Disaster Hamsters – Plot Hooks brings Hamsters to DnD5e

It is written in such a way that you will feel the more-sandbox-than-rails design of the adventure. There’s even a nicely thought-out variant end to ease it into your current campaign. To accelerate play, you can use the premade character sheets, but creating from scratch is also okay. The scale is a challenge, and standard conventions are adjusted to match your diminutive size—feet to inches, for instance. Of course, hamsters DO benefit from some things that gargantuan humans don’t have—cheek pouches, for one.

Jaer’i Heliot is a Feywild antagonist like no other—to help raise his stature in the Winter Court he’s experimenting on woodland creatures by giving them sentience. Uplifting you and your party is part of the plan, and you need to get the hell out of that cage, the lab, and finally, the tree!

 

Initially, there is a lot of problem solving—but don’t be fooled, the countdown is on and getting out of the cage is no simple feat. Remember, you’re tiny, so once out, getting off the table and through the lab will take a lot of effort. And stay away from Snuggles & Scritches if you can! On a side-note, those two immediately made me think of Flotsam & Jetsam from “The Little Mermaid”—dastardly siblings with evil intent. There’s a lot of fun role-playing and dealing with dangerous challenges, while navigating the lab. It will seem like child’s play compared to escaping the massive Feywild tree itself.

 

This is a masterfully created “Alice in Wonderland” kind of adventure—interesting and terrifying all at once. We’ve know the trope from so much media that the concept will be familiar, but this is a fully immersive adventure that will challenge you. Mundane tasks can lead to, well, disaster.

 

There are a lot of role-playing opportunities throughout that add to the ‘Alice’-like ecology. It all starts with meeting each other, of course. Then moves to the tragic and funny Cerise—who you are guaranteed to love. The exchanges will are laugh-inducing. You’ll also meet the Cashew, Griekt & Giqi, and the previously mentioned Snuggles and Scritches.

 

The adventure is well planned and easy to follow. It has a well-defined plot and story arc, so getting from A-Z requires the party to have some key encounters and pass a few critical tests. Each section is its own sandbox, with choke-points that drive the story forward into the next section.

The writing is perfectly suited to the story. The team has a real gift for maintaining continuity of style. Kudos to the writing team for delivery a great adventure concept that never loses its focus and feels like it was written by one hand.

Huge shout-out to the excellent art by Direquest throughout Disaster Hamsters. The illustrations use a quirky, asymmetric style that makes them simultaneously scary and funny—Scrunny. The Nick Galvin maps are easy to understand and match the flavor. The details are enough without them becoming a jumble.

 

This is a great introductory adventure for anyone who would rather think through most problems than fight through them. Of course, there is plenty of combat (some potentially deadly) to satisfy the murder-hamsters in your party. It comes with the standard book, assets pack, and an accessible version with alt-text and utilizing the OpenDyslexic font. A praise-worthy decision!

 

Disaster Hamsters by Plot Hooks is $7.95 from the DMsGuild