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Stephen Yeardley
Mini-Dungeon #003: Shrine of the Earth Barons
5th Edition Mini-Dungeon for 4-6 PCs of Levels 10-11
Followers of earth deities literally worship the ground they walk on and have always built below-ground shrines. A school of four gnome mages called the Earth Barons was no exception, constructing one such holy place where a desert met a range of rocky hills. Recently however, the mages were wiped out when a visiting dignitary turned out to be a suicide assassin that broke a fully-charged staff of power in their midst. The PCs find the unsealed capstone to the shrine as they are on another journey. The recent event isn’t yet common knowledge, and the temple is unused; therefore, despite the guardians, a brave party might be able to discover two valuable items.
5E Mini-Dungeons are single page, double sided adventures for 5th Edition which are setting agnostic and are easily inserted anywhere in your campaign.
$1.99
2 reviews for Mini-Dungeon #003: Shrine of the Earth Barons
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This purchase was a dream. Its a mini dungeon so very limited time play. The price is perfect for that. The shopping system they have in place was fast and very complete. A true 5 star experience!!
An Endzeitgeist.com review
This pdf clocks in at 2 pages and is a mini-dungeon. This means we get 2 pages content, including a solid map and all item/monster-stats hyperlinked and thus, absent from the pdf, with only deviations from the statblocks being noted for the GM. Oh, and the series now comes in an archive that also contains…*drumroll* a .jpg-version and a .tif-version of the map! Yeah, that’s pretty amazing! The dungeon’s number-less version of the map doesn’t sport any deceptive trap icons or traps – kudos!
Since this product line’s goal is providing short diversions, side-quest dungeons etc., I will not expect mind-shattering revelations, massive plots or particularly smart or detailed depictions, instead tackling the line for what it is. Got that? Great!
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.
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Still here?
All right!
The PCs find a capstone that opens to a dome that once housed a cabal of gnomish earth elementalists, now obliterated by a staff of power’s breaking by a fanatical adversary. Now what’s rather awesome, the dungeon does sport moving teleportation vortexes as well as deadly golems and earth-themed adversaries, often with interesting reskins to add a further sense of unique identity. Less awesome: It should be noted that the treasure for this mini-dungeon contains two ioun stones, one of which is legendary…which may be a bit much for the level…and it should be noted that they are not named for the benefits conveys, but for their shape, which may require reading the description. If you’re as picky as I am, that may annoy you slightly.
If PCs are capable, they’ll also score two manuals of golems. Speaking of which: Iron Golem adversary. That’s challenge 16. Don’t get me wrong – that’s beatable by a well-coordinated group…but it’s also very, very lethal and chances are that the PCs may not even be able to harm this monster!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes sans bookmarks, but needs none at this length. Cartography is full color and surprisingly good for such an inexpensive pdf. The pdf does sport one nice piece of original full-color art – kudos!
Stephen Yeardley delivers a concise, golem/earth-themed mini-dungeon I loved in its original iteration. Unfortunately, Kyle Crider did not translate it that well to 5e this time around. The balance of monsters is off and makes this a brutal meat-grinder that will curbstomp all but the hardiest of groups. Moreover, the pdf wastes precious space by noting “CLs” -which do not exist per se: 5e cares about the caster’s level in some cases (cantrips, for example), but is more occupied with actual spellslots used…which renders these relics puzzling at best.
The hyperlinks don’t work all – while the material can be found on the Open 5e SRD, only a few of the hyperlinks actually point where they should, detracting from the go-play aspect.
As a whole, this module has suffered quite a bit in translation – and while I still like components of it, I consider it to be problematic. My final verdict will hence clock in at 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 due to in dubio pro reo.
Endzeitgeist out.