SF5 – Eclipse of the Hearth

This is the fifth module in the Frog God Games Splinters of Faith adventure path series. To recap: The Evil One walks the earth again and the PCs need to recreate a powerful artifact known as the Scepter of Faiths in order to defeat him. Doing this involves visiting the temples of several faiths to receive specific blessings. Inevitably, these temples have issues which the party needs to solve prior to getting the blessing. Typically this involves either “Do me a favor and I’ll do you a favor” or “Sorry, someone stole the thingy I need in order to do the blessing.” This is not the strongest part of the modules. Generally the modules have a temple described and then an adventure that the party needs to complete for the temple. This modules is no different. The variety of the individual temples can add some memorable role-play … when they are done right.

This module is set in a ruined temple so the “go visit the temple” portion IS the adventure. The first portion of the module describes the temple in the far past, prior to it becoming ruined. This does not amuse me. It feels like a tacked on section in order to satisfy some kind of module design goal. It’s a standard fantasy temple and is not particularly interesting.

The adventure proper is exploring the present-day version of the temple, which has fallen in to ruin. This version has three separate areas. First there’s a small wilderness component in a desert area. This section has decent array of desert dwellers and several new monsters, including something which resembles the Sarlac from Jedi, or perhaps some kind of desert Trapper. The second, and largest, section is the upper reaches of the temple (it’s a pyramid) which is now populated by a a group of Gnolls & their hyena pets. There’s a LOT of gnolls in the upper section. This part reminds me quite a bit of The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun with a little bit of the flavor of the upper floor of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief thrown in. We have a lot of humanoids living in a temple with some more traditional ‘temple’ dressing as a follow-on. The existence of various slave species and some brief details regarding ‘Gnolls Gone Wild’ are what bring in visions of the Steading. This portion is quite large; four levels with lots of stairs on each levels. That’s a good design element, especially in a huge pitched battle with the Gnolls, allowing both the gnolls and the PCs to do some sneaking around and heading them off at the pass. That’s a very good thing. The wandering monster table is not as good as those presented in the earlier modules, being less ‘playful’ and more serious with less flavor text. That’s not a good thing.

The third section is more of a traditional dungeoncrawl, set around the fifth and sixth level of the temple which was taken over by an evil cult after the destruction of the initial temple. Since that time the cult has, mostly, disappeared. It’s a bit heavy on the undead and a bit light on the tricks/traps front, but otherwise it’s a fine additional to the temple complex.

The temple sections of the these modules, with the exception of the hippy temple in the last module, have mostly felt like tack-on additions and padding. This one is no different; presenting a temple in the far past is a bit of a cop-out. I guess I could scavenge it for a different game in which I needed a temple in a pyramid; that happens every week, of course. The adventure proper is a good one though. It’s taken some of the best elements of Tharizdun and Steading and adds a nice undead dungeon as well. It’s a good solid adventure module.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89862/Splinters-of-Faith-5-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600