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These adventures are being reviewed together for the simple reason that both are short, punchy and exhibit a number of similar features. What caught my eye at is that on the back cover it states that the adventures are suitable for "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster and Hackmaster." Any adventure suitable for Hackmaster is one I want to check out assuming that a real game of the infamous and quite fictional Hackmaster will ever be published. As an added bonus fans of "Knights of the Dinner Table" will find a single panel comic in each book.

Kenzer and Company have developed a system generic world they call the "Kingdoms of Kalamar". Both of the modules here are part of a series of short adventures for GMs to toss at their players. The stats of the monsters and villains are presented in AD&D format which makes easy conversion into the game system of your choice. The adventures are fairly simple and straightforward and should be able to provide fun for an evening. There is also a decent amount of source material in each book that can be used in any campaign.

In the "Hungry Undead" the characters are traveling through some countryside when they suddenly come upon a dying man who in his last breath points them to a treasure. One thing leads to another and the next thing the characters are doing is crawling through a tomb filled with starved pseudo-vampires. Things get interesting for the characters as the place is literally swarming with the uglies.

"Night of the Rot Lord" offers a slightly different adventure. The characters come upon a town that is just about to experience a nasty epidemic. Unfortunately for the characters they are pretty much guaranteed to catch said epidemic and have lots of incentive to help cure the disease. Along the way they find out that a local band of orcs and a former villager with a grudge are waging the medieval equivalent of biological warfare on the village.

One of the more interesting things I noticed about these two modules is that the GM needs to be on his toes in order to keep the adventure going right. In "Night of the Rot Lord" the timing of the adventure is critical, if the GM isn't careful the adventure can either wrap up in an hour or the players could end up snoozing in their chairs. The sheer numbers of pseudo-vampires in "The Hungry Undead" can lead to a high body count if the GM isn't careful with the number of baddies he throws at the characters.

Are the adventures linear? Yep. So are these modules something other than a glorified dungeon crawl? Not really. But, to be fair, they are interesting dungeon crawls. Are these modules little more than hack-n-slash fests? Oh come on, the publisher does say they are suitable with any fantasy role-playing game including "Hackmaster". But, as I stated above the GM needs to careful for these adventures to run well.

So should you run out and buy these two products or any others in the series? Well, that's a tough call. On the one hand I'm all for supporting the little guy and quite frankly these modules do seem fun. On the other, a cost conscious GM will probably have more incentive to pick up the latest issue of "Dungeon Magazine," for a dollar more you get four to six adventures of varying quality. At the very least check them out in the store to see if they tickle your fancy.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)