Welcome to The Sinking, a twelve-part campaign serial from 0one Games!
"Infestation", written by Rob Manning, is part of an ongoing series set in the Great City. This is not a numbered adventure in a path, but instead, it concerns a mysterious event that will forever alter the Great City, setting the tone for future events. Throughout the year, 0one games will release a number of short adventures whose various plots are all somehow entwined with the event. Each will be a stand-alone adventure, designed to be played independently without a specific sequence and can be completed in a single evening's play.
In the days following the wake of the Great City's recent devastating events, Father Malkmus sent his congregants to take temporary shelter in the rarely used Temple of Harvest. Upon their arrival, they found the temple newly inhabited by a displaced gang of vile, parasitic humans known as roachkin. Father Malkmus calls upon the PCs to investigate the temple, seek out survivors, and drive the roachkin out. Unfortunately, the task proves more difficult when PCs uncover the horrific and terrible unholy raising of the gang's former leader by one of his depraved and devoted followers. Can PCs save the Temple and defeat this creatures before he attempts to spread his ghastly infestation through the Temple Ward.
"Infestation" is an adventure for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system for 1st-level player characters.
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This short adventure of the Sinking series is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page ToC, 2 pages advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 9 pages of adventure, so let's check it out!
After the mysterious sinkhole has left a rather disturbing impression in the Great City, many short adventure opportunities arise - this is one of them. This being an adventure review, the review contains
SPOILERS. Players might want to jump to the conclusion. Still here?
Ok! The adventurers are still first level and thus their threat in this adventure are not exactly insurmountable: A small temple of a goddess of harvest is currently closed down due to an infestation of the notorious roachkin -Father Malkmus, resident priest of the church wants the threat that infiltrated the church via the basement (an aftereffect of The Sinking) exterminated. Easier said than done, though: The temple-grounds have been left with several disease-carrying substances and neither the roachkin, nor their ants and stirges are exactly cooperative. To make matters worse, the roachkin's priest ahs sacrificed is life to resurrect their erstwhile leader, a fighter1/ rogue 1 dread ghast roachkin, who also makes for the adventure's boos-fight in a secret shrine in the basement of the church. Both temple grounds and subterranean locations come with excellent maps like we'd expect from 0onegames.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok, though not excellent - I noticed some glitches that could have been caught with another pass at editing. Layout adheres to the clear and concise 2-column standard and the artworks and maps rocks and surpass anything you'd expect for just 2 bucks. Infestation manages to evoke a neat sense of pervading decay and disease that pervades the whole adventure and the theme and foes are neat. However, I think the connection to the overall Sinking-event is rather subdued and some additional minor environmental circumstances could have made this pest-control mission more exciting. While the very low price is nice, the module does feel a bit...been there, done that to me, and thus I'll settle for a final verdict of 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.
Just as in the real world, cataclysmic events also have domestic consequences, as families and organisations are forced to seek alternate premises whilst their own, damaged or destroyed, are repaired. Here we have a congregation who have a rarely-used place of worship in the Temple District which, being kind and religious types, they are willing to loan out to those in need. Trouble is, the temple has already been taken over by somewhat unpleasant denizens of the sewers, who have been rendered homeless but were not in the mood to wait to be invited to take up residence. Someone's going to have to do something about it!
Several ideas for getting the characters involved are provided. If they're members of the congregation their superiors suggest the task as a trial of faith. Or a wealthy worshipper might ask them to take on the job for pay. There's a few other suggestions as well, at least one is delightfully sneaky and probably the one I'll employ when I run the adventure next! The temple in question is dedicated to a Goddess of the Harvest, and is only used at harvest-time. The cult has fallen on hard times, so the prospects of much reward are low... and they are quite keen to stress that it would be most inconvenient if the place got damaged as they would not be able to afford much in the way of repairs!
The entire Temple District is pretty chaotic, as many displaced or injured folks have sought aid here. It's well described in an atmospheric manner, and there's scope for you to bulk out events a bit should you so wish. As for the temple itself, it's small and rather tatty but the new inhabitants do not want to leave and are prepared to defend it vigorously! Unfortunately, being sewer-dwellers originally, they are none too good at personal hygiene and a few cure disease spells may come in useful. Oh, and they are not the only displaced persons in residence, some critters have taken refuge here too... and there are things there that the original owners apparently didn't know about as well. Plenty to keep the characters busy once they embark on the task of clearing the place.
The adventure is designed to run in a single evening and as such is pretty straightforward. Yet it manages to pack in a lot of flavour, a lot of those delightful small details that make your alternate reality come alive. Should the characters be successful at cleaning the place out, fortune smiles on the cult and it prospers, giving them a long-term resource for favours. A neat little adventure to have to hand.
Has anybody placed ran through this adventure yet? I'm thinking of GMing it within the next month, but I'm a bit worried at the
Spoiler:
Final Boss: Gilyani Urovo
With his +9 initiative, it almost guarantees he will go first. Then he gets three attacks (claw, claw, bite) with each successful attack getting a chance of paralysis. Armor class of 24 (touch 20, flat 18) is amazingly high. And then he gets DR 10/cold iron and Spell Resistance 15. He also has a special ability that, when a PC misses on a Fort save, s/he suffers -2 on attacks, saves, and skill checks and this Fort save must be taken every round.
Remember, this is for four (4) first-level adventurers. Not many 1sts will be able to penetrate a 24 AC and, if they do, they will find it extremely difficult to get around that DR. I don't know of any beginning characters that have a cold iron weapon and none are found during the adventure.
I did two test runs with the basic PF iconics (fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue) and was able to bring down the baddie both times, but I got lucky with good crits both times. However, I think the lack of a cleric would seriously hamper the party.
If you have run this, were there any changes you made?
If he's too tough, have him get distracted after taking down one PC...his drive to convert his underlings is too great. His head snaps up at an unnatural angle and he just leaves the battle (suffering the AoOs).
If not that, then give the rogues in the upstairs room a couple potions of magic weapon that they didnt use...instead using the poison on the stat block.
