Review: Tomb of the Moon Knight

 


Today we are looking at Tomb of the Moon Knight by Aaron Botter, a short 11-room adventure for levels 1-2. The party will explore the tomb of a long-dead Robin Hood type figure while contending with Sky Pirates and other hazards. It's pretty straightforward but also has some nice bursts of creativity and weirdness that set it apart from your typical graverobbing adventure.

The layout and structure of the room keys pretty closely hews to the Arcane Library default. No points for originality but it's nicely organized and easy to parse. There's also a beautiful piece of full-page original art.  

The adventure makes the most of it's low room count by providing a nice mix of interactivity - social challenges, environmental hazards, combat and a few light puzzles. No wasted space here. It also provides clear mechanics for running everything. A potential cave-in gives us the chance of causing it intentionally, the chance of it happening randomly, a DC for escaping and a DC for digging someone out. Simple stuff that is left out too often. 

For that reason I think this would be a good adventure for a new GM. It includes several details about what PCs will hear and smell as they try to gather information on what lies in the next room. It does a good job of anticipating things the players might try and the questions that might come up. It won't leave you guessing or scrambling to fill in specifics that are not provided. 

There is a bit of a structural issue. If the PC's don't learn the oath from area 7 before they go to the Moon Knight's tomb, there's pretty good odds they'll be fighting his ghost, which attacks if someone touches his magic sword. If you don't think the party will immediately do that you haven't been playing D&D very long. But there are two entrances and multiple loops in the dungeon, so there's no guarantee that they'll learn that oath (although it is probably the most likely path). It sets the party up for an undesirable outcome, especially considering your level 1 or 2 party might not even have the means to harm a ghost. 

I'm not saying the dungeon should be a railroad and I'm also not saying this is a deal-breaker, but I do think you could rearrange things a bit to make taking the oath or stealing the sword more of an informed choice, rather than something a PC might do out of ignorance. Move things around a bit to ensure the party finds the oath before they find the tomb. 

Especially because that choice is, um, impactful. Let's address the elephant in the room. Taking the oath of the Moon Knight will transform the PC into late-80's fast food advertising icon, Mac Tonight. 


OK, not literally. But the resemblance is uncanny. I love weird stuff like this. Stuff that persists when the adventure is done. Author's shouldn't be afraid to include things that will permanently alter the game/campaign/PC or whatever. I'd like to see more of it. In addition to radical cranial alterations, someone taking the oath gets +1 shortsword, an XP bonus and the honorific "Moon" placed in front of their class title. 

You also get an alternate carousing table for "Charity Work" because I guess drunken debauchery is unbecoming a Moon Knight. It's a little bit stronger than the default table, and includes something called "Heroic Inspiration" without explanation. I guess it's luck tokens but it's unclear.  

Tomb of the Moon Knight is tightly designed and includes some nice strangeness and potential long-term impact that sets it apart from  a lot of 10-room tombs I have read. Nice work.

On a scale of 2-12, Tomb of the Moon Knight gets 7 stingbats.

https://professor-grimm.com/products/the-tomb-of-the-moon-knight

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