Candlekeep Mysteries

I think one of the more underrated books for 4e was "Dungeon Delve."  It was basically a compilation of 30 mini adventures, one for each party level.  Each adventure had about three encounters (and let's face it - given the length of 4e battles, three encounters could easily take multiple sessions).  Of course they were light on plot, but that just meant you could drop them into any campaign.  The main draw was that you always had a quick adventure ready if you decided to hold an impromptu game.

5e's "Candlekeep Mysteries" is a lot like that.  It contains 17 standalone quests, one for each party level 1-16 (there's two for level 4).  But unlike Dungeon Delve, CM's adventures center more on plot than fighting.  I'm about three adventures into it, and so far, I'm really liking it.

The book opens with a chapter describing Candlekeep - a huge library containing rare books from all over the world.  It's a short chapter, but detailed enough that it could inspire many adventures.  Each of the 17 short adventures involves a book in some way.  Maybe you're hired to recover a stolen tome of eldritch lore.  Maybe an absent-minded wizard attempted an unfamiliar hex he found in an ancient spellbook, and you have to clean up the mess.  Maybe an old diary contains a map to a mysterious treasure.

In an odd way, it kind of reminds me of "Friday the 13th: The Series" (no relation to the movies), where the owners of a cursed antique store had to hunt down several lost artifacts, each episode centering on a specific artifact and the trouble it caused.  

If you were to build a campaign around this book, it might start to feel a little repetitive after a while.  Although if you were specifically wanting a "Librarians" themed campaign, this would be a good start.  Otherwise, you might want to pick and choose which adventures to use.  Save this book for a night when you don't have anything prepared, and run whatever chapter is appropriate for your group's level.

My only complaint is the map.  It comes with a foldout map of Candlekeep, which is not fully repeated in the book itself (the courtyard part is repeated, but not the Inner Ward).  I keep my maps separate from my books, so they don't fall out while reading them, and I honestly would have found this map more useful if it were inside the book.  

It's not a particularly useful map for campaign strategy, like the overland map in Rime of the Frostmaiden or the hex map in Tomb of Annihilation.  This map seems to be more for flavor, and I'm surprised they bothered to make it a foldout map at all. 

But despite that little nitpick, I think it's a great book for any DM to have.  These adventures require a little more prep time than the ones in 4e's Dungeon Delve - and by that, I just mean you'll actually have to read ahead a little.  But it's still a lot more "grab and play" than the adventures in "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "Tales from the Yawning Portal".  

Definitely worth a read.