Beadle & Grimm’s new Sinister Silver Edition of Ghosts of Saltmarsh provides a fun and efficient way to enjoy Dungeons & Dragons‘ latest adventure. In 2018, actor Matthew Lillard (of Scooby Doo and Scream fame) and a group of his close friends launched Beadle & Grimm, a manufacturer of premium boxes designed to experience official Dungeons & Dragons adventures in an immersive manner via the use of props, handouts, and various other DM tools.
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Their first release, a Platinum Edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, was a veritable treasure trove of goodies ranging from Harper’s pins to canvas maps of the city of Waterdeep to collapsible shotglasses commemorating the party’s ownership of a tavern within the city. While the Platinum Edition was an impressive collection of goods and DM tools, some complained about its $499 price tag, even though the contents were easily worth its cost. So, to coincide with the release of last month’s Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Beadle & Grimm released a new “Sinister Silver Edition” box containing a slimmed down version of its trademark goods. With a price tag of $175, the Silver Sinister Edition can be seen as a gateway product of sorts – a way to peruse Beadle & Grimm’s goods and determine if their boxes should be a permanent part of your table’s experience.
The Sinister Silver Edition contains many of the same types of goods as Beadle & Grimm’s last box. There are over a dozen handouts, a map of the Styes – a seedy neighborhood at the heart of one of the adventure’s storylines, and several battle maps. In addition, DMs will get a new custom DM screen that contains rules and stats for ship battles, and a stack of specialized encounter cards that are meant to be hung over the DM screen and used to illustrate the monsters that a party is facing. The most notable difference between the Sinister Silver Edition and Beadle & Grimm’s Platinum Edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is the lack of miniatures and non-paper props. While Waterdeep: Dragon Heist contained a veritable treasure trove of pins and other items that could be handed out to players, the Sinister Silver Edition contains only two – both of which relate to the same adventure.
When Beadle & Grimm sent ComicBook.com a complimentary copy of its Sinister Silver Edition, it nicely coincided with my plans to run a “one shot” of Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the first adventure found inside Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Describing a box’s contents is fine for a review, but I wanted to test whether this box could actually help me run a session of Saltmarsh. So, I decided to use the box to run Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh with minimal preparations to see just how much time this box could save a DM. While I took some time to draw up a map of the haunted house at the heart of Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, I leaned on Beadle & Grimm to handle the rest of my prep work.
Running Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh was a breeze with the Sinister Silver Edition. The slimmed down booklet sat on my lap for most of the session, out of the way except when needed to describe the rooms that my players were entering. Although I didn’t have much to give my players in the opening session, two handouts made for Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh provided an excellent cliffhanger to end the session on, especially for the pair of new players that hadn’t played D&D before. I’d estimate that Sinister Silver Edition saved me at least an hour of prepwork, and turned what was supposed to be a one-shot into another ongoing campaign. The next session will be even easier, thanks to a foldout Battle Map that cut down my prep time even more.
Like the Platinum Edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Beadle & Grimm’s Sinister Silver Edition is a great way to enhance your tabletop experience. Although not as packed with goods as the Platinum Edition, the box set contains lots of items that should ease the amount of time needed to prep a session. Although it’s a premium product, but one that’s well worth the price, especially when split between a table of five or more players. Plus, opening the box before every session gives you a bit of a thrill – like opening a box of D&D treasure.
You can purchase Beadle & Grimm’s Sinister Silver Edition of Ghosts of Saltmarsh for $175 on their website.
