Breaking the Peace by John Prichard is a role playing game supplement published by DiscerningDM for use with the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is an adventure for characters of levels 1-4 and is based on the (upcoming at the time of writing) story The Harrowed Half-Breed by P.A. Wikoff set in the latter’s Tarnished Lands.
This is a seventeen page PDF that is available as a Pay What You Want supplement from RPGNow. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one the Open Game License.
The first two pages are the Introduction. They cover the adventure, its background, how to adjust the encounters for party strength, suitable classes and races (which are Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian and Rogue for the classes and Human for the race), an overview of the locations and NPCs and of the adventure itself.
The adventure is split into two parts. The first has the characters, who are already serving as guards for a travelling merchant, continuing with this for a new cargo that is hidden in his wagon. The new cargo is, unbeknownst to the merchant, a young woman and a half-breed, the latter the offspring of human and feathered folk and hated by both.
The second part has the characters defending the half-breed, woman and the man who they were taking both to from attack by both humans and feathered folk.
The final page has stats for the various creatures encountered.
Breaking the Peace in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although short, these would have been appreciated. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. There are no illustrations or maps, so presentation is not brilliant.
The adventure is, despite the information on adjusting it to party strength, not as flexible as it could be. This is presumably due to the Tarnished Lands setting, but it does mean that any typical character party is unlikely to be suitable, as magic using classes are not recommended for it.
It’s pointed out that it touches on real matters, namely the prejudice between two sentient races and how half-breeds (using other terms is recommended if this would offend players) are despised and killed by both.
Despite the lack of flexibility, there are a few options where characters can do different things. There are also definite moral issues for players to contend with, which may not be to everyone’s liking, but do add a bit of depth to the adventure. Currently, this seems mostly suited to a one-shot, until the campaign world is developed further. Breaking the Peace can be checked out for free by clicking here.
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