Well hello! This Supplement comes right out of the gate with one of the most beautiful and evocative covers I have ever seen! “A fearless magical warrior charges a monstrous demon atop their flying steed in this beautiful image, painted by Bob Greyvenstein.” This really kicks things of and conveys the heart of this collection of adventures; hunting down Infernal naughties and giving them the proverbial, and most likely literal, spanking they deserve. Now will your players be as white as this knight who clearly uses Daz as a component when casting Prestidigitation? Probably not, but there’s more than enough fun ahead for folks who get down in the dirt and the most pious Paladin to come together, hunt and kick some bad booty and get paid!

The About This Product section inside the cover makes clear that these hunts can easily be dropped into any game, session or Avernus campaign in need of a one shot bounty or break from the main thrust of your story, bringing the new fiends to the field and creating a questline incorporating them. “Monster Hunts: Avernus offers a way to integrate each fiendish foe found in Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus into your conventional D&D games, be them fantasy rich epics, city focused adventures, or a homebrew campaign of your own design.”

Chapter 1: How To Use This Book

The opening chapter is dedicated to breaking down what a Hunt is and what they consist of, namely short bounty quests beginning with generally vague bounty, rumour, plot hook or seed presented as a bounty board scroll, leading to further steps explained after the Hunt layout. Hunts are set out with title, brief summary, recommended party level (APL), party size the Hunt is balanced for, difficulty with parentheses for party size, and quest creature.

The Hunts themselves play out in four scenes detailed as stages: 1. Meeting the NPCs and gathering information 2. Exploration, the game is afoot! It’s time to investigate and put skills to use. 3. The Hunt, the game is on! It’s time to face off with the quarry, with its tactics and a map for the encounter provided. 4. Conclusion, the conquering heroes are rewarded or get to a-looting! This section also covers NPC traits and places of interest in the Hunt. This is simple and elegant formula for creating all manner Hunts and short quests furiously makes notes for my own games, as well as providing all the information a DM needs at a relative glance.

There are too many Hunts to go into great detail so I shall give little overview of each one and expand on elements I find the most compelling, before discussing the supplement as a whole:

Tier 1

1. Herding cats...well more like catching cats. Okay, one cat, but it’s a sneaky flying feline that leads the party on a wild cat chase all over town!
2. A classic cattle mutilation mystery with a pestilent twist, an opportunity to ingratiate yourself with the locals by getting them inebriated, and the chance acquire unique hide armour.
3. A call to a grizzled bounty hunter in a Wild West town to deal with a faceless outlaw out in the wilds who refuses to stay dead.
4. There’s gastropods in my kitchen, what am I gonna do? With a cursed cookbook and an Escargatoire of monstrous molluscs, it’ll take more than a mop to clean up this mess.
5. Help rid a mine of wretched things leftover after a cult’s ritual went abyssally wrong.
6. Join forces with a sad giant whose status has been brought low by a foul creature with an insatiable appetite. Team work, quick thinking and doing your best not to get eaten or squished are the keys to success.

Tier 2

1. A Whacky Races destruction derby against an infernal engine terrorising a town. The party are provided new and very cool magically powered vehicle, which is put to the rest with racing rules and complications included.
2. Rescue the blacksmith’s daughter from a fiend and a clan of Kobolds under its sway holed up in a tower with a couple of new and fancy elemental firearms.
3. A nice, calm midwinter festival with food, drink, a play...and lots of little evil ambushing jerks! Highlights include flaming lanterns being thrown from trees, burning kegs rolling towards the banquet and a contingent of party crashers enjoying the play so much they are willing to reward any fluffed lines with their blades. Also, the look of your players faced when they hear, “the real reward was the friends we made along the way.” Have no fear as there’s a surprising good use for the party crashers’ burnt hair...
4. A simple ‘theirs something sewers’ quest...that turns out there’s a planar rift connecting the Abyss’ and the town’s plumbing with the River Styx flowing out and something huge that makes “cackling grunts and gargling chuckles” (poetry) splashing around that vomits up foul friends. Truly wonderfully horrible with the opportunity to craft some unique and rather amusing potions.
5. A thinly-veiled allegory for a certain fast food fried fowl company and their abyssal views, which sees the party tasked with collecting the humble MVP (Most Valuable Poultry) of Descent Into Avernus and stuffing them in a Bag of Holding to help a business with better values. This stands out as one of my favourite Hunts with the sheer amounts of ridiculous fun and mayhem contained within, as well as the quality of the detail of the random things left in the Bag of Holding and another super useful, ridiculous and apt charm that can be made from the leftovers. I really want to know what they taste like...
6. A sad tale of slain paladins and dark deal struck to save a town with the chance to gain a priestly retainer.
7. Take a fort back from a big infernal fleshy and its stinky little friends without destroying the place. With the right knowledge and time the rancid guts of the golem can be crafted into a strong charm that probably necessitates the wearing of lots of cologne and Prestidigitation.

Tier 3

1. Sneak behind enemy lines to assassinate an infernal general, while an order of paladins fight an all out war with a horde of devils, or take things head on with a great deal of hellish warriors between you and your goal. I have a great fondness for quests that take place against the backdrop of a much larger conflict. This and the enemies you will potentially face only serve to ratchet up the tension and put the fear of Asmodeus into the players.
2. A quick and simple job to smash up some equipment...only it’s popping into Avernus and smashing up a big bad guy’s precious work for a rather surprising employer. A true test of stealth, cunning and smashing things.
3. Can you capture the most devilish of wasps for a shuckster gnome’s travelling infernal zoo and rescue a family in the process or will you become food for he hive? Glorious detail about an ‘Imp’ who refuses to “break character” and awesome limited use magic weapons that can be harvested.
4. An avatar of a demon lord roams the labyrinthine aqueducts beneath a city and the only way to stop them is to destroy their cultist’s profane altars...before it finds you. A truly terrifying game of hide and go smash or get squished, which reflects the sorry state of politics today.
5. Look out! Look out! Gold elephant on parade. Drunk Half-Orc hippoty hoppoty. They’re here and there Spined Devils everywhere. Look out! Look out!
6. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a minotaur in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a labyrinth...and an army of devils! Take out a BBEG (Big Bull Evil Guy) in a fascinating and deadly labyrinth with a pair of supernatural investigators.
7. This A-maze-ing Hunt involves doing a favour for an Eladrin with a bizarre relationship with a Devil in return for a Fey-vour. From a Noble’s garden maze to “vast library coated in pulsating flesh” and ice caves in stygia, this quest has many different options for how to go about things, with the opportunity for the brave and cunning to end up a Fey-vour and a Devil-vour...In-favour-nal?

Treat 4

1. A suave Demon Lord hires you to take out a hit on another giant Demon Lord in the name of embarrassment. However, there’s need a Lord of the Rings montage of three weeks travelling through the mountains and the snow, with encounter suggestions, to either observe, attack or convince a cabal of Frost Giants to summon their fiendish lord. However you slice it there’s a whole lotta giant going on.
2. A father seeks revenge for his lost son and a trophy to hang in his feast Hall. Creating a portal with a nifty puzzle including some great unique magic items, the party step out to face the living angry Pride flag, the Undying Queen, in her own backyard! The trophy is her white head. The party face the choice to slash and grab or to try to take the Dark Lady down, earning the attention of the Platinum Dragon.
3. Save a BBEG from becoming Bahamut Blasted Eviscerated Gloop for the greater good...IT’S A TRAP! Ambushed by a terrible trio the gullible PCs either get sacrificed or end up with veritable bounty of magical goodies. There’s a moment when the party are greeted by skeletons that chatter and grind their teeth to announce their arrival and all I could think of was that creepily unnerving sound skeletons made in Oblivion!
4. There’s only one way this collection of Hunts was going to end and the Archduchess does mot disappoint. Her wrath has brought plagues up a city, in response to a cult of Bane. There are four choices. 1. Run away screaming and/ or die. 2. Take the fight to fallen angel. 3. Lay the heads of the Cultists at her feet. 4. Double cross the Infernal Angel and team up with the Cultists. However, things shake out, 1. Aside, there’s always a chance of being tempted with a tantalising work opportunity...

What an incredible array of adventures!

The size and scope of the adventures, using the always awesome cartography by dysonlogos (@dysonlogos), ranges from intimate encounters, to travelling to the Hells and the Abyss, and full city-wide chaos. The maps reflect this perfectly and the different scales can be worked into tour games to maintain or change the scale as needed. Speaking about scale, there’s also no reason the lower tiered Hunts couldn’t be scaled up to be a test for mightier parties.

There’s just so much packed into this that it has me feeling inspired to pull threads and expand NPCs and questlines into larger adventures and campaigns, which goes to show that these are great pick up and play Hunts, but so well crafted they worm their way into your imagination and make you want to explore their aspects in greater detail. I certainly know I did:

The information PCs can learn from NPCs and asking around is full of flavour and character, which often has varying levels of things that be gleaned. The personality details about notable NPCs might not necessarily be extensive, but each one feels unique with elements of their personality that stand out. These NPCs and their interactions could very well cause the players to become fascinated with the locals and interviews that these scenes could be fleshed out further in game with buying drinks for locals turning into a night of heavy drinking, a hoedown or even a hootenanny, a strange noble seemingly testing the party asks many interesting questions to build upon, there is a Paladin order that appear in a couple of Hunts that provide enough information to add this faction to your setting with potential for many for quests and complications. What is the history of Gimble’s “Traveling Zoo of the Infernal” and how did the ‘Imp’ come to be apart of it and such a dedicated thespian? The brilliant and varied cast not only serve as quest or information givers, and companions, they have enough life in them to play about and expand upon, following those you and your players’ find most intriguing.

The Hunts set up a situation, but there are so many possibilities as to how the creatures came to be around or what their intentions are. Why is the fiend commanding Kobolds to have weapons made? What happens if the party suffer a TPK and are resurrected in Avernus to answer for your trespassing and how the hell are they going to get out!? There are so many little details about the creatures hunted and those effected by the Hunt itself that again, it just has me wanting to expand upon and build. I want to know the Frost Giant Cabal and their exploits. What Beasts of the mountain and frozen Elementals lay in wait in their lair that now exists in my mind?

Rewards themselves provide the standard pay and some awesome unique items imbuing them with properties of the hunted quarry, as well as roleplay items that serve as hooks, seeds and inspiration for further adventures, including a signet ring that will get the party in to all the fanciest of functions in the surrounding area, being gifted land and the opportunity to help rebuild a town that could become a home base with all sorts of opportunities for further adventures,
Wonderful arrays of harvested items, weapons and armour from devilish floaty capes, all manner of unsanitary but helpful charms, paralysing stinger blades to demonic masks of seeing and telepathy. All these goodies have an effect on the party and how they play and fit into the world, if that’s what you want, or they can just take the reward money, items and breeze on to the next bounty or wherever they fit into your game.

Failing a Hunt can also provide further seeds as a grieving father abandons his business to fight dragonkin (probably needing rescue or being found dead later on), certain factions can be adversely effected by the parties action, which could lead to legal proceedings, chance encounters or making enemies who can appear out of the blue when the players least expect it. If succeeding in Hunts raises they party’s status, failing them would have the opposite effect and all the ramifications that come along with defeat.

With a little safety pins and sticky tape these various Hunts could be strung together into a Fiend bounty hunting campaign or one based around the Paladin Order of the Seraph that appear in coupe of the adventures. They can be played as one shots or dropped into any game with a fiendish flavour. What I’m saying is they are, in the words of Captain Birdseye, “Waffley versatile”.

The appendices have all the weapons, armour and crafted found in the Hunts laied out in alphabetical order. These are followed by the unique statblocks for a couple of the NPCs that may accompany the party on their respective Hunts, and the unique magically powered vehicle seen in the Mad Max-esque Hunt. Finally, Hunt Tables are provided, divided Into Tiers so they can be rolled up randomly: T1:D6 T2:D8 T3:D6 T4:D4.

Also, supplied is a zip file containing the print friendly version of the supplement and all the maps as individual image files.

This is one of the most enjoyable supplements I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing, the interior design with its gilded frame by The Knotty-Works (@KnottyWorks) is impressive. Jimmy Meritt (@Jimmymeritt) and Vall Syrene (@valldoesdnd) have created an absolute doozy of a collection of quests with so much potential for more or easily played as they are. This is 60 pages of epicness worth far more than $9.95.

So...this piece....oh boy...I love monsters...and I love epic lairs...so both of them together is SHEER AWESOMENESS!!!! 61 pages of wonderfulness - this beautifully laid out piece offers an excellent narrative flow to each and every hunt: starting with Meeting the NPCs, Exploration, The Hunt, and Conclusion. This makes it feel like an awesome TV show episode, making it perfect to drop into any encounter or campaign arc. I can't pick apart which exactly is my personal favorite, but what I love that Vall and Jimmy did was take so much that we love from video games, movies and TV and put them right into this puppy. One part Monster Hunter and one part Supernatural - Monster Hunts: Avernus is perfect for any DM to plop into a game, and while more particularly based for Avernus, this product is a great tool for burgeoning DMs on how to craft encounters and especially cinematic encounters.

Comics, Clerics, & Controllers d20 Roll: Nat 20

Holy hellllll (ha ha) there is so much content here. So many incredibly fleshed out hunts that provide everything you need. And yes they would work well in Descent into Avernus, and I definitely will include some of these in my DIA campaign, but almost every single one of these could be put into any of my other games i run or any homebrew game. Just change the name of the villages and regions and boom, it fits into your homebrew, whether you want some bounty hunting, horror, or just need some really well thought out and detailed premade material. Another absolutely amazing piece of work from Jimmy and Vall. Can't reccomend enough.

What a great, simple, and well detailed supplement. This fine addition to my library of content will provide my players hours of exciting side adventure i'm sure. If you often struggle with one-shot styled side missions to break up the monotony of a dungeon crawl adventure, i'd highly reccommend this product!

This is a great collection of side quests. Any of them could be easily added to any campaign. Well worth the price

Vall and Jimmy have made an excellent collection of short sidequests to plug into any game. The instructions for use are extremely helpful for even a new DM, and the writing is descriptive and engaging enough to spin a fun interaction out of just what's on the page. It's encouraged me to pick up Descent Into Avernus just to run these charming little missions, since I hadn't planned to use the setting but certainly could exhaust most if not all of these. Love the product and eagerly await whatever projects these two authors go on to next.

When I first read Descent into Avernus, I was honestly a little disappointed by its lack of modularity. Despite being an interesting concept and fun execution, it seemed very rooted in the Forgotten Realms setting, meaning I would be unable to port it to my long running homebrew game. That was until reading “Monster Hunt:Avernus”, which provides modular hooks for including the monsters and flavor within Descent into any campaign setting! Each individual hunt is given its own plot hooks and rumors, allowing the DM to seed these any time they could need them. Unique NPCs and quest givers populate every hunt, with succinct roleplaying and descriptive details (the inclusion of pronouns for every NPC is a really nice touch; I’m always happy to see representation of they/them pronouns in TTRPG content). Each quest is detailed with rewards, including 21 new and thematic magic items, which could be included into a standard Descent playthrough if not used here. What’s most exciting is the inclusion of battle/dungeon maps for each individual hunt! Improving upon the format of the original “100 Monster Hunts” by adding even more detail, “Monster Hunt: Avernus” allows DMs to spend less time finding ways to plan the encounters, and more time playing through these fun hunts with their players! This is well worth the price, and easily usable in nearly any style of game. I’m already seeding these hooks into my homebrew sandbox game, and getting the play out of Descent that I would have ended up missing otherwise!