2d6 Stingbats

I started this blog for three primary reasons. 1) To entertain myself and 2) to try and bring attention to what I felt were the best adventures in an unfathomable sea of content and 3) provide a counterpoint to the well-meaning but perhaps overdone positivity that exists in the Shadowdark community around 3rd party adventures. Which is to say, I saw a lot of excitement and promotion for adventures and dungeons that I thought were not very good, and a lot of good adventures were being overlooked. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be well-received. I think the Shadowdark community is the best in the entire TTRPG hobby, and I wanted to remain in good standing, but I'm also opinionated and in love with the sound of my own voice. So I started writing reviews and held my breath, waiting for people to tell me what a jerk I was. I was genuinely (and pleasantly) surprised at the positive response. A nice little community formed around the blog over on the Arcane Library discord o...

Today we're looking at A Haunting in Glass by Jesse Winter. It's a 30-room tower adventure for levels 3-5. The page on DriveThruRPG has some recommendations from folks like directsun (author of Aberrant Reflections , one of my favorites) and Joel Hines (author of Desert Moon of Karth , also one of my favorites) so I was excited to check it out. The setup is that powerful wizard has created a device to turn moonbeams into gold. He holds a big party to show it off, but someone steals the gem that powers it and everything goes awry, crystalizing the tower and everyone it. We are given several hooks that range from tax collecting to strange dreams. The first 15 pages are spent explaining the background and various special mechanics. It is, perhaps, a touch overwrought. There is a giant device in the tower called The Argent Crucible that is powered by a gem called Tenebrolith. Part of the crucible, called Moonhymn Cantor sings the Hymns of Parnath while a lunar vampire named Noct...

Today we are looking at T he Devoured Labyrinth published by Bite-Sized Gaming, with Andrew Bishkinskyi and Zac Goins as lead designers. It is a collection of 46 dungeons, the vast majority being 1-2 pages, spread across a 160-hex region map. Let's address the elephant in the room: The Devoured Labyrinth is not a labyrinth or megadungeon. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it is, given the name. In fact the first two questions of the Kickstarter FAQ address this, where we are told "The 'Labyrinth' is a metaphor for interconnected buried ruins that have sunk underground." Ah, ok. It's a metaphor. So what it is, rather, collection of short 1-2 page dungeons that are loosely connected via themes and the overland hexmap. They are not connected literally. Maybe you shoulda come up with a different title. Since there are 46 dungeons in this thing I'm not going to review of all them, but I will dive into a handful.  First up is Doom Hold, a 12-room romp thr...