The Festival of Magic (2018)
Written by: David Flor
Genre: Tabletop Game
Publisher: Dark Light Interactive Media
Why I Chose It: The cover instantly caught my eye. I was looking for a fun, vibrant adventure to run a group through, and this sounded perfect!
The Premise:
The Festival of Magic is a short introductory adventure for a group of of 1st-characters, compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition game system. It is designed to be used at any time, and can be inserted in to any campaign set in a large city (simply change the city’s name — Galena — for your city of choice) if you want something to entertain the party or serve as a means of gaining more information by helping the local government.
For almost a century, the city of Galena has hosted a grand convention of magic every ten years, inviting everyone from apprentices to the most powerful of wizards of the region to attend and share their knowledge and experiences amongst other practitioners of the arcane arts. It also hosts organized conferences (including a much-anticipated keynote by a local legend) and training sessions to teach inexperienced wizards how to control more powerful magics, as well as exhibitions for those who fear magic to educate them that magic can be used for good.
Ten years ago, there was an unfortunate series of incidents at the festival, a chain of events that caused so much chaos during the convention that the organizers were unwilling to host it ever again. But after the insistence of some members of the city council, the organizers agreed to host the convention within the city limits again.
If only there were a group of people that would be willing to volunteer and maintain order during the festival…
No Spoilers Below
Discussion: Running Dungeons and Dragons games while on lock-down has led to an increased number of games, so I’ve turned more and more to pre-written one-shot adventures. This is the latest adventure I have run, and let me say that rarely have I enjoyed a game more.
The premise is simple: a Festival of Magic is returning after tragic incidents and needs some extra protection to make sure that things go off flawlessly. Your group of adventurers is hired on to keep an eye on things.
Then the flaming octopus shows up at a bar.
Twisting and turning player expectations throughout the game, the players must follow a trail of clues from the flaming octopus, animated spell books, elementals, a paranoid wizard, and more to determine who is to blame for the chaos and to save the festival.
My players had an absolute blast! They laughed so hard, we had to take a few breathers to get the giggle-fits under control. There are ample opportunities for great role-playing as the characters interrogate guards, ask questions, and put together the pieces.
What makes this game stand out are the unique encounters and challenges presented by the strange monsters. An octopus on fire in a very flammable tavern creates a wonderful sense of confusion and urgency for the players. It forced them to think of new ways to engage in battle.
Of course, with any kind of game that relies on dice and people as part of the storytelling, chaos and randomness is inevitable. My players veered off the beaten path, and we ended up in uncharted waters, outside the planned events of the written adventure. However, because of the way Flor structured this whole game, it worked out fine.
Information is provided to help DMs make decisions for random circumstances and to keep the story moving. Even when my players were rolling nothing but 2s and 3s, the structure of the one-shot prevented them from getting bogged down or stuck.
In Conclusion: Overall, this is an amazing low-level adventure and a great introduction to D&D for people who might feel a little jaded about your typical fantasy. It’s written for level 1 adventurers, but I ran it for a level 3 party and still gave them a challenge!
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