{"id":7505,"date":"2021-08-30T07:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T11:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7505"},"modified":"2021-08-20T08:21:12","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T12:21:12","slug":"temple-of-1000-swords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7505","title":{"rendered":"Temple of 1000 Swords"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Brad Kerr\nSwordlords Publishing\nOSE\nLevel 3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
An ancient temple to the forgotten god of swords lies hidden behind a waterfall. Great piles of swords choke its halls and spill out into nearby streams and waterways. What strangeness still treads and what swords will you draw in the Temple of 1000 Swords?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 25 page adventure describes a slightly absurdist eighteen room dungeon with \u2026 a sword theme. I mean, SERIOUSLY sword-themed. Interesting encounters and good formatting compliment a utilitarian writing style <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, and it has carnivorous duck-people in it. I did mention slightly absurdist, right? And the giant duck-person egg? And rooms FILLED with rusting swords, streams clogged with them, a gelatinous cube choked full of them. I mean, this thing takes swords to 11, even providing a d100 table of interesting swords you can find and some guidelines on how to keep things interesting should the party decide to \u201cmine\u201d the dungeon for swords. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Complimenting this is a slightly devil-may-care attitude of the NPC\u2019s in places. The jovial god of swords, a mermaid queen ready for marrying, and not particularly attached to the magic sword she\u2019s carrying. Oh, didn\u2019t I mention the merfolk? Blood enemies of the duck people? And their genocidal war between each other that takes place in the halls? Like I said, slightly absurdist \u2026 but never really going over the edge, IMO, and everything following logically (well, D&D logic \u2026) from the initial setup. And I do love me some slightly absurdit D&D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there\u2019s always the allure of the sword. Of the MAGIC sword. Nothing like \u201cyou see a faintly glowing sword\u201d to get the parties attention and push them in to the encounter they just KNOW is going to be a problem. Why fuck with that giant tower of swords in danger of collapsing, with weirdo sand people forming and dissolving underneath it? Because there\u2019s a glowing sword up in it. Mermaid chick got a glowing sword? Let\u2019s see what she has to say \u2026 Sounds like my kind of guy! This is an excellent example of luring the PLAYERS in. There\u2019s always some kind of power fantasy behind every player \u2026 even if I have to extend that to \u201cfulfilling my bullshit character arc that no one cares about except me.\u201d And, appeals to THAT are going to be the most successful appeals you can make as a DM\/designer. Motivating the PLAYERS to Push The Big Red Button turns the encounter, or adventure, in a gleeful exploration of the roleplaying world, instead of the It\u2019s What My Character Would Do drudgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a stream of water that you have to travel up \u2026 choked by swords! Also, there\u2019s a pit under it, full of pointy swords. Also, All the swords make the pit malfunction 3-in-6. You gotta admire the dedication to the sword theme here. Oh, look, a dude stuck to thew all, through the heart, with a glowing sword. And still alive. Of course he\u2019s a vampire. Of COURSE he promises not to kill you if you release him. And, in a surprise twist, he doesn\u2019t! Of course, he WILL cause future problems throughout the land, that the party will just KNOW they started. I fucking love it! That\u2019s how you do an encounter! This is an excellent example, as well, of making the characters actions have consequences and further enhancing the game world by it. It\u2019s not exactly a punishment, or a reward \u2026 or, maybe, it\u2019s both at the same time. Good adventures that kind of follow on possibilities and this one delivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writing here is more utilitarian than I would prefer to see, both in the overview text and in the DM text. \u201cVaulted ceilings, doric pillars, the echoing sounds of water. A massive statue of an armored god looms from the northern wall. A sword- choked stream flows from the east. A dark hallway leads west.\u201d Certainly, this isn\u2019t minimally keyed, and it\u2019s not boring writing either. But, if I had a complaint with this adventure, it\u2019s that those descriptions could use a little more polish to bring them to life more in the DM\u2019s head. Not so much more words but polishing up what\u2019s there. Or, the DMs text which reads \u201cA pile of fine swords is placed before the statue as an offering. Two of them glow faintly in the dark (blades 2 and 9 of the nine). An enormous gem (1000 GP) is embedded in the statue\u2019s forehead; it\u2019s a treacherous climb to reach it (Strength check).\u201d Again, certainly not overwritten, and only slightly underwritten, I\u2019d suggest. Not enough to impact the play of the adventure, but, more effort in this area would really turning this thing from a fine journeyman adventure in a masterful shooting star of one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could go on and on about this thing. An excellent curse\/geas provided by the God Of Swords (who can do a wish for you \u2026), the fetal duckling horror that emerges from the giant duck egg. (Of course that\u2019s what happens! OF COURSE! And that\u2019s the sign of a good encounter, when everyone says \u201cOF COURSE!\u201d) VTT maps provided, a very god intro summary of what\u2019s going on. This thing is is ready to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is seventeen pages, showing more than a few of the encounters. This is a good preview, showing the intro, as well as the encounters. I\u2019d check out the first page of encounters to get an idea if you\u2019d like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Brad Kerr Swordlords Publishing OSE Level 3 An ancient temple to the forgotten god of swords lies hidden behind a waterfall. Great piles of swords choke its halls and spill out into nearby streams and waterways. What strangeness still … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,9,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-level-3","category-reviews","category-the-best"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/1000.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505","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=7505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7506,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505\/revisions\/7506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}