Newcomer* David McDonough has wowed many with his silver best seller, The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple. Getting silver so quickly (he originally published on October 27th) is not an automatic guarantee that something is great but it’s a reasonable proxy. Once I read this adventure I realized I had something special in my hands. If you have some tier 1 PCs you need to put them through this adventure.
The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple
Writer: David McDonough
Publisher: DMs Guild
Cost: $2.95 ($0.95 for the holiday season)
Product Length: 40 pages
Whitehaven is besieged by undead. Why? Is it a coincidence or is someone up to something. As you can imagine from the title, someone is definitely up to something. But is it the priest or the witch? Send in some tier 1 PCs to investigate before things get really nasty and out of hand.
Originality
The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple is a compelling adventure. I actually finished reading it a week or more ago but just now found time to write about it. That is not a reflection on the adventure but on my availability.
McDonough has an imaginative and captivating adventure that is engaging all the way to the last page. This is one I’d run more than once (for different groups, of course).
Writing
This may be the author’s first published product on the Guild but I can tell it’s not his first time at the keyboard. His writing is great for this adventure and I’ll bet he’d make a good fiction writer too. He paints vivid scenes and memorable encounters and subtly advances the plot without things feeling forced.
Production
The entire package is wonderful. There is no printer-friendly version of the PDF but the color version is great. Clean margins, quality pictures, and nicely contrasted font color and background go a long way in making a product look polished and professional. McDonough hits the mark with ease. You will also like that the maps are included as a separate zip file. It really has become the standard to do so.
Furthermore, CTRL+F makes it easy to find a particular word or phrase you’re looking for which is a functionality that is often lost when an author uses The Homebrewery or GM Binder. It’s not bad enough to take away points from someone but when the functionality is there, it’s a nice touch.
Design
There are great adventure hooks to get things moving and the background provided will give the DM a lot to work with for when things inevitably don’t go as planned. The adventure is broken up over chapters which makes the 40 pages easily digestible as well as provides natural points for breaks.
There are great opportunities for role-playing through encounters or, if the players would like, hacking through them. Additionally, there are clever traps for the players to negotiate and the player who brazenly charges through will find trouble waiting.
Final Thoughts
The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple will provide you with 12 or more hours of gameplay (unless your group are murder hobos simply looking for blood and guts). David McDonough has established himself as an author of note within DMs Guild and I hope he continues to create great content!
4.6 stars
* Since starting this review and finishing it, McDonough has already released a second work.
Thanks, David, for the review copy of The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple
Sounds like one to look into! For 95 cents it sounds like it’d be worth the reading material alone haha. I’ll comment back on this once I’ve had a chance to read through it.
It’s a steal at 95 cents!
This is a terrible adventure. It is not written AT ALL for running at the table.
Thanks for the thoughts, Bryce. I’ve read your review of this adventure and found it to be mostly well-thought. It’s a bit tough to get through your anger at the adventure but you raise a lot of thought-provoking arguments that we should not overlook. Thanks for reading my stuff!