The Jade Hare

 

By John Nephew

TSR

Basic, 1st level

Premise: A warlock got some goblins to steal a religious statue from a village, go get it back for them.

What do we get here?

 Given away for free back in the day this ten page starter adventure has thirteen keyed locations in a dungeon.

 Usability/formatting

  The adventure suggests starting your players off at the opening to the dungeon rendering useless the large backstory you have to read through at the start. You could actually cobble up a nice little investigation start with some social encounters for the players to find who took the statue and where to go however the adventure just wants you to drop a big block of read aloud on them instead.

 Mercifully the box text of the dungeon rooms is much shorter, it is not well written really but at least short. Some of the box text over shares, none of it is evocative instead it is all very dry. 

 Putting in a gargoyle that can only be harmed by magic or magical weapons is an interesting choice for a starter adventure that is not chucking magic items at the players for free. I do like that the text includes tactical tips for running the boss and his major lieutenant, definitely something that would be helpful to new DMs.

There is nothing in the way of faction play here and the treasure that is given out is pretty basic. We do get a nod to interactivity with a rack of unfinished or failed potions, that is about the only part of the adventure I would want to steal honestly.

Portability

 Nothing is unique or flavourful about this adventure so it has a high degree of portability, you could drop it anywhere you want to kick off a campaign.

 Recommendation

 I suppose as a free give away for mail orders this was okay for getting you going if you had no idea what you were doing. Now this is by no means a good adventure or one that will wow your players, which is what you really want from your opening salvo as a DM. You can buy the adventure now but I have no idea why you would want to.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17140/The-Jade-Hare-Basic