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Michael Smith
Mini-Dungeon #031: Dwarven Dread
A Mini-Dungeon adventure for 4-6 PCs of levels 5-6
Argyle the Betrayer was a powerful Dwarven cave wizard that was corrupted by a Derro Magister named Angree’, and is now quite insane and bent on the destruction of the surface races, most especially Dwarfs. Angree’ has subjugated Argyle using powerful hallucinogens, in addition to a number of Duergar Tyrants, and positioned Argyle as a mad savior to the Duergar. Argyle and his “servant” Angree’, as well as the Duergar, spend most days torturing Dwarfs, or calling on elementals to forge alliances to overthrow the surface dwellers.
Argyle’s complex is found miles below the surface off a well-traveled path in the Underworld. Its walls are covered in a fungus that emits an eerie green glow.
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
5th Edition, Mini-Dungeons1 review for Mini-Dungeon #031: Dwarven Dread
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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!
It can always get worse. This simple premise is represented in many an experience, many a module – and here, it is represented by the duergar.
Evil and loathsome though they may be, they generally at least are sane. Well, Argyle the Betrayer has gone off the deep end after encounter the mage Angree, who turned the cave wizard into a kind of mad savior of a duergar cult – it is up to the PCs to stamp out the cult and stop the madness from spreading. As a minor note, the pdf does sport a whole line where the blank spaces are missing.
The dungeon presented here provides a sufficient diversity regarding its challenges, with a small, nice random encounter table adding dynamics, read-aloud rune-inscriptions adding fluff and environmental challenges adding an additional dimension to the encounters. The hyperlinks in the conversion work as intended and the pdf offers some nice traps, with the respective NPCs and elementals making for solid adversary choices. The big loot here is btw. a stone of controlling earth elementals.
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 original full-color art – kudos!
Michael Smith’s “Dwarven Dread” is a solid addition to the Mini-dungeon line. While it is not as creative as the best of them, it provides an easy to insert dwarven-themed side-trek that features sufficient diversity in the challenges provided to make this a solid, fun romp. The conversion penned by Kyle Crider is solid and while I wished it featured a short-hand adding some unique properties to the BBEG (mage in 5E as opposed to a derro), I do like how the new monster selection still retains a general leitmotif. 3.5 stars, rounded up.
Endzeitgeist out.