This is the gold standard folks! This is how adventure modules SHOULD be done! Ignore the fact that my players really enjoyed it, thought it was a compelling mystery, enjoyed the different characters (especially the kids). The module ITSELF is written excellently. Not only is the short story presented here a fun and interesting twist, creating a fun pairing of low level villains, it is organized brilliantly. Every character of note gets great tips on how to RP them, alongside BULLET POINT LISTS on what information they can provide. Combat encounters all have suggested adjustments to make them easier or harder, as the DM wishes. Big combat encounters have accompanying maps, and have multiple moving parts. The big fight has several complications that make it more than just a slog with a bunch of baddies, and the second big fight has a hostile terrain that makes the whole thing a lot more dynamic.

If you take nothing else from this, heed this much: I prepared this adventure over a span of a single day and I needed to make NO NOTES. The adventure is written and organized so well that you can easily run it straight out of the book. Most of my prep time was just spend hunting down character art for my players. Every single aspect of this adventure is crafted with utmost excellence and it earns every penny its worth. I will definitely be buying more of this creator's content!

Finished the adventure with my group this evening. We had a blast. As the GM I found it easy to run and the players really enjoyed it. My game is set in Greyhawk, using the 5E Ghost of Saltmash source book. I threw them right into it immediately upon their return from "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and it was a great fit. thank you!

Some spoilers ahead. I ran my group through it in 4-5 sessions, though my players never visited the vet. The standout hit from the adventure was the boss encounter. It was fun to run, and fun for the players. Especially the moving lair hazards. I played it mostly as a trap set by Maude. Her primary goal was just to lure the PCs into her lair and curse them somehow, as revenge for Kraggen. When the initial curses from the adventure failed (since my group is murderhobos) she threw an ogre at them, turned invisible, escaped out the back, and left them a slightly homebrewed Luba's Tarokka of Souls amongst the loot. I stole an idea from WebDM, where she pulled a squirrel (polymorphed ogre) from a sack, snapped its neck and threw it into the midst of the players, ending the polymorph and reverting it back to an ogre. They players freaked out when this happened. Also, a Carrion Crawler can be very dangerous for a party with low con saves, and few hit points. Since it can paralyze the PCs and then all hits are critical hits, it can turn deadly very quickly. The Carrion Crawler was just the right level of challenge for my players when they thought victory was at hand.

The investigations didn’t go as well for our group. The players rolled badly, and didn’t really think outside the box, and was stumped. Though, when one of my more experienced players heard Fipp mention “tall and ugly woman” he immediately said “Hag!”. So, this should probably be one of the last clues you drop on your players.

If you plan on running this, I also recommend thinking through what to do if the players struggle with piecing together what’s going on. I just used Wildak and some guards to help them figure out what was going on.

I love, love, loved this one-shot. Very well-written, great setting, and memorable characters. Young Ham Barleywain has become integral to the last 29 sessions in our campaign. Great story with a Hitchcockesque mystery flavor. Wholeheartedly recommend.

We played this with a party of 5 over two sessions and both myself and the players tremendously enjoyed this adventure. Its well put together with intresting characters, locations and a cool mystery. Can definintely recommend!

If I had to list two minor things that could be improved it would be better digital maps, with the pandemic playing online has become more of a norm and while the hand-drawn maps are by no means bad, I re-created them for higher fidelity online tabletop play.

Lastely a quick overview of how the different parts of the adventure flow into each other would be great, I felt it wasn't entirely clear from the get go which events (have to) happen first, as it feels like there is an optimal order to play.

But these minor quibbles don't detract from what was otherwise an excellent adventure.

One of the strongest adventures I've ran. Great in Saltmarsh campaign but also a good standalone, probably needing one long or two sessions to finish. Well written, great handouts, fun characters and cool lore.

This oneshot offers a lot of areas you can add to, change, and build off of. I ran this as part of a larger campaign I'm running and my players really enjoyed it! I changed the ocean to a river and changed any ocean animals to river fish (whale became gigantic catfish). My players were frustrated by the mystery at times, but the frequency of combat/encounters kept them interested. At the end of it all I had all the members of the town throw them a 'thank you' banquet, which my group loved! My group is particularly item driven, so the magic items available throughout were great for them. If you need any more, I recommend these tables from dndspeak: http://dndspeak.com/2018/07/100-items-in-a-hags-lair/ and http://dndspeak.com/2018/01/100-aquatic-items/

Overall, a very well written and extremely well formatted oneshot!

I ran this adventure for my latest campaign, adapting it to fit my East Asian setting but otherwise leaving it largely intact.

My players loved the mystery aspect of things, and it was certainly a change from kobolds and the like to instead have them fighting flocks of murderous birds. While I did change the final bossfight to a bit more of a fey-themed dungeon, the plot and the layout of the book made it exceedingly easy to run. A really well done module!

I ran this adventure recently for my group as a part of a larger story, which is usually four players and dropped down to three last minute. We had three level 3 characters: Warlock, Artificer, and Fighter. It was a single session, and lasted about 5 hours.

The adventure was extremely fun and evocative, and Salty Maude was a very memorable villain with her incredible lair design and wonderfully written personality (which was very easy to apply to the game).

My party threw several curveballs at me, but the core story here is so clear and well-designed that it was easy to improvise off of, and it made for an extremely fun and fulfilling experience! The players have been extolling the quality of the story, and I am extremely pleased with how it ran.

I especially loved, from a DM perspective, how each encounter had suggestions on how to quickly weaken or strengthen an encounter. Due to the last minute change in party, it was very easy for me to decrease threats from where I was originally intending to have them.

Major kudos to the author for such a wonderful, easy to run, and satisfying adventure!

WOW. I loved everything about this adventure. From the layout to the plot, everything about this module was polished. I ran through this as both a player and a DM and have nothing but positive things to say. This adventure works great as either a stand alone piece or a fun detour during a Salt Marsh campaign. You knocked this out of the park Stacey!

If you need a fun adventure that can be played in 3-5 hours, look no further.

Want an introductory adventure to Saltmarsh that is full of birds, birds, and a few more birds? But, wait! Do you also want engaging NPCs, intriguing backstory, unique settings, and tons of thrills, near escapes, and conflict? Then you are DEFINITELY going to want to grab Down Came a Black Bird.

In Down Came a Blackbird, the party finds itself in the sleepy seaside town of Saltmarsh as it's in the middle of a terrifying ordeal. The local birds have gone vicious and are attacking citizens, sometimes targeting teens and children. Meanwhile, someone or something is bursting into people's homes at night and ripping out their hearts. PCs must unravel this mystery and learn who is controlling the birds and killing Saltmartians, eventually setting sail to do battle in a seriously gross (but seriously cool) setting.

I freaking LOVED this adventure and so did my players. There was so much lore and atmospheric bits to play around with, and I got to do so many fun and silly voices. Players really had to put on their thinking caps to try to solve the mystery, and they loved talking to all the NPCs. We played as a party of level 1s, which was difficult, but players compensated with ingenuity (and sometimes cowardice). We had an amazing time, and it really excited the group into diving into Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

This is such a great adventure and so fun to play. The layout is also beautiful with the repeated blue/purple, red, and white and bird imagery. It was just as much fun to look at as it was to play. I recommend it to anyone that wants a good mystery with an aquatic adventure.

Had a fantastic time running this has a one shot for my girlfriend and friends, most of whom had never played before! They adored it. Some favourite moments include our elf ranger jumping from a roof onto the back of the villainous Kraggen and killing him after a long aerial battle, as well as the fight within the belly of the whale. It's an imaginative adventure that showed them what D&D could be! Highly recommend this product to any DM looking to run a fun and quick adventure!

Oh and the players adored the handouts, they're very well designed!

This is excellent. I love the visual/artistic design of the adventure, and the writing is excellent. Cool imaginative ideas and an interesting story that pleases both the DM and the players. This is a fun and recommended adventure.

Totally awesome! My players had a great time pondering over all the mysteries and strategizing the combats. Wonderful way to bring the pkayers into Saltmarsh. Great writing and descriptions!!! Kudos!!!

Let me start off by saying I cannot believe this is Stacey's debut adventure. The quality of every single aspect of it is top notch and screams veteran publisher!

Pros: Beautiful layout, great maps, nice handouts, very helpful tables (loved the townsfolk table), super easy (and GREAT) story to follow/get the players to follow, very easy to prep (broken up in parts that are easy to follow), very fun and dynamic fights (can't stress this one enough, the fights are all so unique and FUN), handy stat blocks for all of the creatues involved at the end.

Cons: The only thing I can even think of to say is a "con" is that the handouts aren't available as their own documents so I had to use a snippet tool to screenshot for my players, not a dealbreaker what-so-ever.

I'm the DM for a podcast that plays one-shot modules from dmsguild and I ran this adventure for a few of our patrons on our Twitch channel, you can watch my playthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfhyBTG9Zf4