A SHADOW OVER PINEWOOD is a Fun Suspenseful Adventure for D&D
A Shadow Over Pinewood is a short, unofficial adventure for Dungeons & Dragons from Vall Syrene. I have had the pleasure of running the adventure and thought I would share my thoughts. Before we dive in though, my overall impression is that this is fantastic.
“Tales speak of a monstrous creature that lurks in the forests around the small hamlet of Pinewood; dragging hapless victims screaming into the grim grey mists that surround the village each night. As simple as monster hunts go, this one seemed straightforward enough.
”Probably a werewolf, or something similar”. Captain Price said, reloading his rifle and checking the chamber for silver bullets. “Nothing we haven’t faced before, eh? And I bet there’s gonna be a nice little reward for its head!”
Cie checked her pistols before glancing at the night sky. “Well let’s hope so. I don’t want another troll fiasco. Anyway, if we’re going, might at well speed up. Sun’s running out.”
With a nod, the party gathered their possessions and made for the Bramble Pass. It’s never simple. But it wasn’t meant to end like this.”
So, you can run A Shadow Over Pinewood in 1-2 sessions, depending on how long you’re willing to play per session. With some editing on the fly, I was able to guide my players through it in roughly 4 hours. I made some mistakes while running it, but I think they may have sped the game up. Expect this adventure to take up to about 8 hours depending on your party and the choices they make as well as dice rolls.
The story is very well written and even though I made some mistakes with the story, the players still enjoyed it and were able to really get into things. A Shadow Over Pinewood has a lot of horror and suspense elements in it to keep the blood pumping.
The problems I had with the adventure are mostly my fault. For 99% of the creatures and NPCs don’t have stat blocks in the adventure module, but rather reference somewhere in the Dungeon Masters Guide, Player’s Handbook, or Monster Manual. This led me to struggling to find stat blocks for NPCs in the moment because I didn’t prepare enough ahead of time.
If you’re looking for a simple 1-2 session adventure with characters around level 10, A Shadow Over Pinewood is very enjoyable. Heck, due to time constraints I wasn’t able to fully utilize some of the tables included that would’ve made the game a lot more fun.
You can purchase A Shadow Over Pinewood now on DMs Guild for $3.99.