The Shrine of Sruukor

By Steve Gilman
Sundered Blade Games
S&W
Levels 1-3

Long ago, the kingdom of Aranure was lost in a war against the minions of Malak, the demon lord of hate. Pilgrims have recently repopulated this land in hopes of finding peace and an easier way of life. A farmer has gone missing from the village of Rockcrest, and heroes are needed to answer the call!

This twenty page adventure details a dungeon with nine rooms. It is the old wound my lord, full of loose writing in a conversational manner and full of backstory with nothing really going on except stabbing things. The bare basics, stretched out.

Ah, the days of old. When a ten year old adventure was new, and not hiding out on my bookmarks list. In between Stalker2, I’m cleaning things up in celebration of an upcoming anniversary. And this old gem fell out of my todo’s.

Let’s see here, we’re starting out on page five, always a good sign, with the village description. It’s your typical village. Nothing special. At this point you could just list businesses and their owners names, along with maybe a quirk, all Ready Ref Sheet style. It would certainly be much better than what we have here. A page of text. A page out of text out of any novel. Just words in some paragraphs. No attempt at reference material at all. Just dig through to find whatever you want.

The adventure has a farmer go missing. His wife says he was watching little creatures go in and out of an old mine. Uh huh. Inside we find goblins, hobgoblins, and giant rats. And, of course, the farmer still alive. Can’t be heroes without rescuing someone, yes? Bad form to have the goblins stopping his brains out with spoons while he’s still alive. They would make them demon worshippers or something. Oh. Wait. They ARE demon worshippers in this adventure? Frankly, I think I would make a MUCH better demon worshipper than 99.9% of the demon worshippers I see in these adventures. I’m a think outside the box kind of guy. You think your demon lord wants some morons worshipping him, bestowing power upon, or you think he wants the dude who isscopping out still living brains with a spoon?

Anyway, nine rooms in the dungeon, about a third or so empty. Oh, wait, before I get to hat, there are some wilderness encounters. You knowhow I love those, right? Here’s the DM notes for one f them. This is the complete notes, I’m not cherry picking here. “Long ago, this graveyard was a resting place for the early people of Aranure. Through many years of disuse, the graveyard has become overgrown, and something sinister has awoken the dead here. The skeletons here are of the long dead, but the zombies, with their flesh still intact, must have been more recent deaths.” Yup, just getting attacked by skeletons and zombies. Nothing more. With a lot of padded out text. Nothing more. Nothing evocative. Nothinginteresting about the combat,

And the dungeon is the same way. Worse? Rooms have monsters, right? Not according to the read-aloud. So, maybe we can forgive that. The read-aloud in one room concentrates on some statues in the room. And then the DM test tells us all about the status And ,then, at the very bottom, that there are, like eight goblins and four giant rats in the rooms as guards. NO! NO! No! NO! No! No! We put the most important things first. That might be the status, that the th party see, but then it’s almost certainly the screaming goblin hoard. Yes? “This room was once a dining hall, but all that remains of the old furniture is some rotted and broken wood.” Then how do we know it’s a dining hall? HThta’s read-aloud, if memory serves me correctly. Why is it a dining hall?

There is nothing here but combat, It’s the goblin caves from B2, expanded to twenty pages. Except with WAYYYY less treasure. Good luck leveling. Also, the titular shrine, the dungeon, is one room with some chaos goblins in it. Have fun.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The preview is five pages and shows you the town. Enjoy that.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/147743/the-shrine-of-sruukor-swords-wizardry?1892600