This adventure is a bit of a horror story (it came out in October, after all, and there's a tendency for horror themes to abound around then), and can be run either as a single site-based adventure when your party is in the right place or - if you are willing to create your own 'prequel' adventures - as the climax of a series of events involving some of the main characters in the plot of this adventure. Interesting thought...

It's set in a remote area, where Night Falls is the only settlement to be found. Ideally a harsh northern area with bad winters and summers that don't get very hot should be used, but if you struggle to get the party to go near such places anywhere that settlements are few and far between will do. Night Falls is noted for a large graveyard, the Tomb Steppe, and folks from miles around use it in preference to burying their dead in local farmland.

The adventure background lays it all out for the DM and there's a lot going on that even the residents of Night Falls do not realise, never mind the party. The hooks provided to get the party involved (obviously not used if you have been running prequels) are based on the party just happening to be in the right place for the adventure to happen. Once they are in Night Falls, things begin to happen at an ever increasing pace, sweeping them into what is going on. There's a reason behind all this, as the backstory revealed...

The settlement and its inhabitants are well-described, enabling you to make the adventure atmospheric and suitably creepy. There's a lot of interaction to begin with, then events lead the party inexorably towards the centre of the graveyard, the skull-shaped Great Mausoleum. This is mapped out and described in detail... but terror mounts as even after exploring it and laying what's there to rest, there are still matters to be dealt with in town!

A neat adventure with some unexpected twists, there are some ideas for follow-up adventures and a couple of new monsters and a nice magic weapon.

Return to Lest Darkness Rise page.

Reviewed: 30 June 2016