Sure Shot Wednesday: This Free Thing On DriveThruRPG…The Temple of Hypnos

​A dungeon by Olle Skogren, level 5.
Written for ACKS
  After that nastiness, I need a palette cleanse. I just reviewed a false Temple of Hypnos, lazy and unformed. This reminded me of the REAL Temple of Hypnos, (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/375980/the-temple-of-hypnos) which I read lightly back in the day when No Artpunk I came out but never took a deep dive into. My Next Campaign will be a sprawling Greek-themed West March in a ruined and overthrown !not Shenandoah, I’m calling it Shattered Valley…a good dungeon that was a temple to Hypnos would be perfect for that. I’m confident with the good reviews the adventure received that it’ll at least be decent, but will this be something that I want to run myself? I’m curious to see, so I’m going to review this adventure and the final rating will be most importantly “is this going on my campaign map”.
  As an aside, I have read three reviews of this adventure (Prince, Melan, Lynch) but outside of recalling they were positive it’s been years, so I’m not responding overtly to any of those other reviewers’ points. I might be subconsciously remembering bits, although this is the independent release so presumably there are differences. Also, I’ve exchanged a few emails with Mr. Skogren in the past, including submitting to his contest earlier this year, so while I don’t know him well, he’s certainly in my books as “seems like a good dude”. Take of that what you will for bias.
  To start us off, what’s the module’s scale? Aimed at level 5 for ACKS, which means it’s still pretty portable to other old school D&D as there’s not a lot of army/domain stuff yet. The main content takes eleven pages to outline a reasonably complex situation in a 6-mile hex with seven locations, all focused on the twenty-one room main dungeon (the Temple of Hypnos, natch).  Prose is obviously not terse with that page count but it’s efficient and not overly flowery. Formatting is unobtrusive, no bullet point madness but a fine sprinkling of bolding and italics for emphasis…the bog standard is the standard for a reason, this parses fine. Maps, both B&W and color, are provided in both keyed and unkeyed versions for VTT use. Dungeonscrawl and MS Paint look to be the medium, which is fine and clear. Layout is fine, it’s a Greek temple, and looks like a good Greek temple:

  The situation leading into the titular temple is just about the right level of complex, a nasty night hag has taken over the temple and is impersonating the god Hypnos, sacrificing pilgrims in a ritual and sealing away the evil ones for Hell while making the non-evil ones into soulless zombies (sleepwalking bodies, souls act like shadows trapped in one section of the temple). There are three potential hooks leading into the temple so as you and I both know, the answer is “all of these happen at once”. I’m not particularly enamored of the cloud giant wanting a silk robe off the giantest Hypnos statue, but a mid-level wizard insomniac and a wannabe barbarian despoiler are both excellent factions to be looking at the temple. Like most of the best outdoor dungeons the place can be openly walked into, dangerous but very doable to just infiltrate.
  I’ll hop into my normal rhythm and talk about what I liked.  Uh, a lot? The setup is great, giving players multiple levers to pull and the background is difficult to sus out but rewarding, most notably for instance in waking up the high priest of Hypnos who will gladly join in on any quest to retake the temple (but who takes a dim view of looting I’m sure). The drowsiness mechanic added to the temple is simple but adds flavor, the sleep theming is strong without being overwhelming…I like that a lot. Treasure has basically no misses for me, a nice mix of obvious and hidden, with the obvious stuff really hard to steal, and the contents are all realistic. There’s no tick-by-tick timeline here but I do appreciate that there’s about a month before the local powers that be lose patience and kick over the whole anthill, ruining everything. Just a solid mix for a very real place.
  I will note something that makes this place perfect for my purposes but might be a little bit of a hard fit some campaigns…this thing is really Classical Greek. Not real classical Greece, of course, but I had to do a double-take to make sure it’s not written first for Neoclassical Greek Revival. The only “standard” is the bugbear servant company working for the hag and I can turn those into minotaurs without breaking a sweat. So YMMV but it’s great for my Next Campaign. Means it wouldn’t fit at all in the Current One, though (still about 2 years’ time in this I think).
  That doesn’t mean the “what can be improved” category is empty. There’s something…static, almost, about the site, an almost videogamey sense where cutscenes play as the players enter and area. The worst offenders, personally, are the charming but very artificial scenes like a satyr teaching a bugbear to play the harp, the bugbear gets frustrated and breaks the harp over the satyr’s head. Charming, yes, but what happens if the players hit the site a week later? Likewise, in a kitchen there’s a creepy bit of horror with a sleepwalker “zombie” cook missing his meat and chopping off his hand, then bleeding out with no reaction. Good horror, but reeks of artifice to have that happen just as the PCs enter into the room.
  Still, the best use case for this is either as an excellent one-shot (pregens are provided, wonderful added value) or as a temple site in an ongoing Greek-themed campaign. Wouldn’t be bad for the ACKS-standard Roman theming either, I reckon. Good use out of either case.
  Yeah, final rating *****/***** because I’m putting it in the game and using it. I don’t reserve five stars just for perfection, because it isn’t, but this is just about ideal for its scale. It's even a nice valley so fits the terrain.