Tremors in the Sand is an adventure for 4-5 characters of levels 1 to 4, by P.B. Publishing & Loot The Room.

The Story

The characters reach a desert outpost after it has been attacked by Yuan-Ti. They are then tasked with rescuing the abducted merchants. However, they will find themselves in a much more dire situation than they think they are, because there is a ritual going on which is going to wake up a Tarrasque.

The Structure

The adventure is divided in four chapters. In the first one, there is an introduction containing the synopsis, plot hooks and a few tips.

The second chapter contains the events in the outpost and the travel part of the adventure. The travel from the outpost to the temple is done using a hex map. The characters will have to find their way through the desert and for each hex the Dungeon Master rolls from a table for a potential encounter.

The third chapter contains the dungeon delving part, which is actually temple delving. The characters will have to explore the temple and stop the villain from awakening the Tarrasque.

There is a timer in the adventure which adds another possible way to fail. Taking too long to either cross the desert or find where the ritual is taking place inside the temple can lead to the Tarrasque actually waking up. For the part inside the temple there’s even a event-time tracker table.

The fourth chapter contains the possible conclusions. If the characters fail and the Tarrasque ends up waking up, there’s a high probability of the characters dying because they will be on ground zero. However, there’s also the choice of sparing the characters. It is a tier 1 adventure so both choices seem okay, depending on the Dungeon Master’s mood.

The Art

The cover art is really nice. There’s more art inside in different styles, depicting monsters and some of the NPCs.

The cartography is good as well. There’s the hex map which is used in the second chapter and two more maps depicting the temple. The temple maps cover all the areas the characters may visit.

Final Words

Tremors in the Sand is an interesting adventure. It tries to put pressure on the characters by using adding a timed event, and I believe it succeeds. Also, the use of the Tarrasque in a tier 1 adventure is unusual and may pique the interest of the players, but also provide a possible story line if the characters fail. If you’re interested in a desert adventure you should give this one a look.

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