Torg Eternity – The God Box by Shane Lacy Hensley and Darrell Hayhurst is a role playing game supplement published by Ulisses Spiele for use with Torg Eternity. This is an adventure set in the Living Land.
The supplement is available as a 114-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $17.49. The supplement is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter, one the table of contents and one the Index.
Kathy’s Journal (Extract) is an extract from the diary of an NPC.
The Introduction that six months into the war, Baruk Kaah’s invasion is going well, but he’s suffering from dissension from within, possibly thanks to interaction with other cultures and the higher Social Axiom, possibly because he may be losing Lanala’s blessing. It then explains that the leader of the Goldsun Clan feels the pull of the higher Social Axiom, and it’s affecting his behaviour, but the high priestess, Malacryx, is more feral and savage. She is looking for as Mayan artefact called the God Box which can imprison a deity; Malacryx wants to imprison Lanala and force her to make the edeinos only obey Baruk Kaah, and then the High lord would surely make her his queen. The Dimthread Trees, a gift from the Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh, to all the High Lords, are explained as a way of moving rapidly between them. There is a synopsis of the different acts of the adventure and finally that the adventure is intended to be set in the Living Land about eight months into the invasion and the outcome of the adventure; the main storyline of Torg Eternity assumes the characters are successful, but some tips on what to do if they are not are given.
Act One: Fort Washington sees the characters heading to Fort Washington, being sent out to bring convince some nearby survivors to come back to the hardpoint then follow some edeinos who launched an attack on the hardpoint and stole a Mayan relic from the Smithsonian, finding the Dimthread Tree that the raiding party used to flee the area.
Act Two: The Land Below has the characters follow the raiding party into the Land Below, where they meet an ally, discover that some other Core Earthers have been down there, confront an enemy group and rescuing one of the Core Earthers.
Act Three: Challenge of the Leopard Warrior has the characters going after the Pyrian Fire Tamers, who have something that is needed to follow the edeinos, as well as the children of a new ally, resulting in a confrontation over a volcano, and some choices to make regarding morality.
Act Four: The Tower of Death sees the characters leaving the Land Below and arriving in the ruins of Chicago. There, they follow the path to the Willis Skyscraper to find the edeinos that are chasing clashed with another group, but still made her way through a Dimthread Tree, though now alone, and they follow her to the Yucatán.
Act Five: The Wedding of Baruk Kaah is the finale of the adventure and sees the characters defeating some bandits and then heading with allies to Chichen Itza to stop the wedding. This does have the disadvantage that the GM may well have to talk the players out of confronting the High Lord, a battle they cannot home to win.
Characters & Creatures has stats for several important NPCs followed by stats for the various beings that the characters will encounter, divided into different sections by type and/or location.
Merretika covers this new area of the Living Land. There are overviews of the major locations, the various tribes, including some important NPCs and adventure seeds, Wonders in Merretika and details on how to play Merritakans from a couple of the tribes.
Torg Eternity – The God Box in Review
The PDF has bookmarks, but they are effectively useless as they only cover the covers and front matter. The table of contents covers the major sections and subsections. The Index is thorough. Navigation is poor in PDF form. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be almost free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations and maps. Presentation is good.
This is an adventure in which the characters can make a major difference and that is perhaps its biggest problem; this is an adventure that can affect the whole invasion from this point onwards. And it’s set before many of the adventures and all the sourcebooks, and about three months after the Core Rulebook; if the characters fail to stop the endgame of this, it will have a serious effect on the whole setting going forwards. It’s good that the adventure does allow the characters to have a major influence; it’s just that the timing of it means that it could invalidate a lot of other things. Perhaps the best bet for the GM would be to move the adventure to a year after the start of the invasion, when all the sourcebooks are set. This should require fairly minor tweaking in most parts.
Apart from the potentially inconvenient setting-altering effects of the adventure, due to when it’s set, this is in its own way quite an epic one in which the Storm Knights can truly make a difference (or, as mentioned, fail to make one). It also provides a bit of detail on a new region of the Living Land; Merretika isn’t covered in great detail but a GM could expand on it, especially with the adventure hooks. Torg Eternity – The God Box can be found by clicking here.
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