This is the fourth module in the Splinters of Faith adventure path series from Frog God Games. As with the others in the series, you can play these standalone or link them all together to form a more unified story arc. Thus far they have all been strong standalone adventures with the adventure path a bit tacked on. Something like: “You need the blessing of the temple of Foo. After journeying there they need you to retrieve the McGuffin before they will bless you scepter.” Like I said, tacked on. However, the adventures themselves have all been strong through the first three.
In the second and third module in the series there was a brief description of a temple and this one is no different. While the previous temple descriptions have been a bit bland, not so this one. What we have here is a temple full of pacifist hippie priests who define the term “flower child.” Being pacifists with a “the hippy god will provide” attitude, it turns out that the party is in the perfect position to help them, since presumably the PCs have not all taken Vows of Peace … uh … especially since this is a Swords & Wizardry module and not a 3E module … Anyway, the temple complex is a delight, overgrown with flowers & greenery on a mesa in a green green valley. The hippy priests are a delight to interact with and have a refreshing attitude & character for module priests which reminds me quite a bit more of what happens in home games, rather than the staid old stuff we typically get in publisher materials. In one portion of the temple there are some evil plants. The priests aren’t happy about the situation, but they believe they have as much right to life as anything else … Most of the priests walk around in a daze, and they meet their adversaries with a pacifist stance. Pure Gold. If a GM can’t work with this then they should probably switch to video games.
The adventure proper, once the PCs get through dealing with the excellent role-play opportunities in the temple, deals with finding some holy oil the party needs. It seems the last high priestess killed her husband and flung herself off a high cliff … and she had the oil with her. And no one could find her body at the base of the cliff. And search parties have not returned. And there are random screams of pain coming from the valley below … But … the Dude Abides, and in this case the PCs seem to be hippy sent to provide just the help the hippy priests need. Off they go to the valley floor to find out what is happening and retrieve the oil! I won’t spoil what is happening below, but I will say that the trick/trap quotient is a little low on this module, as compared to others in the series. There are several factions, but the villains left me a bit luke-warm. I did enjoy the various factions though. The final leader is a bit of a let-down, but with some foreshadowing and build-up then even that could be fixed up. The wandering monster charts in this series have been pretty good so far, but this one is less diverse than the others. It has a list of creature encounters but noting very off the wall like the previous entries had, which is a little sad.
Unlike the last two, the temple area of this module is a very strong & interesting setting, and unlike the previous two the actual adventure portion of this one is a little lacking. It’s not a disaster, but it’s nothing very special either. It does has it moments, mostly coming from interactions with the despoiled garden of eden the adventure takes place in, however the villains and their machinations are a little blunt and too much to the point in this entry. In the end, I’d describe it as a solid module with a few high points.
This is $5 at DriveThru.