{"id":7627,"date":"2021-11-13T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7627"},"modified":"2021-11-02T08:52:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T12:52:44","slug":"the-church-of-the-unknown-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7627","title":{"rendered":"The Church of the Unknown God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Marcus Lock\nParts Per Million\nWorlds Without Number\nLevels 5-7<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
[No marketing blurb, anywhere, not even inside. I never thought I would  miss marketing so much!]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 45 page adventure details a couple of levels in an abandoned church with about twenty locations. It\u2019s a fucking boring hack-fest with norhing else going on. Until the end, when it is boring & confusing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So (don\u2019t start sentences with \u2018so\u2019), the local innkeep hires you to go clear out a church from undead because it is bad for business. Or, some locals saw some undead near the church, could you pretty please go kill them? Oh, also, three people have disappeared lately. People might want that problem solved. These hooks telegraph what is to come: boring shit that makes no sense. Being hired is boring. It\u2019s one of the laziest hooks possible. And by the innkeeper, who thinks the undead in the church are bad for business? Seriously? Is that the world we adventure in? I can, perhaps, forgive the \u201cthree people missing\u201d thing, out of ignorance. But, a tight-knit community and three people go missing? That\u2019s a fucking angry mob in the making to solve that problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, also, that church? The one that everyone is like \u201cgo kill the undead there?\u201d Yeah, it\u2019s 24 miles away. Like, who actually gives a fuck if its 24 miles away? Do you even know what is going on there? At this point it should be clear that other in the intro makes any sense. I guess it doesn\u2019t need to. Hooks are not really needed anyway, and, we\u2019re all here to play D&D tonight. But \u2026 man, it just puts a bee in my bonnet to see crap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, we\u2019re at the church now. We\u2019ve made it through a lot of interesting wandering monster encounters like \u201cSmall pack predator\u201d or \u201clarge herd beast.\u201d It is, at this point, that my addled memory kicks in. I remember hating something recently that did the same thing. Just a shitty copy\/paste from a book with no localization. No DM support at all beyond \u201cgeneric stat block.\u201d It\u2019s like you included \u201cPut a monster in.\u201d Whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The church! The church is a shit show. Every room generally has two things in it. First, there will be some zombies. They will attack immediately. The text says so in every room. This is what this adventure is. It is ALL that this adventure is. You go in a room and some zombies attack you immediately. Is that D&D to you? Do you want to roleplay? DO you want to investigate things and poke at things? Not in this adventure. Not in this adventure buddy! You\u2019ll go in a room, stab some shit, and then go in the next room to do it all over again. There\u2019s nothing beyond this. Oh, wait, no, I forgot. In one room you can hear some splashing in the next room. Of the zombies waiting to attack you. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly every single room also says \u201cBeyond that the room is empty.\u201d Well no shit. That\u2019s generally why room descriptions have an end. This is nothing but padding. It serves no purpose in the adventure. And, speaking of padding, the undead, EVERY undead, says the same thing. \u201cThey don\u2019t need to eat or drink or breathe\u201d and so on. Like, a copy\/paste straight out of a book of monsters. It\u2019s unbelievable to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You find a 9\u201d statue of a semi-clad woman at one point. There\u2019s no further description or value to the statue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the crypt of the \u201cmysterious lady\u201d, who is mentioned several times in several rooms, we get the following description of her \u201cStanding to one side is a sentient carcass.\u201d That\u2019s it. That\u2019s your evocative writing for this adventure. Some description, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, things change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By this time you have made it though 20 rooms of generic zombie undead and a couple of \u201cshades.\u201d or \u201csentient carcasses.\u201d Now, you go through a secret door and enter a modern office complex. With desks, chairs, monitors, keyboards, mice, and overhead lighting. I have NO fucking idea how this fits in. There\u2019s no hint before. There\u2019s no hint in the room descriptions. It\u2019s just a set of modern office rooms connected to the basement of a crypt of a church. But it\u2019s still got weirdly pseudo-fantasy undead? \u201cStanding 10\u2019 in front of the door is an armoured figure. If the party approaches it will draw its sword, ready its shield and prepare to attack.\u201d Uh, so \u2026 ok. You can find some keycards to open a couple of doors, and some rad suits to protect you from radiation in a room. And a radioactive sword in the final room. No, I have no fucking idea. I have no fucking idea. There\u2019s nothing to hint at what is going on. It\u2019s just what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, shitty shitty adventure with little in the way of explanation. Little to no evocative writing. Monsters that attack immediately. A random office complex attached to the basement crypts of an abandoned church. And a lot of padding and copy\/paste shit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone put some thought in to this. They made maps. They did layout. They made a semi-realistic church. But it\u2019s nothing more than combat with descriptions that convey no sense of locations, or creatures. I\u2019m at a loss. It\u2019s like a very words warhammer minis game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview does not work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/376081\/The-Church-of-The-Unknown-God–A-Worlds-Without-Number-Compatible-Adventure?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Marcus Lock Parts Per Million Worlds Without Number Levels 5-7 [No marketing blurb, anywhere, not even inside. I never thought I would  miss marketing so much!] This 45 page adventure details a couple of levels in an abandoned church … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7626,"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-7627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/church.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627","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=7627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7628,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions\/7628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}