Q1 – The Screaming Temple

Q1 The Screaming Templa is the first in the Quick Play series from Pacesetter Games & Simulations. The Quick Play modules are meant to be played in a single gaming session, or at most two, and thus are short & sweet. This particular module has 14 pages, of which about 4.5 describe the 10 keyed locations. There’s a pages of preg-gens, a page for license, a page for the credits and table of contents, one for the new monsters, and about 2.5 of introductions & background. The module cover has a map on one page and a list of the monster stats on the other page. The adventure is written for characters level 2-4, with 6-10 total party levels.

One night a large warehouse burns down in the city slums. A short while later a temple appears overnight on the same spot. No one ever enters or leaves, and on some nights mysterious screaming is heard coming from the temple. A few months later the PCs roll in to town and presumably investigate after hearing some rumors. Yes, there’s a rumor table, which is always appreciated and almost a necessity for an OSR module.

You’re not going to play this are you? If so you should stop reading now.

It turns out that the temple was constructed on another site and then reassembled by a large force of laborers on this site in one night. It’s lightly constructed to appear like stone but is actually made of wood & plaster. The entire place is the front for a fence, who’s wizard buddy flies in on a screaming large bat, the sole new monster, every week or so to pick up the next load of goods. They’ve been paying off the town officials to avoid official investigations. The modules set up is interesting, as if the construction material; I look forward to guards punching/stabbing through the plaster walls to get at PCs who think they are safe, kind like that scene in Bladerunner. The Doomsday device is also interesting and should provide some issues for the PCs. There do seem to be some logic problems though. The fence draws a lot of attention to himself by hiding out in the mysterious temple built overnight. It’s essentially just his house, so why not just use a warehouse? In addition, no one in the scared local neighborhood saw or heard the large gang constructing the temple temple that one fateful evening?

The module starts nice however I ‘feel’ like it dies out a bit on imagination front after that, even though this is clearly not the case. The Wizard Riding a Giant Screaming Bat should provide some interesting moments, as should the Doomsday device. These two encounters, combined with the nice premise and the ‘single session’ nature of the module should provide a nice short self contained adventure the next time your’s PCs enter a large city.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263912/Q14-The-Screaming-Temple-and-other-Deaths?affiliate_id=1892600