The Temple of Zran by Jospeh Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 24 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that the world of Uriene Secunda is on the edge of the Sonora Sector – the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – and is occupied by low-tech cannibals. There is an ancient temple on the world and the characters are hired by an archaeologist and professor with the Sonoran University who believes there is a link to an alien species that may be responsible for the origins of many of the peoples of the sector and needs protection as he heads to the world.
Patron gives details on the archaeologist.
Complications is the things that are not known and can go wrong.
The Tribes has a brief paragraph on the natives.
The Competitors has details on another archaeologist and her minions.
The Plants and Animals has stats and details on unusual flora and fauna on the world.
Random Encounters in the Jungle has a 2d6 encounter table with details of various encounters, some of which are covered in the previous section.
Random Encounters in the Temple has a 2d6 table for temple encounters.
The Key to the Temple details the temple itself.
Possession of a Human Body explains how some life forces can take over humans.
Regular Doors details the complex’s normal doors.
Secret Doors covers the secret ones.
Tribesmen has stats for them.
Blowguns and Boomerangs has stats for primitive weapons.
Other New Weapons has stats and values for some new high-tech weapons.
Security Robots has stats for the robots that guard the complex.
Mission Completion is how to succeed, which is essentially accompany the patron and leave alive.
The final page of content has a map of the temple.
The Temple of Zran in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
As is not uncommon, in the case of the tribesmen there are far more stats than are needed for NPCs; less stats would easily have worked. Though the patron is lying, their lie is not that dangerous; they are more out for money than proving a theory, but this doesn’t make much difference in how the mission unfolds. The adventure itself is pretty straightforward with no great complexities, only quite a lot of potentially fatal dangers. The Temple of Zran can be found by clicking here.
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