Unsettled Ground is a story about clearing monsters out of a mine, and saving the miners. It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as D&D, but that doesn’t stop it being great when well executed. Things become tropes for a reason. Unsettled Ground is an excellent take on this somewhat standard setup, as it includes both a well fleshed out investigation section that makes the most of it’s realistic level design and some very thematic and creepy opponents.
The party starts out arriving in Bellshall, a well designed and fleshed out starting village. It contains everything needed to provide a good staging zone for any future adventures if you want to flesh it out into a full campaign, without being so developed that it would be hard to fit into an already designed adventure. There are a couple of plot hooks to chose from, depending on what might motivate your party, but which will lead to them investigating the disappearance of Forn, a gnome that liaises with the mysterious hidden mine that has put the town on the map with all the rare gemstones that it provides. Unbeknown to the townsfolk, the mine is ran by Deep Gnomes, who prefer to remain hidden, and has recently been infested by Ettercaps and spiders when they delved too deep and too greedily (well, when they stumbled into the wrong cave, but that doesn’t sound as good). The party will have to deal with these aggressors (which include an Ettercap Host, an interesting new monster that is even creepier than an normal Ettercap, because you know they’re not awful enough on their own), and rescue the miners, as well as Forn.
The adventure can be broken down into two large chunks, which will be familiar to readers of such adventures as The Death House in Curse of Strahd. The first involves the party trying to figure out what has happened to Forn. They will have to follow his tracks, avoiding some misleading signs during their investigation, in order to find the mine, and then figure out what has happened in the mine itself. They will then engage in a much more combat focused segment as they try to save the gnomes from their unsavoury end.
The initial segment involves exploring what could be called a “realistically” designed world, rather than an area designed to suit the adventure’s needs. There are zones which are of no immediate use, devoid of encounters, but which make sense from someone living in the world (for example, the existence of latrines). This roots the adventure into the world, making it feel more reasonable for the players, and also highlights the more “horror” aspects of the adventure. The idea that a normally lived in place is empty and devoid of life is perfect for inducing fear, as we immediately recognize the wrongness of it. This then pays off in the second part where the combat ramps up against the, always creepy, mix of spiders and ettercaps, and the aforementioned even grosser ettercap host. These encounters are both thematically fitting, but should also be challenging enough to be a satisfying conclusion to the earlier exploration segment, thanks to the mix of enemies and webs that provide additional environmental challenges.
This is a solid and well designed adventure, which provides a good framework for a DM looking for a high tension one shot with some solid combat. Plenty of advice is provided for the DM which cuts down on any required prep work and there are very few areas that are lacking in design (except one very minor point that states that a door is stuck but not how to unstick it). An excellent adventure if you want a horror one-shot that deals more in tension building than in gore. It is also a solid base that can easily be fleshed out into a larger campaign in the region, thanks to the future hooks provided at the end of the scenario, and the well developed starting town and NPCs.
|