Candlekeep Mysteries, Reviewed

 Candlekeep Mysteries is the latest anthology of D&D adventures in the vein of Tales From the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Unlike the earlier ones, though, these are all new adventures original to 5th Edition. They were submitted by members of the D&D community, and are each built around the discovery of a book in the famous library/fortress/city of Candlekeep (which happens to be where my Forgotten Realms-based Eldritch Knight Fighter grew up.)

Like previous adventure books, this also serves as a partial campaign setting sourcebook, giving you some hooks in the setting of Candlekeep if you're running FR-based campaigns. There's even a semi-benign ghost dragon with a stat block that's not in any of the adventures proper.

Now, there's also some controversy to this book that I think ought to be addressed. We'll cover that when discussing the adventure with the controversy, which is The Book of Cylinders.

Notably, the book has some structural changes that I think might be welcome or unwelcome depending on how you want to run the book. Stat blocks and magic items show up in the individual adventures, rather than in a big appendix at the back, so if you just want to pillage the book for stuff like that, you'll need to page through individually to find, say, a Lichen Lich.

Additionally, alignments are largely left out of the stat blocks, which is mainly weird only because I'm so used to seeing them there. I think this is an effort to introduce some nuance that is often lost to the traditional alignment system. The character represented by the aforementioned Lichen Lich stat block, for example, is certainly an antagonist and has been doing horrible things, but the degree to which their evil is intentional is definitely open to interpretation.

But let's go forward with these reviews.

The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces - Level 1

This is a great starter adventure for new players, as it's primarily the exploration of an artificial space akin to Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, and has ways to avoid most fights. It also has a book on a chain that functions as a +1 Flail, which I think is amazing. There are puzzles and nothing too crazy.

Mazforth's Mighty Digressions - Level 2

This one is, I'll be honest, a little thin. The party is eventually able to track down a group of Jackalwares, but the adventure is very much built so that the players can choose whether to make it a blood bath or a role-play-centric negotiation.

Book of the Raven - Level 3

This one drips with atmosphere, but there's very little substance to it. The party goes to a spooky house that serves as a headquarters for a group of Wereravens that use it to store dangerous artifacts. There are things to find here, but very little clear motive for the players to actually stay there and investigate. There's a shadow crossing that can lead players into the Shadowfell where they'll face a pretty insane battle for level 3, but nothing there to really tell them to go there. Basically, it feels incomplete.

A Deep and Creeping Darkness - Level 4

This is actually kind of fascinating exercise in using a single monster statblock to great effect. Mostly built on exploring a seemingly abandoned town, the party eventually finds the wicked monsters responsible for the town's desertion. Very creepy and atmospheric, you'll want to really invest in building up a sense of dread before the party finds the monsters.

Shemshine's Bedtime Rhyme - Level 4

I guess level 4 is for the creepies. This is one of my favorites, and is structured in an interesting way - there's a series of events that play out in a largely open area to explore, and it's just about surviving a kind of quarantine for a magical menace with, well, the whole thing's built around a spooky rhyme and a pop-up book. Combat-light, it's nevertheless very dangerous. (A friend of mine wiped a party with it.)

The Price of Beauty - Level 5

This one will probably be pretty heavy on RP as well, and has you investigating a beauty spa that has been twisted into something more sinister. It's a great chance for player characters to "play along" as they try to uncover the sinister happenings beneath the surface.

Book of Cylinders - Level 6

I think we need to address the controversy with this one first. The author, Graeme Barber, has disowned the adventure after editorial changes that introduced some problematic colonialist language (referring to the race of frog-people Barber invented, the Grippli, as "primitive," for instance) and removing much of the deep mythology the adventure was intended to tie into. The adventure itself involves evil yuan-ti invading a grippli village and actually some good yuan-ti who have been trying to help the grippli and study the temple nearby. I didn't find it that interesting reading it, but I wonder if the author's unaltered version would have been more interesting.

Sarah of Yellowcrest Manor - Level 7

This one's pretty cool for those of us who enjoy stories of evil cults and cosmic horror. It's pretty dark, involving the main bad guy murdering his own family, and basically becomes a small dungeon crawl when you get to the cult's headquarters. Pretty straightforward and functional.

Lore of Lurue - Level 8

This is one of the adventures to largely take place in a demiplane, in this case being one that takes the players through a very linear progression to the end. I think you could have a lot of fun with the concept of being in a storybook, though this will be, by definition, on rails.

Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion - Level 9

My favorite in the whole book. This adventure is profoundly silly, and I really don't want to spoil the batshit crazy thing the "bad guys" are trying to accomplish. To give you an idea, the first NPC the players see, a defector from the cult, is known by the name Rooster Muffin, and all the other cult members are named with similar conventions - livestock animal and food item. It's a quest that will be plenty of fun if the party wins, but also pretty freaking hilarious if they fail.

Zirkan's Zephyrean Tome - Level 10

The players in this one are asked by a djinni trapped in a book to help him escape, which can only be done by defeating the mage who created the tome. There's nothing particularly crazy here, though you'll have to go through two mini-dungeons.

The Curious Tale of Wisteria Vale - Level 11

This is another of my favorites. Like Lore of Lurue, it takes place in an obviously artificial demiplane, and has a kind of fairytale logic in which you are trying to find a long-imprisoned Bard who was sealed away to keep him from harming anyone after he was cursed. You now have the cure for him, but a Beholder dreamed itself into the demiplane and took over, so you have to deal with him. I will warn DMs that there is one room here with a kind of BS Tomb of Horrors-style instant death kaizo trap, which you might want to alter.

The Book of Inner Alchemy - Level 12

This is, on a basic level, a sort of kung fu movie in D&D adventure form. The party has to journey into the woods to face off against a group of martial artists who have unlocked powerful magic to steal the life force of others. It's very combat-heavy, but the characters who feature in it could make for really cool recurring villains (or even allies!)

The Canopic Being - Level 13

This one's got a lot going on, and has a big dungeon to explore that is actually structured like the interior of an Egyptian pyramid. I honestly don't have a great sense of how this would play, but unlike a lot of these adventures, I think there's no way it'll be doable in a one-shot.

The Scrivener's Tale - Level 14

Hey, you know what 5E hasn't given us much of? Archfeys. This one involves some fey politics and some very fey curses, which will motivate the party to go investigate an ancient ruin where an archfey has an opportunity to escape her imprisonment.

Alkazaar's Appendix - Level 15

If you like ancient ruins in deserts, this'll be the one for you. The party finds an ancient stone golem that will travel with them, and must finish the work of his former master, safeguarding a powerful ancient scroll and keeping it from falling into the hands of an evil blue dracolich.

Xanthoria - Level 16

A horrifying fungal plague is sweeping across Faerun and the party will come across evidence that its source is a druid who transformed into a lich after being driven mad by Zuugtmoy. This is going to throw a lot of very tough monsters against your party, though I guess by level 16 they can handle it.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, the book is a real mixed bag, though I'd say there are probably more hits there than misses.