{"id":3952,"date":"2017-12-11T07:15:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T12:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2017-12-11T07:54:21","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T12:54:21","slug":"the-shrine-of-sirona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3952","title":{"rendered":"The Shrine of Sirona"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy Jeremy Reaban
\nSelf Published
\n1E
\nLevels 5-7<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, the Shrine of Sirona was attacked by evil creatures. Now it\u2019s time for you to take it back!<\/p>\n

This is a six page adventure in a small symmetrical ten room dungeon. The dungeon fits on two pages, plus an additional one for the map, so the writing is tight. Essentially a hack, there are hints of better things in Jeremy\u2019s head, both in content and style. I\u2019d like to see those better things.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a half page of introduction before the keyed encounters start so there\u2019s not much to comment on in the background. It\u2019s short to the point of being almost non-existent. It\u2019s just the bare basics. On top of a mountain is a shrine. It was overrun by evil creatures. There are five hooks, all presented in one sentence. Stumble on it, hired by a cleric, hired by the parents of a captive, a town was raided. It\u2019s just ideas. This is straightforward and direct DM text. It doesn\u2019t drone on with generic detail. It knows what it wants to do and does it. It\u2019s not presenting a plot it is instead presenting a location and keeps the non-essential information to a minimum.<\/p>\n

The first room has a good progression of text. \u201cIn the center of the room is a large fountain with brackish water. Upon closer inspection, there are two large blackish lumps in the water. After a minute or so in the room, two large forms emerge from the water and attack. They are undead, re-animated zombie bears set to guard the shrine from any good beings.\u201d What does the party see first? A large fountain with brackish water. What do they see if they look closer? Two large blackish lumps. What happens in the room? The figures come out and attack. It\u2019s a good progression of text. Giving the DM the information they need in the order they will need it. It seems simple \u2026 and it\u2019s surprising how many adventures can\u2019t do it. I could quibble with parts of it. \u201cLarge\u201d is a boring word. \u201cUpon closer inspection\u201d is an \u201cif\/then\u201d statement that almost always just pads text out. <\/p>\n

There are bits and pieces of specific detail that Jeremy describes that adds a lot to the adventure. There\u2019s a hag who\u2019s raising a girl to eat on her 18th birthday. You can find some crude invitations to the party. That\u2019s pretty sweet! Likewise there\u2019s a curse that gets just a few words more. Most curses are just mechanical bullshit. But this one is \u201ca terminal respiratory disease.\u201d That\u2019s exactly the kind of specificity that adds so much to an adventure. Three extra words. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all it takes. And in most cases they could replace the bullshit mechanics text that most adventures rely on, paragraph after paragraph, over-explaining and filling all loopholes in. But here? It\u2019s just \u201cterminal respiratory disease.\u201d That is EXACTLY enough information. One might say the minimum, and two more words could spice it up even more, but just this opens up the imagination. Guess who\u2019s hacking up black and blood colored phlegm! That\u2019s right! You!<\/p>\n

But \u2026 there\u2019s just not much going on here. It is, as the designer readily admits, just a hack. There\u2019s a nice little bit with a potentially friendly mimic, and a Helsinki Syndrome waif, both of which add a lot to the adventure. The rest, though, is essentially just a hack. Room 3, the Wyverns lair, doesn\u2019t even get a description, just monster stats. And the big alter room makes no mention of the ogres and naga whose stats are in it, except for tactics. Jeremy also notes that killing Ms Helsinki, as well as taking the treasure in the same room, is an evil act. I don\u2019t know about this \u2026 a heads up that it may be an evil act? I can get behind that but the shift to This IS an evil act starts to set off my \u201cenforced morality\u201d alarm \u2026 which I admit is a little overly sensitive. I could nitpick the language a bit; One rooms descriptions starts with \u201cThis room appears to be bare except for … \u201c NO! No! No! No! No \u201cappears to be\u201d is allowed! This is just padding. \u201dThe room is bare except for \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a cut above a minimal keyed adventure, but is still just a hack with book monsters and book treasures. A little more work on it would have really bounced this up a lot. Spice up the magic items, the room descriptions\/monsters a bit. It wouldn\u2019t take much and the adventure would be quite a bit better. Given the good stuff that IS present I’m confident it would have been done.<\/p>\n

This is PWYW on DriveThru with a suggested price of $.50. The preview shows you all ten rooms as well as the intro. Check out room five for the great birthday party or room one for the text progression.https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/141251\/HS1-The-Lost-Shrine-of-Sirona??affiliate_id=1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeremy Reaban Self Published 1E Levels 5-7 Twenty years ago, the Shrine of Sirona was attacked by evil creatures. Now it\u2019s time for you to take it back! This is a six page adventure in a small symmetrical ten … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/sirona.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3965,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions\/3965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}