This module is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement and 2/3 of a page SRD, leaving us with 13 1/3 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This being an adventure-review, the following will contain SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.
All right, still here? Set in the borderlands between the Dragon Empire and Nuria-Natal called Sands of Sorrow, the PCs are hired by a kobold herald to retrace the steps of a dragonkin - he hands a map that leads into the sands of sorrow to the PCs (provided as a beautiful handout, btw.!) to get him the magic he remembers from the tomb. After offering a selection of minor magic items to help in the endeavor, the PCs will set out into the sand of sorrows.
The overland trek will include an encounter with some dust trappers and the tomb itself is guarded by gnoll zombies. (Including a map of the tomb's surroundings.)What's a problem here is that the encounters/sands of sorrows are not covered environment-wise - they remain abstract. We get no sample temperature, wandering monsters, unique hazards - lost chances.
The tomb-exploration per se is interesting, including some creepy imagery, nice traps, a mud elemental etc. to make their way to the obsession-sparkling silvery script, which is the work of the module's boss, an allip-variant who is the final foe that stands between the PCs and interesting information on Nuria-Natal's secretive burial rites. It should be noted, that the map of the complex, while beautiful, does not come with a player-friendly version sans keys. Also, the Allip's statblock-header is in allcaps. However, it should be noted that the tomb, in contrast to the wilderness, gets some nice detrimental environmental conditions for your players to face.
The module also includes 5 pre-gens, an all-out selection of kobold-characters.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not perfect - I noticed a couple of minor glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful, two-column full-color standard and the b/w-cartography is beautiful as well, but the map of the dungeon lacks a player-friendly version. The pdf has full bookmarks, but no secondary printer-friendly version.
This module was an interesting read to say the least - Mike Franke has created a conventional, short dungeon steeped in Midgard-lore, which is really neat! However, honestly - there's not that much going on in the module. The dungeon's nice, the fluff is nice and the module per se is not bad in any way. But neither does it truly feature a single brilliant idea, something that made me yell "eureka" and the pdf also has minor glitches. The lack of player-friendly maps also hurts this pdf. A couple of additional pages would perhaps have helped the module. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that the fluff is the memorable thing about this module - it's good. But the rest, structure, locale etc. feel a bit generic to my tastes. Something distinct apart from the excellent Midgard fluff is simply lacking and coupled with the minor glitches and lack of player friendly maps make me settle for a final verdict of 3 stars, in spite of the great production values.
Endzeitgeist out.
