Demonstrating the trademark player-character 'funnel' of Dungeon Crawl Classics, this adventure is for 6-12 first-level characters, not all of whom will make it out alive. Hopefully a few will survive to tell the tale...

Set in and around the village of Hirot, the party will first gather information and rumours concerning a dire beast, the legendary Hound of Hirot, and be persuaded to deal with this menace. There are clues to gather as to various artefacts that might help, then off to actually find them (the dungeon crawl bit) and finally to the Sunken Fens to face off against the Hound. Ought to be simple, right?

The village is well-described, it's easy to get the flavour of the place and the people who dwell there. The rumours flying around are many and varied, and it is made clear which ones are true and which false (well, to the GM anyway, the party will have to draw their own conclusions!). Interestingly, from the outset the party needs to make moral choices as to their actions, embedding them into the ongoing events rather than leaving them as spectators. NPCs and encounter locations are provided in abundance: it's hard to realise that all this is packed into a mere 16 pages (yet it doesn't seem cluttered, cramped or overcrowded either).

Maps are plentiful as well: the village, the surrounding area and of course the integral dungeon crawl segment (couldn't be without that, what?). Everything you need to run the adventure - detailed locations, believeable NPCs and a few hideous monsters to bash - is provided. All in all, a good introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics.

And this being a revision? I'm afraid I never saw the original version, so cannot comment on how it's been improved. Suffice to say, this rendition is excellent fun!

Return to Doom of the Savage Kings page.

Reviewed: 28 April 2014