Review: Sword of the Ember Knight
[5E]
JOHN ROBERTS • UPDATED: DEC 13, 2022 6:47 PM EST
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Cover art of "Sword of the Ember Knight"
Adventure Awaits Studios
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Publisher: Adventure Awaits Studios
System: Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons (may require minor tweaks for other systems)
Release Date: 21 October 2020
Price: Free
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Mini-Adventure, Mega Effort
Sword of the Ember Knight, penned by Benjamin Palmer of Adventure Awaits Studios, is a free 'mini-
adventure' for characters of the third level to be used in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. A mini-
adventure is right: Out of the six pages that make up the PDF file, only three make up useable material;
the rest is the cover art, and Wizards of the Coast's (WotC) required terms of use. A lack of meatiness
to the text might appear merciful to game masters in need of a side quest for their party or a simple one-
shot, but upon closer inspection, it hardly argues itself to be a skeleton.
The premise of Sword of the Ember Knight is a good story told badly. Long ago in the Dumear Valley,
there was once an evil king who spread the fell plague across his lands. This was until a knight, whose
name is lost to time, decided to slay the king with a sword that—upon prayer—would ignite in flame and
strike a single killing blow against the evil ruler. This had brought peace and prosperity; however, a
prophecy foretelling the king's return was heard and, like the Ember Knight, was also lost to the ages.
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As written, there's an even greater amount of words explaining what I just said in less detail. It is neither
an evocative nor a helpful tale. Players who take the time to question why the king corrupted their
subjects, the god of the Ember Knight, the history of the Dumear Valley, or the origin of this prophecy
will cause game masters expecting a quick and easy adventure with more headaches than the material
is worth. This story will likely appear in any homebrew setting with far more detail and enthusiasm by its
creator, and those questions can be asked by a far more captive audience.
The Honeywell Inn, where players meet the historian Silas
Dyson Logos
The adventure at least provides details on how the players can start this quest:
1. An Old Acquaintance. Someone the party apparently knows calls them to the Honeywell Inn
regarding the Emberblade.
2. Passing Through. The party is hailed over by someone who claims to be in danger, and the threat
turns out to be credible.
3. In Search of Treasure. The party has paid to meet someone who knows of the Emberblade, along
with all the loot that comes with it.
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These are fine enough hooks, and they firmly plant the party in front of the doors of the Honeywell Inn,
wherein they will find Silas, an old man with low hit points who is seemingly the only person who knows
what this Emberblade is. In a way, the lack of knowledge anyone else can give creates a sense of great
importance; there's no time to ask commonfolk, and this specific field of lore could be cataclysmic if lost.
On the other hand—and more likely—it could just be because it's rushed, as the author has to produce
several adventures per month for their customers.
Silas can only tell players what the prologue states, as there's no table about what Silas knows and how
truthful it is. It's a rather positive coincidence that the legend of the Emberblade is so long forgotten that
there are zero lies or rumours spread about it. How Silas came of this information, and how correct it is,
will remain a mystery unless GMs put additional effort into writing it up ... which they could do with a
story entirely of their own making.
Of course, the historian/prophet/seer/mummer won't give this information until he's escorted from some
thugs who are on his trail, having heard of the treasure, rather than use the weapon for good. Three
bandits and a bandit captain will enter the inn, harass patrons and demand to know Silas' whereabouts.
The adventure becomes something of a video game at this point, as players have to avoid the bandits'
cones of vision (see the above illustration). In what has become Metal Gear Silas, the party must
succeed in stealth checks; for every failure, the bandits turn 90 degrees clockwise. They don't turn in the
direction of where the sound came from but simply rotate like an automaton on a pre-programmed
route. I'd like to remind readers this adventure was released in October 2020, long after Curse of Strahd
and other adventures where Count Strahd von Zarovich moves around Ravenloft to achieve his aims
rather than pacing around his castle.
One such Bandit Captain
D&D Beyond
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There is the possibility that players will end up in combat, and the barkeep will tell the combatants to
take the brawl outside. He doesn't join in with his own stat block, fighting either side (or taking sides with
paying customers), and there are no written consequences until the players move on. More on that
soon.
Interestingly, the adventure doesn't entertain the chance that Silas might be kidnapped or slain, which
could mean the adventure goes on for longer (which would do this caper a favour) or it comes to an
abrupt end unless he has the maps to the two locations that follow exiting the Honeywell Inn.
Highway to Hell
Having escaped the Honeywell Inn with their lives, Silas will tell the party all he knows (read: the
opening paragraph) and send them to find the Tomb of the Ember Knight, followed by the Barrow of the
Evil King. If players cause a ruckus at the inn, guards may halt their journey and pay the court a fine,
serve their sentence, or pay with their blood. It's a relief this part of the adventure is written as an
optional encounter because it raises more questions that require GMs to be prepared to answer.
If the players pay the hefty sum of 100 gold pieces each, they can continue their journey to sell the
sword and make up the cost. If they go to jail, they stay in the slammer for fourteen days, and the
supposedly spreading darkness waits for them to leave. And if the party fights, the guards will surrender
and flee if they're given half a chance. There's also the idea that the party can convince the guards
they're on a quest to find the Emberblade and defeat the evil king, but why they would believe this
bygone myth is beyond me. There's a lot of inconsistency about what people know, true or otherwise,
about the Ember Knight and their former despot, once more requiring the GM to keep track of this
information so they contain their players' beliefs.
The Tomb of the Ember Knight
Whatever happens, the party moves on to the Tomb of the Ember Knight. The map of this place is just
as jarring as the adventure, being a mishmash of manmade halls and rooms and natural formations. It
also wastes time for careful players, whose marching order consists of those with the best darkvision
and stealth skills up front. Nothing happens until they reach the centre of the initial 'room.'
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The Tomb of the Ember Knight; beautifully drawn as always, but an exercise in nonsense
design.
Encountering the Spiders
Caution is recommended in the tomb, however, as three spiders await players who tamper with their
latest catch: a corpse encased in web, clutching onto two vials of antivenom, a herbalist's kit, and a
silver dagger. In a one-shot, these are safe to be chugged or sold but can provide essentials later on.
The spiders are hardly a threat—much like the earlier bandits—but their poison attacks can wear down
the players if they don't rest before the next encounter. They are given ample warning of the goblinoids
that will ambush them in the room following the drawn-out navigation of a tunnel, with a trap that will
make noise if triggered. If the party doesn't clumsily waltz through the noise maker, they'll find some
goblins, a goblin boss, and a hobgoblin asleep; otherwise, they'll be sprung upon.
The Gricks
The party has no choice but to rest as the path ahead is blocked off by a cave-in, which is a rare
moment of self-awareness in adventure design. There should be structural errors, especially when it's
become the home of things that don't appreciate good architecture ... like gricks.
After digging for approximately four hours to clear the cave-in and move ahead, the party will have to
search high and low if they want to catch the gricks: serpentine creatures with beady eyes, tentacles
with which to grasp prey and bring it into their beaks. They're very sneaky in rocky terrain, and this most
certainly is, and the complete darkness doesn't help matters at all.
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Though I have criticised the map design, I confess that the cave feels natural. There's no benefit to
seeing the entire complex as far as it goes, which provides more form than function. That's precisely
what a cave is, after all. But the players will eventually paw their way through the darkness to find steps,
and light, as they come across the tomb of the knight proper. There the party finds two doors, and
should anyone try to approach them both, the Sentinel—a great dirty statue with the Gladiator stat block
—approaches and will initiate combat.
The gladiator is the toughest fight in the adventure.
D&D Beyond
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The Sentinel Fight
The Sentinel fight is, in a word, overkill. I would strongly recommend GMs at least give the party a
chance to either rest up, heal up, or perhaps even convince the statue that they aren't there to rob the
tomb but use the sword to defeat the tyrant who has returned. Yet again, the adventure fails to entertain
the possibility a GM might want to use a riddle, skill checks, or even let the party pass should they prove
themselves worthy. And while I sound like I don't give GMs enough credit to think for themselves, I
would expect an adventure to provide suggestions to inspire these creative choices and diversions.
Once again, I must stress the purpose of this adventure is to be quick and easy, and as written, it is only
one of those things.
The Sentinel, much like the D&D Beyond page's description suggests, will not fight to the death: merely
when each player it perceives is down to zero hit points and unconscious. However, if they try to reach
the door after reaching consciousness, the Sentinel will try to gently dissuade would-be tomb robbers by
pummelling them back down to zero hit points again.
This requires a merciful GM, though: the Sentinel can easily kill party members without thinking thanks
to its three multi attacks per round, its ability to raise its armour class to 19 as a reaction, and having no
negative rolls for saving throws.
Upon defeating (or outright skipping) this encounter, the party enters the final resting place of the Ember
Knight. Awaiting them are altars with assorted jewels and coins, but the real McCoy is the Emberblade:
a +1 longsword which deals an additional 1d6 radiant damage to undead. Combined with the silver
dagger from earlier, the party now has a means of taking out their foe through martial means.
The entrance to the barrow
Dyson Logos
On the Road Again
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There are no written interruptions to the party's travel to the barrow of the evil king, where it's up to the
GM to decide the level of corruption present or what form it takes. The players will find a mound with
two entrances beneath a ring of pillars as if they will walk through the eyes of a face peeking above the
earth. Within is a catacomb, and to the leftmost side is a sarcophagus, the resident within awaiting
those who would attempt to bring its end once more.
The evil king returns as a wraith who cannot yet leave the barrow, which begs the question of what the
big deal is. If anything, the party's presence has made the situation worse if they fail. Wraiths are
incredibly nasty creatures that, while having low health and a middling armour class, have a few tricks
up their ghostly sleeves.
Wraiths have resistance to nearly all attacks and types of magic, including immunity to necrotic and
poison damage. Their smoking form allows them to pass through someone like a breeze, albeit with
difficulty, and because they hover, they are immune to certain conditions, such as being knocked prone
or being grappled. The evil king has a single attack, which - upon a hit - can drain the life force from its
target, reducing the character's maximum health by the damage it dealt. This can mean a player dies
without being able to throw death saves. In addition to that, the dead player may be risen as a spectre
with similar abilities to fight their once allies.
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A wraith, conveniently depicted with a crown
Forgotten Realms Wiki
When the undead tyrant is defeated, the wraith vanishes into a jet of mist, and the Dumear Valley is
finally free and clear of this threat. Players can take the treasures left behind and show off the blazing
sword to the few NPCs who are even remotely aware of the myth coming true. If the guards were
previously slain or damages dealt to the inn at the beginning, the party may need to be held
accountable for that, but the Aftermath doesn't go into the consequences. Clearly, the embers have run
out by this point.
Ashes to Ashes
Sword of the Ember Knight is a story worth telling: the tale of a hero's treasure being used to fulfil its
purpose of good once more has more justification than most of the tomb raiding that goes on in
adventures. But if a story is worth telling, it's worth telling well. That is its shortcoming, and ultimately,
that's what matters most.
As a dungeon crawl for those who really don't care about roleplay and story, it's perfectly adequate. The
combat encounters provide enough variety and appear frequently enough to justify some of the
shortcomings of navigation in the second act. An expendable party of level three characters will meet a
worthy match here.
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But for those who want to adopt this adventure to use in their own game, they needn't bother. GMs can
and should come up with characters and themes that fit their own homebrew setting so that most of this
adventure can be scrapped rather than try to cram in as many notes and lore as they can think of to fill
the massive gaps that appear between each paragraph.
It's not broken by any means (the total gold value of loot can be argued as excessive), but it's easily one
of Adventure Awaits Studios' worst works. Most of their other free adventures provide more detail and a
much more fulfilling experience. It was fun to play but could be so much more if it was given the
attention it deserves.
Scoring System Explained
My review score process is as follows. Out of five stars:
1. is for a badly designed product that I did not enjoy.
2. are for a badly designed product I enjoyed or a well-designed product I did not enjoy.
3. are for a badly designed product I greatly enjoyed or a well-designed product I enjoyed.
4. are for a brilliantly designed product that I greatly enjoyed.
5. means it provided an irreplicable experience and one that will appear in very few reviews.
Sword of the Ember Knight gets two stars for being a shoddily designed adventure, but the blueprint is
clear enough to the point where a GM, with enough time and patience, can turn it into something better.
And it was a fun adventure to play, but it would lose nothing with better-designed maps and encouraging
players to come up with scenarios to make this quest worthy of recommendation.
© 2021 John Roberts
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