The 3rd installment of the Splinters of Faith-series is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving 26 pages of content, once again more than in the predecessor.
This being an adventure-review, the following contains massive SPOILERS. Players might wish to jump to the conclusion!
Still here? Righty right! After forging the scepter of faiths anew, the PCs have to venture to Bargasport to gain the favor of the lady luck's high priestess for the weapon - only, the faith has changed. Once a thriving port, Bargasport now is a den of sin and vice, controlled in equal parts by a family without scruples and the roguish faith of lady luck, who once left the town to its devices, burying it beneath an volcanic eruption and thus volcanic sludge - the city now known as Bargasport is built atop the original one and the temple and its adherents still are underground. The PCs will have to navigate the city, venture into the sewers and finally find the temple. The gazetteer-section of this very exciting town remains unfortunately lacking detailed on the above-ground sections of the city, though, so once again some rather hefty expansion on parts of the DM is in order. Once the PCs have found the temple, though, the adventure kicks into full gear:
Rumors of undead amassing in the sewers have disquieted the high priestess and she wants, whoever might be responsible, stopped. What follows is a truly exciting exploration of sewers that fill with water due to the proximity to the ocean, tidal tensions, deadly foes and some rather neat maps, the latter of which unfortunately coming without player-friendly versions. The sheer iconic quality of the sewers (which I'd usually hate) is created by the fact that they are haphazard pipes and tubes connected to buildings that have been submerged by the pyroclastic flows of old and now stand at angles etc. - cool set-up, very good execution.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the B7w-artworks are nice. We get more content than in the predecessors, but still no bookmarks. This adventure is superior in its iconic settlement and dungeon to the first two parts and surpasses the second chapter (Burning Desires) via the fact that a player-friendly map is not absolutely necessary (and omitted, just like in "Burning Desires"). I still would have loved player-friendly maps in this as well, but their lack does not impede the adventure as much. Not all is well, however: The city Bargasport is extremely iconic and cool and quite frankly, feels a bit sketchy - a couple of pages might suffice for a village, but not for a full-blown town. The sections above ground remain rather amorphous and the unique properties of the sub-terranean areas (with angled buildings connected by pipes) could have been played up much, much more - the idea is great, I just don't get why only so few things have been done with it - almost no balancing and climbing, no in-dungeon escaping from the rising tide (e.g. up a subterranean and soon also submerged tower) - it is just a terrible bummer to see such potential squandered - cut one or two of the standard run-of-the-mill encounters, replace them with challenges like that and there you - I would have rated this one much, much higher. We also still don't get any kind of wilderness transition to the town, which constitutes a minor bummer for me as well. In the end, this one feels better than the first two installments, but my aforementioned gripes prevent me from rating this higher than 3.5 stars, which will be my final verdict for the module. For the purpose of this platform, I'll round down.
Endzeitgeist out.
