In the Face of Fear is a two-hour adventure for level 1-4 characters written by Dave Zajac. It is the first part of the Tenets of Bane series and has been released as part of the D&D Adventurers League CCC programme.
In it, the adventurers are sent to recover a relic of Bane, the god of Tyranny, which is hidden in the desolate wastelands of Thar. To succeed, the adventurers need to survive the journey, defeat a village of paranoid xvarts, and solve a riddle. It’s a good structure for a short adventure.
The adventure handles the mission briefing extremely well. The battle of the xvart village is challenging, and a vulture-riding warlock may give the party a moment of surprise – before they burn through his 22 hit points and kill him!
Unfortunately, the adventure can run very short.
The first encounter of the journey through Thar is a combat with a tribe of goblins. However, if the party succeed at a group Wisdom (Survival) check, they avoid the goblins altogether. There goes a significant part of the running time. The trouble with this encounter is that it involves no decisions by the players. “Make a check. Roll well? Good – here’s some XP!” I’d prefer it if success allowed the party to learn about the goblins and then the players could choose whether to avoid, ambush or take some other action.
Surviving a storm in the cold wilderness? That’s handled well. The author gives suggestions for what the characters can do, and then the DM and players can build on that with their own ideas.
After the battle with the xvarts and the recovery of the Disc of Fear, it’s unfortunate that there isn’t an encounter that plays on the effects of possessing the relic. I hope this comes up in the later adventures. However, the effect of the relic on the xvarts is handled well.
There is an optional encounter of ogres chasing the party that can be used on the return journey. A series of successful checks allows the party to escape, but the pressure of the ogres makes the players’ checks more noteworthy than in the case of the goblins. I appreciated the table of suggested complications, although the suggestion that each character faces a different complication didn’t always make sense. Why would only one character encounter a stream?
The adventure is very well written, and it’s always clear what to do as the DM. This is something that often isn’t the case, so I wanted to make special mention of it. The layout is also good, although the colour maps don’t reproduce so well in black and white.
Overall, we found this an enjoyable adventure, with some excellent encounters. Recommended.