ASC3 Review - Dweller in the Mist

Adventure Site Contest 3 review

This adventure was submitted for consideration in Adventure Site Contest 3 being run by Ben Gibson at Coldlight Press. It has been or will be reviewed by the official judges, who will be selecting the eight winning adventures. This is an unofficial review, which was written prior to reading (or watching) any of the official judges’ reviews. I will do my best to link to the official reviews at the bottom of the review.

I will use a five-star scale, based on both playability and interest:
*          Failing grade. The adventure doesn’t meet minimum standards of playability.
**         I could see running this, but it fails to inspire me or has significant playability issues.
***       I would consider running this.
****     I am considering running this.
*****   I want to run this. Now.

Dweller in the Mist
By Sandbox Sorcerer (Alex Edwards)
For AD&D
Levels 6+

Time to grok: 15 minutes

Set-up:

A mist dragon lives in a volcano on a microscopic tropical island. The native population is divided into two factions, one worshipping a CG god, the other, a CE god. 

Things I liked:

Tropical variation of treants and dryad 

A mist dragon (MM2 58), which feels like its in its natural habitat

Clear maps

Things to note:

This island is tiny! My biggest criticism of this adventure is that the location is way too small. At 36 200-ft hexes, the island is about 0.0004 square miles. That is way too small to support any sort of human life. To make matters worse, the two rival factions live within a couple hundred feet of each other and their populations are so tiny that they must be severely inbred.

Why do the villagers live inside the volcano’s caldera instead of the open land of the island? This really needs an explanation. 

The level range seems a geared to an encounter with the mist dragon. A 6^th-level party could fairly easily wipe out all of the island’s other inhabitants and take their treasure.

The hex map descriptions are at the end of the adventure, not the beginning. 

I don’t normally mention layout, but I found the single column layout with the same indentation for both room numbers and monsters hard to scan.

Wights are susceptible to silver weapons. 

The GM will need to read the MM2 entry on mist dragons to be able to run this adventure.

Rating:

**1/2  A potentially good adventure that needs some room to breathe

Links to official judges' review:

• B/X Blackrazor