I recently purchased the new Hammerfast adventure supplement that WOTC just released. I have not read through the entire supplement, but I got the gist and for the most part, Hammerfast seems to be a pretty cool place to spring adventure plots for any group campaigning in the Nentir Vale setting.
Hammerfast is a town that has been built within an ancient dwarven tomb. Hammerfast obviously has a dark past, it was once the humble burial site of the local dwarves. Over time, the burial site became overpopulated with lavish, treasure encased sepulchers - making it a huge target for bandits. The enemies of the dwarves, a tribe known as the "Bloodspear" orcs eventually attacked the tomb to plunder its riches. They slew many of the dwarves there and swore to Gruumsh that they would retrieve all the tomb's riches. They failed. The traps and protections guarding many of the treasures were too great for the orcs. The Bloodspear eventually gave up and wandered away. When Hammerfast was clear of the original orc occupation, the dwarves eventually came back to build a town. Many ghosts now appeared in Hammerfast, of them which were haunts guarding their former life's treasures and some of which were fallen warriors from the war with the Bloodspear. The dwarves were forced to reside in peace with the ghosts of Hammerfast in order to build a town. At some point, the Bloodspear orcs also decided that Hammerfast was sacred ground to them and wanted to live there. Instead of facing even more war, the gods decided that Hammerfast was sacred ground for both peoples. The gods created a compact that forced both sides to live together, so that if they chose to wage war, divine strife would be placed upon them - lighting, plagues all that good shiznit. So Hammerfast is a town built on a tomb, where dwarves, ghosts and orcs all live together.
The rest of the book details many specific locations within Hammerfast and fills it out with lots of cool plot hooks and stories about the town and the surrounding Dawnforge Mountains.
My thoughts... I like that there are ghosts wandering the streets of Hammerfast, because it creates interesting social encounters, unique possibilities for new adventure dynamics involving the ghosts and compelling adventure activities. I also enjoyed one of the monsters found later in the book, a three-headed dragon named Calastryx! Very classy. There are in-game holidays they include, which are fun story-telling tools and good for fun social interactions and adventure ops. Hammerfast comes with one of those old school adventure maps that you can use with your minis and there is a large map of the town. Good visual aids! There is a cool little drunken "Giant Feat" game they describe in the bar too. For me, this book will definitely serve its purpose, as I am running two campaigns - one of them is in the Nentir Vale. Perfect...
The only part of this supplement that I do not like is the reasoning behind the orcs and dwarves becoming neighbors. To sum it up, the orcs (who slew dwarves in the name of Gruumsh in Hammerfast), feel Hammerfast is a sacred ground to them. The dwarves feel the same obviously, as it is a burial ground. They both want to live there. That's a cool point of tension for games... The part I don't like about this is that the two opposing gods concluded that they needed to allow both groups of followers to live in Hammerfast to avoid another war between the dwarves and the orcs. Why would Moradin, the LAWFUL GOOD god of creation come to an accord with Gruumsh the CHAOTIC EVIL god of destruction, just to avoid seeing a second war. Gruumsh defiled Moradin's tomb. Gruumsh is a god of destruction. Moradin is a god of creation. I really feel this part of the overall setup would have been better if there was some force that put both sides at a better standstill than an agreement to avoid more war. I'm trying to concoct something else for my game to make better sense of this part. Perhaps the original war created vulnerability to a Far Realm entrance in the Dawnforge Mountains through too much bloodshed on sacred grounds... near a deep cave. The realm is safe for now, but if that much blood spilt again... well... no one wants to see those weird tendril dudes creepin' on in.
Other than that one thing... I love the supplement and will plunder it for many adventures!
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