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The Beast of Graenseskov: An Introductory Ravenloft Adventure $5.00
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
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by Mateo P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/09/2021 21:05:19

Hi! This is a great adventure, very well written. Clearly a lot of care and love has been put into it. There are a couple drawbacks to it that I will explain below, but before going into details I must say that the pros outweigh the cons greatly. This is totally worth the money for the amount of details and setting you get in it.

Pros:

  • Tons and tons of content and a fun setting your players can go back to, sure to enrich any campaing in Ravenloft. Lots of bang for your buck. For this alone, I totally recommend it.
  • The few magic items that are around are meaningful and evocative.
  • A joy to read as a DM. There is a great romantic tone to the whole thing that is absolutely on brand with the Ravenloft setting and keeps it interesting, even if you are not playing it.
  • Great introduction to the setting, this is a love letter to Ravenloft and it shows, it does a fantastic job in conveying some tropes of the setting and connecting with other stuff (such as Curse of Strahd, for example)
  • Coherent and well thought out. There are many many details that follow up cues dropped early in the adventure. That makes the whole thing very immersive and a good sandbox where characters act in logical ways.
  • Very useful (and necessary) dramatis personae and GM cheatsheet that will make your life easier.
  • Great villains, the Beaste and other NPCs are truly terrifying, and dangerous. (and the DM can choose different options to customize their adventure) Good for horror.

Cons:

  • Not so easy to run. As I said, there is a lot of content, a complex mystery, lots of moving parts and different NPCs. Getting to the end of some of the mysteries takes many different encounters.
  • Too much plot. For such a small area there is a tremendous amount of plot. For example, a fairly unusual number of children switched at birth, etc.. I think a little bit less plot and more simplicity would have made the adventure perfect.
  • Dangerous. Careful with low level characters! This can go south very quickly and because it is open ended the characters might face a dangerous foe too early. What is more, there are magic items and allies that the players can get that are there to help them but they are easy to miss.

I ran this with a group of friends and they all died ! A bit of an unfortunate ending to the adventure but very true to setting and a bit of a consequence of some unfortunate choices and unlucky dice rolls. There are in the text some optional advice to give the players healing potions at a couple instances to make their lives easier. I say it is very good advice, and my recommendation as a DM is that you have to push it a bit and just find a way to give them some, even if it is a bit too early. My group missed a couple of those instances and ended up fighting a very close encounter with a horrible monster who got them. That said, we had a lot of fun and enjoyed many hours of gameplay where everyone was very engaged.

Good fun. I will certainly buy other stuff from this author.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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The Beast of Graenseskov: An Introductory Ravenloft Adventure
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