The Haunting of Calrow Ruins, an adventure available through the EN5ider Patreon, is a delight: a horror-themed adventure for 2nd to 4th level characters with a great concept and excellent execution. The adventurers are hired by one of two competing nobles to clear a ruined castle of an infestation of gibberlings, strange monstrosities that jibber-jabber in a frightening manner as they rend the unwary apart. … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Haunting of Calrow Ruins

Argh! Editing! It is my fervent desire to review more adventures that are written well and have had a good editor working on them. Sadly, this is not the case for AAW’s recent release, Under His Skin. There’s certainly no editor listed, and the adventure shows the lack. This is rather a pity, because there are a number of good ideas in the adventure. The … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Under His Skin

Kobold Press’s latest 5E adventure, Tomb of Tiberesh, presents a group of 2nd-level characters the chance to explore an ancient, Egyptian-themed tomb. It’s also rather deadly; with one trap actually allowing the possibility of instant death. That trap is also interesting because it has a Stealth bonus; the DM rolls the Stealth check for the trap and compares it to the Passive Perceptions of the … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Tomb of Tiberesh

Frank Schmidt has released a large number of adventures for AD&D and 5E under his Adventures in Filbar imprint; Putting a Krampus in the Holiday is his (free) 2015 Christmas special and is designed for level 1-3 characters. The adventure begins with the players asked to investigate the disappearance of a gnomish adventurer, who vanished after fiddling with some magical items he’d recovered from his … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Putting a Krampus in the Holiday

It seriously crossed my mind for this post to simply be “Dan Head has written a Christmas adventure. Go get it!”, but that’d mean I wouldn’t get to gush about the adventure a little. I mean, it’s not every day you get an adventure about helping an orc tribe defend itself from a dangerous predator! Christmas with the Orcs: The Red Man Comes! is a … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – Christmas with the Orcs: The Red Man Comes!

One of the better aspects of the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons is how it handles backgrounds. Very similar to the kits of AD&D 2E, backgrounds manage to avoid a lot of the mechanical flaws of the original approach while providing a lot of good role-playing material. What Came Before, from Lupus Rex Games, provides 25 new backgrounds for use with the game. There … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: What Came Before – 25 Fantasy Backgrounds

Every so often, a product description actually manages to undersell the product in question. Such is the case with Iconic Encounters: Kobold Lair, which insists it isn’t an adventure. It could have fooled me! You’ve got a map stocked with monsters, traps and NPCs. You have a few suggested hooks for adventurers entering the location. All of which make it an adventure in my eyes. … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – Iconic Encounters: Kobold Lair