Today we bring you our review of What Happened to Evy Ashwood. First of all we want to thank Tove Lund Jorgensen and Erik Jorgensen from Midnight Tower for providing us with a copy of this adventure for D&D5e. You can find it on DriveThruRPG, both in PDF for $ 7.50 (about € 6.50) and in printed version, for $ 29.90 (about € 26). If you are particularly excited for what you read in this review, you can also consider the premium version.
What Happened to Evy Ashwood is a 79-page adventure, which offers the group an experience inspired by Lovecraftian works. The manual is quite rich, and in my opinion it finds its strength precisely in the accessory material and in the detail of the setting, rather than in the adventure itself.
Review of the Handbook of What Happened to Evy Ashwood
This adventure is definitely well structured. The pages try to replicate a bit the classic effect of an ancient arcane tome; the layout, however, is very similar to the official one of D&D5e, simplifying an already very practical reading; both from the point of view of real readability and from that of consultation.
Unfortunately, the quality of the art sector is a bit fickle. Most of the illustrations are actually very well done. The choice of using photographic material, reworked to not clash with the D&Dish atmospheres of the adventure, is interesting. The problem is precisely the drawings. Especially when they depict the creatures, fundamental in such a context, they are rather disappointing for their diversity. A real shame, on a product that for all other aspects is very well cared for.
Structure of the Work
This volume is ideally divided into two parts. While he first 41 pages are dedicated to the adventure and the accessory material available to narrate it at its best, the second half of the manual is instead entitled The Great Old One Compendium. For the people who appreciate HP Lovecraft, and more generally the classic horror literature, this title says it all.
For those less familiar with the work of this writer, it is enough to know that What Happened to Evy Ashwood is partially inspired by the figures of the Great Old Ones. The characters are small compared to the ancient and dark threats that do not belong to their world. Horrors of distant dimensions lurk in the darkness. They represent a danger not only physically, but above all because they are capable of driving the minds of mortals to madness with their mere presence. Sometimes, with their existence alone.
Review of the Plot of What Happened to Evy Ashwood
What Happened to Evy Ashwood is a book full of useful material and engaging insights. Ironically, the adventure itself is not as interesting as the rest. Let’s get the facts straight: it isn’t absolutely bad. Above all it is an adventure for a sixth level group of characters, short but very well organized. The planning work behind it is pretty obvious, and the idea is handled very well.
Unfortunately, this is an extremely short and straightforward adventure. There are indications to adapt it to groups of any level, as well as to modify the fights in order to minimize them or eliminate them completely. In this way it is possible to focus What Happened to Evy Ashwood exclusively on interpretation and investigation, an approach usually predominant in Lovecraftian-inspired role-playing games.
The pretext of the adventure is very simple, but effective. An innkeeper’s niece appears to have disappeared, and he looks for someone to reach the old tower where she lives to find out what happened to her. All NPCs are extremely detailed, they acquire three-dimensionality very easily. The unexplained events that can happen during the journey are consistent with the dominant theme, the random encounters are perfect for awakening the sense of horror. The choices to be made in the game are very few, but they have a strong impact on the outcome of the adventure, if not on the entire campaign.
A Manual That Works Better at… Inverted Roles
The main “problem” with What Happened to Evy Ashwood is that it appears to be a support to all the rest of the material presented in the manual. As if it was an introductory adventure that allows you to enjoy all the other content. And indeed this is a very little problem, because the volume works very well, even if not in the way it is presented.
The best way to enjoy What Happened to Evy Ashwood is to think of it as a supplement that allows you to insert Lovecraftian elements in a campaign, with an adventure to accompany it. Doing so you have the setting of a very particular town, Winterhold, where the adventure takes place. Accompanied by NPCs, organizations, dark cults and magical items that are powerful and burdened with very original curses and themed with the manual; but also new monsters, opponents, pre-made characters and obviously maps, which can also be downloaded from an external link indicated in the manual. I would also like to point out a completely re-edited version of the character sheet, in order to be themed with the tones of the setting.
Approached in this way, What Happened to Evy Ashwood becomes an extremely enjoyable adventure. Great for testing in-depth themes in The Great Old One Compendium or for incorporating them into a larger campaign. Homebrew, if you prefer, but also consider the many other works created by Midnight Tower; What Happened to Evy Ashwood indeed has many references to other works by Tove Lund Jorgensen and Erik Jorgensen. It can be an introduction to Rise of the Ice Dragons Trilogy, a set of more substantial adventures that in this manual also see a small teaser.
Final Considerations of the Review of What Happened to Ivy Ashwood
Considering that the proposed adventure disappears compared to the accessory material presented, What Happened to Evy Ashwood is a really interesting manual. It is not meant to bring the myth of Cthulhu into D&D5e; there are already other manuals dedicated to this. But it allows to re-propose atmospheres and elements typical of the Lovecraftian genre, guaranteeing new thickness, sap and dark depth to campaigns that want to be an alternative to a more classic type of game. All this without however distorting the basic game.
Overall, it is a perfectly successful work, which guides the master for a couple of sessions, giving him the opportunity to assimilate a series of useful tools to run an entire campaign. Perhaps not a must have for anyone, but for lovers of the genre an absolutely recommended manual.