Hello, fellow adventurers! In this post, we’re going to try something new for Critical Hit Guru: a full-fledged module review! For most of my Game Mastering career, I have primarily stuck to running my own content. It was never out of disdain for published adventures, as I know there are so many remarkably talented writers in the TRPG industry, but I never really got why anyone would run them. I mean, wasn’t the whole point to make these stories with your friends? It was the mentality in which I was introduced to Dungeons&Dragons as a child, and it just seemed to make sense.

And then my wife purchased Call of Cthulhu seventh edition and two scenario books, Mansions of Madness and Doors to Darkness for our anniversary this year. Switching from medieval fantasy to 1920’s eldritch horror was enough of a system shock to make me seriously appreciate having prewritten adventures to hold my hand through running the first few sessions. Since then, I have been strongly re-evaluating my stance on published adventures in my D&D games, enough so to start running Curse of Strahd (CoS) as an interim campaign while I prep my next homebrew setting.

While I will eventually write up a CoS assessment, I feel that may be a bit ambitious for my first attempt. I want to start a bit smaller, but no less important, and focus on 3rd-party developer content. As you may have guessed by the title, my first module review is for the D&D 5e publication, Odyssey Anthology Volume 1: In Callaphe’s Wake. Created by Frederic Walker, Stephanie Farrow, Zeke Gonzalez, Ashton Duncan, Fil Kearney, Anja Svare, Olobosk, Bayley Gillier, Wyatt Trull, Carlos Cisco, Kaleton Martinson, V.J. Harris, Nemo Bueno, Sheax, and Joshua Barbeau, Odyssey Anthology Volume 1 is a 73-page resource for Dungeon Masters looking to expand their Theros setting beyond what Mystic Odysseys of Theros provides.

This anthology provides four new types of ships, in addition to those provided in the Player’s Handbook, new hazards and crew roles, and a new mechanic for keeping the ship crew well-fed. The anthology directly references the sailing rules provided in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so you’ll want to be familiar with those mechanics before using any of the new ships. The primary draw of this anthology, however, is the inclusion of 10 new islands for your Player Characters to explore. To top it all off, there are new magic items and one new adventuring gear option you can incorporate into your adventures.

If this already interests you, pick up your own copy today from the Dungeon Master’s Guild for $14.95. For those of you still on the fence, let’s dive into the pros and cons of this first Odyssey Anthology volume.

The Pros

Incredible Artwork

Before moving forward, I have to give major kudos to Stephanie, Fil, Sheax, Anja, and Olobosk for the gorgeous art found throughout this product. Each piece is a beautiful window into the heart of this Greco-Roman-inspired setting and each of the new islands. The character art is equally evocative; you’ll certainly not be lacking for visual aids when introducing the NPCs critical to an island’s story. I won’t spoil any of it here, but some samples are included in the full-size preview found on the anthology’s Dungeon Master’s Guild page.

Diverse Islands

Truly befitting an anthology, each island was written by a different author, giving each locale a distinct tone, geography, and theme. It guarantees that, even if you come across an island that doesn’t fit well with your adventure, there’s another one just a couple pages away that’s sure to fit your needs.

None of the islands feel like they’re slapped together, either. Each author clearly uses their space to let the island tell a particular tale, or serve as a detailed setting for a tale of your choosing (we’ll get into this later). I’m continuously fascinated by collaborative works and their ability to exemplify the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The Odyssey Anthology reinforces this concept, and I truly believe you’ll find a great deal of worth in these unique adventures.

Boats, Boats Baby

I briefly mentioned the new ships and other nautical features before, but they bear reinforcing here as well. I’ve always been gun-shy about pulling the trigger on nautical adventures, as I am most definitely not an experienced seafarer. I know Port and Starboard are left and right (or is it right and left?), and not much else. If left unaided, trying to believably narrate the PCs sailing activities would be a colossal headache for me and leave my PCs bored for a majority of the campaign. If you resonate with this sentiment, fret not! The Odyssey Anthology has you covered.

I appreciate the Ancient Greek Crew Roles section for giving me setting-appropriate terminology for modern vernacular. A Captain becomes a Triērarchos, a Shipwright becomes a Naupēgos, and they even included a ship Musician (called the Aulētēs) to help rowers keep a steady rhythm. Each role even lists what Ability Score should be their highest (the Aulētēs, surprising no one, has a high Charisma) and notable proficiencies (Naupēgos are great with carpenter’s tools and the Athletics skill). They’re immersive details that could have been ignored, but thankfully were not.

The four new ships are given a great level of detail regarding their layout, general features, typical crew, an example image, and a stat block. Also, this book provides additional Ship Upgrades for some great Theran customization options your Players can utilize.

Though the main selling point is the 10 new adventure locales, don’t sleep on these new sailing options!

The Cons

Part Adventure Guide, Part Gazetteer

My largest critique of this book, by a long shot, is the inconsistency in which some of the islands are fully realized adventures and others are only settings with some intriguing plot hooks. Ánokáto, the first island in the anthology, is an example of the latter.

Your Player Characters arrive to discover the surface is infested with hostile undead. At some point (it’s not mentioned how), the merfolk who live in the underwater city of Ano Poli offer to guide the PCs to their underwater city (kindly offering to cast water breathing for anyone who needs it) and hang out. Because the undead can’t swim and the merfolk have no need to go top-side, they entirely ignore each other. There’s no tension, no incentive for the PCs to stay except for a topside shipwreck that’s rumored to contain a cursed treasure. The merfolk say they’ll be grateful if the undead are vanquished, but there’s no mention of how many are topside beyond “numerous.” And there’s an undying revenant-like corpse who angered Erebos, God of the Dead, on the island who asks for the PCs help in killing him, but he’s only found by exploring the topside of the island during low tide. Which, the book doesn’t mention if putting the corpse to rest will also vanquish the other undead.

I mention this not to tear into Ánokáto (it truly is a creative setting with some great story potential), but to detail the level of frustration I experienced with the other “pseudo-adventures” like Phaistyn and Amvenitos. Of the 10 islands, these three are what I would call Gazetteers more than adventures. They have intriguing locales and building blocks you can use to make a fun, short quest, but no start-to-finish adventure baked in.

Comparatively, let’s look at the island of Dece. It has notable locations, a thrilling story of pirate attacks, a (quite literal) Why are the characters involved? section, and even a subsequent quest that leads the characters to Amvenitos, one of the “pseudo-adventure” islands I mentioned above. Dece has absolutely everything you expect from an anthology like this, and I really wish each island had a connecting thread to another in the series.

Too Many Reference Books

A simple, unfortunate truth is the more external reference materials you require, the harder it is for a DM to run your adventure. The Odyssey Anthology has five: Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. That’s a lot of book juggling to expect at a moment’s notice, and I can’t help but wonder if that could have been pared down in any way to remove at least one (or ideally two) of those materials.

Editing

This is a complaint in which my professional life bleeds into my creative: there are some pretty noticeable spelling, grammar, and layout errors in this book. For the spelling, I immediately spotted Trireme incorrectly spelled Tiremes as the first word of the ship’s introductory paragraph, and Setessa/Setessan is spelled Setassa/Setassan throughout the book. For grammar and layout, there are numerous instances of introductory clauses missing commas and Header text (most notably the lowercase g) bleeding into the body text.

Let me be absolutely clear when I say these errors do not impact the quality of the content in this book. These stick out to me because I’m a Technical Writer by trade, I see these kind of mistakes all the time, and I am absolutely guilty of making these mistakes in my rough drafts. The best part is how easy this Con is to address; in fact, by the time you read this review, this may no longer even be an issue!

Final Verdict

I’m positively thrilled with my copy of Odyssey Anthology Volume 1: In Callaphe’s Wake. I cannot state enough how incredible it is to see so many writers, artists, and designers come together and create locations and adventures that feel so natural in their published setting. When a longer product is written by one person, it’s easy for themes, mechanics, or attributes to get reused and start feeling stale. I can promise you won’t run into that issue with Odyssey Anthology. That said, no product is perfect. There are some relatively easy concerns to address…and then there are some baked into the core of the anthology that I can’t provide clear recommendations to address.

If you want to run a nautical campaign of any kind (though obviously Theros is the intended target), I believe Odyssey Anthology as close to a companion piece to Ghosts of Saltmarsh as you could want in today’s market.

Til next time,

Matthew Wulf

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