The concept of this series of 'One-Night Stands' is simple: provide everything you need, so preparation time is reduced to printing and a read-through of the adventure. Then you are good to go.

The core of the adventure is simple: here's a wood that is deathly quiet and draped in massive spiderwebs. Maybe it is not too hard to guess what's in there, but the problem needs to be dealt with. GMs who wish to use this as an encounter can do so, but those who require more - maybe as a one-off adventure or because they want to weave it into an existing campaign - will find extra resources in a set-up scene detailing a local village and the people who will approach the characters for help.

For those who wish to use the background to the full, there's an incredible amount packed into a small space, embedding what is going on into the social and economic setting of a generic world, easy to translate by changing the odd name and bit of geography into a living settlement in your own campaign world. There's a complete history of the rise and fall of the spiderdown silk trade - plenty of reason for characters with a merchantile bent to take interest, or an opportunity that might appeal to those who happen into town for other reasons or who are just passing through. Naturally, there's an immediate problem requiring the help of some brave adventurers, so even if they don't care about trade opportunites, you have a good hook to get them involved (and need not present any of the spiderdown story if you do not find it relevant to your needs or game style) - some of the village children have gone missing. Or there's the option of just having them come across the area in the course of completely-unrelated travels. The neat thing about this product is that all these different leads are well-supported, not just presented as a mere 'hook' that you have to develop on your own.

The resources provided are comprehensive as well. There are two GM maps for the main encounters, and these are also presented as map tiles for those who like to use miniatures or just lay things out on the table to give the players a clear picture of their surroundings. The art quality is high, very crisp and atmospheric. Next comes a walk-through of each part of the adventure, with labelled maps and a time-line of what all the opposition are doing and where they are. An excellent resource, particularly for novice GMs or those who dislike making events up on the fly. Finally, if you are a miniatures-user, a real treat: customised 'standee' paper miniatures of all the monsters - even if you collect monster minis, these are useful as some new spider variants are introduced here.

This product really lives up to the promise of being 'ready-to-go-straight-away' - my one quibble is the landscape presentation, which can be cumbersome if you want to print the whole thing - rather than just the map tiles and paper miniatures. Some of the text in the walk-through section is a bit small for on-screen use, at least if you use a full-page setting which is the norm with landscape documents. Overall, however, if you are faced with players wanting a game and no time to prepare, this is an excellent resource!

Return to Warren of the Death Spider page.

Reviewed: 18 September 2010