Candlekeep Mysteries: The Joys of Extradimensional Space
Some books have a wealth of knowledge and open your mind to information. Others are entertaining and can open your mind to possibilities. And some open a portal to a pocket dimension full of adventure.
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I was looking for a 5e Dungeons & Dragons adventure I could run while we were on a family vacation. I needed at least a couple of one-off adventures, so I looked to Candlekeep Mysteries to fill the bill. The first adventure in the book is The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces. It is a 1st level adventure written by Michael Polkinghorn and edited by Hannah Rose and it centers around two mysteries.
The book that the adventure is named after is the gateway to Fistandia’s Mansion and the wizard Matreous had been trapped inside it all day. The first mystery the party needs to solve is where Matreous has gone. When the party eventually realizes that the book is a gateway to a pocket dimension and rescues him, Matreous is sure that there are clues in the mansion to finding the command word that will open the gate from inside the mansion. He asks the party to wait inside the mansion while he goes and gets his notes. Unfortunately, Matreous dies once he leaves the mansion and accidentally closes the door trapping the party inside. Thus, the second mystery and the adventure began.
There are some new monsters for your players to encounter, so your more experienced players will have some surprises. The stat blocks for these new monsters are right in the adventure, so no flipping back to the appendices to find them. I like how this is set up because I never liked having to search in the back of the book to find the stat block I needed at the moment.
This is my favorite first-level adventure that I’ve ever run. You might have to play with the balance of encounters depending on your party size, but otherwise, be prepared to role-play with your players as they meet the denizens of the mansion. Spend some time working on how the NPCs will interact with the player characters and that is all the preparation you will need to do. This adventure is perfect as written and will need very little home brewing to play it.
How it Played
I did not have a session zero for this adventure, because we did not have the time. Plus, several of the players had already created their characters before we all left for vacation. It put into focus how important a session zero can be for a campaign. There were a couple of characters that were not well suited for the adventure, but since it was a one-shot this was not a big deal.
Joy is a great adventure with a nice balance of combat and role-playing encounters. The mystery of finding the command word is well executed and keeps the players on their toes looking for clues. I feared that the players would guess the command word early on and short-circuit the adventure but the word is just unique enough to make it hard to guess. It is also not a made-up word, so it was able to be guessed. The command word that opened the door to the mansion was also a word the players will know, so it sets up the expectation that the command word that they are looking for is similar. Make sure to write down both words in your notes, so you have them easily accessible during the session.
The characters must start from a place that values books. I was lucky that one of my players wanted their character to be Matreous’ new apprentice, which hooked her character right into the adventure. If you don’t want to do a session zero then just let your players know that their characters should be interested in books and gathering knowledge.
What I Changed
One of the suggested set-ups of this first-level adventure is that the characters travel to Candlekeep to find help for their town that is suffering from a curse. The party is looking for a mage named Matreous who can help break the curse. The other suggested set-up is the characters find the book while researching topics that coincide with creating permanent spells or learning about pocket dimensions. I used neither hook.
I decided to run The Joys of Extradimensional Spaces and Mazfroth’s Mighty Digressions together as a single adventure. I took the two adventures and nested Joys inside Mighty Digressions. The set-up I used was that Matreous had an apprentice killed by a Gingwatzim that was disguised as Mazfroth’s Mighty Digressions. The apprentice had bought the book in a nearby port city. Matreous wanted to travel to the city to find who had sold the book to his apprentice and find the real version of the book. The party was hired to accompany him. While en route on a sea voyage to the port city, Matreous disappeared with the only clue being the book open in his cabin, The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces.
This changed the way that the pocket dimension worked. The book was no longer dependent on being in a specific room in Candlekeep. I realize that I was handing a first-level party a small pocket dimension. To be honest, I didn’t care. After giving the party the Sea Ghost in Ghosts of Saltmarsh and seeing how much fun it was to have a campaign-defining item, I see Fistandia’s mansion as one of those. Sure, the characters can hide in the book, but the book would be vulnerable to being stolen or damaged. Of course, no DM would mess with their party that way (slightly menacing laughter can be heard in the distance). The book offered additional adventure hooks down the road since Fistandia is still alive and who knows what other secrets are hidden in the mansion.
Beyond the set-up, I made no other changes to the adventure, because it did not need any changes. I imagine most will play with the set-up to have the adventure work within their campaigns. A DM might not want their party to have their pocket dimension, but it is easy to create a set-up that works at your table.
