Review: "Bad Moon Waning" by Stan!

If I could have "fair use"d the maps, I would have.

Now that I have a better handle on the order of the Original Adventures series, it's time to move on to Bad Moon Waning by Stan!. This module was designed for a party of four 10th-level characters, but has some notes on altering the difficulty for use with 8th or 11th level groups. For a short module, this sort of customisation is probably more for the benefit of the DM than an expression of “change the world to fit the PCs” mentality. Bad Moon Waning requires just the core rules for D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder.  Although no longer available as a free release, if you're prepared to pay $0.99 you can still get a copy of Bad Moon Waning.

Stan! has worked as a professional illustrator and I suspect that he is personally responsible for the three maps that grace Bad Moon Waning's 22 pages. Thankfully, the first and most beautiful of these maps, covering the town of Deepwood in which the adventure begins, can be put in front of the players without revealing any secrets.  There are three pages of explanation of the mysteries upon mysteries within this module, and while I usually detest wading through long introductions Stan! managed to win me over. Bad Moon Waning is a complicated story and the DM needs a lengthy briefing in order to run it.

Deepwood, as the name suggests, is a small, isolated settlement in the depths of a forest. It takes days for news to travel to or from the town, which means that if the DM is using the standard hook for bringing in the party they'll arrive about a week after a terrible murder. But they're not there to find the killer. The citizens have already strung up a man – or rather, a werewolf – for killing the local priestess, and his body is still swinging on the line to greet the party when they arrive. 

This isn't funny, but it breaks up the wall of text.

However, the hanged man had lived in Deepwood for years.  He was well-known and rather liked by his neighbours. As wolves run in packs, the logical conclusion is that he was not the only werewolf secretly living in the town, so the place is gripped with paranoia. The dead man's encrypted journal, now under guard, has done nothing to allay suspicions.  All this means that, in a wonderful departure from the way stories tend to run in places like Deepwood, it's the outsiders who are above suspicion!  While Stan! gave a handful of hooks for getting the adventure going, just about any reason for the party to be in Deepwood will work - the residents are desperate for someone trustworthy and capable to carry out an investigation.  Every resident receives at least a couple of lines of description, focusing on their story rather than their mannerisms, to assist the DM as the party wanders through Deepwood, and there are plenty of sidelines that the PCs could get caught up in.

There's very little wrong with Bad Moon Waning and an awful lot right with it. However, two points should be made about this module, more as notes of caution than criticism. Firstly, it's very dependent upon the talents of the DM. Stan! has done everything that could be expected to arm the DM to run a wonderful story, but carrying it off requires confidence and ability in improvising characters, together with a firm hand on dispensing information. The second, related point is that Bad Moon Waning has very little in the way of conventional encounters. Running it as a hack-and-detrap adventure would be quite dull.

The only real complaint I have about the module is the treasure.  While Stan! does not engage my favourite gripe about not specifying the weight of valuable objects, he does set one treasure horde for the DM to detail, giving only its value and approximate type.   If the rest of the content in this module wasn't so good, I would feel aggrieved, but as things stand I'm glad that this was the corner that got cut.  There's also a very curious (and easy) skill check that allows the PCs to learn an extraordinary detail about some treasure, and I can't for the life of me work out what they would be noticing.

My rating is 5/5. This is a wonderful adventure, and I would recommend it to any experienced DM who wants a bit of complexity in their campaign. Even those who aren't all that experienced should take a look at the module with an eye to giving it a go.