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I am reviewing Dead Gods with an eye towards converting it into a high level 5E adventure. This review has spoilers for the adventure. I read an original print of the adventure. After reading the prior reviews, I spot checked the PDF from DMs Guild and it looks fine to me.
The adventure consists of two separate plot lines, Out of the Darkness and Into the Light. Out of the Darkness is the main story, with Into the Light serving as an interesting palate cleanser between chunks of the main campaign. Both have very good stories, centered around how gods die and possibly come back. Most of the adventure focuses on Orcus attempting to fully restore himself from a shadow of his former self known as Tenebrous. The adventures start with hints of what is going on and follows the characters as they encounter Tenebrous’ minions (reality warping demons called visages) and eventually learn they need to track down a pair of drow that know the location of the Wand of Orcus to prevent Tenebrous’ resurrection as Orcus.
The Good: The story is good. It builds over time and should be an interesting mystery for the players. It’s an engaging adventure to read, especially if you like the planes. It uses some interesting mechanics to put the characters in unusual situations, especially in the Into the Light portion of the adventure. There is a very useful flowchart for mapping the adventure.
The Meh: The art can be up and down. Some of the illustrations are awesome, but others don’t make sense with the adventure.
The Bad: Outside of the flowchart, there isn’t a lot to help the DM run the game. There are a ton of NPCs to track in each section, plus planar locations, and huge shifts from adventure to adventure. It’s a lot to keep track of. It leans on the role play pillar over combat, but it feels like most parties will tend toward combat given the way the scenarios are presented. It will take a lot of work to make it work mechanically as a 5E adventure.
Overall, I think the story is good enough that I am willing to put in the work to convert if to 5E. I plan on using it at high level (15-20) so I expect it to be even more challenging to convert. But the core story seems worth it.
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