The Sphere of Sunlight is a short, pay-what-you-want adventure available from the DMs Guild. It clocks in at thirteen pages long, and is designed for 4-6 first-level characters.

I can’t shake the feeling that the author doesn’t quite understand what all the words he’s using mean or how to put them together in the correct manner. “Smoke pours windward from the hearths of homes”. “Hammer striking steel reverberates off trees.”

The adventure begins with the adventurers hired by a local ranger to recover a magical artefact/macguffin, the sphere of sunlight, from a nearby tomb. As the adventurers continue through the wilderness, the DM is suddenly informed of the price of staying in town, a page or two too late to be any good.

The dungeon of the adventure consists of only five encounter areas. The adventures need to fight ruptured centipedes (I have no idea what they are), an undead horror, and finally deal with Hongden, sphere of greed, which is actually quite an interesting encounter, though, for first-level characters, it could be a bit swingy.

Unfortunately, the macguffin isn’t present in the tomb, and so the players end the adventure without feeling much accomplishment. This might work as the beginning of a longer series of adventures, but I prefer standalone adventures to feel complete, even if they then open up further adventures.

There are some nice ideas here, but the adventure is seriously in need of better editing. The final encounter is worth using as inspiration, and it’s a pity that more isn’t done with some of the background. It may be expanded by future adventures; at present, it is a flawed curiosity.