A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Fat Goblin Travel Guide To The Frozen Tomb of the Dwarf Lord

Fat Goblin Travel Guide To The Frozen Tomb of the Dwarf Lord by Rick Hershey is a role playing game supplement published by Fat Goblin Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying 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 a 12 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Contents and an explanation that this is a location adventure toolbox intended to create a sidetrek and one the Open Game License.

It starts with Tomb Basic Information. This gives some background; the tomb was constructed on some mountains above the permanent frostline where there used to be a dwarven mine. The tomb was for the dwarf lord of the mine, who was buried there, but both the tomb and the mine ended up buried after an avalanche. In this section are some general rules for the conditions in both the ice caves and the tomb itself.

Tomb Key has suggested points of access and details each location in it. There are no monsters listed here, as it is a toolkit. There is a hazard and suggestions as to where to place monsters.

Adventure Hooks has several ways of getting the characters to the tomb, assuming they don’t just fall through a hole in the ice whilst on the way to somewhere else.

New Hazards has two of these. One is simply slippery ice, the other is more interesting being a weird sludge found in sub-zero water. These are followed by a single new trap, one that is cold-based.

New Treasures has a collection of four new magic items, each again cold-themed.

Next up are some new monsters, three in total. Once again, these are based around cold.

The final page of content is a map of the tomb.

Fat Goblin Travel Guide To The Frozen Tomb of the Dwarf Lord in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with the major sections linked, although there is a surplus bookmark. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is very good given the length. The text maintains a two column full colour format. The primary text appears to be nearly free of errors, but the stat blocks looked as if they might have problems. There are a number of custom colour illustrations, including for the monsters, which is rare but nice. The map is colour as well; sadly, there isn’t an unlabelled player-friendly version.

This is not an adventure, as it states, this is an adventure kit. There are tools here for a GM to build an adventure, but it will still need building. The monsters will need choosing and placing; it isn’t necessary to use the ones included, although they do come at different CRs. This can’t really be whipped up in a few minutes, but it shouldn’t take too long to do. Fat Goblin Travel Guide To The Frozen Tomb of the Dwarf Lord is not perfect, but it is inexpensive and does have some decent content, and it can be found by clicking here.