A Review of Nocturnes and Nightmares, a Community Collaboration.
Full transparency, I received a free copy of this massive supplement for review purposes. As usual I will rate this on four metrics: Utility, Quality, Presentation, and Price.
Utility: This thing is hefty…but doesn’t waste pages. If you have any interest whatsoever in horror roleplaying in DnD5e, this thing will see use at your table. Subclasses, ancestries, spells, monsters, adventures, new Domains of Dread, new magic items…all well written and well balanced. They even have a very good section on running horror at the table.
5/5
Quality: Here, I’m looking at the actual quality of the options presented…and frankly, I’m impressed. The subclasses are evocative, powerful, and balanced. The spells are inspired. The ancestries are quite off kilter, but well constructed, fitting for the themes…and given ways to make them fit specific domains of dread even better. The domains and adventures dovetail well, are well constructed, and have a truly dark epic feel to them. The monsters are disturbing and dark in the best way. The magic items are brilliantly twisted.
5/5
Presentation: This is a beautiful product. It is well laid out, has good art (the original stuff is beautiful and the curated pieces are well chosen) that doesn’t distract too much from the text. The statblocks are clear and well constructed. I want a print version.
5/5
Price: I’m going to be brutally honest. With the amount of work put into this, the art, the editing, (which is remarkably tight for such a big project), our community has once again undervalued itself. The 19.99 price tag is too low, for 110 pages of non-stop quality product. They even go the extra mile and give us a back cover, often overlooked or considered un-needed in the digital age.
5/5
No deductions. Seriously. Buy this product if you have any interest in horror, Ravenloft, or even just DnD in general.
Overall 5/5, and I’m hardly the only person who thinks so, as it’s rated 5/5 on DM’s Guild and is in the Most Popular section already.
Get it here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/413216/Baba-Lysagas-Nocturnes-and-Nightmares
