The Temple of Kalonius

By Vance Atkins
Leicester's Rambles
OSE
Levels 3-4

Brother Sigeric, head of a local “charity organization” has asked the party to retrieve an idol as a favor. Break into the hidden temple, snag the artifact, and back to the pub. Simple. But the complex is still full of hazards, and, oh yeah, another party has gotten there first. Dangit.

This seven page adventure uses three pages to describe eleven rooms in an abandoned temple. It starts SUPER strong in tone, and has a couple of highlights, but ultimately is more than a little disappointing in its room descriptions and a little slow in its encounters. Perhaps an adventure for a more realistic campaign, but not for me.

I’m trying hard to like this one. A lot. But it’s not gonna happen. My joy here starts out QUITE strong, with the hook/intro. It is, without a doubt, one of the strongest I’ve ever seen. Let me take that back, the TONE appeals to me so much that I’ve stars in my eyes. You’re in an orphanage, upstairs in Brother Asshats room. His OPULENT room. ““Glad you stopped by. Got a little ‘charitable task’ for you on behalf of St. Vivinna’s Home for the Wayward” Uh huh. How the fuck can anything start with that and not be a joy to behold? He’s favor swapping with someone else and needs to get an idol from an old abandoned temple. He sent a couple of his boys (literally!) but they didn’t come back. There’s a little bit more to emphasize the tone, and then off to the temple you go!

Inside we find a young boy with a broken leg, trapped in a covered pit. Sweet! He heard some dudes come by a few hours ago, but they didn’t try to help him. Also, his leg is broken. WHat ya doing with him? Later on we meet said mercenaries, a strong party of … twelve? With two mages and a captain and some grunts. There could be a great little battle in a partially collapsed room while they try to escape the place with the idol they just picked up. Partially collapsed doesn’t really cover it; a room with a mound of HIGH rubble in the middle … and thus two exits. The rubble mound providing a means for the party to attack from behind or, if they come through the main doors, for the mercenaries to escape over to cover their retreat with the idol. 

Other than this, there are a couple of undead dudes and a small handful of traps. We’re not talking stellar interactivity here. Maybe appropriate for a small abandoned temple, but, realism sucks ass. And, if we were going for a realistic temple, then I’d need the human element to be beefed up even a bit more, in tone and situation if not in numbers. As is, this feels like a one trick pony. 

The map supporting play is not bad for something this size. Same level stairs, collapsed rooms and hallways, partial collapses and so on. Variety spices up play and makes an exploration in to the unknown less staid. 

Other than that … meh?

There are wandering tables but the creatures are a little .. well, bandits “lurking” and skeletons “clatterring” might fulfill the letter of the law of having them do something, but another word or two would really spice things up here. 

More importantly, though, the room descriptions are a let down after that stellar intro/hook. I’m not even really sure that the rooms HAVE descriptions? Dank and bare? A wide sloping passageway? These are a little too fact based for me. I don’t think they really communicate, well the environment in which the party is encountering. And, without that, we must lean more heavily on the DM to bring the adventure to life. And while that’s always the case, the central conceit of the tenfootpole is that the adventure exists to support the DM during play at the table. And my definitions of support must also include helping to bring the adventuring environment to life. There’s certainly a spectrum here, but Dank and dark and wide & sloping aint’ gonna cut it for me. And while that latter also include “bas-reliefs of jackals lining the western wall”, I’m still not sure thats much more than fact based reporting. 

Great opening here, with the orphans, sending in the boys, the charitable contribution, and the hag. And, the kid in the pit is a good touch. But that kind of colour just isn’t present anywhere else to the degree it is in the opening. And while I’m not suggesting that the opening two paragraphs are the correct amount of words, or detail, for an room entry, I do think that the vibe of the rooms must tend to that end of the spectrum rather than the more minimal end that this adventures encounters tend to. “Room 9: Another undead priest [stats]” just isn’t for me.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru, with a suggested price of $2. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/463343/The-Temple-of-Kalonius?1892600