"Return to the Temple of the Frog", Wizards, 2007.

[Rafael]

Available for download

The Order of the Frog was led by a man of resource and ambition. High Priest Saint Stephen and four companions appeared out of nowhere and took over the order twenty five years ago. Though Stephen and his companions seemed normal enough (except for the slight greenish cast of their skin), they were quite literally not of this world. They were aliens, members of a scientific expedition that crash landed on this planet some years ago.

Temple of the Frog was first published in the 1975 D&D Supplement IIBlackmoor. It was later republished in 1986 as module DA2, Temple of the Frog. In the original adventure, the PCs were hired to find a missing person (Rissa Aleford, Baroness of the Lakes) and investigate a strange cult based on the worship of frogs.

Return to the Temple of the Frog picks up the adventure decades later. During an adventuring party's assault on the temple over twenty years ago, Saint Stephen escaped the conflict and hid in the swamp until the adventurers departed. Having completed their raid, rescued the prisoner they had come for, and hurriedly looted the temple, the heroes left the area and never looked back.

Saint Stephen entered the temple hoping to salvage anything that he could. The Order of the Frog was done for, all his fellow aliens were slain, and his frog cultists had fled or were put to the sword. He only wanted enough to allow him to flee the swamp and find a new hiding place.

He found more than he had counted on....

Admin Edit: Link updated

[Rafael]

1 of 5 smashed Afridhi skulls.


I didn't enjoy reading this adventure - not at all.
It's rather long winded, and a weaker re-run of the first version of the dungeon.

I honor the intention, but original fits better in this case - if you're new to the setting,
both DA2 as well as Supplement II are better pics.

However, I see that people who played one of these, or, in a generic fashion, built a campaign around Sahuagin,
Quag Keep, or Blackmoor's iconic temple, you might find this write-up remotely inspiring for a sequel or a continuing campaign:
After all, it's free.

But in all seriousness, I'd recommend people to skip this and instead look for, well, almost anything else.

[Havard]

I was really surprised when WotC published this adventure. At the time, ZGG were working to publish their version of Temple of the Frog, but were having trouble with printers. It seemed to me that this was an attempt to undermine ZGG from the part of WotC, although it may have all been a big coincidence.

What I did like was that this adventure was set in Blackmoor's near future. That sort of sparked my imagination about things to come. I didnt like that the villain was an old acquaintance returned. Actually I think I would change that if I was ever to run this module.

On the other hand, it seems wrong for me to complain about getting a free Blackmoor product. Taking that into account, I think Rafael's assessment is a little harsh. I also liked the map.

-Havard

[Rafael]

Messy Havard is messy.

[Havard]

Messy Havard is messy.

Ugh, messed up the edit and quote buttons. Fixed now.

-Havard

[Havard]

New link for this one, preserved at the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/201402011633 ... /20070223a

-Havard

[Havard]

Anyone use this one?

-Havard

[Rafael]

Honestly, especially with the ZGG revamp of TotF and CoG, I've never quite looked at this one, as those books kind of supersede it. - It might well work, especially as an, ahem, "reprise" sort of adventure for a veteran group that wants to go back to the same environment... BUT even for that, there are more intelligent, if less straightforward adventuring options for BM around.

[Havard]

Honestly, especially with the ZGG revamp of TotF and CoG, I've never quite looked at this one, as those books kind of supersede it. - It might well work, especially as an, ahem, "reprise" sort of adventure for a veteran group that wants to go back to the same environment... BUT even for that, there are more intelligent, if less straightforward adventuring options for BM around.

Yes, this was my original reaction too. I was much more interested in seeing the ZGG modules as well as the original versions.

The main change in the 2007 WotC edition is that it
a) is set 20 years after the original
b) Has St. Stephen now be a vampire.

As you say, neither of these twists are awfullly clever.

The one thing that did make me think about it again now is the question of who turned him into a Vampire in the first place? The most obvious candidate is of course Sir Fang or one of his spawn (Jenkins or the Dwarf Vampires etc).

Could Sir Fang have made it into the swamps sometime after the Great Vampire Hunt?

-Havard

[Rafael]

"Could", yes. "Should", no.

Yeah, it is, in principle, possible to "fix" this adventure. But why? - Fang is the central antagonist of most storylines evolving around BM town. Do we really bring him to TotF and CoG, as well? I mean, one thing is to have a recurring villain, the other is to use a limited set of ideas.

Especially "The Temple of the Frog" - shouldn't it be more about, well, frogs?

I think there is a lot of unquacked potential there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUQcS4xhhqo



...Yes, I wrote "unquacked", not "untapped". If you didn't notice this, drink less coffee, everyone. :wink: