A review copy of the module was provided. Read more Roll20 Reviews and watch the video reviews on my YouTube channel.
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Designed by: Wizards of the Coast
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is both a remaster, and an expanded sequel to 2014’s beloved 5e starter adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver.
The Shattered Obelisk transforms the original starter adventure into a full-length, level 1-12 campaign, adding four additional chapters, and dozens of new monsters, handouts, and full color maps.
The following is included in the Roll20 module, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk ($29.99):
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- Adventure
- Eight chapters (first four chapters from Lost Mine of Phandelver)
- 33 full color 5-ft square maps
- 1 regional map of Phandalin
- 1 regional map of the Sword Coast surrounding Phandalin
- Over 50 magic items
- 40 Named NPC tokens and character sheets
- Over 100 NPC tokens and character sheets
- Over 50 player art handouts
- Compendium
- Over 25 new monsters
- Over a dozen new magic items.
- Art Pack
- Over 150 tokens
- Adventure
The Shattered Obelisk doesn’t change anything about the original Lost Mine of Phandelver‘s story or structure. I’ll primarily focus this review on the new content that makes up the second half.
The party begins by following the trail of their lost clients, Gundren and Hildar, taking them all over the region of Phandalin near the Sword Coast. The party frees the town from the grips of the Redbrands, saves Gundren from a tribe of goblins, and explores the mysterious dungeon of Wave Echo Cave.
This is a remaster, not a remake. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — but do give it a new coat of paint!
This new version includes new maps for Old Owl Well and Wyvern Tor (and a properly resized Thundertree), as well as new token art for almost every NPC in Phandalin, and over 30 different goblin tokens. A few rooms or areas have been slightly rebalanced and improved, making this the definitive version of Lost Mine of Phandelver.
But wait — there’s more!
The Shattered Obelisk adds four additional chapters to the adventure. It’s technically a continuation of the story, though the two halves don’t really have anything to do with each other, other than they’re both set around Phandalin.
In Chapter Five, the poor town is plagued by a series of thefts, attacks, and kidnappings by a new tribe of strange, psionically-powered goblins. The fifth level party investigates these attacks, eventually leading to an old duergar mining outpost, now the lair of the psi goblins.
This is an awesome dungeon design featuring repairable lifts and conveyor belts, undead ashenwrights, a friendly duergar spirit, a miniboss fight with a sentient mining drill, and a boss battle with a super-powered goblin who works for a mind flayer cult.
From there the party learns this cult is gathering pieces of a powerful obelisk to conduct a dangerous ritual. There are more fun dungeons to delve into, including an old dwarven crypt full of creepy hauntings (and a hydra!) and an Underdark passage with a zoo-full of D&D monsters.
The ritual is aimed at transforming the town of Phandalin into an entire colony of mind flayers. The heroes witness these effects begin to take place, giving the campaign some serious body horror/Lovecraftian vibes, not to mention many of the cultists are mutated by the Far Realm.
The adventure leads to a hidden mind flayer colony under the town, monster-filled rifts into the far realm, and an epic dungeon crawl inside a gigantic brain in the endless void.
This is the most straightforward, dungeon crawl-y adventure I’ve seen from Wizards of the Coast in a long time, and I say that as a compliment. I love a good dungeon crawl, and these chapters are absolutely filled with wonderful ideas, layouts, and settings.
The full color maps and dynamic lighting look fantastic on Roll20. There’s a map for every single encounter, including the floating islands in the Endless Void, and the investigation scenes in Chapter Five. And there’s two separate instances of cool rotatable rooms on the map layer a la the Gears of Hatred from Tomb of Annihilation!
The number of handouts and NPC monster sheets is also huge, quadrupling the size of the original Lost Mine of Phandelver. And all of them are available as token art in the art pack.
If you were excited about Nezznar the Black Spider tying in, or more from the expansion of Wave Echo Cave, this second half is admittedly disappointing. There aren’t really any storylines or meaningful ties from Lost Mine to Shattered Obelisk, despite having several opportunities.
On the flip side, it makes running only the second half much easier, as most of us have probably memorized the 2014 adventure, let alone run or played in it.
With a bit of tweaking, you could also move The Shattered Obelisk to a different small town, simply changing the names of the NPCs and locations. But the added benefit of learning the town and its residents by playing Lost Mine before charging into Shattered Obelisk would be the ideal campaign set-up.
Pros:
- Remasters Lost Mine of Phandelver with more maps and better token art.
- New chapters provide an exciting, dungeon-heavy, Tier 2 adventure
- Excellent use of Lovecraftian themes and the Far Realm.
- Over 30 full color, detailed maps, all 5-ft squares!
- Roll20 tips page and dynamic lighting example page are hugely helpful for new users.
Cons:
- The new second half doesn’t tie into Lost Mine of Phandelver, except for the town.
The Verdict: As both a remaster and an expanded sequel, The Shattered Obelisk elevates Lost Mine of Phandelver, already one of the best 5e adventures, into the must-play campaign for Fifth Edition.
A review copy of the module was provided. Read more Roll20 Reviews and watch the video reviews on my YouTube channel.
Support my video work via Patreon.
RogueWatson 