--- title: "Caverns of the Spore Lord" subtitle: "Module review" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-02-28 08:00 date: 2025-02-28 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: caverns-of-the-spore-lord-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [gaming, dungeon, modules, rpg, 5e ] --- [Caverns of the Spore Lord](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/caverns-of-the-spore-lord/) is an adventure from Kobold Press, and the first written for the **Tales of the Valiant** product. ToV is a 5e system, so it's directly compatible with other 5e implementations. It's a short adventure for level 1 adventurers, with just 17 pages of content not including appendices. I ran the adventure for my gaming group and we enjoyed it, and this is my review. This post contains no spoilers aside from what you can read about the adventure on Kobold Press's web store. ## Story The village of Hulgig are being plagued by zombies! These aren't just any zombies though, these are **The Last of Us** type zombies, apparently caused by some kind of fungal infection. It seems that the nearby mycolid colony is to blame, so the adenturers are sent to investigate and to bring an end to whatever subterfuge they uncover. Logistically, the adventure involves a tiny humanoid hamlet (Hulgig) consisting of 3 or 4 buildings, and a mini dungeon in the form of the mycolid village of Bellgrove. It took my players several 2-hour sessions to complete the adventure because the two villages are filled with intrigue, or at least as full as two tiny villages can be. The presence of fungus zombies means that combat is probably inevitable and possibly frequent, but otherwise the adventure is nicely investigative. There's mystery afoot, whether it seems like at first or not, and the players must do some critical thinking to resolve the story. ## Running the module This is a 1st-level adventure for what is arguably a new game system, so I'd expected something simple with lots of notes on how to manage different kinds of scenarios. That's not what you get in this adventure, though. This isn't a starter set, with inline tutorials differentiating a social encounter from a combat encounter. This is an adventure probably intended for a GM with at least some experience. That's neither good or bad, but I wouldn't hand this module to a new GM who's never run a game before. I also wouldn't try to run it as a quick evening one-shot. The adventure is just 17 pages long, but there are subplots and diversions and misdirections. Even the dungeon crawl half of the module isn't a linear dungeon. The story isn't exactly complex, but it's not a simple fetch quest with a mini-boss at the end, either. There's some nuance to this story. That's one of the module's strengths, assuming you're looking for a flexible adventure with adjustable levels of intrigue and combat. The front matter suggests that the author intended for or all of the encounters to have non-combat solutions. I don't currently have any groups disinterested in combat, but I can imagine how most situations could be resolved through social interaction (a clever player could invent some means of distraction or placation for even a fungal zombie). There's explicitly nonlethal suggestions for the "big boss" fight. ## Monsters and magics I love a module with new items or spells in it. The appendix in **Caverns of the Spore Lord** contains stats for a fungal disease condition, a magical device, and several traps. I don't know that any of them are amazing or game-changing, but they're nice to have and they're nicely specific to the adventure. I'm still not entirely satisfied by 5e traps in general, and I find disease conditions difficult to track (not in theory, only in practise). That's not the module's fault, or arguably even 5e's fault. ## Adventurers wanted This isn't a Paizo Adventure Path, and Kobold Press doesn't indicate which module to play next. But there are 2 distinct environments in [Caverns of the Spore Lord](https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/caverns-of-the-spore-lord/), so there are some good opportunities to transition into a larger campaign of your choice. Going underground suggests a path toward the Underdark or similar, and the topside village could lead anywhere. I used this adventure as a hook into **Princes of the Apocalypse** by making some of the evil characters in this module members of one of the cults in that book. Whatever your intentions, this is a good adventure module that provides a good foundation for a game focused on investigation and social interaction. I enjoyed it, and so did my players.

Header image is copyright by Kobold Press, used as a fair use reference to their module.