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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010514" data-attributes="member: 1129">Crown of Shadow is an ambitious book that takes characters from 1st to 5th level while giving them a tour of the physical and emotional feel of the Midnight campaign setting.Note, as always with an adventure, spoilers follow. Players, go reread your Midnight book or something.Broken up into seven chapters, the book covers a wide variety of adventure and themes. It strives to showcase how isolated the demi-humans are while adding terror and hopelessness to the mix.For example, the meeting of the characters can have some players as allies of Wendell from the elves, or citizens of Durgis Rock. This automatically builds up tension as the characters hail from different areas. The players must learn to trust one another. Other twists are specific for dwarves like having to deal with the vast open plains or with the wild river.Another theme present is don't slow down. There are several instances where the players have to keep moving. There are notes on using starvation and food rationing to insure that the players never forget that they don't have the luxury of waiting for things to get better. They have to stay on the move. In several instances, they'll find themselves either moving slower or quicker as the agents of evil are everywhere and attacks are always in progress with the players seeing several stages of this on the road.Another interesting theme is that of action. There are several times when the players will have the option of not helping someone else and this has repercussions from not getting bonus experience points, to how others in the world deal with you. Inactivity is not a reward in and of itself. For example, at the Pardrum Holdfast, if the players haven't saved Golan, a dwarf of some importance to Pardrum, their reception is much different than if they had saved him and were returning with him.The book doesn't hold back on any issues though. There is a sneaky switch at the end which could, if the party's not careful, result in a TPK and unfortunately, even though there are other powers about, not all of them believe in interference.One thing that the book does is focus on insuring that players know about the setting. It doesn't always do this in a logical sequence however. For example, while players may not know about the Followers of the White Mother, a non-violent orc cult, they are supposed to know about the terrors of the dead raising. Now take this knowledge, and ponder why the players are assumed not to have done this in the first encounter with the goblins who come back as Fell. Why wouldn't the party take care of them if they know about the horrors of the undead? Some may be looking at the size of this adventure and wondering, how do players get from 1st to 5th level in a book this small. It is very generous with story based awards. This is good for a few reasons. One, this is a different setting and the handling of experience points reflects that. Two, it severs as a good example of how to base your own awards for experience points. For example, at the start of the adventure, goblins are controlling a stone golem and if the players are smart enough to avoid trouble with them, they get an encounter worth 500 experience points. Latter on, if they fight in the pits at Pardrum, they'll earn experience points just for having the stones to fight in the pit in addition to experience points.Crown of Shadow is written a little too friendly for the GM.  I think that FFG's goal here though isn't necessarily to engage GMs like me with this adventure though so it doesn't effect the grade, just something experienced GMs should know beforehand. Another important note, not a problem with the adventure itself, is that this is fully a Midnight adventure. It's set deep into the roots of that system and will represent some challenges when putting it into another setting.Art is handled by Anthony Hightower, Anneth Lagamo and Tyler Walpole. The material is good but doesn't match some of the work found in other FFG products. The layout is standard two columns with lots of sections for the GM's eyes.. Editing is good with typos and other issues minimized. Interior covers are not used. Maps are done by Ed Bourelle, known for his work at Necromancer, Mystic Eye and Skeletonkey Games. This means that the maps are high quality but lack a map key. Some of the maps are larger than standard dungeon scale so lack an easy way to keep tabs of whose where but in those situations, it most likely won't matter.If you're looking to jump start a Midnight campaign, Crown of Shadow is perfect.</blockquote>

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