Shadows over Vathak: The Hollowfield Harvest Festival by Rick Hershey is a free 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 four 1-3rd level characters.
The supplement is available as a 15-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one page is the front matter and one the Open Game License.
Adventure Background explains that Hollowfield has a weeklong festival during the harvest season, but this year the cemetery has been desecrated and strange noises are upsetting the guests. Adventure Location explains that Hollowfield is a typical village for Vathak and a sidebar explains it can be used as a recurring location. Adventure Hooks have a number of ways to get the PCs to the village. Running this Adventure explains formatting conventions and another sidebar introduces the Shadows over Vathak setting.
Next is the adventure itself, which starts with a number of skeletons in the village square animating and attacking. There is a d12 table of rumours to hear. The characters will need to ask questions and follow up by investigating the various locations that things have happened to discover what the source of Hollowfield’s current problems is.
Appendix 1: The Festival has a description of several events and a d12 list of various items to get.
Finally, there is a full-page map of Hollowfield which is a side-on view with no markings.
The Hollowfield Harvest Festival in Review
The DPF lacks bookmarks and, though not long, could have used them. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two-column colour format and appeared to be free of error. As well as the colour map, there are a number of black and white illustrations which look like they could be stock. Presentation is okay.
Shadows over Vathak is described as being a survival horror setting, which is never an easy thing to pull off in D&D and derived games, especially on modern variants. This adventure does not even appear to be trying to fall into such a category; it’s a simple Halloween-ish adventure that could be easily dropped into any setting. Shadows over Vathak: The Hollowfield Harvest Festival is an okay, but not spectacular, adventure that doesn’t greatly stand out and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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