Encounters in the Savage Cities is a collection of 26 short and unique encounters to bring to your table for D&D5e. This collection has been put together by a collective of amazing writers of the Dungeon Masters Guild: Jeff C. Stevens, Phil Beckwith, Benoit de Bernardy, Chris Bissette, M.T. Black, Ken Carcas, Alex Clippinger, Glen Cooper, Jean Headley, Janek Sielicki, and many more. Below will be my SPOILER free review of the product:

Synopsis

The following description has been taken from the module.

“Ever needed to spice up a stay in a city? Or, ever needed something to fill the gap between sessions when you are missing a player? Add a little flavor to the adventurers’ city visits with a rampaging mummy, a circus gone wild, a haunted inn, and much, much, more.”

It includes a mix of combat, roleplay, and investigation, Scaling Suggestions for CR 1-10, new creatures, custom art, and Downloadable Custom Maps (as a separate file).

“These encounters are location generic and are designed to be easily added to any campaign. Use them to introduce new players, as inspiration for a new campaign, as a one-shot, or whatever else you can think of.”

Initial Thoughts

After looking at the cover art and reading the description, this brings to mind some great potential side quests and story arcs that would happen in any big city that my players go to. My current players in my campaign have been exploring Baldur’s Gate and Iriabor in the Forgotten Realms, so slipping in these would work seamlessly.

Looking over the good amount of different adventures available and scaling options built in means that I could potentially pull these in to my games at anytime. Below I will list the various Pro’s I have found with this supplement.

Pros:

The collective ideas of these writers makes for very unique ideas that can be easily tailored into any city. One of my favorites is the “Hunger of the Ancient Orb”.

The detail on the backstories around the places you go and people you meet are very robust.

Each module is in the same format regardless of the writer that contributed it, which is helpful when looking for Challenge Rating, DM Notes, Location Type, and a brief description of what the encounter will be about, and some include how to Scale them for other CR’s.

The book also does a very good job at not only giving page numbers in the Monster Manual to referenced NPC’s and monsters but also goes the extra step to give simplistic stat blocks for ease of reference.

The book contains some very cool new monsters with properly formatted stat blocks such as the Mud Mephit Mischief Pack, the Giant Mimic, the Ancient Orb of Aeons, the Street Rat, etc.

Cons:

Honestly, I didn’t really find any big flaws with this supplement.

Overall Impression:

Overall, I think this is a absolutely fantastic product and tool for any Dungeon Master to have in their back pocket. There are so many unique mini adventures and encounters to use while you are in between your character’s next main quest. This would also be very handy for running One Shot adventures or something random if one or more of your normal players can’t make it to a a session and you need to “stall” for a side quest. I will definitely be looking to dropping some of these into my campaigns.

Ok, now where do you find it?

You can find it here on the Dungeon Masters Guild website for $6.95- HERE

This 80-page supplement contains encounters written by Seven Best-Selling Dungeon Masters Guild writers and new writers!

Encounters in the Savage Cities includes 26 unique encounters of various difficulty that can be used while the adventuring party travels the Savage Frontier Cities. It also includes several new creatures and magic items, hand-drawn maps, a new Background (the Museum Curator), and original artwork. Some of the encounters are short and brief, while others may take you a full gaming session to complete.