Candlekeep Mysteries (D&D Adventure Book - Dungeons & Dragons) (Dungeons and Dragons)

Candlekeep Mysteries has been disappointing. While I admire what WOTC was trying to do with this anthology, the execution certainly could have been better, and it's clear they are espousing radical far-left ideology in a paternalistic attempt to change the way their less radical readers think.TLDR: Far too woke to be immersive. Even if none of the woke elements were present, the adventures are subpar to average.Pros:- The best that can be said about the top few of the adventures is that they are solid and creative (though many of the rest are enormous duds).- Adventures span a range of levels, from 1-16, offering a wealth of adventuring opportunity.Cons:- One of the core issues throughout the vast majority of adventures is adventure and encounter design. Often, there is a kernel of a great idea which is then basically left to wither on the vine. Far too often, you simply feel as if you are along for the ride on the story the author is telling, with player agency having been all but forgotten. Most concernedly, despite interesting themes, the vast majority of the adventures are simply boring and bland. Yes, even the ones concerned with what passes for "horror" in D&D these days. Every adventures gives the sense of existing within a Disney-esque safe space, where nobody will be made uncomfortable about anything. Nevermind that for growth to occur, discomfort must be allowed to exist. Instead, regardless of the theme of the adventure, the tone and tenor of all of them is as if they were written for children or teenage girls.- No index makes finding monsters and items exceedingly difficult. Not including one was a huge miss.- Inconsistent use of adventure summaries makes recalling details more difficult as well as initially deciding whether you want to read or run an adventure.- There is a lot of pure silliness in this book - a wheelchair accessible dungeon, PCs working out at a spa, etc. Nothing says "Dungeons & Dragons" like making squatting and skipping exercise checks at a spa, eh?- Disgraceful ignorance/contradiction of established Forgotten Realms lore in places.- There's no theme or cohesive whole to the anthology, making the group of adventures seem scattershot. Nothing brings them all together.- It's clear that there is a political narrative being pitched throughout these adventures, which can be very divisive. That just potentially puts more work on the DM's shoulders, and also breaks immersion, taking the reader out of Faerun and embroiling him/her back into the murky depths of our real-world political swamp.- It's obvious that WOTC has taken sides, politically, instead of staying neutral. They are clearly advocating on behalf of the far-left would-be Bolsheviks - the illiberal, totalitarian, fascist, censorious radical left. Equally as clearly, WOTC now stands in stark opposition to mainstream American values. This is NOT your father's TSR.- When everything, everywhere must conform to an ever-changing standard of wokeness, you get a product where everyone and every place feels the same. There is a regression to a mean of blandness. Everyone, everywhere has the same values and the same world-views. It makes Faerun seem like a woke computer-simulation instead of a living, breathing fantasy world with a true diversity of opinions and lifestyles.- While diversity of authorship is ostensibly a strength, it's also a weakness, as it's clear that WOTC interpreted the concept of diversity to include talent. After reading through these adventures, it's obvious that some of these authors have no business having an adventure professionally published. This demonstrates the core issue with rewarding someone based on identity or appearance instead of based on merit and skill. Much of these adventures seems like fan fiction. WOTC would have been better served to recruit professional adventure writers, give them structure, and them let them have at it.Be wary before you spend your dollars on this leftist propaganda masquerading as D&D. As with all things Marxist, WOTC is leeching off of greatness that someone else created (Gygax, Greenwood, Et Al.) and subverting it to their own nefarious political ends.Even if you aren't at all concerned about the woke narrative, as far as actual D&D content, there are a few gems to mine for here, but most everything requires quite a bit of work on the part of the DM, and you'll have to wade through the muck to find them.In sum, Candlekeep Mysteries seems more concerned with giving certain authors a platform to tell their stories and further their woke agendas than in crafting exciting, interesting, fun adventures for players. Cannot recommend, unless you don't care about the cons I've outlined above.

Giving into the woke agenda. Gender identity, pronouns and safe spaces are encouraged by this book. Why does everyone think this is a good idea?

Candlekeep Mysteries take place in the world of Faerûn, aka "The Forgotten Realms". If your gaming world is based within Faerûn, so much the better for you as the DM. Otherwise, it simply takes a few adjustments to fit these individual adventures into any campaign setting that you are using as a DM.The Good:From a DM's perspective for adventure seeds, this book does a pretty good job of providing adventuring seeds/hooks for characters from level 1 - 15. I'm not so keen on the overall layout (the departure from previous WoTC books that have monster and magic item references stored handily at the end of the book in appendices), but I can see how some DMs might appreciate not having to flip back and forth to find their information.The not-so-good:Ugh, the "woke culture" is alive and well in this book. From this reviewer's perspective, removing nearly all references to NPC's assumed genders is just another thing for DMs to define and track. Should I have to write in the margins of the book so-and-so's gender for every NPC that the players encounter? This follows in the wake of WoTC's decision to make all gaming races essentially equal with the character race options from Tasha's. We are talking about a *fantasy* gaming world, and people are losing their minds over culturally derived race differences between Dwarves, Elves, and Troglodytes. That and the warning to DMs to check with their players before running an adventure/campaign to understand their trigger points is really over the top, IMO.Summary:However, if you can dismiss the "woke" culture elements from Candlekeep, I believe as a DM you will find this anthology of adventures to serve as great starting points from which to run stand-alone adventures, or integrating them into your own custom-made world. Personally I run everything in the world of Faerûn, because it's very large and very well described in multiple WoTC sourcebooks. Enjoy

I've read through these adventures and unimpressed. It seems like DnD Lite....which I guess there's a market for. It seems that the target audience might be young adults or teen girls. One of the adventures has the players doing exercises with health spa owners. Not really my cup of tea. Also, the publication seems overly concerned with not triggering people and appealing to 'Woke Culture' .

The negative reviews focusing on "woke culture" were a big help in leading me to buy this book. As a DM who is running a campaign with two 12 year old girls playing, it's about time we see some content that appeals to a broader audience. As it turns out, "woke culture" boils down to some NPC's with ambiguous genders so you can decide for yourself how many men and women appear on your world. Considering that I was already changing a lot of men to women in the other published material in an effort to get some balance, this is a welcome change for me.There is a large variety between these adventures and I doubt any campaign would want to use them all. But, it seems like just about any campaign would find several of them to be very interesting side adventures. The adventures aren't mysteries in the sense that Sherlock Holmes is going to call everyone into the room and reveal the bad guy at the end. Almost all of them involve stopping evil plots, usually through combat. The mystery part is that most of the adventures start with a strange happening and no clear cause. The players have to do a little bit of investigative work to figure out who or where the bad guys are. Many of them involve travel to interesting settings and the NPC's are pretty well detailed so that a mediocre DM like myself can give them memorable personalities. This book helps provide some depth and variety to my campaign world.

The media could not be loaded.  Love it so much. If you have a petite wrist it is the perfect fit. I personally do not like any watches with a face over 30mm. This one is just right. The band is more of an off white color or a very light light blush, but it is still beautiful. Here are some photos in natural and room lighting.

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