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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2008677" data-attributes="member: 9860">Beware! This review contains major spoilers.This is not a playtest review.Price: $13.95Page Count: 64Price per page: About 21 cents per pageDesigned for Character Level: 4thExternal Artwork: A good colour pastiche incorporating several images, notably a fortress cleverly incorporating three faces of NPCs from the adventure.Additional Page Use: Two pages have the OGL, credits and contents, and there is a 1/2 page advert at the end.Internal Artwork: The B&W sketches are generally good, with a few average, a few superb, and one or two poor ones. On the whole, above average. Characters tend to be a bit blocky, but the style is atmospheric and the art remains relevant to the text.Text Density: Text density is average, margins at top and side take up a extra bit of space though they are occasionally overlain by sidebars.Text Style: The style is engaging and personalised, the author is effective at getting ideas and atmosphere across, and is prepared to take time out to discuss the PCs going off at a tangent. The typos are infrequent but regular.The Adventure: The PCs can start the adventure either in a coastal city or the inland capital of Thessalaine. Plot hooks and advice throughout the text, aid with either path.In the first option of the adventure, the PCs begin in the coastal city where ships and their crew have bee disappearing. Following up rumours of a beach covered in dead fish, the PCs must investigate the disappearances by entering a partially submerged sahuagin stronghold, where they gain clues to the perpetrators of the massive fish kill and the disappearances themselves.In the second option, the PCs begin in the capital, where they discover the city is under attack from several underground races (including grimlocks, drow and possibly illithid) who are entering the city through the sewers at night. They can follow the trail back through the sewers where they discover a drow outpost and clues to the location of the brains behind the concerted attacks on Thessalaine, where many more kidnapped slaves from the capital have been taken.In the final part of the adventure, the PCs must enter this mountain lair, but not before they have gleaned clues from both parts of the adventure. As the PCs battle or sneak their way through the lair, they discover the return of a long-forgotten evil that once plagued the lands of Thessalaine and has returned once more looking for vengeance.The Appendix has all the stats for monsters and major NPCs.The High Points: The adventure is well-balanced, with a mixture of roleplaying, combat, skill use, traps and puzzles. The plot is complex but fits together solidly and is clear to the GM, as the adventure is well written. Regular advice for dealing with encounters, and tips for modifying encounters to suit stronger or weaker parties, should make this relatively easy for a GM to run. The setting is generic but well detailed with advice for changing details to suit the GM's campaign and should be suitable for most fantasy campaigns. The plot has several twists to it and should keep the players and their PCs on their toes, as well as one or two subplots. For those who like drow, the adventure has plenty of them.The Low Points: Though several of the major NPCs are well-detailed, for reasons of space the stats and descriptions of the coastal city and capital NPCs were excluded from the text. This would be the sort of thing that could have been included in a freebie web download perhaps. On the whole, depth of character isn't a top priority in this adventure which, despite its complexity and quality, is still a series of dungeon crawls with a few opportunities for roleplaying. An EL summary would have been a welcome addition.  Conclusion: Definitely one of the better adventures I have come across, and succeeds in mixing plot complexity with good old-fashioned adventuring. A well-detailed setting, plenty of advice for running and modifying the adventure, and some excellent plot twists make the module worthy of the price tag. Its also relatively easy to integrate into a standard fantasy campaign. Its only weakness is perhaps a lack of character depth and regular roleplaying opportunities, but then thats not what this module is about. All in all, not far off top marks.</blockquote>

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