Candlekeep Mysteries is out! Hooray!

While you could use all the adventures in the book in a campaign that you link together, I am not sure that you would want to. Each adventure is about a (magical) book and a mystery connected to that book.

It really depends on your group, but I would likely use no more than one or two of the adventures in any given campaign. Pick ones that you like the look of and go with those. Finding a trigger for the adventures is not that hard. They are linked to books. Can you just have the book you want to use turn up in a treasure hoard somewhere?

I am looking at the first adventure in the collection: The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces by Michael Polkinghorn. With mystery adventures, you want to read through them first. I can run combat-heavy adventures easily without reading them thoroughly, but if there is a mystery, then knowing its shape helps significantly.

This is an exploration adventure. There is a little combat and limited role-playing, but a lot of rooms to explore. The adventure’s successful conclusion revolves around a relatively simple puzzle, but I need to consider whether my players will enjoy the puzzle before running it. (If I don’t know my players that well, I would be happy to run it, but I am aware I may need to intervene to make the solution easier).

In addition, it’s simple. The clues are (mostly) in plain sight and found by exploring. This is not a mystery where you need to discover the first clues to point you in the way of the next set of clues, and so on and so forth.

The framing story (find the missing mage) is mostly irrelevant to the play of the adventure. It provides a hook for the characters, but it would be just as easy for the players to find the book in a dungeon. They touch it, and wham! They are all trapped inside! Then they need to find the way out, as in the original presentation. It is more portable than it may originally appear.

I find the included hook to be incredibly specific. It is the sort of hook that, when coupled with the way the adventure-as-written resolves, sets up the course of the campaign from then on. You might find that sort of campaign fun, but I would be happy to change the hook. Especially if you are running this as a stand-alone one-shot.

What could go wrong in the adventure?

The most obvious point of failure is the main puzzle. I think it is simple. However, it may not be obvious to the players which items are necessary. I would emphasise these items if the players seemed to be ignoring them. It is okay to let the players struggle a little with the puzzle, but once it starts frustrating them, it is time to help them.

I would also consider physical props (maybe just pieces of paper) the players can manipulate. Some people can solve this in their heads, but you want to provide options.

Although most of the adventure is what I would describe as “low lethality”, there are a couple of monsters that could cause problems – the animated chained library and the mimic. However, there’s no problem resting for as long as you like in the mansion. Only if it outright kills a character is there a problem; I would likely immediately introduce a new PC rather than have the player sit out. Perhaps they’ve been trapped here for some time (through another entrance?) or they were looking for the PCs and only now had found out how to enter.

How much XP is in the adventure?

• 1315 from monsters

That is assuming the characters find and fight all the monsters. Using techniques that I’ve discussed previously, I would rate non-combat encounters this way:

• M5. Easy – 25 XP each (befriending and research)
• M6. Easy – 25 XP each (role-playing)
• M9. Easy – 25 XP each (interaction & role-playing)
• M12. Easy – 25 XP each (solving puzzle)
• M17. Easy – 25 XP each (determining the purpose of the room and its contents)
• Main Puzzle. Hard – 75 XP each

There is enough XP in the adventure just from fighting monsters for a group of four first-level characters to gain a level, but I believe that giving non-combat XP also helps reinforce that not everything needs to be solved by combat. I may belittle generous in describing some of the exploration/role-playing as “challenges” but giving out a little more XP isn’t going to break anything. (25 XP each is 25 XP for each character, by the way).

If you are using milestones, you can just say everyone gains a level once it is finished.

I rather like this adventure. I believe it should take a single four-hour session or thereabouts to play.