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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 9695450" data-attributes="member: 6910340">The seventh adventure is Before The Storm, a very straightforward adventure for level 10 characters about a black dragon who has taken control of a pirate gang and is terrorizing a seaside town.The GoodThe splash page art, featuring the dragon, is awesome. The maps are even better, including my aesthetically favorite dungeon map in the book so far. Colorful, gnarly, and evocative while also being quite practical in play.The dragon stole two gems that protect the town from storms; if they're not recovered before tonight, the impending storm will break and destroy the town. Good, simple, high stakes imposition of a time limit that precludes a long rest during the adventure.This is a straightforward, no-frills dungeon crawl (well, the gorgeous map is a frill) and if that simplicity means it probably won't wow anyone, it also means that nothing is botched either - the whole thing makes sense and should play quite smoothly.We're seven adventures into the dragon book and this is the first one wherein the BBEG is an evil, adult dragon that the adventurers unambiguously really should fight and kill.The dragon killed the former leader of the pirates and set up his skeleton as a warning to any other potentially disobedient pirates it's a nice touch, and also neat that you can Speak With Dead on it, although tbh the resulting conversation isn't anything revelatory.ComplaintsIt's...very straightforward. Go to the dungeon, get the macguffins back, kill the dragon, get back before nightfall. No twists and really not a lot of innovation in the encounters. While there is nothing wrong with it, there's also nothing that I think anybody is gonna find super memorable either.The dragon itself could have been the twist, actually. It could have sent the pirates to raid the town and do its dirty work without revealing itself. The players discovering that the bloodthirsty new captain of the pirate gang is actually a dragon would have been a cool moment. But as written, the dragon led the pirate attack on the town. I'd probably change that if I ran it.I'll also add that, while of course monsters don't always need to revert to type, the behavior of this black dragon isn't particularly black dragon-y. It's quite red dragon-y, and, if it concealed itself, could also be pretty classic green dragon behavior. The lore on black dragons tends to have them involved with cultists and undead - there aren't any here.I think, but am not sure, that most of the combat encounters - except for the boss fight, as the dragon does have three darkmantles with it - are probably a bit easy for a level 10 party - but that might be mitigated by the fact that there is a time limit.There's some stuff about the town is in an area where the barrier to the Elemental Plane of Air is thin and a lot of people who live there are essentially genasi except genasi don't technically exist yet in 5.5 so they're just described as blue-skinned humans with floaty hair and... you know what, it just doesn't really matter, doesn't really change anything, and probably isn't worth the time spent communicating it to the players. It can just be a coastal town that needs its magic gems to protect it from storms. VerdictI think this is a B. It does what's on the tin. I'd actually say it's a stronger B than, say, Death at Sunset, because it's less flawed - but it's also kinda less interesting.</blockquote>

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