This morning I picked up +Jeffrey Tadlock‘s+Frank Turfler and the adventure was written by Dustin Clark.
Iron Tavern Press’s forth Pocket-sized Encounter release “Zedkiel’s Chapel”. A small location based adventure formatted for tablet reading and ranging 20 pages (2 Pages cover/back. 1 page credits, 1 page introduction to PSE, 13 pages of adventure 1 page new monsters and 1 page OGL) plus separate handouts. Art is by
From RPGnow:
Two brave adventurers rescued Zedkiel the scholar on his way home from the tavern. A large bat-like creature had attacked the man and certainly would have slain him had Ulad and Frango not intervened. A month later reports of another large bat-like creature surfaced as several townsfolk were killed one night under a full moon. Ulad and Frango grew suspicious and discovered something horrid had happened to Zedkiel. The man eluded them until the pair of adventurers discovered the strange abandoned chapel Zedkiel was using as a hideout. The characters have a choice to make – seek out and destroy Zedkiel or aid him against the vigilante townsfolk.
This was a fun read and a fun romp to send my NPC crew through to test out (I seriously need a PC crew). The location is interesting and brings with it some questions that could lead to further adventures. Further adventures is actually what really sold me on picking this one up (I’ve been meaning to get a PSE for a while but never got around to it … I’ll be fixing that soon). The adventure has hooks and ideas for expanding outwards from the one-shot and turning it into something that can be truly epic.
Surprising as well was the detailed nature of both options (see description above) which add a nice tactical (and depending on the Party Ocean’s 11 riff) nature to the adventure.
The writing itself is solid and explains everything. There is room for improvisation but if the Referee doesn’t feel like it he doesn’t need it. Art, of course, is grand and reminds me again that I need to hire Frank again for my own work.
I ran through the adventure alone with my NPC crew in about 30 minutes but I expect that with proper roleplaying and investigation the adventure could occupy between 1 and 3 hours.
If I had to rate it (and at this point I should stop saying that) I would give Zedkiel’s Chapel 4.5 out of 5. The only thing I would have added was a little more information or creatures in the Valley Forest.
