5E Adventure Review: The Mystery at Dreary’s Well

The Mystery at Dreary’s Well is a nicely-constructed adventure for 1st and 2nd level characters set in the Forgotten Realms. The player characters are sent to the small hamlet of Dreary’s Well in order to discover what has happened to a diamond that was stolen from a courier passing through the place a few nights ago. However, with a few additional opportunities for adventure (and a couple of red herrings), it’s likely to be an entertaining visit.

The adventure isn’t flawless in its writing and formatting, but the core of the adventure is very good, enough so that you should be able to work past its flaws. One of the oddities is the map of the “town”, which is a single street with only eight buildings; I would have expected a few more residences, and the description of a dilapidated house as “on the edge of town” doesn’t quite work when they’re all on the edge of town!

It shines in its handling of the NPCs, who are interesting characters and have enough information to keep pointing the players in new directions – even if they’re the wrong directions! The adventure also draws very nicely on existing Realms-lore; something that I appreciate.

A couple of the encounters might be a bit too deadly for a low-level party; one monster in particular might be able to take down the entire party if it rolls well!

A note on formatting: It generally helps to have the ability score modifiers in stat-blocks in preference to the ability scores. Have both if you can, but DMs actually use the +4 modifier more than the 18 score.

It’s most likely the adventure could be completed in a session or two. It’s a product that I very much recommend investigating.

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