Customer Reviews

In the Belly of the Beast (Penumbra (D20))

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One of the first "d20" (Dungeons & Dragons compatible) modules in the Penumbra line, IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST does a good job of providing a short, compelling adventure which can be inserted into any D&D campaign.

Dungeon Masters, are well advised to compare the teaser on the back cover with the climax of the adventure. This scenario has some surprises!

What impresses me about this scenario is the story. Players are introduced to dangerous characters with rich backgrounds, and then are plunged into a deadly conflict between rival factions, where their ability to negotiate and role-play will spell the difference between fantastic victory and overwhelming defeat.

The scenario is open-ended, and leaves many seeds for future adventures.

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST is designed to be truly "modular," meaning it can be inserted into any campaign; and IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST gives clear, explicit instructions on how to do just that. Not only does it not interfere with an existing campaign, it can go far to enhance it!

My only criticism with this module is its short length, weighing in at only 32 pages. But if you're a Dungeon Master who prizes quality over quantity, be sure to pick this one up.

I just finished running this adventure for my group and I agree with just about everything the last reviewer said. It's a cool situation and definitely able to fit into almost any campaign world. There's enough fighting to keep it interesting, a lot of room for role-playing, and some great horror elements. My party ended up each allying with a different faction, almost to the point of fighting each other.

My only problems were that although the npcs were detailed well, with sections on background, current agendas, and even sketches, none of them said what they were carrying other than basic armor and weapons. No equipment, no treasure, no magic items. It was really kind of inconsistent that Ofec killed his high-level necromancer master but didn't take any magic items off his corpse and that later the corpse (returned as a zombie) didn't have anything on it. But that's easy to fix.

Like the other guy said, it is short and because you have to run a large number of NPCs at the same time I wouldn't recommend it to beginning DMs.

Overall a very cool adventure, I'll be picking more modules from Mr. Mearls when I get a chance.