Bonus Crapshoot: This Free Thing I Found on DriveThru…Temple of the Shadowed

​A dungeon by Franklin Hicks, levels 2-4.
Written for Shadowdark
  This is not going to be a regular feature. From time-to-time, I will touch base not with the grotty underground that is “free on itch” and look instead at the classy, upscale halls that are “free on DriveThruRPG”.  My criteria for grabbing adventures will be entirely “whatever the algorithm shows me while I’m conducting publisher business”, while the judgement criteria will remain the same. I have a vague sense of unease stepping out into these strange waters, but perhaps it won’t be all bad.
  I open the Temple of the Shadowed up and…at this point I’m almost settling into my comfort zone. Sixteen-page (A5) Shadowdark adventure for a thirteen-room dungeon? Lavish margins, classy black & white stock art, totemically looped Dyson map? Alright, Hicks, I used to groan about this sort of thing but in the world of Knave 2E and Cairn 2E and “system neutral”, you’ve got me paying attention. This might be okay.
  Buckle up, buttercup, because we’re going to start this one with backstory. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, there are four chaos gods…yeah, yeah, but it’s different. See in this world, Khorne, Smarter Nurgle, and some shadow goddess backstabbed the fourth guy and wiped him from existence and it’s all very convoluted. And the dungeon is a temple to all these gods that was found by a secret priest who then traded bodies with a summoned angel but got trapped and then the angel in his old body hid the gems(?) needed to break the trap and it’s unclear where all the gems are but now the angel/priest is summoning adventurers via dreams and boy howdy does this dungeon expect you guys to worship some of these chaos gods. Convolution aside the rest of the adventure is pretty standard in the “ancient evil temple” dungeoncrawl formula. Expect a lot of undead. It’s a good formula, I won’t diss it.
  What I liked here are said dungeon crawl basics. The map is a Dyson Logos, but a very solid one for all that, just about the ideal level of complexity for 13 areas, not just incorporating loops but also with secret doors well-located and elevation changes mattering in a couple places. I can see how the space is explored and it’s a good time. That’s review of the Dyson map, though, I’ll also say I like the random encounters and the chaos magic table that’s supposed to be used in lieu of the standard Shadowdark magic fumbles. Nice little sign that a designer has written his adventure to be played in the system, that’s always a good tell.
  I’m not even going to go into the convoluted backstory with what can be improved here. The idea for an evil priest in an angel’s body trapped by four gotta-catch-‘em-all McGuffin gems isn’t bad at all but eating into those lavish page margins to fit in a blurb about where on the map these McGuffins explicitly are would do us a world of good. Using the backstory of the chaos gods would be helpful in several of the statue-and-shrine rooms too, versus just making academic references. To me the biggest whiff, though, is not taking full advantage of the excellent map. That elevation change? Nothing matters about the library overlooking the other two rooms via balcony. Two of those secret doors are potentially ways to bypass danger but the text itself has no danger and no door, respectively. Hurts my heart to see such a nice dungeon map not fully exploited like this.
  Ergo our best use case is to have this as an adventure site in the author’s own extremely bespoke campaign world. It’s usable and modifiable to other campaign settings, but there’s a homework problem at that point. Up to you if it’s worth it.
  Final Rating? **/*****, at about the same level of quality you get with many itch.io Shadowdark adventures. While I do not share the author’s enthusiasm for his world-lore, I’m still glad to see it. You could do far worse, as I’m sure I will in reviews ahead.