themselves on a quest that takes them to the city of Nishanpur, where the Council of the Nihang is in turmoil following the destruction of the Dark Apostate. In an attempt to complete their pact with the demon prince and close a powerful gate to the lands of Sarish, the PCs must uncover the truth behind the Council's trouble, keep their pact with the demon prince, and in doing so deal with the lesser of two evils in the dark lands of Carceri.

Blood Reign of Nishanpur is a fantastic, if somewhat complex adventure, that will take the PCs through the darkest parts of Arcanis. The complexity of the adventure derives from its brilliant use of the Arcanis campaign setting, which is a rich and detailed setting. Despite the complexity, the adventure does a grand job of explaining things very well, giving thorough adventure backgrounds and summaries, and providing a detailed glossary to explain the background behind various aspects of the adventure. In this way the complexity gives way to a brilliant adventure that is probably unlike anything your PCs have ever seen before.

The adventure combines all the classic elements of an RPG into one - combat, diplomacy, mystery, intrigue, hard choices and plenty of roleplaying opportunity. Combine this with the rich detail of the campaign setting, and you get an adventure that's breathing with life, and full of riveting scenes and exciting encounters. I have to admit that despite a few presentation flaws, I love everything about this adventure and the campaign setting that binds it together. It might not be an adventure for the younger audience with its dark overtones, but for more mature gamers this adventure is a blast. I've said it before about the Arcanis campaign setting in general - it's one of the best out there.

I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure, despite it being for the 3e d20 rules. It combines rich detail, fantastic story telling, exciting scenes and encounters, excellent roleplaying opportunity, and challenging encounters with a great campaign background to form a fantastic adventure. Some might argue that the various hard points can be too constraining on the PCs, and perhaps there is some element of truth in there that you really need to know Arcanis to make the most of this adventure. It is very much an Arcanis adventure, and while you could move it to another setting, it would be a fairly difficult conversion. Nevertheless, for those that love attention to detail, rich stories and backgrounds, and adventures that are varied and different, this is a fantastic choice.