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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9475862" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/fDMSt2r.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/389037/The-Swanmay-and-the-Woodsman" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: AdventureCoS-Required? NoOptimized for 4 4th-level PCs, this short adventure borrows strongly from the folkloric horror side of things, although I hesitate to even apply the horror label to it. The involved characters in the module don’t even have proper names, instead they have titles for their role in the story such as the Woodsman, the Daughter, etc, and are presumed to be given proper names based on what fits for the DM’s campaign and party backstories.The adventure’s background involves a Swanmay, a woman part of a secret order of druids, ending up trapped in the Land of Mists after a fierce battle with an evil spirit. She married a friendly Woodsman, settling down and giving birth to a Daughter. Eventually others of her order managed to find her and she departed, leaving the Woodsman and her infant Daughter. But not before giving them a white magical robe and ocarina for the Daughter to use when she came of age, should she wish to become a Swanmay herself. The Woodsman grew depressed with the departure of his wife, and sent his Daughter to live with her Grannie. Grannie worried that she too would leave, so looking for advice she inadvertently got tricked by that very same evil spirit that fought the Swanmays. She commanded Grannie to lock away the robe and ocarina and possessed the old woman, biding her time while pretending to be an unassuming old woman.The adventure begins in a local tavern, with at least one of the PCs waiting for their old friend, the Woodsman, who the adventure suggests being part of a character’s backstory. While waiting they meet the Illusionist, a traveling member of the Carnival domain, who mentions that the lunar conjunction empowers illusion magic. For the rest of this adventure, various illusion spells that portray objects (not creatures) become real and will persist until the Carnival departs. This is a really great benefit that opens up a lot of interesting tactics, something the rest of the adventure doesn’t really seize upon sadly. The Warlock’s Misty Visions invocation in particular is open to some potent abuse this way.Fun Fact: The author of this adventure also worked on the <a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/378408/Dark-Carnival-and-the-Mirrors-of-Madness-A-Multitable-Adventure" target="_blank">Dark Carnival,</a> which I reviewed earlier in this thread. The Illusionist in this case may be either Tindal or Tindafulus, depending on who was saved at the end of that adventure.The Illusionist will join the party if wanted, claiming that his services can be very entertaining at parties. The Woodsman eventually shows up late, drunk and trying and failing to sell the white robe, and townsfolk keep telling him to go home since it’s his Daughter’s birthday. The PCs can learn a bit about the Woodsman’s backstory, with some false rumors to go along with some of the truth. The Woodsman will ask the party to come back with him to his cabin home in the woods. Along the way a 1d8 random encounter result is either rolled or chosen to determine whether they get back in time for his Daughter’s birthday party or arrive late. Most of the encounters involve obstacles against mundane animals, natural hazards, or in two cases undead in the form of spectral wolves and a scared ghost who may attempt to flee. Every noncombat encounter that has a “distraction” or nonviolent means of resolution has a punishment of risking additional time or the party getting lost, meaning that the ideal solution is to just ignore it and keep on going. For example, a tiger is entangled in a trapped net; if the tiger is released, it will attack the party, and if they can’t trap it again with a Deception check it will chase them through the woods and make them get lost. Another encounter has them hear a wailing woman, and if they go to check it out there’s no traces of anyone and they must make a Survival check to avoid getting lost. Regardless of how the encounter’s resolved, the party will stumble across a random magic item on the way home.I’m not a fan of encounters whose resolution is to just…avoid them. I can understand encounters that may be a moral dilemma, like choosing not to help someone in need in order to get to your destination faster, or one that has some kind of risk/reward element. Making it so that the ideal solution is to not engage with an event or encounter at all will encourage players to avoid adventure hooks and encounters in the future. The module also provides no stats for either the Illusionist or the Woodsman, which is a pretty big oversight.The Woodsman’s cabin is a humble two-story abode, with a basement accessible by a locked cellar door. Outside, an enchanted hatchet is animated to cut wood by itself. Grannie has cooked a meal for the party’s arrival. The Woodsman remains sullen and threatens to darken an otherwise bright day; PCs will need to perform at least 2 skill checks to keep everyone’s spirits up, but if they arrive late the DC will be raised by 2. Succeeding on checks provides benefits, such as causing the Daughter to play on her ocarina and the chance to realize that it’s a magical item.Even if the PCs didn’t get on their good side, with evening approaching it’s only good and proper to invite guests to stay the night rather than sending them off into the dangerous forest. During this time the PCs have the opportunity to sense that something’s off with Granny. Anyone adjacent realizes that she smells bad, and while she passes it off as flatulence an Insight check shows that she’s lying. Detect Good and Evil, a paladin’s divine sense, and similar powers reveal that the odor is overpowering and deals psychic damage on a failed save. Additionally, she wears a key on a necklace. This is the key to a chest in the cellar that contains the white robe. The cellar’s contents also contain weaver’s tools and a broken magical loom which if repaired grants the ability to create magical garments. These were formerly owned by the Swanmay, which she used to craft the white robe and other items.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Jdu3FaH.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The end of the adventure involves the Daughter making the private decision to leave home and look for her mother now that she’s old enough, and sneaks into the cellar to steal the robe. She will bypass the lock via a hairpin, and if the PCs already have the robe she will find them and ask for it. The PCs have no choice, for if they refuse she will play on her ocarina: a successful Wisdom save causes them to be awake but incapacitated for 1 minute, while a failed one causes them to be unconscious for 1 minute. This gives the PCs just enough time to follow the Daughter to the nearby lake.But the evil spirit possessing Grannie is here (if the PCs previously killed Grannie then she is of the undead type), with an Enchanted Hatchet and Shadow (which is the spirit) by her side. The PCs must defend the Daughter from her, and if she’s killed or knocked out the spirit will depart for good. The shadow only appears when Grannie attacks, taking its turn then disappearing; PCs can attack the shadow by readying an action to do so. But that doesn’t really matter, for after combat resolves she will die and be resistant to any attempts to bring her back to life as she feels that her time has come to depart for the afterlife. The Daughter and Woodsman grieve for her death and bury Grannie. The Woodsman wants the Daughter to stay, unwilling to end up alone. It will be up to the PCs whether or not they encourage the Daughter to depart, and they can choose whether or not they depart with her or stay with the Woodsman to keep him company. If the PCs end up staying with the Woodsman (with or without his Daughter) they will be trapped in the domain as its borders close for the next 2d6 years. During that time the Woodsman will pass away, the Mists receding, and if she’s still there the Daughter will take her robe and ocarina and depart on a quest to find her mother. The PC’s choice also determines what magic item they gain as a reward at the end of this module, be it an Animated Handaxe (remain with the Woodsman, bonus action activates and moves it to fly and attack on its own up to 4 times) or a Robe of the Swanmay (accompany the Daughter, can cast a personal Polymorph once per day to become a zephyr swan which is a flying CR ¼ monstrosity with short-range teleport and magic resistance, can cast Charm Person and Speak With Animals once per day each).There’s an optional Epilogue, where the Daughter and her family were actually soulless, and as soon as she leaves the Domain she fades into nonexistence. The next time the PCs come to the Carnival, the Illusionist will reveal this fate and why she faded away if the party was with her.There are several Appendices in this adventure, only two of which are worth covering for this review. One outlines the new magic items obtainable in this adventure, detailing seven in total. Beyond the two covered above, we have the Enchanted Loom (can create one of 4 magic items from this book via expenditure of time, gold, and permanent sacrifice of a spell slot), Fabric Boat (command word causes sheet of fabric to unfold into a swan-shaped boat), Guardian’s Cloak (+1 AC, gain personal benefits of Feather Fall when falling), Mantle of the Wind (gain flying speed for up to 1 hour per day, can cast Gust of Wind once per day or additional times beyond that at risk of destroying the item), and Returning Handaxe (returns to wielder’s hand after thrown). The other appendix suggests ways to personalize the adventure for Ravenloft’s various domains. Most of them are bare-bones, mostly focusing on large bodies of water and notable population centers nearby for the adventure’s starting and ending locations.Overall Thoughts: This is not a good adventure. Several NPCs of note have no stats at all, the random encounters actively punish the PCs for interacting with them, and the adventure’s resolution is incredibly railroady and goes out of its way to punish out-of-the-box thinking: did the PCs kill Grannie ahead of time? She comes back anyway! What if they try to exorcise her with Protection From Good and Evil beforehand? It doesn’t say! What if they make sure to attack only the Shadow and not her in the final combat? She dies anyway! What if they refuse to hand the robe over to the Daughter? <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThouMust" target="_blank">She stuns them all with enough time to get to the lake, no save!</a>The only real time that the adventure gives the PCs a choice is at the end, and that’s in regards to the Daughter’s decision whether or not to leave. But the Epilogue can end up a downer, for she is soulless and bound to fade away. Now imagine the years-long timeskip at adventure’s end, which is also wholly unnecessary and can be a gut-punch if the PCs learn from the Epilogue that it was all for naught anyway. As for the lunar conjunction’s empowerment of illusion magic? The only time the module calls it out as being useful is to swap Grannie’s key with a replica, but otherwise it more or less has no impact or ties into the module at hand.I cannot recommend this adventure, as not even the new magical items make up for its content, especially not at the offered price point.Join us next time as we cover a dark comedy adventure focusing on the horrors of the inability to find a restroom in a timely manner in You Have to Go!</blockquote>

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