Today we have another offering by Vitor Morelli, The Temple of Silent Echoes. Like all of his adventures, this one emphasizes character-driven encounters, with detailed possible outcomes of each one. However, also like his previous efforts, this one also suffers from a lack of engagement with the setting itself. Although it tries to name-check different places, it ends up making embarrassing mistakes. The first one I came across is the location of the adventure itself;
In the shadow of the Abbor-Alz Mountains, where the twisted boughs of Axewood Forest cast long fingers across the land, lies the remote village of Rookmere.
The trouble is, as most Greyhawk aficionados know, the Axewood Forest is nowhere near the Abbor-Alz. Did the module mean the Celadon Forest? There’s no way to know, because once again there’s no map, although the mining activities in the village would seem to point to it. But where the Celadon is near the Abbor-Alz, there are no mountains, just hills.
The Suel get name-checked, as do several Greyhawk deities, so the author is at least trying, but the names don’t really have any significance. Why would the Suel build a temple in the Abbor-Alz? Given the history of the region, having the Flan be the builders would make a lot more sense.
The adventure is 112 pages, with large type, small pages, and wide margins. There’s no art, but the adventure itself seems well enough done; the author is trying to bring more of the setting in, but does seem a little less comfortable with the details than he aspires to be. For $5 it’s a pretty good value, but some maps would go a long way. Buy it here.
