On September 28th, Wizards of the Coast dropped a teaser trailer and blog post about a mysterious project called Project Lamordia. Just in time for Halloween, this project is a modern-day take on Lamordia, a Domain Of Dread that is centered around the use of machines, science, and questionable practices. Its Darklord is Dr. Viktra Modernheim, a scientific genius who uses undead and constructs for her experiments to try to control life itself.

The project, which dropped on D&D Beyond today, comprises of character options, new backgrounds, and 3 mini adventures for Levels 1, 3, and 5. I had a chance to get an early preview of this project and here are my 3 favorite things about it.

Ready To Play

This project is designed so that you only need this and the Player’s Handbook in order to play the adventure, which I think is a great choice. There are new Backgrounds that players can use, and the adventure also encourages you to use the Reborn Species due to how the main location, Mordenheim Kinetics, is designed. This species is usually found in the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within and Van Ricthen’s Guide To Ravenloft books, but they have included it in this adventure so you don’t need to purchase another book to play it.

Deadly, Shadowdark-like Option

Although you could create a character using the D&D rules, they have included an option that is much more deadlier option, reinforcing the idea of how risk and death are very real possibilities. You can play a Lamordian Survivor, which has a prescriptive stat block that you use to play your character instead of creating one using a class, species, background, etc. This is also a good way to just jump in and play without needing to know all the ins and outs of playing a typical D&D character build.

The options for a Lamordian Survivor are loosely designed on a D&D class archetype: Lamordian Evangelist (Cleric), Lamordian Infiltrator (Rogue), Lamordian Mercenary (Fighter), and Lamordian Technician (Wizard). These are designed to be Level 1 characters with the possibility of trying to level them up to higher levels. They also give you descriptions on how these are reskinned to fit the world of Project Lamordia as well.

In addition, these Survivors could earn Talents at the DM’s discretion, which allows players to earn their characters new abilities to add on top of their stat block.

Non-Combat Solutions

For many of us, we love options where our table can try to solve conflicts with creative options. With Project Lamordia, each of the three adventures are designed where characters can complete the adventure without having to resort to combat with the main antagonist of the adventure (some combat may still be required in other areas of the adventure, though). It just becomes a question of if your players or their characters are willing to do what is necessary to avoid combat, which may force them to make a morally grey decision in order to do so.

Overall, I think this is a very different take and experience than what we are used to from Wizards Of The Coast. I highly recommend checking out the adventure if you haven’t done so already.