Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

The Tragic Curse of Grimhill Fort is an 8 page module by written by Aleksandar Kostić, and was the runner up in the Shadowdark jam that ran mid 2023. You seek shelter from a savage storm in a ruined fort — what will you find there? In looking at it because I was told in response to my not so positive review of Shadowdark that “the theme really comes across in the adventures, not the rules”. Which, I’d believe, as the author of Shadowdark is an excellent and experienced author of adventures for 5e. I couldn’t find any of said adventures, though (just a zine, on the official website at least). Perhaps they’re kickstarter exclusives? Who knows, but I thought I’d check it out.

Grimhill Fort is an interesting one: Is it well written? Well, no. And yes. The pedant in me can find no poetry here, little elegance of word choice, and many grammatical errors. But is it whimsical and evocative? Yes. Does it incorporate narrative subtly and environmentally? Yes. It’s a fiddle, rather than a violin, but what it plays is good. A lot of this is in the asides: “Chandelier is hanging from one of the beams. Pigeons have built a nest on it.”, but also in simple but effective design -— the two statues that, when reunited, banish two monsters and end the storm. The storm itself is a character, popping up in window descriptions and places the roof is collapsed. Genuinely excellent stuff, but good in a way that feels fresh and kind-eyed.

Layout is fine, marred by under-utilised block colour, and repetitive font choices that make it hard to pick sections or direction information quickly. The full colour map on the first page is striking and clever (detailing on the map how to enter), but everything afterwards is coloured anaemically by comparison. Art is colour shifted to match the colours used on the page, which seems like a good idea until you have a page of art in pale yellow. Colour is a powerful layout tool not taken advantage of here. An aside: In practice here, the Shadowdark stat blocks are pretty unobtrusive for something that is based on 5e; they work out roughly the same size as something for Cairn, which is nice.

It’s only 8 pages, so there’s only so much to say, but honestly, this is a location you need in your campaign. It’s a session or two of whimsical, lighthearted fun, that will probably stick with you.

Idle Cartulary