The Desecration

By Jonathan Loy
Self Published
OSE
Level 2

The guardian of the Shrine of Ismene has been slain! The cries for vengeance ring out! Will you aid in this noble deed or take the opportunity to pilfer the now unguarded treasures of the shrine?

This seven page adventure presents six rooms in a nerid shrine. While fine from a comprehension standpoint, it is aimless in its design, with nothing really going on … in spite of there being something going on.

Ohs nos! The spring in the middle of town has dried up … like thirty minutes ago! It comes from the little shrine next to it where a nerid lives. She must be pissed at the village! Lets send in some hobos! Inside we find an adventuring party in one  of the rooms with a giant snake head and a nerid in another room cradling a dead giant snake, sans head. You can, also, if you want, go find the nerids treasure vault that the adventuring party was also looking for. 

I’m not really sure what the point of all of this is. And that’s coming from a pretty hard core exploratory guy who doesn’t really need pretext. EVentually the nerid stops being a whiny little botch and goes and kills the other party. The other party is friendly but standoffish, according to the adventure. Great. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Kill the nerid? Kill the party to avenge a giant snake? I don’t give a fuck about any of this. I guess the other party are bad guys and I’m supposed to see that and help the nerid? And, no, I’m not buying that “open ended movie ending” thing here. This is just something else. A dragon in one room that will leave in an hour to go to another room and kill the balrog that is in that room. Ok. And? 

The nerid is a woman with lightly blue skin. Also, she MIGHT have a fish head. It doesn’t SAY she has a fish head in the initial description. “At the edge of the pool is a slightly blue-skinned woman on her knees clutching a 15 f long headless serpent” Ok, so, if she had a fish head you’d think that would go in the initial description, right? But, then, in the follow up it says “The blue-skinned woman is Ismene, the fish-headed Naiad.” Ok, so, I guess she does have a fish head? And, in the same room, the designer felt that telling us how to tread water in a pool in the room was more important than telling us about the omwan in the room, with or without the fish head. The most important things should come first. We don’t put trivia first. 

Did I mention the magic item that can teleport water at thirty gallons a second? It’s a waterskin. You fill it from like the ocean, and then when you open up the stopper it will teleport the water you filled it from at a rate of THIRTY gallons a second. Jesus! H! Fucking! Christ! What the fuck man! Isn’t that like one of those “cutting water” things they use in metalwork or something? 

The credits say that, in credit the playtesters: “No one yet!” I can believe that.

An aimless dungeon. 

This is Pay What You Want at Itch.io, with a suggested price of $1.

https://jonloy.itch.io/the-desecration