GameMastery Module D2: Seven Swords of Sin (OGL) (based on
15
reviews)
Paizo Publishing, LLC
Add
Print Edition:
$12.99
Add
PDF:
$8.99
A dungeon adventure for 7th-level characters.
Long hidden away in remote vaults and guarded by powerful wards, the ancient Seven Swords of Sin have been stolen and brought together again for a terrible cause.
Seven Swords of Sin is a lethal adventure that pits players against a vile enchantress, Tirana, in a trap-laden and monster-guarded dungeon. Only the brave (and perhaps foolish) can survive Tirana's lair and rescue the fabled Seven Swords of Sin from her heinous plot to unlock their deadly powers.
Seven Swords of Sin will be released at Gen Con Indy 2007 and will be the featured adventure in the first Gen Con Paizo Publishing "delve" event. Seven Swords of Sin's plot was written by James Sutter but its rooms were written via an internal Paizo Publishing "Deadliest Room Contest" in which many of the Paizo staff collaborated to make the most viscerally pleasing dungeon possible.
If you want to give your players a challenge, run them through the bloodiest, most heinous rooms the Paizo Publishing employees could think of.
GameMastery Modules are 32-page, high-quality, full-color, OGL-compatible adventures for use with the world's most popular fantasy RPG. All GameMastery Modules include four pre-made characters so players can jump right into the action, and full-color maps to enhance play.
The best art in all the GameMastery Modules so far. Just exquisite, eye-catching stuff; this coupled with GameMastery's standard clean, slick look is a big plus.
The traps and rooms of this dungeon are all interesting and unique, but it is hard to justify them together . . . it is a little too much and doesn't match the plot as well as it should. I think it shows that it is a delve, and as such the flow of the adventure is a bit offset by odd characters and rooms that don't seem like they belong. That being said, anyone looking for great individual rooms and traps should definitely check this out.
This is an adventure with excellent ideas. The backdrop is very creative, offering an interesting vision of a city with concepts new to me. The dungeon delve starts out somewhat mundane, but then the interesting use of science fantasy elements sends this adventure to imaginative heights. Very enjoyable!
The artwork, layout and overall production values are as good as in the other modules, but the content shows its origin as a design contest of sorts. Traps and encounters with partially strange or even illogical connections, and an overall adventure that sells the cool ideas for the setting short. The presentation of the "seven swords" was somewhat disappointing to me. Some very good ideas, but too little is made from them. I would have expected more from this, especially after the good D1 and W1.
After D0 and D1, I was looking forward to D2. The title hinted at cursed swords and a fight with a deadly magic user. What I got was a module that was built around a collection of dangerous trap rooms that have little rhyme or reason. The basic premise for the module, the swords, is great, the lead-in and early set-up is also very good and sets the mood for what could be a great module. Once I got to the main location, I found myself skimming through the room descriptions. The whole location is trap, over the top trap, trap. The module fortunately ends well with the final encounter, two interesting monsters, and two magic items. This module could have been much better if the traps were cut in half or by two thirds and the encounters tied more to the seven deadly sins. Unfortunately, even with the quality of the art, the opening and the new material at the end, this module only works it way up to 3 stars.
I love this product. The layout and fonts are near-ideal; the artwork is bold without being silly; the cartography is top-notch; the game content is everything that Paizo has come to stand for. The fact that I can get combined shipping with Pathfinder is even cooler. If anything, I'm even happier with this than with Pathfinder.