Ruins Perilous – Ruined Guardhouse

By Thilo Graf

This pdf is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 20 pages of content.

To adequately review a file from the “Ruins Perilous”-line, I first have to explain the interesting and ambitious business model the series utilizes: You donate a certain amount of money to the project. If you donate at least $3.00, you get the following in addition to the pdf:

• The exterior image or side view of the room
• A monster token
• The high resolution JPEG of the map (with and without grids)
• The PDF of the Map Pack so you can print out your maps at home to scale (in full colour or grey scale)

Once a level is completed (about 18 rooms), a version of the level for maptool will be provided for free to the supporters. If the goal for a room is not met within 60 days, the money will be refunded.

That being said, in the Questhaven Campaign Setting, the Ruins Perilous also work as a testing ground for the Questor’s Society as well as the big, bad dungeon.

Now that this is out of the way, let’s get to it!

The pdf is full-colour and kicks off with a one-page map of the first room, followed by the encounter of this instalment, containing a new little creature as well as two pieces of artwork.

After that, we get the map-section cover and a how-to for using the maps contained herein. (2 pages)

The map-pack contains a one-page map of the room, complete with grid, 6 pages of full-colour blown-up maps of the room for use with miniatures as well as 6 pages of the same map in a printer-friendly, blown-up b/w version.

The pdf closes with 2 in-character written pages of introduction and advice to survive in the ruins.

Conclusion:

Formatting and layout are top-notch and as far as maps go, this is the full-colour equivalent of the excellent maps we’ve come to appreciate from e.g. the ECS-series. I found one glaring editorial glitch – in the editorial, the file says “Level 1, Room 4”, which should be “Level 1, Room 1” – in the beginning I thought I accidentally opened the wrong file. Prose is nice, as in most RiP-products. The encounter per se is ok, although it didn’t make me gasp in excitement. For what it is trying to be, though, this file does a good job – it’s a nice first encounter for the dungeon. Due to the low price if bought separately and the beautiful maps, I’ll round my verdict of 3.5 stars up to 4. If you don’t plan on using the maps, detract a star.

This book is available from: