This is an adventure for a low-level party, who are asked to assist in investigating a recent spate of robberies in a wilderness town (called Welwyn, but you may easily substitute a suitable settlement in your own campaign world if you prefer). According to the locals, the robberies centre around a well, so down you go...
The DM gets a selection of resources including an overview of what's actually going on, a list of wandering monsters and where they are to be found, and notes on scaling the adventure for stronger or weaker parties than the one envisioned. There are a few hooks to help you get the party interested, and comments on how the Speak with Animals spell might be used to good effect. There are fuller background notes as well, including further ramifications and underlying plots goind on...
The adventure itself begins with the party about to descend the well - if you want to play out anything beforehand like the party being recruited or learning that locals believe the robbers escaped down the well, you'll have to run that for yourself. From then it develops into a detailed and excellent delve - and a nice change from being sent into the sewers! There's loads of information for each location and encounter and a lot of personalisation of the beings encountered - they may, in true Dungeon Crawl Classics style, be there to be killed, but names, mannerisms, backgrounds and a whole lot more are provided for them. They have reasons to be down there and doing what they are doing over and above being there to provide the party with a good fight!
Part of the delve works best for Small or preferably Tiny individuals, fortunately if the party looks in the right place they'll find potions to help. This can prove an extremely entertaining part of the adventure as people adapt to being much smaller than usual. A neat twist that is exploited well.
The adventure ends in classic style with a brawl with the Bad Guy behind it all and a chance to figure out what he was up to... and should end with the town being safe once more. A good feeling of satisfaction, nice for a low-level party. Overall it's a nice adventure to run and, if you can find it, there's a web enhancement covering the settlement which is useful if you want to start the adventure before the well itself, or have the town as a permanent feature in your game world.
(based on 2 ratings)
