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Justin Andrew Mason
Mini-Dungeon #024: The Lapis Maiden of Serena Hortum
For 4-6 Characters of Level 6
The desert settlement of Serena Hortum is located at the heart of an oasis that is surrounded by a vast desert. The only source of water and reprieve from the scorching sun for a hundred miles, the city is a regular stop for those who traverse the surrounding sand buried wasteland. This has brought great wealth and prosperity to the city, but it has also invited corruption that lingers just beneath its immaculate façade.
5E Mini-Dungeons are single page, double sided adventures for D&D 5th Edition which are setting agnostic and are easily inserted anywhere in your campaign.
$1.99
5E, Mini-Dungeons
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. Unlike most 5E Mini-Dungeons, this one does not come with VTT-maps or player-friendly iterations, which is a bit of a bummer.
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 desert village of Serena Hortum is the backdrop of this module, with a local named Nadia looking for her missing sister – a beauty named Alucia. The trail leads to the estate of a merchant (a mage) called Bodigar – though, inside, the PCs are in for a nasty surprise: Bodigar has indeed abducted Alucia and his mansion does show enough indication of his depravities – the worst of which would be the statues in the garden, which also feature fair Alucia, transformed into stone by his pet basilisks. Bringing the vile merchant to justice will be an interesting task indeed!
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, but there is no key-less version of the map to print out and hand to your players. The pdf does sport one nice piece of b/w-art – kudos!
Justin Andrew Mason’s Mini-Dungeon is compelling – either as straight-forward hack and slay or as an infiltration, this one offers a nice story, a cool backdrop, diverse challenges and even a bit of social interaction, this is a great example of what can be done with a straight-forward, smart application of the limiting mini-dungeon-formula. Kyle Crider’s conversion of the module is generally interesting and solid, though I wished it made more use of 5e’s simple and easy to modify Stealth mechanics, but that may just be me. My final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo.
Endzeitgeist out.