HOF2 – Putting a Krampus in the Holiday is a free role playing game supplement published by Adventures in Filbar. The adventure is described as being a tongue in cheek one for 4-6 characters of 1st to 3rd level. Going by the area map on the front cover, this adventure is set in roughly the same region as FVC14 – Famine at Holderfield, which is also described as a tongue in cheek adventure, somewhere in the north-western region of the Lands of Calentria. Going by the setting, the supplement is probably aimed at Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
This is a twelve page PDF, of which one page is the front cover, which has some brief details and a hex map of the region (which would appear to have been created in Hexographer from Inkwell Ideas), although the exact location is not on the map. Another page has a hex map of the local region (also done in Hexographer by the looks of it) with the various adventure locations marked, as well as an image of Krampus.
Around two pages are the Player’s and DM’s Backgrounds. The adventurers are approached, during the local seasonal festival of Giftus, by a female Gnome who wishes them to find and help – not kill – her husband. Said husband has donned a cursed item of headgear, the Helm of Krampus, which, whilst worn, makes the wearer evil and attempt to take over the region.
There then follows a series of encounters, where the players have to combat things such as animated snowmen and icicles, as well as more normal creatures such as goblins and worgs, whilst travelling through areas such as Jollyville, Candy Gorge and the Cane Mountains, before defeating the possessed Gnome and putting things right again.
The adventure ends with a Gnome with a red-stained surcoat on a flying sleigh pulled by elk distributing presents and crying “Merry Giftus to all and to all a good night!” Admittedly, the red is blood and the presents were stolen by him in the first place.
The supplement has a single column layout and appears largely free of errors. The sole illustration is a stock one of Krampus. The various stats provided are presumably for D&D 5th Edition, but the adventure should be easily adaptable to other, similar, systems. Although set in Calentria, it could be dropped into most other fantasy settings without too much trouble. Depending on preferences, GameMasters may wish to alter some of the more obvious tongue in cheek names to ones that are a little more fitting with the campaign. HOF2 – Putting a Krampus in the Holiday is a decent, free adventure, so click here to get it.
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