Ashley Warren’s A Night of Masks and Monsters is a single-session adventure for level 3 characters. Set in the city of Ibrido, the adventurers get to experience a masquerade party where the masks have unsettling, magical properties, and the host has unsavoury plans for his guests!

This is an adventure with excellent ideas, which doesn’t always execute them well. That it lacks a synopsis is noticeable. The basic play should go like this:

• The adventurers are invited to a masquerade party in the city of Ibrido by Marquis Prospero, a fan of their deeds.
• When the adventurers reach the city, they find a memorial to a strange winged creature who was found dead and are informed by a human woman, Kara Krasandel, that it occurred after the Marquis’ last party.
• The adventurers enter the party, deal with a drunk and meet the Marquis.
• The adventurers investigate for clues about the missing people.
• The Marquis reveals his true identity and schemes, and the adventures must deal with his treachery in combat.

I’d prefer to see Kara recruit the characters more directly; as it stands, she lets them know only one piece of information. If the players don’t have a good reason to be more aggressive with their investigations, much of the best parts of the adventure won’t occur. The dead bird man is supposed to have the tattoo of two masks on his body, a major clue in the adventure, but this is omitted from the text describing him.

Information on what activities are available at the party is scattered over three sections of the adventure: the main text, an appendix with details on the manor, and another appendix with details of the guests. The separation of the guests from the main text feels wrong to me; it makes interacting with the guests seem unimportant to the play of the adventure, and causes a lot of page-flipping.

The arrangement of the action into three scenes is odd; the character’s arrival isn’t considered worthy of a scene, and a scene “on the bridge” mainly takes place in the castle. I’m curious as to what happens to the citizens attending the party who show signs of the plague – is there another area in the Castel that they’re entering? Or is this just badly phrased, and these unfortunates are merely watching the nobles as they enter the party (and reminding them of the divide in Ibrido)?

These are issues with the organisation and execution of certain sections of the adventure, but I think the underlying basis is sound. I very much liked the effects of the masks, and the story is intriguing. It has the potential for both role-playing and combat, depending on the desires of your group. It can run as an investigation with the players talking to all the guests, or they could be more sneaky and try getting past various locked doors to discover secrets in that fashion. I enjoy that it has the possibility of more than one approach.

The layout is nice, with a few lapses. The writing could do with a little more polishing (and the removal of numerous “will”s).

Overall, this is a memorable adventure, once you work through the various presentation issues. Recommended.