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Review of Dark Legacy of Evard
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Because it was created for the in-store Encounters program, the adventure is built slightly different. Instead of following a strict XP budget, the adventure goes through a day's worth of encounters, and assumes that the party will level up for the next chapter. As is, the adventure focuses on the story as opposed to XP-hunting. It's very lean, and doesn't contain extraneous encounters. A DM who wants to add extra encounters could do so without the adventure feeling too long. He or she could even use the "crossroad" encounters (which I'll explain later) to pad out the XP while remaining relevant.
Dark Legacy of Evard is set in the Nentir Vale area used in most 4th edition books, but has references to the "Greyhawk" and "Ravenloft" campaign settings. Evard is a character famous for the "Evard's Black Tentacles" spell in the Player's Handbook, and was a character run in Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign. In 4th edition, this character is an important figure of "Shadow" magic, and is referenced in Heroes of Shadow. The allusions to the "Ravenloft" campaign setting are very strong. The town of Duponde is trapped in the Shadowfell, similar to a Domain of Dread. A Vistani fortune-teller is key to the plot. Most importantly, it shares the original Ravenloft adventure's hook of being different for each group.
YOUR CHOICES MATTER
While this adventure is decidedly linear, it also has crossroads where the party must decide between two approaches to completing the big goals. At two points in the adventure, they are faced with two competing problems, and must choose which one to solve. Both paths are fully written up, given monster stats and maps like any other encounter. Best of all, there are no wrong paths, and their choice actually matters. Each path helps the party accomplish their goals in different ways, and lets them meet NPCs they wouldn't otherwise meet. At one crossroad, each path leads the party to a different NPC who gives the party true, but incomplete, information on the threat, enough to send them back to the spine of the adventure.
What's more, the rewards and consequences for choosing a path are distinct from the other path. One path might help you rescue a NPC who helps you rally the townsfolk from despair, and the other path will help disrupt the movement of enemy troops, making a major battle easier. Like a Telltale Games videogame, sometimes the consequences of your actions will only be apparent much later. For a railroad adventure, this adventure still makes character choices matter.
WHAT IS THIS ADVENTURE'S STRENGTH?
If I had to classify this adventure's focus, it's on exploration. You're trying to unravel the mystery behind Duponde's exile into the Shadowfell, and that involves delving into the town's history. The party will have to investigate wise people trapped with them, as well as ancient ruins that may hold information and tools to free the town. There is still plenty of fighting and character interaction in the adventure, and thanks to the crossroad encounters, the party can choose to increase the ratio of fighting or interaction. Each crossroad lets them choose a different focus, which can alleviate a player or group's boredom with the mystery.
Crossroad 1: Choose between tracking down a NPC stealthily, or protecting the city in a big fight.
Crossroad 2: Choose between tracking down an enemy scout stealthily, or engaging in a big fight in order to protect friendly NPCs.
As you can see, the group can choose a "Seven Samurais" approach to defending the town, or a "James Bond" approach of tracking down threats in the shadow. And another axis, "caring about NPCs vs. caring about the greater town", cuts down through those choices. Each crossroad should present the party with an option they will care about, and as presented, they won't feel like one choice is the clearly better choice, and other one is a trap.
HOW WELL DOES THE ADVENTURE SELL THE SETTING?
Duponde is a small town with a gothic feel. Shuttered mansions, abandoned monasteries, and haunted graveyards abound. Despite being a railroad adventure, this adventure includes a town map to give the group an idea of how closely packed the town is. The flavour text doesn't pound you over the head with 100 synonyms for 'dark' and 'spooky', but it does focus on an important plot point: the rise and fall of the sun. The players will not feel the town itself is haunted, but the situation they find themselves in will feel oppressive.
Richard sets up the story in a tavern (surprise!) with all the important NPCs gathered together on a dark and stormy night. The villain and the quest-imparter are given in-depth sidebars, and what they will be doing during the adventure. The opening scene of the adventure does a good job of introducing NPCs important later, as well as imparting important information, in a casual manner. It's a bit of a kludge to make the party notice and care about these NPCs, but it is effective, but hopefully not too effective. One NPC needs to leave the tavern for the adventure to happen, so DMs should be careful not to make him stand out too much.
The story itself follows a 3 act pattern: 1st chapter introduces the threat to the town, 2nd chapter starts the investigation to a solution, and the 3rd chapter brings the party to directly fight the Big Bad Evil Guy. There is a mystery to what's going on, but it's revealed halfway through, and after that, it's about finding out how to undo the mistake that empowered the BBEG. The time constraints of doing that before Duponde is stuck in the Shadowfell forever gives the scary parts of the adventure some extra kick. If the players aren't frightened by fighting one group of devils and shadows, then fighting them forever should make them nervous.
HOW SOLID IS THE ADVENTURE'S CRUNCH?
Dark Legacy of Evard was written after Monster Manual 3, and has fixed the problems with early 4th edition monsters, as well as having a wide variety of monsters. Every classic low-level D&D monsters you'd expect to be in a spooky adventure is present: zombies, spiders, a werewolf, etc. Plus, the encounters are built with the advice of the Dungeon Master's Guide, so they're engaging to run for the DM. The Skill Challenges suffer none of the faults of early 4th edition. Each one offers 4-6 different skills to use in any given challenge, with DCs that are challenging but not unsurmountable. Unfortunately, the treasure mentioned in the adventure has no mechanics attached to them, and assumes you know what they do.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There are so many 1st-level adventures available for 4th edition, that I can't say you need this adventure. However, it is one of (if not the) best spooky adventures made for 4th edition D&D. It's also a great example of a linear adventure that provides players with much needed agency, while giving a DM an adventure that they don't have to homebrew to accommodate for player choices.
