This adventure isn't terrible. It has some good descriptions and ideas, but has cumbersome crunch, bad maps, and repetitive opponents. The weirdly shaped maps make it very hard for the Game Master, the promised handouts don't exist, and the primary undead opponents - festrogs - really aren't that interesting.

Overall, I would recommend it to hardcore fans of the undead or Tim Hitchcock, but no one else.

well i ran it as written, with PF rules, and the party loved it, i as a DM was a little weirded out a little at cetain points, but other than that, the module was great.

this also gave the party a chance to get back their roots, this was a good addition to the D series!

i rate it 4/5 stars.

We're currently involved in D1.5 and I will be DMing through the next mod. We like to rotate DMing.

I was curious after reading through D4. Will there be a continuation from this, or is this were the House takes over? If there will be no further continuation following D4, then we'll just battle the Lumber Consortium and bring law and order to Falcon's Hollow, and tame the wilds of Darkmoon Vale and the Mountain Range.

I know Tim Hitchcock personally but that won’t affect the honesty of my review, because frankly I don’t really like the guy. I gave Hungry Are the Dead five stars not because Hitch needs the boost but because it, according to my tastes, amply deserves it.

I don't want to give away content, as much has already been revealed in this thread, so I’ll speak to the design. The idiot proof tactics (Please don't ever overestimate my abilities at any given moment... I adore a good idiot proofing) advised for monsters will without question give players a good scare and spark uproar. Such game advice is a huge help in shaping the dynamism and feel of play, because the writing here quietly assaults the players’ eyes, ears, and schnozzle, firmly ensconcing this adventure in the horror genre. Tim is a GM's writer who understands that giving tools to help GMs master their table is easily as important as the particulars of an interesting story.

And Verrin… what a loathsome, uniquely creepy little man.

I will state that I play 4th edition(sacrilege!). So I look at these adventures differently than the normal 3.5 player. I ignore mechanics like Challenge Ratings traps etc. I look for story, characters, and things that would spark my players' imagination.

Usually in an undead adventure there are little opportunities to role-play since so many undead are unintelligent. This adventure avoids that. The characters are fleshed out enough to capture my attention and get me intrigued enough to plan how I will act out each one. In my opinion they need a tad more personal touches but the seed of personality is definitely there to make me want to do that.

I admit, a lot of Tim Hitchcock's writing isn't my cup of tea. (That's because I don't like threads of spinal fluid and mostly human eyeballs floating in my tea...)

But I am very pleased to recommend "Hungry are the Dead". It starts plainly enough, with a zombie attack on a village, and just ... keeps ... getting ... weirder. This is the pay-off of a series of four modules, and I found it to be a satisfying conclusion.

Why only 3 stars? Craftsmanship and balance.

There are many points in the adventure where encounters don't work right or the plot derails if the party doesn't succeed in some chancy die rolls or doesn't choose particular actions. The text is long on Lovecraftian adjectives and lurid descriptions, and light on crunch when crunch would be useful. (There are "traps" with no DC and no means to avoid or disable. Other traps trigger even if the party avoids them completely.)

Too, this module completes the "Falcon's Hollow" adventures, at least, for the DM. There's no good way for the player characters to discover how these all tie together.

And, if someone decides whether the forest is Darkmoon Vale (map) or Darkmoon Wood (text), that would be helpful.

This is a tricky module to balance. The pregenerated characters include a paladin and a cleric, and that's good, but neither of them have a Charisma above 12, and that's bad. Parties without clerics will find "Hungry are the Dead" very difficult. Parties with, say, two high-Charisma clerics will find it much easier.

The plug promises "handouts to enhance play". None that I noticed.