Mystery Box Friday (The Minotaur's Bargain)

Hey Game Fans, It’s friday so it’s time for us to dig into our Mystery Box and revisit one of our favorite publishers.  Today we’re going to take a look at Minotaur’s Bargain, from P.B. Publishing.  Written by the wonderfully talented Phil Beckwith and JVC Parry, Minotaur’s Bargain is a standalone adventure for 5th level characters It’s an easy to incorporate adventure in your campaign or a fun one shot if your players are looking for a change of pace.  Let’s dig into the details, and we’ll give you our review, and our ratings (hopefully we can tell you where to find it while we’re at it).  

Minotaur’s Bargain

The Details

This adventure is designed for tier 2 play, (5th level characters).  Setup for a single session of play, this adventure can easily be finished in a single four hour session.  It uses the Milestone method of experience points, meaning once the characters have finished this adventure, they should be level 6.  This is rumored to be the first of a trilogy of similarly themed adventures, and in our opinion, if that’s the case, the next two adventures should be a grand old time.  

The Hook

The local town/village that the characters are using as their homebase is threatened by a horde of marauding orcs.  The town elders are unsure if there standing militia can protect the town.  Brave adventurers are sent as emissaries to a local tribe of minotaurs to try and enlist their aid in the coming fight.  

The Rub

Minotaurs are honorable creatures and have standards that they expect the rest of the world to meet.  In order to strike the bargain with the minotaurs, the characters will have to accept his challenge and prove their worthiness.  The characters are subjected to a variety of challenges and tests by the Minotaurs to prove that they are worthy.  The fate of a town hangs in the balance, will your characters be able to make the Minotaur’s Bargain?  

The Rating

I love adventures like this.  There is a delightful change of pace from a typical dungeon crawl or monster hunt in this adventure and it challenges players and their characters to think on their feet.  It’s a definite 5 star adventure, and i do hope that the wonderful craftsfolk at P.B. Publishing continue this trilogy.   

Where to find?

You can find Minotaur’s Bargain at DM’sGuild here.  It’s listed price is $2.95 (and is totally worth it).  I would also encourage you to dive into the rest of P.B. Publishing catalog for some other gems.  

Conclusions

Minotaur’s Bargain is a nice change of pace for an adventuring party.  It combines a very common mistake in misunderstanding another culture and turns it into a complex challenge to earn the respect of what would be a traditional Dungeons and Dragons monster.  The characters need to earn the respect and honor of the Minotaur in order to save their town, and this results in a much different dynamic for dealing with other critters in your D & D game.  I like this adventure a lot (and i am a fan of the P.B. Publishing folks) and i think this adventure is broad enough to fit in a lot of different campaign settings.  Check it out, Game Fans.  

That’s our review of Minotaur’s Bargain, and we hope you guys take a look at it.