Eberron: Whispers of the Vampire's Blade [Paperback]

***I have now run the adventure and further to my review, there is some linkage between this adventure and the previous (and following) published adventures. Even though it is small, it was an unexpected development during the adventure as the players had all thought that thier previous quest(s) were totally behind them.***

I now upgrade my rating to 5 Stars.

Firstly, I have purchased Eberron Campaign source book as well as the Shadows of the last War module. So when I saw "...is designed to either be a stand-alone adventure or an immediate follow-up to the first published Eberron adventure, Shadows of the Last War." I was thinking sweet.

Now that I have read the module, it really has NOTHING to do with the previous adventures. I mean the same organisations are present (as you would expect in a campaign flavoured based adventure), so the Emerald Claw and Lord of the Blades hinder the PC's, however, the adventure plot really have NOTHING to do with either of the previous adventures. The schema is barley mentioned (someone wants to know what the PC's know about it, but its more of a possible side plot than a main part of the adventure, in fact if the PC's are doing well the encounter will not even occur.)

The plot also has a weak point when the PC's are expected to enter a masked ball without an invitation. If you are playing mostly good characters or "God forbid" a paladin there is NO alternative to stealing an invitation or sneaking in... (The guards can not be convinced, no invite no entry).

There is also one place where the whole party or at least some of the party is likely to take 12D6 falling damage (no save). For characters in a level 4 adventure this seems a bit excessive, especially due to a lack of options shortly before this occurs.

That aside the adventure is really pretty cool, with a number of excellent exciting plot points with time specific requirements forcing the PC's to race against the clock as well as enemies.
As a number of situations in the adventure are races against time as well, there are alternative adventure paths that the PC's can take to continue on the chase if they are not quick enough or lucky enought to beat the clock. The alternative paths are detailed and plausable.

There are also several larger battles; one that looks particularly exciting is the battle on the lightning rail.
Also the style of the adventure is explained well in the DM notes, such tips as how to handle larger battles, and how to use NPC's and plot devices to pace the adventure to suit the interest level of the players. The plot design elements and cliff-hanger moments make this a potentially memorable adventure.

Overall the adventure is very good, arguable better then Shadows of the last war, however be forewarned that this adventure appears to me to have NOTHING to do with the first two adventures (although perhaps all will become clear in time).
The plot hooks, villains, edge of your seat action, excitement and the race against time atmosphere make me look forward to running this adventure, despite its apparent shortcomings.
(If this adventure had been related to the previous modules in some sort of meaningful way, I would have given it at least 4 1/2 stars if not 5. As I said, even though it has nothing to do with previous adventures it is still looks way cool. PC's running across a busy platform to try and catch the lightning rail as it starts to leave the station, makes for an exciting action scene, especially when preceded by action and followed by more action and even more action)

*** After running adventure I now upgrade my rating to give it 5 Stars out of 5 ***

This module has many failings and weakness.

The author is clearly a fan of the James Bond movies in my opinion.The author was going for a cinematic effect which sounds good but doesn't work very well unless your group of gamers is open to a cinematic style and doesn't mind writing off inconstancies.

First the module depends on the main villain escaping and running away from the players 4 separate times if you want them to reach the final encounter the author has in mind. As a result the players are constantly chasing the bad guy. We have a horse chase, a massive ball, a airship chase and a train chase which then leads to final chase to the modules end. If the players manage to defeat the villain, the rest of the adventure becomes moot.

Two of the chases have major flaws. The horse chase has travel rates for the bad guy and the heroes that should end up resulting in the heroes never catching the villain before he can reach the destination he is headed. The Airship chase has the players taking 12d6 damage from falling when the airships crash. Most 4th level characters can not survive that.

Finally the players may not have magic weapons. Level 4 characters may not have gotten any magic weapon. Without them they are going to have a hard time defeating the villain at the end of this module.

There are some good elements in this module but you will have to ignore some problems and probably have to be ready to invoke "GM Says" to make some parts of this work.

Holy Crap! This adventure never lets up! You hit the ground running and barely have time to catch your breath. This adventure is very well written and you can tell the writer loves to game. Information is easy to find and 'what if this goes wrong?' scenarios are covered as well. This campaign has some awe inspiring action sequences and really makes your players have to think on their toes. One of the things you should be aware when running this campaign is that there isn't much time for the players to do research or aquire new items. Things move along at a breakneck pace, so make sure you give your players opportunities to get the things they need. Also, certain parts of this campaign are really, REALLY tough. Make sure they're fairly well prepared before they fight Lucan.
Have fun!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  2.8 out of 5 stars