Tales From the Yawning Portal
Coming in at 248 pages, with 7 classic adventures from as early as 1975, an adventure node, Forgotten Realms lore and a host of new enemies and magical items; there's a lot to break down here!
This book contains: The Sunless Citadel, The Forge of Fury, The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, White Plume Mountain, Dead in Thay, Against the Giants and Tomb of Horrors. They have all been converted to the 5th Edition rules so we can take a shot at some of the most iconic, deadly or famous dungeons in the history of D&D.
There are recommended level ranges for each of the adventures which gives you an idea of how you can use them. The book gives you the background of the Undermountain, Durnan and his bar: The Yawning Portal. These adventures can be used as one shots or side quests for your campaign, you could even run them back-to-back and use Durnan as a quest giving node.
There are 15 new magic items and 39 new creatures/characters for DMs to use. Some of the cursed items are at a level of evil that only Gary Gygax could muster, the Stone of Ill Luck is pure genius!
The Sunless Citadel is a great starter dungeon and is designed to teach new players how the game works. The first dungeon is a learning tool for DMs and Players alike and it is self contained so you can use it as a starting point of a homebrew campaign.
The dungeons themselves are varied in terms of aesthetic but also the skills they test. Some of these adventures are not meant to be murder sprees, there are puzzle dungeons and infiltration scenarios too so all play-styles are catered for.
There are some issues with the book; some of the maps are too small and this can lead to problems in running the adventures. Also there's a large amount information that you need to access on multiple pages at once. The issue can't really be fixed in a physical book, however, I've made a section here where you can get all of the maps digitally so they can be printed at the size you need them along with any props I thought might be useful.
This book is great as it casts a wide net, it helps new DMs design better dungeons, provides side quests if you're suffering from writers block, ramps up the player difficulty and enables newbies to play some of the most iconic dungeons in D&D history. Overall it's useful for DMs of all levels of experience. Let's be honest who doesn't want to play in the Tomb of Horrors?!
