A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Vathak 5e Adventures – What Price Salvation

Vathak 5e Adventures – What Price Salvation by Geoff Gander and Kiel Howell is a role playing game supplement published by Fat Goblin Games for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. 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 the Shadows Over Vathak setting for four 3rd-4th level characters.

The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a 15-page PDF for $3.95 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter and one the Open Game License.

Adventure Background explains that odd things started happening a month ago in the village of Heidersdorf and the characters arrive just as there’s a silent explosion of light in the village.

Adventure Location explains that the village is in the Grünbergen, and a sidebar explains these are low hills and where they are in the setting.

Adventure Hooks has ways of getting the characters involved.

Running this Adventure and Abbreviations explains what’s needed and how material is laid out. A sidebar gives some details on the Shadows over Vathak setting.

Something Weird in Heidersdorf… starts with a d12 list of odd events for the village, caused by a gushing fountain of energy in the centre of the settlement. The characters may try to help, and a sidebar explains how spells are affected. Then an elderly man turns up, promising to help and shuts down the strange effects.

Following this, the newcomer takes charge of the village, requiring the villagers perform various tasks so that he can keep the fountain under control. The characters may become suspicious as to what the saviour is asking, and decide to investigate further.

Final Outcomes has three different outcomes, good, bad and other, depending on what the characters do and whether they succeed.

Appendix 1 has stats for new monsters and a new magic item.

Vathak 5e Adventures – What Price Salvation in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of colour illustrations. Presentation is decent.

The adventure is based on an older one, Magic’s Demand, adapted to 5th Edition and the Shadows Over Vathak setting with some other changes as well. As with other adventures in this series, this one could easily be dropped into another setting; there’s little to truly tie it to Shadows Over Vathak. All that’s really needed is a usable location to drop the village into. Though there is combat in this adventure, quite a bit of it involves finding out what’s really going on and reacting to it; eventually, hopefully just acting instead of reacting. Vathak 5e Adventures – What Price Salvation can be found by clicking here.