Where Madness Dwells

[Messageboard Golem]

Where Madness Dwells is the first d20 adventure from the Inner Circle.
In the quiet, remote city of Niarva, the Witten Asylum stood as a testament to ground-breaking care for the mentally ill. Forty years ago, Witten was renowned throughout the surrounding communities as a place of peace and tranquility. Today, the asylum has fallen on dark times. Patients have gone missing, and the once placid establishment stands at the breach of a terrible discovery. Journey into the dark recesses of this fetid place and find out if the dark rumors surrounding Witten Asylum hold true. . . if you dare.

Where Madness Dwells is suitable for four 7th-level characters, and offers a good mix of roleplaying, problem solving and combat and can easily be adapted for parties of varying strength. This is one module your players will never forget.

 

[Crothian]

Where Madness Dwells

It seems odd to be doing a Halloween review during the week of Thanksgiving. However, given that I have not seen any Thanksgiving oriented adventures in a few years this one will have to do. This adventure is a nice horror bit that takes place in an insane asylum. It has a lot of good qualities that I’ll into shortly but the most important aspect of the adventure is that it is free.

I rarely talk about the cost of a product in my review. What is expensive to one is cheap to another, it all comes down to the person buying. But there is no excuse for not getting this module as it is a free download. I have seen a lot of free downloads and this is one of the better ones. So, go get it…it is costing you nothing!!!

Now that we have that taken care of let us get one to the actual product. Where Madness Dwells is an adventure written by Thomas Knauss and CD Bennett. They are part of the Inner Circle. They are the people behind two great products Denizens of Avandu and Legends of Avandu. If you have not checked them out you should. Where Madness Dwells comes in a zip file a bit under nine megs. It comes with player handouts, maps and a print and on screen version of the adventure.

The adventure is designed for character of six to eighth level with ways to scale the adventure. The adventure is supposed to be really challenging for the players with one or two encounters that will be extremely hard. This seems to be by design and with the setting these extra challenging encounters should make this adventure memorable. In fact the writers even say that completing this will give the players bragging rights for years to come.

There is a PDF of player handouts. Handouts are a great addition to any game and it is good to see them included here. There is a map of the city, and two sheets that are for the players to find. They really are nicely done and this type of quality is rarely seen in anything free. There is also a map of the Asylum and this is of course for the DM.

The adventure is a good mystery. The setting can get creepy if properly run. It is a an asylum and they capture the craziness of it in the adventure. There are plenty of unique characters for the players to encounter. As the modules itself says the feel should be one of lurking dread.

I am not going to offer any spoilers for this one. Again, it is free and if the if the idea of a creepy asylum adventure sounds cool then go get it. If it turns out to be something you do not like it will be easy to delete it off your hard drive.