Author:  Daniel J. Bishop
Publisher:  Purple Duck Games
Art: Luigi Castellani
Price: PDF $3.25 – at RPGNow / at d20pfsrd.com / Paizo.com
Pages: 15 (incl. cover)

Campaign Elements

The Falcate Idol is a new product line from Purple Duck Games for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG called Campaign Elements. The line is designed to help a DCC RPG judge create a persistent campaign world and provide patron quests, divine quests, or any number of quests to help fill the “quest for it” vibe of DCC RPG.

What is the “quest for it” vibe? It is an underlying facet of the DCC RPG game in that many things are possible. But to obtain these things such as ability score increases, great magic weapons, or any number of afflictions, the character must “quest for it”. It is not a simple matter of going to the magic shop to buy a magic item, but rather it is ancient story that tells of a location, pool, or any other source of ability to provide the character with what they desire.

In addition, the Campaign Elements releases are designed to be short adventures that can also act as something to drop in if you have some missing players on your gamenight. Typically playable in a single session, they are easy for a judge to pickup and run on a night where some folks are going to miss the game.

The Falcate Idol

This first release, The Falcate Idol, is a short adventure area detailing a cult’s sanctuary of a little worshipped patron. Within this sanctuary is the Egg of Creation with untold powers.

The PDF comes in at 15 pages including the cover. A map of the encounter area is also included, along with random treasure tables tailored to the sanctuary. In addition to the encounter area descriptions there is a short section on expanding the adventure or getting more from the adventure in the course of a broader campaign. There are of course new monsters as well.

The adventure actually has two items of interest in the same location. One is a spider idol with a gem told to be as large as a pigeon’s egg. Hidden within this same sanctuary is the Egg of Creation which is said to have great power in and of itself.

The Review

This adventure flowed quite well on a read-through and presented several hooks for a judge to use in their campaign. A creative judge is sure to find many, many more ways to use this adventure. I immediately thought of several ways to use it in my own campaign with only a few tweaks to get it to fit just right.

The length of the adventure should fit in most people’s single sessions. This is handy in a couple of ways – one, letting you more easily drop it in as something to run when short some players, and two, allowing you to use it with a “quest for it” adventure without derailing the whole campaign. The adventure can drop into an existing campaign world with minimal reconfiguration, if any.

The map is easy to follow and differs from some of Purple Duck releases other maps in their DCC RPG products. The map is simple, but I like the look of this one. It features an interesting layout without being cumbersome.

As noted earlier there are random tables included for treasure, unique items, and a spell effect chart. I liked the tables and several items on there could easily be borrowed by a judge even if an item was not found or used in the adventure.

The new monsters in the adventure are interesting and have some special qualities to help add to their mystery. The monsters can also be added to a judge’s bag of tricks for other adventures in their campaign as well.

I was very pleased with this adventure and this new product line. I think it fills a need in the DCC RPG market by providing areas a judge can use for “quest for it” type tasks. I think all judges are good intentioned, but sometimes time impacts their ability to come up with quests between major adventures to handle patron requests or desires of the characters.

This initial adventure looks to deliver on many of those fronts. I was easily able to insert it in my own campaign to take care of some recent requests and questions from the PCs in my game. It also is short enough to run without taking us too far away from the campaign as a whole.

This adventure is well worth picking up if you want to have a short adventure on hand or start having the PCs quest for some of the things they have been asking for. I look forward to the future releases in this line and hope they hit the mark as well as this one did.