Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Hot Property is a 3 page module by Norgad for Mausritter, released for Mausritter month in 2025. It details the vault of a mysterious company, which you’re likely to be breaking into to steal everything you can hold. I was provided a community copy by the author.

The map of the surrounds of the Iron Fortress take about half a page, in typical Mausritter (and let’s be frank, Norgad), terseness. Here, the terseness causes some glitches, for example, a timer triggers when the party enters the inspection area, but the inspection area isn’t actually mentioned (although you can assume it’s the access dock where “No weapons [are] allowed.“). You’ve got to be willing to improvise to run a Mausritter module. The other half of the page covers encounters — all of which feature one of the 2 factions interacting — and how to escalate them in line with the timer, a few odd treasures, and stats for the two factions. The second page covers the key for the 16 room Iron Fortress. The map has a lot of character, and honestly we don’t see enough side-view maps of dungeons, and it has some interesting loops, interactive elements and potential secret doors to hidden treasures to keep it interesting. It’s clever with folding a little depth into its’ rooms with few words — “suspiciously muddy prisoners” are a hint for an escape tunnel, for example, but a lot of these are blink and you’ll miss it, and I suspect under the pressure of the timer, and the fact that you’ve only got 20 turns to get in and out of a 16 room dungeon, means that the players will likely be rushing.

Or at least, I think they should be. The timer aspect of this module elevates it, although I wish there were a more concrete way of indicating to the players included exactly how long they have to achieve their goals. As it is, there’s a chance that they might realise they need to flee 3 turns before the entire fortress collapses and they have to find a way to escape the eels that occupy the lake that serves as its’ moat. There’s a bit of unused space on the third page of this module, and I think it would be better to spend that space to provide a little in-world illustration of the risks of being in the vault in the form of little notes between the managers. You could include these in certain rooms and refer out to the back page to preserve the tight layout, or you could indicate that the workers have an idea of what’s in the bottom of the fortress, and then it wouldn’t be a surprise, but rather the resolution to a developing dread. As written, the climax is likely to be a fight for the few seats on the barge between the party, the workers who are explicitly not bad people, and the group of revolutionaries who are at least against the masterminds of the scheme. I think if I ran it, I’d need to tweak something to prevent that grim ending.

The layout here is tight and usable, and comes in 2 versions. I’m not sure exactly what the format of the primary layout actually is (it’s called “A5 wide pamphlet”), but from the itch.io page it looks like a trifold. The 3-page makes more sense to me, although in neither of the versions is the space fully utilised, and in a way that feels a little unintentional. That said, in a 3 page version, I’d run it off just the middle 2 pages, and I’d have everything I need so long as I was able to improvise, so this would be my preference given the content on the other pages. And the art — primarily maps aside from the cover which is excellent and evocative of the timer-oriented heist that is intended — is clear, cute and useful. Precisely what you need to run the module. I feel obligated to add that while I don’t have the physical version of this, every physical Norgad product I’ve own is absurdly high quality in physical, and if you like a hefty pamphlet, it might be worth looking into the physical version if there are any available.

Overall, I like Hot Property a lot, and I like it’s themes and the lack of a clear villain, as well as the timer elements. It stands out from the crowd of short pamphlet adventures because of these additions. I’m always on the look out for yet another Mausritter one-shot to run, and if you’re looking for a little, one-shot heist, I’d check it out, so long as you’re happy for that little bit of tweaking.

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