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There’s something about this module that makes it appealing and I just can’t figure out what. On the surface it’s a rather straightforward affair. Go to a village plagued by evil. Go to ruined manor house. Explore. Kill bad guy. Nothing much. But in reality it seems to have so much more.

The module runs about 28 pages of heavy stock. It contains three primary adventure areas: a small village, a graveyard, and a ruined manor house. The players get a player handout from the village sheriff asking for help. On the way to the village they meet some refugees and Ye Old Rumor Table is broken out. I love rumor tables, and fleeing refugees are a great way to distribute them. Hitting the village the players are confronted by the following BOXED TEXT: You know you have reached the outskirts of Sheridan Springs when you pass an unkempt cemetery on your left. As you get closer to town, you see that several houses have been boarded up and abandoned. Those that are still occupied all have their windows closed and curtains drawn. There are very few people on the street. At the towns center the road widens around a well and a stone monument. The blacksmiths shop and Harold Johnson’s Inn seem to be the only businesses open.

Yeah, it’s boxed text and boxed test sucks, but it’s VERY good boxed text. It conveys the feeling of the town and mentions every single area of interest in the village. In particular I like how the stone monument is mentioned in passing. It reminds me of the way dungeon environments should be described: a passing reference to several objects which the party needs to ask further about to get more information. I don’t wish to imply that all of the BOXED TEXT (which is actually bolded text, not boxed) is this good. In fact quite a bit is not. “Still hot stew” and “a corridor used by former servants to run errands” both serve as counter-examples of BOXED TEXT not doing what it should. The module is trying to be a ‘pick up and play with no prep’ affair, so at least he boxed text can be justified, but still quite a bit of it is bad and/or overly long.

That aside, did you catch the name of that inn, Harold Johnson’s? The sheriffs name is Olob. These sorts of things remind me of the way I run a game when I start to get a bit loopy after too many hours of DM’ing. I love it. It brings a feeling of authenticity and familiarity to the module. The inn is another good place to scrounge up rumors, so the rumor table is pulled out again. It seems the village is suddenly plagued by evil. Did I mention that the villagers recently turned up a small stone obelisk while clearing fields and have moved it to the center of their town? Again, hint of a real home campaign. These villagers are simple people, real salt of the earth. You know: MORONS. There’s nothing I love more then making my villages full of mud and dirt and morons. Why did we put the strange obelisk with weird runes in the center our village? Seemed like a good idea at the time …  Well, it turns out that’s really the end of the obelisk. It doesn’t really play a part other then being an ‘evil magnet.’ Sure, the party can get rid of it, but that’s not really the adventure.

The cemetery is another locale that can be briefly explored. Very briefly. I only mention it because I found it quite amusing. Two orcs are down in a grave digging up a body. They left a skeleton on guard. “The skeleton was a poor choice to leave on guard. It can be surprised on a roll of 1-4.” Ok, it’s subdued, but I liked it. 🙂

Finally we come to the manor home. Turns out the last mayor liked to experiment with portions and went and blew himself up. Getting to the manor house could be an issue: a nice wandering table is given, complete with Owlbear and a walking evil tree! Unfortunately, the map scale is a bit large and the DM is instructed to “roll for monsters as he sees fit.”

The manor is small, with two stories above ground and one below. It is, however, quite charming. The party is not really channeled in to any specific area and the central corridor systems allows for the party to explore the rooms ad-hoc. There’s generally only one intelligent monster per level, with a few vermin and undead thrown in. It’s the details though that make the difference. A room the orcs have to run through to escape the stirge in the chandeliers … complete with orc corpses lying on the floor. Disturbing portraits and a nice spooky encounter in the master library round things out. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the book on cannabis cultivation. Yeah, it’s sooooo high school but then again that kind of playfulness is part of what makes life fun. I LIKE the monster mix. vermin are always welcome, and restricting itself to just a single type of humanoid, Orc, both seems more realistic (or at least doesn’t make me say WTF?) and also makes it quite easy to replace them with bandits. Finally the Necromancer and his undead, while a trifle overused in modules, were presented with enough uniqueness, through the details, to make them not only inoffensive but in some cases downright interesting encounters! The module only has a few magic items, as a low level module should. In addition they tend to be potions and unique items. I like both of these choices. I want my magic items to be unique and full of flavor, not just “shield +1” or “cup of cure light wounds”.

The adventure is not the most unique however the devils in the details and I found the flavor provided for the DM to be more than enough to bring the thing to life in my mind and overcome the “Yet another manor house” adventure barrier. Plus, I love idiot villagers and the thought that they would bring back some mysterious obelisk to put up in the center of their village.

Insidious used to have module code TSR1 and list itself for use with AD&D. My second print run copy is now labeled DCG1 and lists itself for use with 1st Edition Advanced. A charm against the trademark troll, no doubt.

There are at least three versions of this module. Normal ‘ol DCC7 is a third edition adventure, while GG3 is for Castles & Crusades. This version is by Black Blade Publishing, under license, and is for the First Edition of the worlds most popular fantasy roleplaying game. The trademark troll strikes again! I have absolutely no idea why this DCC is so popular; the reasoning completely escapes me, unless it was an experiment in systemless design so they could release modules for every game system simultaneously. In any event, the credits lead one to believe that Black Blade just converted the adventure to OSR and that’s it. I hope that’s the case for the mad archmage’s sake.

What we have here is something very evocative of Saltmarsh. There’s a lighthouse that people think is haunted. There’s a ruined house attached to the lighthouse. Both have been ‘haunted up’ by a group of smugglers that dwell in sea caves underneath. And there are fish-men, Locath in this case, that are involved also in another connected cave system. That’s four adventure areas and maybe 60 keyed encounters. covered in about 32 pages with a ‘double module cover’ ala Queen of the Demonweb Pits. There are three player handouts, all on one page for easy photocopying.

There’s a village quite nearby, with a thousand feet or so, with a population of 550. It has about six businesses described, including the local alchemy shop. An inauspicious beginning, even if the town is described at the end of the module. The village lacks any sort of flavor at all; if you’re going to use DCC7 then I’d suggest transplanting in some Harnic village or town.

The lighthouse has four rooms, one per level, with a very simple wandering monster chart. Basically you get to experience two spooky illusions and then a real undead haunter before making it to the top, wherein the first clue lies to the actual events going on. The ruined manor home also has a rather simple wanderer chart to go along with it’s 12 keys. Gnolls, scorpions, weasels and a harpy lurk about. There’s not much going on, although a thorough group will pick up a clue for a magic item discovered deeper. Well, not much going on except for the BOXED TEXT. I did mention the BOXED TEXT didn’t I? I wouldn’t want to forget the BOXED TEXT. The BOXED TEXT is in just about every room in the module. I loathe boxed text.

The first dungeon level is more of a ‘basement of the house’ level, complete with evil demon temple and prisoner cells. I like prisoners in dungeons but this cell area has a problem. You see, there’s an Iron Flask in one of the cells. If the party opens the flask then we’re given instructions on what happens as the creature appears. If they don’t open the flask then the creature is sitting in the middle of floor is a cloak over it. Wait, what?! If I open the flask then the monster appears but if I don’t then it’s sitting on the floor? Clearly, something is amiss here in the design, something being left out or being lost in the translation or original concept. Otherwise, it’s giant rats, dark mantles lame wanderers, and the temple with a couple of devils and an undead.

The second dungeon level is the home of the smugglers and the module makes a big deal of the tides. Two high tides and two low tides a week, with the high water line marked on the map in multiple places. Great! Good detail! Except of course for the fact that several of the smugglers rooms are below the high tide mark. The smugglers storeroom? Below water twice a week. The leaders opulent bedchamber? Below water twice a week. Long-term prisoner storage? Guardroom? Treasure chamber? All below the high water line.

Finally we get to the Locath caves. They throw pots of green slime at the party. Look, I don’t mind gonzo, in fact I LOVE ASE1, but either do gonzo or don’t. If you just toss in some half-ass gonzo like this then it feels like a cheap shot. Otherwise it’s caves full of Locath and their leader. Joy.

This thing is a hack-fest. Almost every room has an encounter in it. In fact there are about 31 creature rooms and 5 traps rooms. Not a lot of room to maneuver around with your bloody battle-axe doing your talking for you. I’ve heard people talk about this module in glowing terms but I’m at a loss as to why. Yes, there are no ancient dragons in 10′ rooms, however that’s a rather sad commentary on what it takes to be a good design. More puzzels! More factions! More complex maps! More weird! Alas, those are not present in this product.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1781/Dungeon-Crawl-Classics-7-The-Secret-of-Smugglers-Cove?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the ninth module in the Frog God Games Splinters of Faith adventure path. Each module has a stand-alone adventure of they can all be linked together to form a campaign in which the lowly PCs advance in power, reconstruct an artifact, and battle the Big Bad. In each of these modules we get a description of a good temple and a description of an evil temple which is the adventure site.

In this installment we visit with two differing god of magic, one good and one evil. Our good temple is a rather boring structure however it does have two notable features: the magic students practice their arts out in the open for the townsfolk, giving it it a circus sideshow feel, and the Angel trapped in a block of crystal that stands in the middle of the main temple done. The city the temple is located in is a seaside/docks kind of place where everyone lives in peace and harmony, thanks to efforts of the local magic temple. The adepts clean walls, cure the sick, do public works projects, and generally turn the place in what a REAL society would look like if magic was present and common. I am not a big fan of this sort of thin. I like my magic rare and my items weird. Other than the brief mention of a side-show atmosphere, and the angel, which is part of the adventure hook, the place, and the city, is a little bland. Although, you could probably work some kind of Stepford Wives/Orwellian vision of the city based on the temples public works.

The adventure takes place at the evil temple of magic, up the side of a nearby mountain. 14,000 feet up. It’s a slog to get up there and there are rules for altitude sickness and acclimation. Strangely enough there is no wandering monster chart for the ascent or the evil temple. This is made even stranger because the ascent is going to take something like 18 days in order to fully acclimatize. (Two days for each 1000 feet above 8k, 1/2 day to climb 1000 feet.) And no wandering monsters. Go figure.

The temple proper reminds me of that old Role Aids modules Lich Lords. In the temple we have some priestess-wizards of the evil magic-user god, each of which has some hook. The evocation master. The necromancy master, etc. There’s a ghost priestess-wizard, and a medusa priestess-wizard, and so on. There’s an entry which states that they all plot against each other unless under a common threat but there are no additional details given except for a brief mention that one of them would gladly work against the high priestess and turn on the party if it helped her. It’s disappointing.

The temple proper is set on two floors with a small dungeon underneath. That’s ‘dungeon’ as in ‘prison’ rather than ‘dungeon’ as in ‘chock full of adventure.’ There are a couple of interesting encounters in the temple; mirrors of opposition, tricky demons/devils, and creatures from the pit and the like. For the most part though it’s just a slog through an evil magic-user temple. If the party sneaks in and is careful then it could be a nice stealth mission to learn the secrets of the hook and free some prisoners that the party doesn’t really know exists. If the party wades in and hacks their way through then they are going to have a tough fight with all of the evil magic-users and their minions.

Overall the adventure feels a little bland and forgettable. It’s lacking in tricks, traps, encounter flavor, and memorable environments. It feels an awful lot like the Temple of Elemental Evil, only smaller.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93865/Splinters-of-Faith-9-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the eighth adventure on the Frog God Games Splinters of Faith adventure path. Each module has a adventure that can serve as a stand-alone location or link together through the entire ten part series in order to destroy a resurrected vampire lord. In each module a good temple is described, which serves as the hook for the adventure path. Inevitably the good temple needs the party to fetch something for them before they can/will perform the blessing required for the adventure path. This involves the party traveling to an evil temple.

In this module the good temple is devoted to the Lady of the Scalding Waters and is located in the caldera of a volcano. It’s a ‘fantastic’ temple, in that it’s located in a geyser field and is in the shape of a lotus, with a geyser located in the center of the temple, complete with glass-enclosed viewing chamber. The temple is briefly described, and has the beginnings of an interesting plot, with a couple of ‘factions’ involved in the temple; a group of corrupted priests are hinted at along with at least one who is outright evil. The town nearby, hanging over the edge of caldera, is briefly described, along with a couple of faction descriptions in the town. Again, the chief of which are a couple of evil priests. While the temple and town setting could be described as ‘fantastic’, the settings are lacking a bit on the interesting detail which would really bring the setting alive. We do get a page describing an NPC Druid class of the evil god featured, which is a nice addition, especially in a Swords & Wizardry product.

What the good temple lacks is made up for in the evil temple/adventure section. Our baddies have located themselves in the depths of a mine. THAT’s not all that interesting, but just about everything else is. The evil priests worship an insect god, so we get lots and lots of vermin which I LOVE in an adventure. In addition the mine maps are full of looping passages and alternate paths to get the locations. This is the sign of a good dungeon since it’s doesn’t railroad the party in to encounters. Finally, the mines have A LOT of factions in it. This is what turns it from a decent adventure in to something stellar. Almost ever single intelligent creature encounter could conceivable we worked through with talking & negotiation. This is WONDERFUL; creatures with their own motivations and reasons for being in the dungeon. Spies, the disillusioned guards, previous occupants, new occupants from deeper levels; almost every intelligent creature has a good reason for being there other than ‘Im a fanatical cultist.’ In fact, some of the factions have factions also!

I was hooked pretty early in to the dungeon, during the introduction. Here’s the brief summary that sealed the deal: “Phyllox (the EHP) is now facing trouble on many fronts: a retriever wandering the mines, a dergogaemon that refuses to return to the lower plans and also refuses to fight, a bugbear rebellion and an aboleth invasion. Phyllox’s dream of a grand temple to Rachiss is quickly falling apart.” And that’s not the HALF of it. He’s got a host of other problems that he doesn’t yet know about. In to this mess drops the PC’s. There’s a real sense that the party is entering a living breathing environment with it’s own events & issues going on, not just waiting for the next band of adventurers to slaughter them. There have been shades of this sort of thing in other modules and especially in the wandering monster tables; the wanderers are listed with a reason for being there and wandering about. None of the previous modules in the this series has gone this far, and I can’t recall ANY other module, OSR, TSR or otherwise, that has had this much, not TOEE and not the Steading, which has been the gold standard against which I’ve held up my factions yardstick in the past. This place is ALIVE, and the PC’s just walked right in. Our fearless DM’s may have problems getting the party to realize they don’t need to hack everything in sight, especially since the factions have been a little light in the past, but that’s what the DM is for; getting the players involved. What all of this means is that there’s a lot of different ways for the party to accomplish their goal, and that makes this module GREAT. There’s vermin & ooze, new monsters and new magic items, environmental issues, The adventure is just about perfect. I prefer to have more tricks and a few more traps, although I suspect that’s just a quibble.

It does have one VERY bad feature, which is listed as optional but which I’d lie to highlight. During a certain fight it’s noted that the DM can make the fight tougher by suddenly introducing the creatures opposed faction, from elsewhere in the dungeon. That’s kind of cheap. What’s worse is that it advises that if the party has already killed that faction, then an Demon Price senses it and send a replacement to be involved in the fight in the same way. That, gentle readers, is a CHEAP SHOT. If the party has wasted resources taking out the previous encounter then why punish them by, in essence, making their actions irrelevant? For the sake of story & plot? That’s BS. Let the players create their own story. In any event, it’s offered as an option in a sidebar, so it’s not too intrusive. It’s also one of the first things of this type I’ve seen in this series, which is probably why it stood out so much.

The dungeon portion of this is a fabulous adventure and with a little work the scalded & burnt priests in the good temple could be turned in to a decent home-base type locale. It’s  my favorite adventure in the series so far.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/92422/Splinters-of-Faith-8-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the seventh module in the Splinters of Faith adventure path from Frog God Games. Each module offers an adventuring locale that can be used separately without tying in to the other modules in the series.

This module centers the party around a temple-fortress of a paladin-like god, and the associated city that has grown up to service the fortress temple. The city is only briefly described in a couple of paragraphs; basically is a place for the temple to recruit new warriors and to buy the goods they need for the temple. The temple/fortress proper is lightly described over three pages and is not as interesting as the temples in the last two modules. Whereas those had plenty of local color, in the form of the personalities of the clerics, these are more of the stereotypical LG cleric/paladin type which most of us have seen quite a bit of in the past. in any event, the temple & town are just there to provide the rather weak hook for the adventure proper. Seems like Mr Head Guy pissed off his daughter and she went to raid a nearby evil stronghold and hasn’t come back. If the group rescues her they win the ‘Prove your Bravery’ contest, which is only held every ten years and is the only way to get access to the blessing the party needs for the adventure path. Yeah, an official rescue party went after her, but they didn’t return and so now none of our Paladins or hopefuls will go get her. LAME. Oh yeah, and if she comes back dead then you still win since they resurrect her. Not the most interesting base of operations and the hook is quite forced.

Our theme for this weeks evil temple is “Evil Air God”, so we get lots of flying creatures. Let us think of a mountain craig with lots of hollows for flying creatures. OK, I can get with that idea. Nice themed dungeon, even though I thought “I bet the next module is water based.” We get a wanderer chart. The encounters on the cart are not that interesting but they DO each have a motivation for being wandering around, in a sentence or two, which is a nice aspect that has been pretty universal in this series and should be utilized by other authors. The adventure proper is a bit too bland. “Room with flying monster #1.”, “Room with flying monster #2”. “Room with flying monster #3.” etc. There are about a half dozen new monsters, which I always appreciate; it keeps the party guessing and in fear for their lives as they figure out the new guys advantages and disadvantages.

There is a REALLY good/weird encounter in the module, in the form of a swarming insect. I REALLY liked it; it’s one the of the best ones I’ve seen so far in this series and is akin to “oops, looks like you left the stopper out of your ever-full jug.” There’s another encounter related to a magic-jar spell that I’m undecided upon. It _feels_ like a cheap-shot, but maybe I just have something with multiple possessions? There is ABSOLUTELY a cheap-shot later on. There’s a pit in the floor covered by an unlocked grate. The hostage is in it. If you open the grate without saying the command word then a pillar of flame descends and kills her. She has no idea the trap is there, but is reaching out through the bars. Really? She reaches out but never tries to open the unlocked grate? She’s never heard the command word when she’s been fed? There’s no scorch marks anywhere from a previous hostage? Uncool.

This is one of the weaker modules in the series. The temple is bland, the city description is almost non-existant (although probably enough to wing it; I continue to be impressed with the authors ability to impart a flavor with only a few sentences, as in the best of Gygax.)

The evil temple is not very interesting beyond the fact that everything flies and the the swarm encounter. Further, the suspension of disbelief required for the hook is MASSIVE.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/92420/Splinters-of-Faith-7-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the sixth module in the Splinters of Faith adventure path from Frog God Games. The modules can be used as stand-alone adventures or combined in to one long campaign. In summary, the Evil One walks the lands again and to defeat him the party needs to recreate an ancient sundered artifact that was created by the differing temples working together. Each module tends to have a temple described, so the party can get the blessing they need, and some sort of adventure combined with temple. This is usually something like “Someone stole the gizmo we need to perform the blessing” or “I’ll trade you a blessing for a gizmo, if you can find one for me.” This has been an above average series so far.

Number six has the party visiting a temple that had been consumed by a glacier and is just now being exposed as the glacier melts. The faith of this forgotten god has disappeared. Fortunately, a new group of parishioners has stumbled the temple and is resurrecting the faith, to the best of their ability. This amounts to a group of social misfits and outcasts trying to decipher the mostly destroyed teachings of an ancient god … filing in the bits that are missing. This is one of the more unique temples that has been described in the series, ranking up there with the hippy temple in module four. The group of misfits that has found there way to this ‘new’ temple all have some strong personalities associated with them that, combined with their ‘filler’ teachings, should easily lead the DM to some unique and rewarding roleplaying. This is exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for in this sort of setting; something to fire the imagination and provide the basis for some good settings without too much spoon-feeding.

Turns out the temple was raided by a group of Yeti’s awhile back and they stole the giant statue the party needs for the blessing. The Yeti complex is built in to a cave system embedded in the glacier. This area has three distinct areas. First we have a white dragon lairing there. This is a pretty well done dragon lair with a couple of interesting features. Secondly we have the tower of a HIGH level wizard that is built on/in the glacier. He’s currently away looking for a new place to move his tower, however his family is still in residence. Gee, I wonder what happens if the party slaughters his servants and wife and kids? Nothing good, that’s for sure. Finally we have the complex of the Yeti’s proper. This is the goal of the adventure and the other areas don’t really need to be explored to get here. While the complex in the glacier is not large enough to support a true looping map, the existence of the other areas does provide the sort of opportunity for “non-blocking” exploration that I’m looking for in a module. There are also some interesting encounters in the forest where the party may end up camping out or searching, including an old witch/hag that rides a zombified white dragon (that had been killed the REAL white dragon.) The wandering table is doesn’t have as many ‘strange’ encounters as the early modules did however there is a brief section for each entry describing why the wanderer is wandering around, which is a nice touch.

The temple in this module is one of the better ones so far and the glacier rift of the front giant jarl … uh, I mean Glacier caves of the Yeti has a decent amount of variety and content. I’d be happy with the temple, but the existence of the glacier caves make the module worth owning. So far the series has been very solid and this module is no exception. It’s in the upper tier of OSR material.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/92416/Splinters-of-Faith-6-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

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

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.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/86764/Splinters-of-Faith-4-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the third in the Frog God Games Splinters of Faith adventure path. Each module appears to have a strong stand-alone elements to it, with a small tie-in to the overall adventure path. This one is no different. In it’s 24 pages we get about eleven pages of actual adventure detailed about 42 locations. In addition we get about four pages detailing the city in which the adventure is set and about another four detailing the temple complex. The cover is the same as the other 9 modules in the series, and the back cover blurb is about two sentences long. Frog God does themselves a disservice with this: so far this series has delivered very well and just seems to be getting better and better.

The city proper is only very briefly described and the locations detailed all relate in some way or another to the adventure that appears further on in the module. There’s not really enough information here to make the city a detailed environment for adventure, and only a brief description is given for the ‘flavor’ of the city. IE: Generic fantasy city. The locations that ARE described are well done, as are the two major factions. Thus you get exactly enough detail to bring that aspect of the city to life enough to run the adventure. The city feels like a bolt-on, but what IS presented is what you nee to run the adventure, so I don’t think I can complain too much. Well, no, I can complain a lot but it may not be justified. Similarly we get a four page description of the temple which the party needs to visit for the adventure path portion. The backstory is interesting (Lessons Learned: Don’t worship the god of Luck) and again, enough of the temple is described that the party can interact with it’s elements prior to setting for on the core of the adventure. Turns out the priestess won’t do what the party wants for the adventure path unless they help her with a little Necromancer problems she’s having …

The core of the adventure is a journey through the sewers. Wait! Stop! Don’t close your browser. Yes, I know, “sewer adventure” ranks right up there at the top of ‘cliched adventure ideas.’I LOATHE them and seeing one in this set my teeth on edge. Maybe it’s filled with kobolds too! Or maybe goblins! Yeah! Well, no, that’s not what’s going on. There _is_ a lot of dreck with sewer adventure portions out in retail-land however this one is rather well done. For example, on the wanderers table the party meets a house cat in the sewers who is running down the tunnel mewing like crazy. Turns out it’s got some green slime on it. How many animal loving PC’s did THAT one just get? As with the other modules in this series, the Wanderers table is not all enemies and most of the encounters actually have some plausible reason for being in the sewers. The encounter areas in the sewers are well done also; they are briefly described and yet interesting and plausible. For example, the sections of the sewers under the slaughterhouses are filled with blood & gore, with some of it hanging from the gates in the ceiling as the floors above are cleaned. Reveling in this gore is a group of ghasts/ghouls, and a blood golem thing lurks in a different part of this area. Not just your usual “ghouls in the sewers”; they have a reason for being there. This sort of detail really helps bring the module to life.

This is a good time to talk about the sewer map. Essentially, I think it sucks … but I may be wrong. It’s basically a long sewer tunnel with a few twists in it. Side branching corridors lead to different encounter areas, each of which has some sort of theme. IE: This section is under the slaughterhouses, or, this section is controlled by wererats. A smart party will avoid all of the side branches and head sPeter Pan like straight on till morning to find & defeat the Necromancer. So while the map _is_ pretty linear, the side branches _offer_ encounters but don’t _force_ encounters, which is a very good thing indeed.

In reviewing this I’m reminded of another adventure, from Dungeon magazine I believe. It was centered around a bunch of goblins in their cave. Ho hum, pretty boring. Except it wasn’t, it was very well put together and well worth playing. (I recall an earthquake in there which made the exit difficult.) That reminds me of this: an idea that has been badly done a hundred times in the past but is well done this time. And that, after all, is the point of a review: to guide you past the hundred examples of dreck and to that one certain sewer adventure that is worth checking out. This is that one. I can heartily recommend this one.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/86762/Splinters-of-Faith-3-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

Q3 – Death on Signal Island, is an OSRIC adventure for 4-6 characters of 2-4th level. It’s the third in the Pacesetter Quick Play series, designed to played in a single session or two. As such these tend to be brief affairs, and this is no exception. It’s 18 pages long with three pages of introduction, seven for the ten keyed encounters, and a page for the new monster and new magic item introduced. We get a full page for the map and another for a set of pre-gens. The rest is composed of the license, table of contents/credits, and two pages of ads.

The adventure revolves around the PC’s investigating why the fort on Signal Island has gone silent. It seems that the city keeps a guard on the island, located in the bay, and they haven’t been in contact for a bit.  Ought oh! The set up here is similar to Alien: why can’t you leave the haunted house? Because it’s an island you were dropped off on. The island is quite small and has no wanderers on it. There are two animals on the island, some Sahuagin, and some smugglers. Finally, you get some Lacedons and the big bad guy monster himself. Not a lot going on; just ten keyed encounters over seven pages and none of those really stand out as interesting at all. Smugglers & Sahuagin may be the most overused monsters ever in coastal adventures; I groan now when I see them in print. A snake dropping out of a tree and a trapdoor spider do not a thrilling island adventure make.

I’m really at a kind of loss to describe this one any more. It’s short, but then again the first two in this series were short also, and Steading of the Hill Giants was what, 8 pages long? Unlike the first two in this series there’s just nothing of interest going on. It could be that this is a symptom of the size and the type of adventure. While Q1 was location based and Q2 was location based and had a strong hook, Q3 is more of a wilderness adventure, without wandering monsters or a survival challenge, and no strong overall tie to mesh the various encounters in to a cohesive whole. There are some attempts to mix things together; you could solve a mystery by going everywhere and talking to everyone and hacking everything, but there’s no need to. It’s pretty obvious pretty quickly what’s going on, and once you hack it you’ve solved your problems.