Ruins Perilous – Ruined Gate (level 1, Room 2)

By Thilo Graf

This pdf is 27 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 24 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 color 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 encounter of this instalment, complete with a little map, takes up 3 pages and once again features a new creature, a magical beast cat-creature that is quite simply one of the coolest CR 1 critters I’ve read in quite some time. The encounter also comes with an artwork of one specific feature of the dungeon that will have PCs wonder or at least pause for a second.

After the encounter, we get a 2 page-replica of the introduction to the Ruins Perilous some may already know from the first instalment.

The map-part starts with the cover and a quick how-to. (2 pages) It features a one-page map of the encounter as well as a over-blown version of the map for use with miniatures that takes up 8 pages. There is also a printer-friendly b/w version of the miniature-friendly map that takes up the last 8 pages of the pdf.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any mistakes. Layout of this full-colour pdf is once again beautiful and the maps are up to the high RiP-standard we know from the ECS-line. Only that around here, they are in colour. The encounter presented here is more complex and intelligent than the one in this files predecessor and thus also more rewarding. While the encounter didn’t absolutely blast me away, I have to consider the low price and the intention of this product – It succeeds at its intention and is very cheap and thus my verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for the purpose of this platform. If you don’t plan on using the maps, detract a star.

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