Blood in the Water is the third entry into Dungeons on a Dime’s series of friendly, easy to use 5E D&D adventure modules and, wonderfully, the first to be issued in risograph printed glory. Just soak in the cover for a minute. I love the art and design work on their own (nice visual allusion to Theodor Kittelsen’s Nøkken, by the way) but the risograph printing gives it a special, vintage quality (there is a nostalgia here for me, but rather than for D&D it is tied to Lee Publications’ Yes & Know invisible ink activity books from the 70s and 80s, which had a similar color palette and print quality – see the last slide).

Delicious looks aside, this is a bit of an X-Files/Kolchak style monster of the week scenario. A dangerous monster, a rusalka, is terrorizing a village by fouling the river and withholding rain for the crops. The reason for the creature’s appearance is tied to a mystery involving betrayal, vengeance and an art heist gone wrong. The plot seed is easy to grok, but the staging quickly gets complex – there are no clear villains here and the problem is unlikely to be resolved with violence. Well, at least not satisfactorily.

There is a lot of work done to support the DM and make the scenario as easy to run as possible. Each major NPC gets a thorough write up, the region described in detail and the central mystery is laid out along with possible outcomes, all in the clear, direct language. You can read this book and immediately turn around and get it on the table. Which you’re gonna want to do to take advantage of the maps and paper miniatures that come included.

I love this. I think in some ways, it is easy to just pile more and more complexity into an RPG product. I find it extremely refreshing to see stuff like this hitting the market: a solid story good for a session or two of play, heavy on the roleplaying, low on pretension and long on aesthetic and accessibility. More, please.