Shattered Sun is a 5E adventure by John Gillette for character levels 1-4 available as a print-on-demand product through Lulu.com. At 34 pages long, it’s about standard length for a “traditional” adventure, although it has a lot of white space that might be filled with art in another product. The layout is clean and readable.

The adventure is set in a world where the sun has exploded, shards of which have plummeted onto the world. In the ensuing darkness, the dark elves have taken over the upper world. The setting uses number of steam-punk elements, such as steam-powered automobiles, which distinguishes it from most 5E products. The first eight pages of the product give the DM and players information on the setting. A fair bit of this introduction is devoted to the gods of the world, the names of which evoke real-world mythologies (Leminkainen, for instance), although they don’t match up with the personality and abilities of their real-life counterpart.

The adventure requires one or more of the adventurers to be private investigators or bounty hunters; they are soon asked to investigate a robbery by the overworked police, and the story begins.

The adventure is very much inspired by noir tales, and involves a great deal of investigation. It’s an urban fantasy, somewhat in the vein of Shadowrun and Eberron, and I expect it could be transposed into such a setting without much difficulty. There are some really nice touches throughout the adventure, little flourishes that bring out the unusual nature of the world.

Despite this, it doesn’t soar for me. This may be partly because I’ve seen so many investigation adventures as part of organised play; it takes a lot to impress me. (Although I’m also more partial to other styles of adventure). I think there are a lot of groups who will enjoy this, and even more if the DM puts more work into evoking the setting. There are a few odd moments in the adventure that don’t quite work for me (such as some of the random encounter tables), which pull it back from being really good.

The book is mostly well-written, although there are times when the editing falls down a little or the choice of words could be better. The maps are very simple and not really very good. Whatever software was used to draw them is very limited in its capabilities, and omits little things like doors. They’re useable, but they’re the most disappointing thing about the product.

I hope I’ll see more adventures in this setting, as it’s got the potential to be very interesting. At present, this adventure gives you a taste of it without really delving into its possibilities. As it stands, it’s a useable noir-style adventure in a quasi-technological setting. There are aspects I don’t like about it, but at its core is an effective adventure that has the potential to be very enjoyable. Its biggest problem may just be the format: print books are relatively expensive, and I expect it would find an audience much more easily as a pdf.