Splinters of Faith 2: Burning Desires (PFRPG) (based on
2
ratings)
Frog God Games
Add
Print/PDF Bundle:
$8.99
Add
PDF:
$4.99
Levels 2 through 4
PCs visit the aboveground dwarven city of Anvil Plunge, only to discover the starting ritual needed to re-forge the scepter cannot be undertaken because a piece of the holy forge is missing. PCs will have to travel into the sprawling Sin Mire Swamp to recover the artifact.
The second installment of Splinters of Faith is 21 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC and 1 page SRD, leaving 17 pages of content - quite a bit more than in installment number 1, so let's check it out!
This being an adventure review, it contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All righty! After acquiring the shattered scepter of faiths, the PCs have ventured to a Dwarven settlement named Anvil Plunge to reforge the mundane parts of the scepter in the blessed forge. Once again, we are introduced to an aptly-written village, this time a dwarven frontier-town loosely reminiscent of a wheel in layout, including 4 connected temples in the middle of the village. Once again, the settlement feels very much alive and unique and has its own feeling of fragility - after all, the village has recently lost the second of its holy relics (the first being an adventure-spanning side-quest) and the PCs will have to investigate the theft: While the theft per se is interesting, it's depiction in the adventure is lackluster at best, amounting to a perception check and some knowledge: The perpetrator is a druid, wildshaped, got through some drainage and stole the artifact (an everburning piece of coal) from the furnace while protected from flames. The adventure could have easily been made more exciting with a better investigation.
The thief, a half-orc cleric, hides in the sin-mire and this is where the adventure begins to shine, or could begin to shine: The PCs use a raft and glide through a mapped mire to find the entrance to the enemy's lair. While the map is cool, no map for the players is provided, thus showing them that several islands contains the same creatures - a blank hex-map of the mire as a handout would have made this section plain awesome. Oh well, after exploring the mire (probably thanks to a DM's hand-drawn version of the map), the PCs have to delve into partially submerged giant crayfish tunnels (a neat dungeon with over-and underwater sections), challenge the druid and return the coal to have the Scepter of Faiths reforged.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though one location is missing from the wilderness map. Layout adheres to a 2-column b/w-standard and the artworks and map-qualities are high. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a downer. This adventure provides a neat, unique village, a short investigation (that, as presented, does not deserve the name, but can easily be expanded) and a truly iconic wilderness and dungeon and this is where one of my two main gripes with this installment lies: The wilderness map. To run a free-form wilderness exploration, a DM NEEDS a map without letters denoting the hotspots and the adventure fails to provide one. The other gripe I have with this installment (and the whole series in general) is that no transition from installment I to II is provided - no wilderness, no random encounters, nothing! And the two villages are not exactly adjacent! Apart from that, this adventure provides more content, a better mood and a more iconic location to adventure in than part I, so my final rating will be 3 stars - if you're willing to work, this might even be 4 stars for you.
Splinters of Faith 2: Burning Desires by Frog God Games
This product is 21 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC, and credits. (3 pages)
Adventure Introduction. (5 pages)
This section has the introduction, it also gives a overview of a dwarven village. It has a map of the village and details the locations in the village. It also introduces a new dwarven deity, with a how to use this adventure sidebar. Which talks about the whole adventure series and if you want to use this stand alone.
Adventure Background (7 pages)
The dwarven village is up in the hills with a swamp below. Something has been stolen from the temple in the village. The PC's if they did the first adventure might be here because of the item. If used stand alone the PC's can just be hired to recover the item. It has information on searching the temple to find out how it was stolen and eventually it leads into the swamp. It has a wander monster table and map of the swamp area. Along with 10 encounter locations in the swamp, including one mini side dungeon.
Location of the thief (5 pages)
This is a dungeon crawl of sorts. It has 7 encounter location, another new god and a side bar on finishing the adventure, if used in part of the series.
It ends with a OGL (1 page)
Closing thoughts, it is well written and a pretty simple and straight forward adventure. Once the PC's learn of where to look for the thief, it is a fairly standard wilder adventure that ends in a mini dungeon. The art work is fair to good black and white. Monsters from the Bestiary is given basic stats, while monsters from any other book is given full stat blocks. So all you need to run this adventure is the Pathfinder RPG and bestiary.
It's a solid well written adventure. So what's my rating? Well it is a good solid, simple adventure but I also wasn't wowed by it either. So I am giving it a 4 star review. This product like most Frog God Games products has a very old school feel to it.