I recently decided to do a few reviews of adventures written for publication after an request on Dragonsfoot for someone to read a new submission to that wonderful site. If you love old school Dungeons and Dragons then Dragonsfoot is a place you need to be. It is filled with old school gamers and free adventures. There are many other reviewers out there on the web. But I suspect there is far more material these days than there are people to review them.
The Hidden Tomb of Nephabti unfortunately is not available for free at that site. It is available, however, as a pay what you want file from Drive Thru RPG. You can find a link to it at Nephabti.
This adventure is from a publisher called Old School Rules. The author is Jeremy Reaban. It is an Egyptian themed adventure. There are lots of mummies, Egyptian gods and heroes in this module. It does not specify the suggested levels or numbers of party members as most adventures do. So one would likely want to read this adventure before deciding if it is appropriate for the characters in their own campaign. My personal opinion is that it is probably appropriate for six characters of around 7th to 10th level of experience. While the module does not specifically state this either….it appears to be compatible with OSRIC or 1st Edition AD&D.
The tomb is that of an Egyptian Paladin named Nephabti. She is not actually dead. Instead she is held in sort of stasis prison in this tomb. The goal of this adventure is to find her and release her from this situation.
What I like about Hidden Tomb of Nephabti
I do like the Egyptian theme. Mummies and new monsters are always a plus in an adventure and this has both. There are also some new magic items. Overall the adventure does keep up this Egyptian theme.
The map is simple and old school. It is white tile on black background. A player map is also provided which can be found during the adventure.
There are false burial chambers and false Nephabtis to confuse and confound the adventurers during their exploration of the tomb.
The adventurers can find and team up with a talking frog with some magical abilities of his own.
There were some interesting magical tricks in the adventure involving fountains and mirrors. One of my favorite aspects of dungeons involve these types of tricks. I probably use a few too many of them in my own adventures.
The setup and background information is very short. The adventure pretty much dives right in from the first page.
Things that I did not like about the adventure
It seemed a bit too free with the magic items. I try to keep a tight reign on magic given to my players during a campaign. I know that many other dungeon masters feel the same about this subject. To my mind magic items need to be earned. I do not allow magic items to be bought in my campaigns (although I will allow sale of them to NPCs). During this adventure a few of the magic items seem a bit too powerful for the level of challenge. Particularly I do not like giving away magical armor so freely. This adventure has a bronze plate mail +3 and a normal plate mail +1 as well as other things.
While I love a short setup and background….this adventure probably needs a little more than it has. No where that I could find does it specifically state the edition that this game is written for or the levels that it is intended for. These can easily be deduced but still. I think I would state it somewhere right up front.
Would I recommendHidden Tomb of Nephabti ?
Of course. It is pay what you want. If you do not like it….you are not required to pay anything for it. I write a lot of Pay What You Want adventures on Drive Thru RPG so I fully recommend that if you do like what you read that you give a little to the author for his work.
If you like Egyptian themed adventures this one is for you. If not…. It is still worth reading.
Would I play Hidden Tomb of Nephabti with my own group?
Probably not. I just do not see how it would fit with my current campaign. But that is not a knock on this adventure.
If you enjoyed this review then you might enjoy these:
I have been a DM since ’81 and I have a degree in Archaeology and my specialty is Ancient Egypt. I would love to check this adventure out. I do have special pet peaves when it comes to things Egyptian. The most glaring example is the Egyptian deites. They have Anhur as the war god but the real one was Sekmet. Some of the heiroglyphics are just wrong, too. What they claim is “Curse be on you forever” is actually “Lord of Heaven”. I have been thinking of an adventure as well.
I enjoyed the adventure. But I most definitely am not an expert on ancient Egypt. You will have to judge for yourself the authenticity of the adventure from that perspective.