Beautiful layout and design make this game really stand out. The rules are elegant and well presented and the implied setting and style makes me excited to run Mothership in 2019.

I’ve been looking forward to the release of David Baity’s ‘Carnival Of The Damned’ adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG since it was first announced by Purple Sorcerer games last year.

This is a quick 'first impressions' write up rather than an in depth review because I don’t want to give away any spoilers for this brand new module. That said I am planning on running the adventure a couple of times in the coming months so you can expect to learn more about the foul denizens of this particular carnival in the not too distant future!

The module is designed to be run either as a level 0 funnel or a tournament style adventure. It contains over 30 different encounters set in a travelling carnival which, it turns out, is not quite what it seems once the sun goes down! The premise may be simple, but the backstory is elegant and well thought out. It’s a lot more involved than just a case of ‘rescue the kids and kill the bad guy’

The adventure includes twisted versions of carnival rides and games, and the player characters will come across a unique group of adversaries. Clowns feature quite heavily, but let’s face it, who isn’t scared of them? (I blame Stephen King’s Pennywise)

The encounters can be arranged in any order, although the author includes some useful notes and a suggested ‘running order’ for both tournament style and more 'story driven’ funnel play. It’s also worth noting that David has included a couple of useful devices (a magic lantern and a mechanical fortune teller) which the judge can use to help guide the players and reveal the story. Used carefully these should really add to the adventure and prevent it from feeling too linear. The individual encounters could also easily be dropped into other games. It wouldn’t be a great deal of work to scale up the encounters to make them a more appropriate challenge for higher level characters either. Remember though, DCC RPG is not about ’balance’ and if there isn’t at least some danger of character death you’re missing out on the fun!

In typical DCC fashion nothing is quite what it seems in ‘The Carnival Of The Damned’ From the kid’s ball pit to the penny arcade via a disturbing encounter with a bearded lady there is something to terrify every player and delight every judge!

I picked this up on release as I love the tone and presentation of previous Purple Sorcerer publications and was curious to see this, their first adventure with a different writer, Mark Bishop.

The introduction is solid and well written and the rumour table adds some flavour, though the players will be in no doubt as regards which direction they need to take from the get go. Some may see this as 'railroading' but in a convention or similar environment it's important to get straight into the game and personally I have no problem with this approach.

There are some great original monsters and some very well thought out encounters, I particularly like the run in with the 'Toad-Spiders' early in the story. As this is a level 0 funnel adventure characters would usually get little chance to dabble in magic, but there is a nicely written opportunity for one of the characters to acquire a classic spell, allowing new players to see DCC's fantastic magic system in action. There is plenty of danger and peril in the adventure which matches my expectations of a DCC character funnel. This game is not about 'balanced' encounters! That said I'm sure with quick thinking and some good roleplaying the player characters can succeed and find the missing halfling, even though things are unlikely to work out exactly as they had hoped!

The presentation, artwork and maps are up the the usual excellent Purple Sorcerer standard and the PDF includes a separate appendix file with battlemaps and paper minis which make great 'props' even if you don't usually play the game with figures. Personally I'd love to see someone produce a selection of 'level 0' type paper minis to complement the excellent monster minis that Jon includes with all of his adventures (If I had any artistic talent I'd have a go myself!)

I'm yet to run this adventure as a live game but I've read it through a couple of times and I can't wait to try it out. It might just be the perfect introductory adventure for folk new to tabletop and to the Dungeons Crawl Classics RPG in particular.