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Mini-Dungeon #032: Howling Halls
By Jonathan Ely
A Mini-Dungeon adventure for 4 PCs of level 7
The PCs may encounter this minidungeon as part of a larger underground complex, or they may be employed specifically by a local power in order to clear this den of undeath.
This cold stone crypt is unlit (except in the three central chambers), and only creatures with a light source or darkvision can see into its depths ; it is advisable
that the PCs keep moving – prolonged exposure to the numbing cold here will eventually lead to frostbite or hypothermia, unless the PCs are wearing warm clothing, or have access to the appropriate magic.
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, 5E Mini-Dungeons
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Thilo Graf –
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 Howling Halls can easily be inserted into the context of a grander dungeon and generally represents a hauntingly cold crypt-complex, which makes neat use of the environmental rules. Beyond a couple of nice traps, the theme, obviously, would be undead regarding the enemies contained herein and the exploration yields keys with script that can be used to open the central rooms of the crypts and battle the progressively harder guardians of this place – finally wresting a magical key labeled “peace” from the final crypt – but for what purpose remains up to the GM to decide. The big plusses here would be Kyle Crider managing to translate the material really well to 5E – including a rather potentially deadly cold that haunts these halls and tactically interesting monster-choices.
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! Everything’s properly hyperlinked, just fyi!
Jonathan Ely’s Howling Halls is a nice insert into a bigger dungeon complex. With two tower-like structures, the howling halls can easily be used by an enterprising GM as a kind of suture to connect two unrelated dungeon-levels and the challenges per se are nice, the content solid. The dungeon, in short, does what it’s supposed to do and provides a fun, cool diversion and leaves an interesting hook for the GM in the player’s hands. At the same time, it is just that – it does what it sets out to do well. For what it tries to be, this is a solid hub/sidetrek and it actually works better in the 5E-version, as far as I’m concerned – the halls are a bit more interesting, a bit more deadly. Hence, my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.
Endzeitgeist out.