The Fog of Solhaven is a gothic-themed adventure for 4th or 5th level characters. It’s got a great concept, but it feels like it needs a little more development and certainly better editing.
The plot is as follows: the characters arrive in Solhaven, a cursed town enshrouded in fog, in which strange monsters prowl. The characters meet two sisters who have an idea of how to break the curse, and then the party accompany them to find the clues and finally slay the manifestation that is behind the strange fog. The setting is atmospheric, and you’ve got some challenging encounters to use.
Unfortunately, it’s all a bit messy. The layout isn’t that clear, the writer uses the word “will” entirely too much, and some of the encounters don’t work that well as written.
An example of this is a puzzle in the library. The head librarian has gone missing, but had a map showing a location the characters need to find. Unfortunately, if the characters fail on certain skill checks, they can’t even find the puzzle they need to solve, and thus cannot proceed in the adventure. There are also numerous jumps in logic that may be obvious to the designer but aren’t explicitly spelt out in the text. For instance, if the surviving librarians are asked about the map, they take the characters to the missing librarian’s office, without explaining that he was the last one to have it.
(I’m also confused by how the surviving librarians haven’t discovered the head librarian’s body yet, given that he’s been missing for a while, and his corpse is easily found in his office!)
Where the adventure shines is in presenting some evocative situations dealing with loss. There are a few here, and they can be exploited for good effect.
The final encounter is suitably challenging and terrifying.
There’s potential here for a good experience, but it will require the DM to do some work cleaning up the structure and expanding on the material.