A review copy of “Petey’s Pork Pie Emporium (Dwiergus #1)” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

Support my work by using affiliate links for shopping and pledging via Patreon.

Designed by: Remley Farr

One of my favorite fantasy concepts is taking a real-world setting or plot device, and throwing it into the magical world of D&D. Petey’s Pork Pie Emporium transforms a corporate-owned BBQ restaurant into a deliciously dark, hilarious hellscape mega-dungeon, for levels 3-5.

The layout is designed in the easily printable zine format, along with original artwork by the author. I enjoyed the unique art, whose gross designs fit perfectly with the demonic meat factory and darkly satirical theme. Maps range from traditional, if bare, top-down grids to more stylized room pictures and side-view cut-aways.

The result is a hell of a visual feast for DMs, though only about half the map areas would be suitable for battle map use. I do appreciate getting non-annotated and grid-less versions as separate player map downloads.

While the zine format usually indicates a short and sweet adventure, Petey’s Pork Emporium shaves off the beginning and end to focus almost entirely on the dungeon crawl. It lacks many of the organizational trappings that have become standardized with adventures, such as multiple adventure hooks, and an overview that describes the overall plot and structure.

We get a simple rescue mission prompt: a lord’s daughter has run away after her father remarried following the death of her mother. She’s been seen working in the titular restaurant, which can conveniently be placed in any town.

The restaurant is actually the top-level entrance of a massive – and I mean MASSIVE dungeon crawl. The entire Emporium, including its Abyssal corporate headquarters takes up 20+ pages and well over 50 rooms!

Things get delightfully dark and disgusting as soon as the PCs make their way down the stairs, into the intestine-like tunnels where “the ceiling shits them out onto the dirty ground.”

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From there the party makes their way past garbage chutes, scalding marinade traps, quality control checkpoints, a gigantic chained-up, milking sow, a gelatinous cube of curdled milk, and a Balor district manager before making it to the corporate headquarters in the 558th Abyssal layer.

It’s an awesome ride that’s explicitly not designed as a smash and grab dungeon. Most confrontations involve role-playing and social encounters, and there are a ton of places to explore, including two very different paths that the party can take to get to the corporate office: past the gigantic sow through four separate trial rooms where each PC faces their innermost desires, or through (or on) a milk pipe over an endless abyss cavern with a Balor flying around. Smart PCs will work with the Balor, however, gaining a powerful ally if they can discover his true name from the Foreman’s office.

I wish there was more information and details on how the PCs go about rescuing the daughter from her job in the corporate office, which is another two-story (or more, if you want) dungeon. The twist with the ghostly mother and the contract is a good one, but critical plot details and notes are mostly relegated to a hand-waving single page at the end, though I did enjoy the many ideas given for the epilogue.

As a substantial bonus, an Employee Directory lists over 50 NPCs to use as the many Emporium employees that can be found throughout the dungeon, along with funny descriptions that fit perfectly with the satirical tone. And kudos for the adventure using almost all original monsters with the Hogkin demons. Five statblocks are provided, including the spell-casting Gastromancer that uses its own hit points as spell slots.

Multiple dungeon segments, each with their own theme and style, make up one of the most original and interesting dungeon designs I’ve ever seen. The descent into more troubling and disgusting revelations is wonderfully grotesque and goofy (as are its denizens), creating a very memorable dungeon crawl.

Pros:

  • Huge dungeon with multiple segments and interesting ideas.
  • Unique, evocative artwork and maps that fit the dark, satirical theme.
  • List of over 50 funny NPC employees.

Cons:

  • Lacks an Adventure Overview section.
  • Major plot details and story finales are hand-waved or brainstormed in a single page at the end.

The Verdict: Petey’s Pork Pie Emporium features a deliciously twisted mega-dungeon that begins in a BBQ joint and ends with intestine tunnels and depraved corporate hog-demons.

A review copy of “Petey’s Pork Pie Emporium (Dwiergus #1)” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

Support my work by using affiliate links for shopping and pledging via Patreon.