Temple of 1000 Swords

This module's title actually underplays the number of swords present in it's temple. The core conceit at the heart of this adventure is a magical forge that can turn anything it touches into a sword. This means this a temple of countless swords, swords in heaps, flowing out of the temple and steadily flowing into the surrounding environment.

This one idea (a surreal take on the fallen Decanter of Endless Water concept) drives everything else described in the module. From a game design point of view you just have to be envious as virtually everything else flows from the question "what would happen if there was a device that turns everything into swords?".

There is actually more content in the adventure but it just kind of naturally follows from the core concept.

An avatar of the god of swords is present because this is a temple of limitless swords. The presence of the god and countless swords engenders a violent conflict between the inhabitants of the caves surrounding the temple.

The god has cursed a knight who killed the temple priest to make swords at the forge until his blood debt is paid.

The presence of a god capable of granting wishes and the potential to acquire a manner of strange and unique swords provides the incentive for adventurers to enter the temple despite the dangers.

Tarot themes also run through the adventure, a tower of swords, a nod towards the rod of seven parts in the form of the Nine of Swords, the Emperor and Empress of Swords, a deceased Hierophant. The secondary theme sits comfortable under the swords one and provides an interesting structure that helps bind the whole thing together and makes it feel cohesive.

Overall on the first reading this is a hugely impressive piece of work. It genuinely has that feel of early Dungeon and Dragons adventures, it is surreal rather than gonzo but it fulfils a modern sense of cohesiveness and design.

The PDF is also available on Itch.

Other views

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Troika!

Most OSR community is based around Dungeons and Dragons, however like a lot of Europeans my first encounter with roleplaying or fantasy gaming was not through D&D itself by through reflections of those who had read a copy or heard of the idea and created their own. Like a lot of early British roleplayers my nostalgia is really for Fighting Fantasy, a formative experience that was notable different in tone from American fantasy while being composed of much the same tropes. Troika! is an attempt to create a retro-clone that brings together Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy into a simple rules system that bakes weird fantasy into core of character creation in the same way that the Ratcatcher career did in the 1980s. The basic mechanics are pretty simple. Mainly 2d6 are used and the basic characteristics are Skill , Stamina and Luck . If you are attempting something against the environment you try to roll under your Skill on two dice, if contested you roll and add, aiming for t...
Read more

Ruma: Dawn of Empire

Ruma is a Powered by the Apocalypse game about a Roman Empire that is facing off against supernatural threats summoned by it barbarian neighbours. Players take the role of characters who are confronting those threats. The rules introduce Latin-flavoured playbooks that reflect various roles in historical Roman society and within the Legions. Irritatingly Ruma introduces some alternative names and spellings for the various countries and peoples of its world. It tries to put some fictional distance from history but not in a way that adds to the historical roots. While flawed as a narrative campaign Hunters of Alexandria did a better job of blending the historic and supernatural fantasy of its world. Apocalypse World, as a ruleset, seems appropriate to the environment, the Empire is powerful but besieged by threats that seek to overthrow it. Characters will win big eventually but the costs will be high. Ruma's fundamental problem for me is that I'm not sure why this isn...
Read more

Cabal

Cabal is a game about sinister conspiracies trying to seize power through a corporation or organisation. Mechanically it feels weirdly like a game where a group of players share a single Runequest character and try and make them a Rune Lord. The company has various attributes that are rated on 0 to 100 scale with points being spent at generation time and then the players going on missions to try and raise the value of the attributes by between 1 and 5. The target value is also used to set the difficulty and provide the mechanisms of opposition. The game uses a GM to manage the opposition and provide the colour to the missions. Something that feels like a design cop-out. The game does make some interesting use of the fact that the players take on the role of individuals in the company and therefore you get to play very different characters and the risk of them dying is lessened by the meta-reward to the organisation. However it also has an experience mechanism that makes chara...
Read more