New Starter Set: The Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

I just picked up the new Starter Set for Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, and now that there's two I should specify I'm talking about the Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. That's right, dragons with an S, plural. Multiple dragons. We'll get into it. The original Stater Set has a green dragon on the box, the Essentials Kit has white dragon, and now this new starter set has a blue dragon, so my humble suggestion to the community is that's how we should start referring to them. I'm looking forward to getting a black box and a new red box in the future.

In this box we get a set of dice, identical to the ones in the old starter set as far as I can tell, same color scheme, no d100, but that's fine, probably. We're also getting the starter set rulebook, pretty basic but what you need. A one sheet advertising all things Dungeons and Dragons related, five pregenerated character sheets which are actually pretty good if not a little basic. And the star of the show: the adventure itself, the booklet for the dungeon master.

Now, first impressions, I actually expected more inside of the box based on there being a DM's screen, a nice, large map, and those cards for magic items, quests and conditions in the Essentials Kit. This has the same amount of product as was in the original Starter Set (The green box) and based on this being a higher price point now I thought there'd be more. But to be perfectly honest, that DM's screen was not great and I never used the cards so it really isn't a problem and by no means a deal breaker. Wizards of the Coast, and their mother ship, Hasboro, are here to make a profit after all as well as provide us with fun, and inflation is real, so I can forgive it.

I maybe should mention that while writting this in August 2022, this is exclusively available at Target, and it turns out sometimes it's not even available there. Starting in October it will be available everywhere, online, outside of the states, and I'll come back to drop an affiliate link where you'll likely be able to pick it up for cheaper while helping me out, or at that point you could visit your local, friendly, neighborhood game store and support them, plus maybe make some new friends while you're at it.

So yes, I was expecting a little bit more, but what I did not expect was that first timer's feeling of standing at the edge of a vast new world of the imagination where anything is possible, magic and monsters are real, and I am going to explore and be a hero with my friends. That kid at Christmas feeling hit hard as I started going through this, because there is some good stuff in here folks. Especially for someone's first introduction to the game.

I poured over the rule book and the character sheets looking for anything new and different expecting to find the first signs of 5.5 or 6th edition in this box. Unless I missed something skimming everything in there lines up with the Players Handbook. But I will say they have done an excellent job in the formatting. I did a side by side of the Starter Set rulebooks, the 2014 one and the 2022 one, and it's evident that they have definitely gone through and made things more clear and readable with some of the formatting decisions. I also found it notable that they placed a little more emphasis on the social and exploration sides of the game this time, where that was just folded into the ability checks section last time. The adventure does a good job of that as well, shining a spotlight on the other pillars of play and giving them their due rather than let combat completely steal the show. All in all the rules are everything you need and nothing you don't, though if you're going to move beyond the adventure in this box, or your group wants to create their own characters you'll need to pick up at least the basic rules, which are available for free online, or a copy of the Player's Handbook.

Because this box doesn't have the rules for character creation, it has five premade character sheets. Again, I was trying to find some tea leaves to read about upcoming changes to the new edition, but these seem right in line with the PHB as well. We're getting a Lightfoot Halfling Rogue, a Human Paladin, Wood elf fighter, Hill Dwarf Cleric, and a High Elf Wizard. Pretty standard offerings and not the characters from the cartoon that some people were hoping for, though they are all over the art in here. I will say eight years later the designers have taken a fresh eye to the character sheet and with a couple simple format changes made things easier and clearer for beginners, and even experienced players frankly. For example, instead of “attack bonus +5” it says “roll 1d20+5 to see if you hit” and has the numbers in a bold type face. It's easy to forget how complicated a character sheet looks the first time you pick one up so anything that adds simplicity and usability is a big plus for me when bringing new players into the game. There is no traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws section here, but it does feel like they do a solid job sketching out a character story in the background section that leads pretty seamlessly into providing each individual a plot hook or purpose for coming to Stormwreck Isle. If you make your own characters, consider incorporating those plot hooks or replacing them so your characters have a reason to be on this island.

The Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

Now, whether this is your first time sitting down to play Dungeons and Dragons or you are a seasoned veteran, the real star of the show here is the adventure module inside this box. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, or DoSI as I'm sure everyone will be calling it online, is an adventure that will take characters from first to third level. In comparison to the 2014 green box, which provided enough content to take characters to level five, or 2019's Essentials kit, the white box which was enough to hit sixth level, that is obviously less and doesn't make as great a first impression. And while I'm not saying I like this better that Dragon of Icespire Peak, or Lost Mine of Phandelver, which holds a very special place in my heart, I do have to say I was prepared to be disappointed and was pleasantly surprised.

They have done a lot of things really well in this adventure and as a new player's first introduction to the game or a new Dungeon Master's first time running it, I think it sets some really excellent expectations and precedents. If you are planning to be a player in this adventure now's a good time to stop reading, as we are about to enter Dungeon Master's only territory. Spoilers are coming and D&D is not the kind of game where a walk through is going to help you have a better experience, and it can actually hurt, and hurt the experience of the other people sitting around the table. It can reduce the fun. So think about running this game so you can read the rest of this and enter the inner sanctum the inner circle of those of us who run behind the screen.

Ok, the first thing this adventure gets right is it puts dragons front and center. In the OG starter set the green dragon was off to the side in an optional sidequest that had it's issues. They corrected and put the white dragon as the main boss in the Essentials kit, but by the time the players reached the ending it could prove anticlimactic. On Stormwreck Isle it's all dragons all the time. The players are going to interact with three dragons and the spirits and legacy of five more, while becoming involved in the classic D&D conflict of chromatic vs metallic, which is good vs evil in D&D Forgotten Realms canon.

The story goes an ancient red dragon was defeated by an alliance of metallic dragons and cast down through the ocean floor, which unleashed the volcanic activity that caused this island to rise from the sea and left a lasting legacy of magic. Other dragons have come here over the years to harness that power and many have lost their lives warring over it. The latest battle was a century ago, when a blue dragon tried to claim the destructive magic and a bronze dragon named Runara tried to stop him, killing him when he couldn't or wouldn't listen to reason. Now Runara has taken human form and established Dragon's Rest, a small cloister where peace and enlightenment are sought by those who may have seen too much violence in their lives.

We get some NPCs to interact with, including a whole troop of kobolds and a couple mysterious figures with dark secrets in their past that interact with some of our player character backstories. There are simple sleeping quarters and the one belonging to the kobold tinkerer doubles as a store where players can procure basic goods. We get a cool freight elevator to interact with, which the residents use to bring goods up from the water to their home on the cliffs and the characters will surely mess around with and maybe even find a use for it at some point. We get a dining hall, and a little note that says the NPC whose dark secret is that they were the poison maker for a notorious thieves guild is the best cook on the island. I like that detail. There is a library where Runara spends much of her time and PCs can do some research and DMs can drop some lore bombs. To complete the picture we get an open air temple with a statue of Bahamut, the platinum dragon.

There are two quests leading out of this little hub that will provide our characters with the knowledge and experience needed to embark on the third and final adventure here. The module does a good job of being open ended and allowing the players to forge their own path, deciding between the Sea Caves to help their reformed poisoner craft healing potions, or to investigate a shipwreck that seems to be causing a problem with undead on the island.

When I was reading the summary, especially after the changes to the rule layout, it seemed like they were really creating a social and exploration forward adventure module here, but then zombies attack the second we get off of the boat. There is good DM advice on how to emphasize what makes zombies special in combat, and I will say it is pretty clever to have an adult dragon waiting just off screen to swoop in and rescue your level one PCs in the event they get themselves killed. But there is another version of this combat encounter that comes at the end of this section if the players didn't engage the first time, and if I were running this I would just use that one because I like the idea of not immediately jumping right into combat and it is the more interesting version of this fight. The zombies are attacking a pair of NPCs, a wacky kobold and Tarak the poisoner/gardener/cook and arguably the most important NPC here after Runara. In this version the players intervention has bigger stakes and drives the story. It is an inciting incident that kicks off both of the quests before us and presents the players with important decisions.

To give them even more choices and further up the open world exploration element this little booklette gives us three well developed random overland travel encounters instead of just a roll table of quantity monsters. I'm a huge fan of random encounters done right, I've got a few articles on here and some stuff on the DM's Guild you can grab if you're interested. To make this aspect even better, each encounter is tied to the path the players choose to travel to their destination. It is a small island with three adventure locations and the hub, they can borrow a little row boat, walk along the coast, or hike through the interior. There is also a tide table here and at high tide the lowest path around the coast is underwater, as is some parts of the (probably) first adventure location. That is really clever, it makes the world feel more real and gives the players more to interact with and explore. It may sound dumb but these elements might be my favorite parts to this.

Tarak asks the party to head to Seagrow Cave, home to Myconids who he's been trading with to obtain the ingredients to make healing potions. That's a great incentive to get the characters moving. Something has gone wrong in the cave and the myconids have placed a spore servant giant octopus out front to attack anyone who comes near. Depending on the tide and player strategy, this second combat, possibly of their D&D careers, might involve underwater elements. Then they'll get attacked by violet fungi and stirges. Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons kids, it's freaking weird sometimes! I really like the detail that the myconids don't really care about the stirges living in their cave because they don't have blood and so are left alone, so smart. The DM is also getting notes on how to scale this up if the players went to the shipwreck first and are level two when they are facing these challenges. That's a small thing that's easily undervalued by experienced Dungeon Masters but for a newbie that is very helpful.

Another really cool thing here is that the characters are eventually going to come into contact with rapport spores and start communicating with these bizarre fungus folk, which is great by itself, but the DM gets a note encouraging the players to consider how the experience of sharing a empathic bond thanks to these magic mushrooms might bring their characters closer together, easing any suspicions they may have had and building trust within the party. Who wrote that? Good job.

Eventually, as we follow these adorable sprouts to the chamber with the adults, assuming we're on speaking terms and the PCs aren't just killing everybody, we learn that something smells rotten in Denmark and fumes from the crystal cave have poisoned the leader here, placing them in a coma. Noxious volcanic gasses rising from the breach to presumably the elemental plane of fire beneath the island used to vent out of these caverns but now they are blocked in by a glowing orange crystal. Fume drakes, which are elemental draconic ghosty spirits, a legacy of the ancient red dragon's defeat and a new monster in this adventure, stand in the way of the party and the problem crystal which turns out to be the egg of a fire snake who is not excited about being hatched by our adventurers and attacks.

The other preliminary adventure involves a shipwreck spewing zombies. It turns out it is just the latest in a series of shipwrecks as a harpy has made her home in the crow's nest of the Compass Rose, a ship that crashed here long ago amid the bones of a gold dragon. The characters will fight her, some zombies, and a ghoul in the difficult terrain of the flooded lower decks of the ship in the process of uncovering the little charm of Orcus that is causing all this undead misery. We get a nice little dose of pathos in the story of a desperate romantic reaching out to demon prince to be reunited with their lost love, plus there's a funny jump scare where the skeleton turns out not to be reanimated, it's just occupied by crabs. Short and sweet and scalable for level one or two. And once both objectives have been completed Runara reveals her true form and sends our heroes into the final chapter of this adventure.

A blue dragon wyrmling named Sparkrender, actually a descendant of the dragon Runara defeated, came to the island a few months ago and claimed the clifftop observatory off its southern tip. Sparkrender is preparing to harness the magical power that suffuses the island.

A bronze dragon wyrmling name Aidron went to confront Sparkrender, against Runara's advice and advocacy for peaceful resolution, and was defeated and imprisoned. The blue dragon wyrmling plans to sacrifice Aidron in a ritual to bind all of the fallen dragons powers to his will.

Again, this small adventure is packing in a lot of player choices. We can arrive by boat, coast, or overland, and they can visit the locations here in any order. In the likely first encounter here they find winged kobolds battling stirges, and can choose to fight with them or against them, which will certainly impact what happens next. When we come across Sparkrender he is actually asleep, so the party can try to get the drop on him and gain a surprise round or they can attempt to sneak past him, free Aidron if they can solve the puzzle, and set up a dragon fight.

What I really like here is that we get the consequences if the characters don't stop Sparkrender, say they do poorly in the first fight and run away, or he manages to get away and they fail to free Aidron. After a long rest, or a conversation with Runara they may return here to find the ritual underway under the light of the King Killer Comet. Effigies of the fallen dragons are glowing with energy and releasing different magical effects each round. Aidron can be freed to help in the fight but it is challenging. The characters can try to disrupt the ritual instead of or while battling the blue dragon himself. I love it.

There is a little advice on how to proceed after this adventure has ended, suggesting the DM craft a dungeon for the red dragon's tomb beneath the island, who may actually still be alive down there. I'll add that Stormwreck Isle is just a few miles off the Sword Coast, seems like it's a little bit South of Neverwinter, so I could see connecting this one to another published adventure in the area. Ghosts of Saltmarsh feels like a great candidate, since it's also nautically themed and so modular. I'm sure it wouldn't take much imagination to launch a Rise of Tiamat campaign from here, or maybe hop on a boat heading north for Rime of the Frost Maiden, get caught in some spooky fog and now you're doing Curse of Strahd, or insert some giants here and go for Storm Kings Thunder.

Forge of Fury out of Tales from the Yawning Portal is also a solid contender. It starts at level three and gets characters to level five, when it actually might be easier to slide into one of those bigger modules I just mentioned. I'm about to launch a Forge of Fury walk through so stay tuned.

I do like what's in Dragons of Stormwrek Isle, I just wish there was more of it for the price. The brevity, “here's two or three sessions worth of material” aspect might actually be an appeal to some people, so there you go. There is also a chance there is more to come for this adventure too, the way there were follow up adventurers for Dragon of Icespire Peak. I am really surprised there isn't a stronger D&D Beyond tie-in here, but with this Target exclusivity roll-out maybe we'll see something more release in October when it opens up. Otherwise, from the bang for your buck aspect and simple Dungeon Master value, I still think I would recommend the old Starer Set with Lost Mine of Phandelver over this one. There's a lot to like in here, but barring some additional information I don't have today, if you're only getting one I say the green box is definitely the way to go. If you want to see me do a thorough Dungeon Master walk through of that Lost Mine of Phandelver check this out, and if you want another alternative I'm a big fan of the Sunless Citadel, which is another level 1 to 3 module that was the starter adventure for third edition and has been reworked for 5E, and I just finished a series on that one here. Whatever adventure you run, have fun, be kind to yourself, be kind to each other, and spread the D&D love.

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