Lands of Darkness #1: The Barrow Grounds is an "adventure setting" for 5 players levels 1-3 using D&D 4th edition by Expeditious Retreat Press. The PDF contains a cover image, 22 pages of content and 2 pages of advertisements.
What you actually get is a brief overview of a section of a graveyard, three hooks to get the PCs interested, and twelve encounters with tactical maps. Five of the encounters have black and white half-page illustrations ("Player Handouts") provided at the end of the pdf.
Throughout this product, the writing is poor. Words are misused and misspelt; e.g. "Ruins" instead of "Runes", "Statute" instead of "Statue". I'm not quite sure what the writers meant by a "statuesque form" when describing the Barrow Guardian, but if they meant a small, deformed construct wearing a hooded robe (as shown in the illustration), then they really need to invest in a dictionary. I also wonder why the illustrator depicted the Guardian in the process of attacking when it is an encounter the players are meant to negotiate with; wouldn't it be far more useful to have it in a neutral or friendly pose?
There is a basic quest attached to the adventure, which is not connected to the three suggested hooks. A magical crystal that protects the graveyard from evil has shattered and become perverted: it now aids the undead it was meant to repel. The Barrow Guardian can destroy it if it is brought part of the crystal. Strangely enough, no-one in the nearby town has noticed the increase in undead, for none of the hooks mention them.
One clever feature of the adventure is the way it provides scaling for level 1-3 parties, although it doesn't provide any advice for scaling for different numbers of PCs. Each encounter has a different set-up depending on the level of the party; I quite appreciate this.
The encounters consist mostly of combats against a range of creatures. To get around the restrictions on reprinting statblocks inherent in the GSL, the authors have used variants of existing creatures, just changing a few numbers about. There is at least one encounter against a group of spiders that may well end up as a Total Party Kill: changing the stats of a Bloodweb Spider Swarm so that it now has a Swarm Attack aura 2 rather than 1 is a very brave move. A Level 7 soldier is problematic enough for a 2nd level party without changes like that.
I really can't recommend this product. The encounters are perfunctory without much thought about the terrain or the need for more manuevering space. There is a decided lack of thought about how things interact. Why, for instance, don't the wandering group of "shadowland slinkers" who are pilfering the tombs appear on the random encounter tables? The writing and editing are both poor. If you're in the mood for a group of graveyard-themed encounters, you may enjoy this product, but otherwise: don't bother.
What you actually get is a brief overview of a section of a graveyard, three hooks to get the PCs interested, and twelve encounters with tactical maps. Five of the encounters have black and white half-page illustrations ("Player Handouts") provided at the end of the pdf.
Throughout this product, the writing is poor. Words are misused and misspelt; e.g. "Ruins" instead of "Runes", "Statute" instead of "Statue". I'm not quite sure what the writers meant by a "statuesque form" when describing the Barrow Guardian, but if they meant a small, deformed construct wearing a hooded robe (as shown in the illustration), then they really need to invest in a dictionary. I also wonder why the illustrator depicted the Guardian in the process of attacking when it is an encounter the players are meant to negotiate with; wouldn't it be far more useful to have it in a neutral or friendly pose?
There is a basic quest attached to the adventure, which is not connected to the three suggested hooks. A magical crystal that protects the graveyard from evil has shattered and become perverted: it now aids the undead it was meant to repel. The Barrow Guardian can destroy it if it is brought part of the crystal. Strangely enough, no-one in the nearby town has noticed the increase in undead, for none of the hooks mention them.
One clever feature of the adventure is the way it provides scaling for level 1-3 parties, although it doesn't provide any advice for scaling for different numbers of PCs. Each encounter has a different set-up depending on the level of the party; I quite appreciate this.
The encounters consist mostly of combats against a range of creatures. To get around the restrictions on reprinting statblocks inherent in the GSL, the authors have used variants of existing creatures, just changing a few numbers about. There is at least one encounter against a group of spiders that may well end up as a Total Party Kill: changing the stats of a Bloodweb Spider Swarm so that it now has a Swarm Attack aura 2 rather than 1 is a very brave move. A Level 7 soldier is problematic enough for a 2nd level party without changes like that.
I really can't recommend this product. The encounters are perfunctory without much thought about the terrain or the need for more manuevering space. There is a decided lack of thought about how things interact. Why, for instance, don't the wandering group of "shadowland slinkers" who are pilfering the tombs appear on the random encounter tables? The writing and editing are both poor. If you're in the mood for a group of graveyard-themed encounters, you may enjoy this product, but otherwise: don't bother.
